ilkka_nissila

The options available for the center press of the sub-selector are described in the "Available Roles for Custom Controls" PDF available from Nikon's download center. https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive5/hGqAJ00lk6ec05VB1hS945MS8g06/Z8_CustomControls_List_(En)01.pdf Since I also use cameras where there is no sub-selector, I tend to use the multi-selector (and vertical multi-selector) to move the focus area about and scroll through menus). I have the center of the multi-selectors (OK on the multi-selector and center press of the multi-selector for vertical shooting) and sub-selector reset the focus area to the center as this is a useful function for me. I know some photographers use the center of the multi-selector to activate AF-ON but this to me is just not the way I like to work as the sub-selector so easily slips to the side when holding it depressed, leading to unintended movement of the focus area. But some people prefer to use one control to both activate autofocus as well as move the focus area around. To change the function of the center press of the sub-selector, you need to go to the custom settings menu and the f2, g2, f3 settings allow you to reconfigure many of the controls (for shooting, video recording, and playback).

Right, Nikon parks the sensor in a fixed position when the IBIS is not in use (e.g. if you go into the menu, or playback mode, or turn the camera off, the IBIS is parked, and when you go back into live view, the sensor is released and IBIS activated). This makes a sound (a bit like automatic car parking brake). What's good about this is that when parked, the sensor doesn't wobble about (which video shooters complain about with some other cameras that have IBIS but no parking when IBIS is turned off, so the sensor kind of floats about a little when the camera is moved, causing strange stuff happening in the edges of the image due to lens distortion and sensor not being exactly fixed in place). This is a feature, not a bug! There are also sounds from the sensor shield if you turn it on. (You should! It reduces dust build-up on the sensor.)

The deal is still active. It seems they might be trying to clear stock as the new generation is coming in: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1785070-REG/delkin_devices_dcfxbb325_325gb_black_g4_cfexpress.html It is a bit odd that the earlier 325 GB model is stated to have min write speed of 1530 MB/s and the G4 325 GB model min sustained write speed of 1450 MB/s. The 1.3 TB G4 model has min sustained write speed of 1560 MB/s. It could be that the min write speed and min sustained write speed are slightly different specs. Anyway the differences in speed appear to be quite small between these generations. What's interesting is the price per GB. The 1.3 TB G4 costs $0.50 per GB, while the 325 GB G4 is $0.86/GB and the deal for the 325 GB G3 is $0.61/GB. So the upcoming 1.3 TB G4 card would seem to be a great deal for this high-performance card type if you need shoot a lot of high-quality video. 325 GB fits just 25 min of 4K50 422 HQ. A larger card would be more practical if one wants to use the highest-quality video formats for longer durations. However, I would wait for reviews of the new generation and especially how the capacity may affect performance and card temperature. The different capacity cards of the same brand and product series can have different performance and temperatures in long recordings. For stills, all of these cards are kind of overkill in terms of size. 😉

I see, so did I get it correctly: all APS film was exposed with APS-H sized images, and the encoding in the film indicated which part of each frame was to be included in the prints (implemented probably with digital cropping). So there is no such thing as an APS-C film negative if the cameras always exposed the APS-H area. Interestingly the APS-H frame has an aspect ratio that is more panoramic than the typical widescreen 16:9, so they were moving towards that already.

Strictly speaking there is no APS-C film; most APS film cameras would let the user choose from three sizes of images on the negative (on the same roll) : APS-H 30.2 × 16.7 mm, APS-C 25.1 × 16.7 mm, and APS-P 30.2 × 9.5 mm. All the digital "APS-C" sensors are smaller than actual APS-C film frames. I wonder how did people start to refer to APS formats as sizes for digital sensors (when they're not the same size). Nikon always called theirs DX, making the distinction that this is a different format from film. Somehow I always though the "DX" borrows the "X" from "IX" which is the method of information encoding used by APS film (but I am just guessing). Digital cameras use EXIF tags to transmit this information.

Which picture controls does your D3X have now? Vivid at least should be standard on the camera. Nikon seems to have some broken links lately. You could send them feedback on the issue on their contact form, maybe they can fix it. It could be that they're reducing support on older cameras and deleting these pages but in my opinion this is not a good policy. I can't see how the cost of having those files available online would be big factor. In my opinion having people use cameras and other equipment for a long time is a testament to the quality of the product and supporting older equipment for a long time speaks highly of the company, these factors influence buying decisions in the future as well.

It feels a little too quiet if a forum post gets no responses; to alleviate the silence, people like to chat. I am sure Shun can delete messages as off-topic if he feels they're out of order. For a lot of people it does not feel prudent to order a lens without it having been extensively reviewed and enough images from practical situations posted. Once there is sufficient evidence of the merits of the lens, more people will buy one. The price is likely to be slightly reduced as well.

What you need to do is set the master flash into master and manual mode and then set the flash energy "---" which effectively means it doesn't fire for the main exposure. Unfortunately the SB-700 does not allow mixing of different flash exposure modes (ie. manual and TTL); all flashes have to be in the same mode. So your remote flash would also be in manual mode. If you want the remote flash to be in TTL mode, you have to exchange the places of the SB-5000 and SB-700 and this should be possible with the more flexible settings available on the SB-5000 as master. I realize the SB-700 is more compact and more fun to use on camera but it has this limitation.

You should be able to use the SB-700 to optically control the SB-5000. However, it technically will fire to some extent, to trigger the remote flash with an optical signal! 🙂 If you want the commander not to fire any light whatsoever, you would need to use radio triggering which you'd need extra gear for.

I consider the 400/4.5 a higher priority for my own use based on past experiences using longer lenses, the aperture tends to limit what I can do and I prioritize it over focal length. I am also a little suspicious about the narrow tripod collar for the focal length´of the 180-600 and before purchasing that lens I would need to be sure that it's not too wobbly. For now however it doesn't seem that I would be buying the 180-600 in the near future. I imagine in the next few weeks though there will probably be a lot of user reports online.

I guess image quality can be subjective and there is obviously nothing wrong with liking or preferring a certain camera. I can see how the style of images from the Df can be seen as pleasing. However, probably there is also a lot that can be done to D850 images in post-processing to achieve the look that you like.

Typicallly, yes, though not every image had the same number of layers, depending on what it needed the size would vary somewhat. I used Photoshop's new B&W Portrait Preset as it produced a rendering that I liked a lot and it does its thing by adding several layers which then resulted in a TIFF file over 600 MB in size. The problem I have with Lightroom's black and white conversion is that the way it works overrides the color temperature setting, it basically works similarly to an optical filter (e.g. green) used for film-based based black and white photography. But what I like to do is first adjust the colors of the image so that the faces are reasonably neutral and then apply a black and white conversion to the roughly color corrected image. I did it by first converting the image to a TIFF and then applying the black and white preset to that. In that case PS can't go back to the raw file to reset the white balance according to the filter and it has only the color bitmap image to work with. So I get the black and white images more to my liking by following this process. Additionally I used masks to make local adjustments to some of the images so I lighteded people a bit to keep the chandelier and the people closer to correct brightness. Next time I'll try to stay within Lightroom to be more efficient and only go into the multilayer editing for images that really benefit from it. Otherwise I can never finish my projects...

I've come to the conclusion that the sound noise from the gimbal in an indoor environment (with music being recorded, e.g. a choir) is not trivial to clean up. In outdoor recordings the traffic and other sounds in a city made the gimbal motor sound not obvious when listening to the recording but in an indoor environment it was very obvious. I suspect it is transmitted mechanically through the arm I had set up to hold the microphone despite the shock and hopefully vibration absorbing mount. The microphone wasn't exactly very far from the gimbal, either, so transmission by air is possible even though it was a shotgun. I tried cleaning it up with Adobe Audition and noise reduction (process) and it worked for a good part of the recording but occasionally the gimbal motor noise showed up nonetheless. When I have used a tripod to hold the camera, both on-camera microphone and an audio recorded mounted using a clamp on one of the tripod legs has worked well and I've had very little noise pickup in those situations especially when I don't touch the camera much. A dedicated gimbal noise filter might be developed, but I am not sure when I'll have the time to work on that. Other issues with the gimbal include arms getting tired when having to hold the camera over my head (to position the camera over other people and avoid line-of-sight issues) after 15 min my hands were trembling a bit. It's easier to hold the gimbal with arms and elbows tucked against my chest; in that case there has not been any significant problems holding it steady. For a lot of things I prefer having the camera height at my chest level rather than eye level but sometimes a higher camera position is required. Overall I think the gimbal is best-suited for shots where I walk with the camera or otherwise purposefully move it, and it's best to use a tripod when there is no need to move the camera with the subject. I shot my first situation where I needed high ISO (funeral in a dark church) with the Z8 and the images turned out fine, and nobody complained about the sound of my silent camera. 😉 But I ended up editing the images with a lot of layers and the TIFFs were around 600 MB in size, which is a bit much. I guess I need to figure out a way to do it in Lightroom and not obsess on details of the process.

The D800 which I had was great with some lenses but with some other lenses, it was a nightmare to try to get the AF working correctly across different distances. The D810 by contrast fixed these issues and was a very consistent focuser. The reason I traded the D810 in for a D850 was to get radio flash support, but I kind of regret letting go of the D810. Sometimes I can make rushed decisions. Anyway, I haven't used the SB-5000's (which is Nikon's radio-controllable flash) as much as I thought I would as I tend to do a lot with available light nowadays and much of my flash work is with Elinchroms. Having TTL is great but often there is just not enough power (when doing outdoor portraits). A paired SB-5000 setup where I set up a bracket on a stand with two SB-5000's and then there is either an umbrella or soft box works well but it tends to be top heavy and can fall over in wind. So in the end I often end up using Quadra due to its powerful but lightweight head, and a beauty dish with diffuser which doesn't pick up wind so badly. I think Nikon came into radio-controlled flash a bit late into the game and could have done much better by being 5 years earlier. Interestingly I've read reports of Canon's wireless flash system not being reliable any more in some circumstances potentially because of interference from other radio-based wireless communication systems of which there is a lot nowadays. I have found the SB-5000's radio triggering to be very reliable so it's a shame that it hasn't become more widely adopted. I get it that sometimes you have to be early in a technology to become successful but reliability and ease of use matters too. What's curious is that some seem to advocate for smaller flashes to go with the smaller size of mirrorless camera bodies now, but a very small flash can be too easily too close to the optical axis of the lens and cause problems with the images. Anyway the D850 has worked well (as did the D810) for me, but I am not a big fan of high fps high res shooting as it tends to produce a lot of data. For me photography was always trying to get the best single moment on the card and then the editing work would be easy. With high fps the number of similar shots that results is very time-consuming to edit as I look for subtle differences in the facial expression and it has gotten so bad that I can only shoot one thing a month basically, and I still have a large backlog. In the D800/D810 era the speed of the camera limited the amount of data and kept my focus on catching the best single moment.

Have you tried adjusting the speed of the manual focus ring? It should be possible with most S-line lenses.

In such cases an intermediate fine tune setting may work best, provided that the camera doesn't support separate values for different focal lengths (the D780 and D6 do).

I haven't been able to figure out the interval timer myself. I recommend having a cable release and locking it with the camera set to CH. This way you get a continuous sequence of images as fast as the camera can capture.

If it sold well I am sure Nikon would have made a bunch of new versions by now. I think many people find it very expensive, large and you can't really shoot plants from above as it would need to be put on a quite tall tripod. I think it is a niche lens. I use it like once in 2-3 years. I use the 85 PC-E as my main lens for close-ups, and sometimes combine with the 200 for situations where I need to get close to 1:1. For me the tilt is very useful and I struggle without it for many close up subjects such as flowering plants (I can adjust the shooting angle and control the background more easily while maintaining sharpness in the most important parts of the subject when photographing plants with tilt). However, in backlight the PC Nikkors tend to flare more and there e.g. the 105 MC and 200 AF do quite well. If Nikon did one day make a 200 MC for Z mount, I would like to see a 70-180 MC as well. I just find it quite clumsy to work with the 200 as to make a small change in the composition, the camera needs to be moved quite a lot (trashing the vegetation with tripod legs) and all shots basically have to be from subject height (eye level), which is limiting. For frogs the 200 Micro is great though. When shooting those subjects I have also seen people use 100-400 lenses of various manufacturers, with and without TC.

Very low demand. Actually the 105 MC is pretty narrow at 1:1 compared to the F-mount 105 VR which loses a lot of focal length upon close focus. But the 200 is narrower.

I did shoot some frogs with the 200 Micro, FTZ and Z6 II, and admittedly the stabilization was not as steady as with the 105 MC, but using a small cushion on the ground I was able to get good results near the ground. I can't say how much the VR in the body helped but it did seem to help a little. 105 MC was a bit on the short side and the 200 allowed me to get some close-ups from low position with the frog a bit further away. A 100-400 would probably be a good lens for this type of shooting, but I don't have one of those.

The Z 70-200 is quite long and less comfortable to use hand-held than I'd like, also the manual focus ring is extremely sensitive and I nudge it accidentally all the time, which is annoying. The 70-180 should be easier to use hand-held in terms of shooting comfort. I guess how effective the in-body stabilization is without optical VR remains to be seen. What I'm more concerned about is the optical quality of typical samples of the 70-180.

Right, if the quality matches that of the cameralabs test, then it's probably not worth a price so close to the 70-200. But new products are priced higher initially and after a while the price can reflect more realistically what the market is willing to pay. Of course, smaller size and lighter weight can be valuable on its own, but you'd still expect very high quality wide open from an f/2.8 telezoom. In my country the Nikon Z 70-200 is 1200€ more expensive than the 70-180. This will get some customers to the latter simply by being more affordable.

Canon 300/2.8 is about 0.5 kg lighter than the Nikon 300/2.8. Today Nikon could probably make a 300/2.8 FL Z with around 2.0-2.2 kg weight. And the 400/2.8 is much longer physically than the 300/2.8, making its use much more clumsy in a tight crowded place. The difference in length is about 10 cm (11 cm when the Nikon Z 400/2.8 is compared with Canon 300/2.8). A very large difference also when trying not to block others from seeing and photographing the action.

And I think most of the price sinking of those lenses happened around 2017 when Sony updated their A9 with improved algorithms and they became the top dog in AF, as well as the silent photography capabilities of that camera. By contrast since the Z9 and Z8 came to the market the practical value of F-mount teles increased, not decreased (as the AF results improved and silent shooting became available also on Nikon), and further price drops are unlikely (I could be wrong of course). The Z-mount teles aren't much better in terms of image quality than the best F-mount teles, though focusing and VR have become quieter (almost silent) and some of the new teles are lighter (the 70-200/2.8 for example is not smaller, nor lighter, and at least for me it's more difficult to handle than the FL F-mount-version on a DSLR). The Z 400/4.5 by contrast is spectacular in every way, and surprisingly light weight considering it's not even PF. But as an f/4.5 it is not quite ideal for indoor use, though, and a bit on the long side for my uses.

Well, an expensive future. I suspect that what led to the fast decline in second hand prices is that the first generations of Z bodies didn't focus very well on action subjects and this was accentuated by using the adapter. However, the Z8 focuses F-mount lenses better than DSLRs so I would expect that to be reflected in the price. A lot of people on the other hand are or have taken advantage of the ridiculously low prices of some lenses, such as the 200-400/4 which could be had for 1000€. The current F-mount 180-400 is 12000€ and I would expect a Z-mount version to be close to 16k€ as this seems to be the price trend. Anyway, the 200-400 resale price was adversely affected by its long-distance performance (which is said to be not so good at 400mm wide open, especially with TCs) but a part of this could have been related to focusing accuracy which is now improved. I'd expect these lenses to get continued use as hide lenses of upcoming photographers, students etc. and this population that cannot purchase these 12k€-16k€ lenses (basically under any circumstances) is quite large. Using the F-mount lenses on DSLRs and with adapters on Z8/Z9 is in many cases a viable option. But that may not increase the 2nd hand prices of these lenses as once the lowest price has been set, it's difficult for the market to accept that the price could be going up. Such a phenomenon did happen with some film camera equipment though, e.g., I hear that Mamiyas are quite popular now. I probably sold mine at the worst possible moment before the resurgence of popularity of film. Anyway there is no Z 200/2 or Z 300/2.8 and might never be, if sports photographers consider that they don't really need it THAT much and given current pay rates these might not be in favor again. I think rather than being out of favor, Nikon is simply copying what Sony and Canon are making (for mirrorless) and thus they haven't made a 200/2 or 300/2.8 yet. Sony by contrast wanted to get into the sports and wildlife photography markets and put out the smallest number of lenses that could satisfy the majority of those applications. However, Nikon and Canon are used to producing a really comprehensive set of lenses for those applications and I have no doubt that this will be soon the case again. Sony is already developing a 300/2.8, and I am completely confident that Canon and Nikon will follow suit. A 70-200/2.8 at 200mm f/2.8 produces a completely different-looking image from the 300/2.8 at f/2.8 and cropping won't bridge the gap. Subject-background separation is essential in sports photography as the backgrounds are typically littered with ads. A 400/2.8 is very clumsy to operate when following a subject can be on either left or right side and requires a lot more space to work with than a 300/2.8, and Canon's 300/2.8 shows that it can be quite light weight as well, despite being 14 years old. A zoom lens built with similar technology and matching the long end focal length and aperture is always going to be substantially heavier than a prime designed using the same generation of technologies. Since the 300/2.8 Sony is expected in 2024, I would guess Nikon and Canon to be out with their versions in 1-2 years.