ilkka_nissila

Yes. There were some metal cups with burning oil on the sides of the precession on the stairs of the church to light the way in an atmospheric way. But all the "candles" that were worn by Lucia and the others were electronic. I suspect real candles would not work in these wintery conditions outdoors and the fire would quickly go out.

D6, 105/1.4 at f/1.4, 1/400s, ISO 4500.

D6, 300/2.8, f/2.8, 1/160s, ISO 6400.

Today is Lucia's day in Finland. They crown Lucia who is to bring light to the darkness of winter. D6, VR 300/2.8 G II at f/2.8, 1/250s, ISO 1250.

I am sure that if it's in clean condition and hasn't been dropped, it is a great lens. I remember in the reviews that it has some vignetting that needs software correcting but that it works great at long distances. I would be happy to own the 180-400 and I'm sure it's a dream lens for many. I don't think there would be any significant issues with use with Z8 or Z9, as even older teles such as 200/2 II and 300/2.8 II work great on the Z8, and the 180-400 has newer focusing and VR technologies. Using on a mirrorless camera is in this case advantageous as well because no fine tuning is needed (so also no fine tuning with and without TC, which can be a pain as usually these settings are completely different). I got the Z 100-400 recently but for my region especially at this time of year, the 100-400 is basically limited to landscape and architecture, and for any kind of potentially moving subject the light levels push my ISO sky high (25600 +), so an f/4 would definitely be an advantage there. But the 100-400 does have portability and it's very good for landscape type subjects, and does not wear the user down (or limit other lens options in the bag) in the same way as a huge fast tele would. The trouble with me is that I often want to photograph birds or other wildlife even when I'm set out to photograph landscape, and so I have to just tell myself that it would result in poor quality images at these ISOs, so "don't bother trying." In my opinion the 180-400 definitely has its place and if I could afford it easily or if wildlife was my primary area of interest, I would get it. For now I have to prioritise other things.

I never really got along with this lens, as I wasn't able to get sharp results at slow speeds with landscape in winter light. At the time there was no electronic shutter or EFCS option. I would expect most of those problems to be avoidable today by using ES or EFCS. Otherwise I felt the AF-S 80-400 to deliver vibrant images. I now have the 100-400 Z which is kind of similar but it has no vibration issues on tripod and is generally better optically corrected. It also stays in balance when zooming as Nikon designed a mechanism where zooming retains center of gravity. I would recommend considering the Z version in this case. But if you need to use or prefer to use a DSLR then the older lens can be used. Another option is the 70-200/2.8 FL with TC1-14E III which gives great results stopped down to f/5.6-11, but only up to 280mm. The 300/4 PF can also be considered. A very light and compact option with great AF.

The D850's auto AF fine tune needs to be repeated a few times and an average taken as the final value. The variability of results is otherwise too high IMO. Furhermore, it is a good idea to test the value in practical applications to confirm that it works as it should. For some lenses I've had to deviate a few points from the result of the formal process to get good results in practical use. The D6 has a more reproducible auto fine tune where basically in most cases it gives the same result each time or is perhaps varying from instance to instance by 1 point. But there are some lenses with which the process can still benefit from repeating, but it's much better than in previous cameras. Unfortunately the D6's AF system didn't make it to an updated D8x0 series camera.

Finally we got some frisky winter weather around -13 C to -9 C for a few days. Unfortunately weather forecasts couldn't predict clouds very well and so I wasn't always there at the right time to get the vivid colors of sunny days. These pics are from Lauttasaari which is an island in Helsinki. Z8, 100-400 at 100 mm, f/11, 1/8 s, ISO 64. Z8, 100-400 at 185 mm, f/11, 1/13s, ISO 64. D850, 45 mm PC-E, f/11, 1/13 s, ISO 64. Tomorrow will be independence day for Finland and it's forecast to be snowing, so the pictures will be different.

I hope you get it fixed and that it doesn't cost too much. I was just shooting some landscape with the D850.

I believe you can do the paperwork yourself if you're willing. I don't remember paying such large additional fees.

Not paying tax and customs tariffs upon entry to the EU would be considered illegal smuggling. You can buy tax free in the US (even if you're in NYC) and then you declare the item(s) when coming to the EU and pay taxes and tariffs and you end up paying tax only once. But in practice I think the authorities are interested in larger crimes.

A commonly photographed theme in landscape photography involves a wide angle image of a scene which includes foreground features such as rocks and the sun just tingling to rise above the horizon. In this case the sun will create some ghosting, depending on the quality of the lens, but large areas of the frame are mostly unaffected by this, and the photographer can adjust the position of those ghosts in the frame by moving the camera relative to the subject matter and the sun. In this case some photographers often expand the dynamic range by bracketing the exposure by many stops and then paint masks on a stack of layers to reveal from each exposure the right part of the frame, to get to a natural-looking image with foreground details and the sun not blowing out outside of a small central core. Having a modern lens does help, but often the flare or ghosting can be used as an effect to create a feeling. It doesn't mean there is no detail revealed in the shadows; there can be. There are photographers who have made this process an art and their livelihood. But anyway, yes, the brightest part of the scene could only be less than 0.01% of the image area. People tend to love this kind of images.

I think a lot of people do business with B&H from countries all over the world. For many items it's the easiest to get (and often among the fastest). New hot-in-demand Nikon lenses - not a good plan at all.

I copy the fine tune settings of all my cameras manually into a spreadsheet which I keep backed up. I don't think the fine tune values are stored or recalled as saved settings. How did the values disappear? What is the bug that you're chasing?

My local store now has the 180-600 mm in stock. On another forum, I've seen it reported that B&H has 1200 people in line for this lens, so if you want this lens I would ask smaller retailers who are in good standing with Nikon (as usual).

I switch Auto ISO on / off by pressing the front Fn button which for me opens up My Menu and the Auto ISO setting is at the top of the list in my My Menu configuration. Basically I press Fn and then OK to toggle Auto ISO. Two button presses is not so complicated. There are other ways but I prefer this because I can put other important things in lower positions of My Menu. On my Z8 I have Fn2 to open My Menu.

Well, yes and no. You can use it in this way (set max ISO in the menu at a low value and override using the dial) but the smallest maximum ISO setting is 200, not 100. The camera uses the ISO dial setting as a suggested ISO in auto ISO mode that it defaults to if it can achieve correct exposure by adjusting the other free parameters that the user has given it. Only if it cannot achieve correct exposure using the ISO set by the user will auto ISO take action and override the user's ISO choice. It is the same in all Nikon cameras that support auto ISO as far as I know.

I don't doubt there will be a 90 (or 100) MP FX sensor in the future, but I'm unconvinced that it would help much in the above scenario. In situations where the lens renders such a clear image that high frequencies are aliased and moire shows up, there is definitely extra detail (and more faithful rendering of the subject) to be gained by increasing the sensor resolution, but at long distances, is there really more detail to be gained? I would be happy to be proven wrong of course, but I suspect the gains of a still higher-resolution sensor will be mostly in photographs taken at relatively short distances and bright enough light that ISO would be at most around 1000-2000 or preferably lower. By "somehow getting closer" I mostly mean an approach where one does not approach the animal but stays reasonably flat and still at a location on a regular basis so the animals get used to the photographer; in my experience it often happens then that they come to check up on me at a close distance once they're comfortable that I'm part of the scenery and not harmful. I usually prefer a forest background to my wildlife shots as it's more lively than sky or water and adds interesting context. During the pandemic closures, I would lie down on a camping matress by the water; it gives a good height for shooting and support for elbows if working hand-held. At first birds tend to stay as far away as they can in the middle of the pond, but eventually some of them come closer and sometimes so close that a 500 PF wouldn't be able to focus that close. Sometimes this happens in the evening when the light has passed and it's barely possible to see or photograph. But with a tripod and silent shutter or EFCS if one accepts noise of a 12800 or 25600 image, it's still possible to get some shots that can be moody and interesting, but they would have benefited from a faster lens. Eventually I sold the 500 PF because too often I was at ISO 12800-25600 and I just preferred more options in dim light. I do find the light when the sun is just touching the tops of the trees in the background to be interesting even if it is a challenge to get enough light for a sharp exposure in the shadow. In general I find many animals to be more willing to come closer to the photographer when the light is low, and in the cover provided by trees in the forest. This makes it more difficult to use long focal lengths as well, as the trees get in the way of getting shots of larger animals. I find also the silent shutter makes it more likely that I can keep shooting when the subject is close. But really it depends on the environment and the subject what is the distance that one can work with. Because Finland has so much forest it's an easy pick for me to shoot there, rather than on open areas where long focal lengths may be necessary.

What kind of subject matter do you photograph? What lenses do you have, do you enjoy manual or autofocus lenses? The Zf requires an adapter (FTZ-II, or the original FTZ) to use F-mount lenses and while some lenses work great there are a few limitations. There is no AF on those AF Nikkors which don't have focus motors in the lens. Unfortunately I haven't used Ai or Ai-S lenses without CPUs on the Zf, so I don't know exactly how it behaves but there probably is no wide open viewing and metering, i.e. the EVF will brighten to show you the image but the lens stays at the shooting aperture when you compose and focus. Autofocus lenses are also stopped down to shooting aperture for focusing and composing unless an aperture smaller than f/5.6 is selected, at which point the lens is kept at f/5.6 or wide open when viewing; not sure if manual focus lenses have that same limit as well. This can be a good thing as it eliminates most problems with focus shift and produces more accurate autofocusing and a more stable viewfinder (as the image is not constantly changing in brightness due to focusing or between shots for composing). But it can also mean that in low light if you shoot stopped down there is a bit more noise and the AF can be slightly less decisive than if wide open were selected for shooting. I'm not an expert on the manual focus lens experience unfortunately as my manual focus lenses are either special purpose or have CPUs. If the F-mount lens has a CPU and aperture ring, then you select the smallest aperture on the lens aperture ring and set the aperture from the sub-command dial from the body. With Nikon Z lenses you also use the sub-command dial to set the aperture, but some lenses can be programmed so that the aperture is controlled from a control ring on the lens. But there are no aperture markings engraved on the lens itself, so you can watch the aperture in the small window at the top of the camera. The Zf has interesting functions to help with manual focusing, including focus peaking (coloured overlay indicating areas of the image that are in focus according to some criteria), it can also detect the subject (e.g. human eyes) and when you focus manually there is a box that changes colour when the subject is exactly in focus, this is much more precise than peaking if you use a fast lens. You can also zoom in to see the details while focusing manually. So in some ways it's a superior camera for use with manual focus lenses, but the downside is lack of availability or limited use of the aperture ring in some lenses. There are some third-party Z mount manual focus and autofocus lenses with aperture rings that can be used, though, these seem to be gaining some interest and users. With most Nikon Z S-line lenses the manual focus ring is by default accelerated but it can be programmed to act without acceleration (people call it linear mode) at various rates (selected from a menu), this is a life-saving feature IMO. Note that in-camera VR is available on the Zf and this is wonderful as it offers stabilization also on prime lenses that don't have optical stabilization so there is an extra edge for low-light photography with this camera (the high ISO performance is also very good). Autofocus is similar to the Z8 but perhaps for fast moving subjects not quite as consistent. There are some advantages over the Z8 such as the Zf has more options for the custom wide-area modes, so there is more refinement possible when you want to decide which area of the frame the camera can focus on a subject. Generally autofocus on mirrorless cameras is used less with single point mode and more taking advantage of the camera's ability to detect subjects especially for people and animals. I think you'll need to do some thorough menu diving to get it to work the way you want it to work, but it can be programmed to work in a fairly simple way as well. Once configured, I don't think twice about which camera I'm picking up, it becomes instinctive. But the Zf is a special camera and because it includes characteristics of modern and traditional cameras it is more complex. But it's wonderful in use, in my opinion, and I really like the camera a lot. If you plan on getting the Zf, I would also consider what you plan to do with respect to lenses. You can use F-mount lenses with it via adapter, but it's not quite the same experience as using native lenses, and it's probably best to take this into account when considering the budget. If you need recommendations on Z lenses for specific tasks, do ask. If you plan on using F-mount lenses then it's also good to know which ones as the user experience on larger lenses with the adapter in place may not be quite as favourable on the rather thin Zf body as one could hope, though there are accessories which increase the size of the grip.

Sorry, I meant 5-10 years ago.

Well, rather than make a high-end DX camera, Nikon has achieved a similar level of portability by offering longer focal lengths in portable housings for FX (600/6.3, 800/6.3, and also once it becomes widely available the 180-600/5.6-6.3). These can be used instead of the slightly shorter and slightly faster lenses on DX to achieve similar results (except for the total pixel count). A 26 MP DX could put more pixels on each lens but in many conditions then the ISO would go very high for that format size and at least where I live there wouldn't be more detail as it would be smeared off by noise. I imagine there are not that many people who would for example pick a 26 MP DX camera to use with the 800 PF. Of course, a Z8 or Z9 with 180-600 or 600 PF form more expensive kits than the D500 with 200-500/5.6 or 500/5.6 PF. But then with the newer systems there is silent photography which allows photographers to stay close to the subjects and shoot for a longer time before the animal is spooked by the sounds from the camera. I think this means in practice that we can more often get more shots from a closer distance and super-long focal lengths and high pixel densities may not be so crucial after all. Being able to photograph from a closer distance is in my opinion going to result in much higher-quality results than shooting from further away. I only photograph wildlife and birds occasionally but my impression has been that indeed sometimes birds do come closer than I've experienced when photographing with a DSLR and I think this will in the end make a significant improvement in the results that people can get from certain situations. Long-distance photography with long focal lengths tends to suffer from atmospheric effects and when browsing large numbers of photos online or in books it seems clear that photos taken with 600-1200 mm focal lengths are typically a bit more hazy than photos taken at 300-400 mm, for example, but of course this doesn't mean that a shorter focal length is better for a more distant subject, it isn't. 😉 In addition to lens focal lengths becoming longer, the weight of some lenses has gone down as well; the 400/4.5, 600/6.3 and 800/6.3 are very light weight for the focal lengths and apertures and this allows easier operation from low vantage points, for example, getting eye level with the animal near the groud or water level. I found it very easy to shoot in this way with the 100-400 at a low level. However, at the present time in November in Finland, the light level and very soft / subdued quality of light can make things difficult and I wouldn't want to shoot with a DX camera at ISO 12800. In brighter locations or for noon daylight or summer photography, I can see that people are not restricted so much by the light. But overall I still think as the mirrorless technology allows AF to work reasonably well with smaller maximum apertures, we now see this wave of smaller-aperture lenses that can provide an alternative to the compactness that DX can give with shorter (and faster) lenses. But you guys are much more into wildlife and bird photography and are living in more brightly lit locations (while we have long summer nights the light is generally more subdued, and winter daylight can be only a few hours). Do you really need more reach than 600 mm or 800 mm lenses give on FX? For sure Nikon could in the future make something along the lines of Fuji's X-H2S (26 MP stacked sensor) or X-T5 (40 MP non-stacked sensor) to put more pixels on the subject but how often is the pixel density limiting when shooting with a Z8 or Z9, and would it not be preferable to just somehow get closer to the subject when photographing, and avoid the problems arising from long distances? I can see that posted images here and on other forums of bird subjects are better than they were (say) 510 years ago, and there are more shots of birds in flight, so the progress of technology and likely increased experience of the photographers has been a benefit for such subjects. I guess improved software has also played a role in making very high ISO viable.

Well, there were frequent rumours about the D400 and it was always going to be released very soon. Changing the name to "D500" doesn't change the essence of what those rumours (or wishes) were about.

Well, it was Nikon's choice to repair it irrespective of warranty status, but they could easily have required warranty on that. My D850's power delivery circuit got fried (after about 5 months of use) and was repaired under warranty.

Well the Z9 is bigger and heavier; a lot of people consider it too heavy. Light weight & compact is appealing to many. The A1 sets the upper limit to the Z8's price. Second hand is not comparable with new especially in countries where warranty is not transferable from the original owner.

Well, after that firmware update, Nikon can increase the price of the camera substantially.