Nikon Camera Under 25000
Lotte Donohoe
As usual, he reviews the camera from a wildlife photographer's perspective, covers relevant features in detail, communicates his findings in a conversational & highly accessible manner, and draws conclusions based on real-world performance.
And many of you are already aware of Thom Hogan's great camera guides. I'd also strongly recommend reading his guides to get way more out of your camera than the Nikon manuals. His guides help you understand WHY to choose each camera setting:
That sort of capability traditionally does not come cheap. Now to be fair, if you own that type of gear you will be able to take many more photos with the equipment and so it's not like the cost is spread out over only 1 or a few photos.
Did you watch Steve's entire video? In either his review of the D6 or in his great book: "Secrets To The Nikon Autofocus System" - Steve DOES talk about using 3D and Auto Area AF. He HAS used them and tested them and he has found them wanting.
I'm 200 pages into rereading his great AF book, and the best secret I've gleaned from Steve is Group AF Mode works VERY well to grab focus on the CLOSEST subject that falls under the group of AF sensors in your viewfinder. If you don't have blades of grass or branches between you and your bird, Group AF is great.
For many years I've struggled to get cameras to track my small puppies running around. I've had 'experts' here on this forum tell me I'm incompetent because they can track racing cars that are WAY faster than my dogs, so I must not know what I'm doing - and I can tell you that Group AF mode NAILS focus on a subject coming towards you quickly. Most other modes struggle with this, and struggle with a subject that suddenly moves away from the focus sensor.
And I'll note that 3D AF Mode probably works better on the D5 and D6 than the D850 or D500 because Nikon has given the D5 and D6 more computer processing power in the AF chip with these cameras. And the D6 has 50% more AF processing throughput than the D5. (according to Nikon)
>> For many years I've struggled to get cameras to track my small puppies running around. I've had 'experts' here on this forum tell me I'm incompetent because they can track racing cars that are WAY faster than my dogs, so I must not know what I'm doing - and I can tell you that Group AF mode NAILS focus on a subject coming towards you quickly. Most other modes struggle with this, and struggle with a subject that suddenly moves away from the focus sensor.
As you suggest, taking photos of small, irregularly and unpredictably moving animals can be (IMHO) more challenging than photos of large objects at a distance, moving in fairly predictable paths. Puppies, birds, other critters pose a considerable challenge to photographer and equipment.
If you've watched this and other videos Steve has produced on the subject of Nikon AF, then you know he doesn't struggle with launch shots. He gets a higher hit rate using either Dynamic or Group AF than with 3D or Auto AF. I've experienced exactly what he describes with 3D: focus lock inexplicably, randomly jumps about from the subject's eye or head to another part of the body or even something else in the frame. Like many bird and BIF photographers, he'd rather be in control of where the focus point or cluster of points is positioned within the frame and miss due to operator error than cede control to an AF system that abandons a perfectly good focus lock for no good reason.
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Lastly, I wonder if Nikon is trying to make a statement about the Z system with the cost of this lens. Canon and Sony users will be raising their eyebrows considering the extremely high prices of lenses like the Canon RF 800mm f/5.6 ($17,000) and Sony 600mm f/4 ($13,000). I could say something similar about the Nikon Z9, which launched for about $1000 less than expected. If Nikon can get sports and wildlife photographers to switch to the Z system at this point, it will pay dividends for them down the road.
I'm Spencer Cox, a landscape photographer based in Colorado. I started writing for Photography Life a decade ago, and now I run the website in collaboration with Nasim. I've used nearly every digital camera system under the sun, but for my personal work, I love the slow-paced nature of large format film. You can see more at my personal website and my not-exactly-active Instagram page.
I contacted Nikon by email (Nikon canada ? ) they told me that I had to fill out a form to get on the NPS program. The form wants a letter on company letterhead and asks for info on recent assignments ....
While I don't think the ring swap in isolation is an improvement, I don't think the rings can be swapped back without completely redesigning the lens. The schedule for that is likely to be the usual 7-8 years. The 70-200/2.8E FL lens is really excellent (there is no "III" since other parts of the lettering are different, the version count is back at I). Many zooms have the zoom ring at the front so it's not unusual to have it that way. As human beings we are capable of adapting to changes like this though there may be some growling at first.
If you want to be heard by Nikon regarding product improvement, one way is to gain some wider recognition as photographer. When they ask you if you'd like to become a Nikon Ambassador then they want to hear feedback from you regarding product development. You can of course submit product feedback as a regular customer.
I suspect you're right about the lens, Ilkka. While I prefer the old orientation (and I suspect Nikon will only have switched it because they had to), there was a little more ire than I thought. I'll blame you if I buy it the week before Nikon updates it, though. :-)
I will be having a mild go at them after I've had a chance to learn a bit more about the D850, though. Especially if I'm bored enough to do a full mock-up of how the four-way split live view, focus bracketing, and multi-point AF fine tuning should work. I'd be perfectly happy to spend a week at Nikon under NDA doing some pro-rata bios tweaking...
They fixed and or replaced the LCD and window that sits on the top of the camera. There was a small cosmetic crack in it and I had it covered in packing tape (to immobilize it) for the last several months until I decided to send it in for a real issue.
I guess this goes towards showing that the cracked window and whatever was under it was not the cause for the draining battery. I still think it is a warranty issue. Perfectly good camera starts draining the battery part way into a photo shoot, in dry weather, no drops or shocks....
Ouch. Sorry to hear that, Leon. I'd certainly tell them quickly that it's not fixed (so they don't claim you've done something else), even if you insist on waiting before you send it back to them. Did you authorise them for arbitrary repairs, specifically for this, or for a fix to the reported problem? If they charged you for a new grip and mount then that's not really on, if you didn't ask them to. To be fair, I don't know how the D5 comes apart, and they might have had to take the grip off to get at a screw that would let them disassemble the rest enough to get at the LCD.
Technically I suppose something shorting in the LCD could have caused a power drain (the LCD is on all the time, after all, although I'd be a little surprised if enough power goes near it to make a difference even if it were shorted); possibly something under the LCD could have been an issue. But I agree, if it's still having trouble, whatever expensive thing they did didn't solve the thing that was actually bothering you, so if they charged specifically for the fix to the power drain, you could reasonably argue with them. Especially if it turns out to have been a warrantyable issue after all.
Your legal position regarding the $850 probably depends whether it was a "fee to fix the power drain" or whether they specifically told you what they were going to do. Even then, you could probably argue you were misadvised that it would fix the problem.
My F5 did drain the battery, given long enough, but then it was sitting on the shelf for long periods. The same was true of my Eos 620. I just took to leaving the battery out when storing it, although that might not be very good for a D5's internal clock battery. It's not a problem I've had with the Nikon DSLRs, though - a D700, D800e and D810 have all gone months between shooting with no obvious dent in the battery (although I do tend to charge up before use just in case). I'd be astonished if this was expected behaviour - the only thing I've heard in recent Nikon dSLRs is battery issues from leaving SnapBridge turned on. :-) (I'll have that to look forward to when I get a D850.)
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