I'm considering tethered shooting. Currently I'm shooting with a Nikon D7000 and 14mm Saamyang. Infiniti focus is pretty good, but when I enlarge prints I can really see mistakes. Stars at night are easy enough to focus on, zoom in on the live view, adjust focus and then snap a shot.
However the Nikon screens have a very limited resolution, this is most noticeable when shooting landscapes. Zooming in on distant mountains in order to get optimal sharpness proves to be pointless because the screen resolution pixelates the image at max zoom.
So what I'd like to be able to do is tether my camera to a tablet (I haven't found anything to work on my Macbook Pro) with a higher resolution to make sure that my focus is nailed. I find it hard to trust the infinity setting on my lens because I've missed night sky shots by doing so before.
1. Would I be better off puting that money towards a D600/D800?
2. Does anyone shoot in a similar manner or should I just improve my technique somehow?
3. Would shooting HDR fix the problem? Is that even a practical solution with the D800/D7000 and the manual focus 14mm Samyang?
4. Is the Nikon 14-24mm 2.8 a better solution? (We shoot landscapes and aurora primarily)
My GF has the D800 and it really amplifies mistakes (camera shake, slightly out of focus, etc) Everything looks good on the web, but when we print enlargements above 24" x 30" slight imperfections make the shots unusable.
The infinity focus on the Samyang starts at about 10 feet and beyond. There is a lot of play after that 10 feet and although everything is supposedly in focus, that's not the case when you go to blow the pictures up. At least on my lens there is a small area that you have to nail in order to get sharp stars for printing. Again with web resolution it's not a problem. Printing large prints it becomes very noticeable if the focus is not nailed.
i am using a CamRanger wireless remote control with a D7100 and an Ipad Retina. very high resolution display of live view. i believe there is an OSX version and soon Android and Windows. a very rich control set and histogram, how i like to shoot. i also use the Samyang 14.
I'm definitely going to mark the sweet spot for stars once aurora season returns.
I like the idea of tethering just to be sure that I'm capturing the exact sharpness that I want. Ultimately I guess I'm just not satisfied with the resolution of the Nikon LCD. Not just with the 14mm, but with any manual focus lens. My vision isn't great and I find it dificult to get eyes focused, stars sharp enough, architecture sharp enough, etc. The Live view helps to a degree, but I feel like a higer res display, capable of displaying the actual resolution of the image file would be a very useful tool for me.
Have you looked into Sofortbild?? It's a tethering program for mac...it's free....also, sounds like you need to use an external video monitor hooked to the HDMI port, not really to tether specifically
