AndreasE wrote:
4) Depending on your shooting assigments, you might take a look at the D3s technical manual , Nikon professional services published a while ago. This paper describes the different AF settings for the different sports - highly recommended reading. And if you download the D3s technical paper, download the D3X paper as well. Both are very good.
Diavolo wrote:
Andy, I guess it's safe to say the D600's dynamic range is epically better than the D300s's?
Feel free to call this epically different, if you like
I would say it is a significant progress between the D300s and the D600 in high(er) ISO settings. The second significant difference is dynamic range at base ISO (100 or 200 respectively). The D600 captures much more details in the shadows. So, if you are using both cameras on tripods and base ISO during night shots, the perceived difference will be even bigger. http://home.comcast.net/~nikond70/Charts/PDR.htm#D300s,D600
So about 3 stops more DR throughout the curve? I love my D300s but the biggest problem I have with it is it's low light capabilities. Anything requiring ISO1000 because of darkness is unusable to me. Anything up to ISO800 and it's a dream, minus it being only 12mp.
AndreasE wrote:
I am not arguing that the D600 is the only camera capable of doing so, or there is no way you can't do similar things with other cameras. It is just very simple with the D600.
regards,
Andy
just to make the reference clear. i was talking about the above claim regarding the d600's workability for recovering detail. yes, other cameras may be able to do this to one degree or another. do you find the d800 matches the d600 in this regard? as good? as easy to recover the detail?
@Wolfr,
thanks for stopping by and sharing your images.
@all,
in case you are interested in one more "making of".
It is quite short, as there wasnt much to do, but I like the liberty the camera provides.
While walking with the dog, the many lights of the snowguns lit up the mountains. So I stopped and did this image, where the exposure was set to avoid blown highlights in the moon, street lights and lights close to the snowguns. Consequently, many of the darker parts in this scene went quite dark, i.e. the slopes of the mountains. To get the star around the moon, I stopped down to f8. No need for a filter (I don't use them)
It takes only a few seconds to apply dynamic lighting in CNX2 (setting: 50, HQ) to raise the shadows considerably. To minimize noise in the dark areas, I set all in-camera sharpening ( picture controls) in CNX2 to zero and use the CNX2 USM tool to reapply a rather soft sharpening.
As I got some questions around the difference between the D600 and D7000. The D7000 is a great camera. Especially at ISO 100. But when the shadows need to be pulled by this amount, noise in these parts of the image is inevitable.
Downscaling the D600 to D7000 resolution and taking a 100% crop result in this snippet of the left mountain slope. Unfortunately, the AFS 16-35mm/4 VR is limiting the resolution a bit. http://www.pbase.com/andrease/image/147233006/original.jpg
Hi Andy, this is one of the most helpful threads I found on the web. Thanks so much.
Do you find any oil or dust spots on the sensor of your D600? What is your serial N?
I am on my second D600 body and it's been pretty annoying. The second body's serial N starts with 303. I still have over 10 spots which are really clear and noticeable at F8. I called Nikon USA and they are aware of this problem, but I don't want to send it in and be without my precious camera for two weeks.
Sure, it can be cleaned, but the question is, why do I need to do it with 1-day-old $2100 camera? In my book, it's completely unacceptable. Since the Rocket blower cannot get rid of the spots, I have to send it to Nikon and be without the camera for several weeks. I am not a Pro, I don't have means to get a second FF body.
So, I don't really know what to do about this REAL problem. Frustrating!!!
