One of the features I was and still am really exited about is the silent shooting mode. I thought I would share some of my initial reactions to it.
Let's assume you know nothing about the silent mode on the D850. Here is what you should know.
1. It's 100% silent. Not a BS quite mode.
2. You have to use it in live view only.
3. You can still autofocus, but it's limited to the little red box. No fancy af modes. The good news you can touch anywhere on the LCD screen and it will focus and shoot. In manual focus mode, a touch of the LCD instantly shoots.
4. Focus peaking is available, but only if you lens is in manual mode!
5. You can punch in with the magnify button to help you focus critically.
6. It also has a split zoom view......where you can split the back LCD into two boxes that are zoomed onto different areas of the frame. Hope that makes sense. I guess if you have to critically focus on two things that are not right next to each other this would be a handy feature. Hit the "i" button while in live view to bring up some options.
7. You have a couple of shooting modes. SL1 takes full res 45 megapixel photos up to 6 fps. SL2 shoots DX mode and can shoot up to 30 fps at 8.8 mp.
In use: Along with the tilt screen, it makes for a very versatile shooting tool. The way the live view works seems so much better in use than all the other Nikon's I've owned. Once you hit the live view button, the mirror stays up as you take your silent photos, and even as you jump in and out of menus (which is not the case in the D800/D810/D4). Does the D500 do the same? No more clucking of the mirror going up and down over and over. This really makes things feel more fluid and enjoyable for some reason. It also keeps your shutter count down. One question this brings up though.... does taking a silent photo add to your shutter count?
TURN OFF IMAGE REVIEW! Unless your taking one shot only of static things, I highly recommend not to have image review on. If it's on, as soon as you shoot, would be greeted with the shot you just took and you'll be missing moments of whatever is happening. You must also not forget that your exposure setting is not what you are looking at in the live views LCD. If you can change this, someone let me know.
As a back AF button focus user, it's not always ergonomically easy to use the AF button while say your camera is ground level and your looking down. I recommend setting a custom settings user bank or having the AF activation (A8) in your quick menu for easy access for the times you do choose to use live view to shoot.
Finally, keep your shooting technique in mind. You no longer are using your eye/head as a third point of contact. Your shooting a high megapixel camera and if your using the live view without a tripod it's going to be easy to see motion blur.
So far I am really enjoying the new silent mode feature and think it will be very handy for multiple purposes. I haven't noticed or tested for any negative effects of the electronic shutter (such as rolling shutter) in my limited use so far.
Sep 13, 2017 at 02:03 PM
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