Ron Martinsen's Photography Blog: D700

Showing posts with label D700. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2014

REVIEW: Nikon D750 with 24-120mm Lens with Real World Images (Part I of II)

Nikon D750 DSLR Camera with 24-120mm Lens

The Nikon D750 has been a highly anticipated and long rumored camera. The D700 was a huge hit and when the D600 came out the rumors immediately began that the D700 replacement would soon follow. With the D4, D800, D7100, D610, D4s, & D810 announcements you could almost sense the frustration from the Nikon faithful that while the announced camera was cool, that’s NOT the one they were hoping to see announced.

The D700 was effectively a D3 in a cost effective package, so it’s no wonder that people were hoping for the same with the D750. However, the camera I’ve been using really feels to me like the D610 on steroids. Personally I feel this camera takes everything that is great about the D610 and addresses most of the weaknesses to result in a camera that I personally would really like to own!

Hands On Thoughts

Nikon D750 Rear View

This is an awesome camera body that features the creature comforts normally reserved for consumer cameras and frustratingly omitted from pro cameras like an articulating LCD. While you won’t be using it to do selfies, you will be able to get better live view or video shots with the camera above your had and down low, so there’s definitely value in that!

Unless I missed something, it was disappointing to see that there are no shooting banks. This allows you to switch between a set of custom configurations for the camera quickly and is typically found on models like the D4s and D810. This would indicate that this camera is targeted more to the consumer than the pro. The articulating LCD and scene & effects modes on the mode dial certainly confirm this too. However, I do not think this is a bad thing because what I love about my 5D Mark III is that it has consumer features (like HDR that will keep the originals) not found on my 1D X (and insufficient on cheaper models because it doesn’t keep the original files). As a result this is a camera that I think the pro enthusiast will love, but they could hand it to their spouse or event photography assistant and still have a camera that is approachable and usable by mere mortals.

I’m used to pro bodies like the 1D X and D4s that are machine guns, so the D750 feels slow to me. However, it’s good for its class and price point. I also noticed that with a fast memory card it will go on for a long time at a reduced speed without filling the buffer even when shooting RAW+JPEG fine. I think this will please wedding and event photographers who can’t afford to have a buffer to fill prematurely. I still wouldn’t classify this as a pro sports camera, but it should do fine for soccer parents who want a fighting shot at capturing sports without investing in a D4s.

Real World Pictures

If you are new to my blog, what follows are in-camera JPEG’s with no modifications taken through the course of a normal day. The camera is mostly set to camera defaults but I do chose my AF single point and adjust the white balance as I see fit. Most shots are aperture priority but a few are manual mode as well. All but one shot in the gallery were also taken handheld all using the 24-120mm kit lens.

You may view the photos for your pleasure, but please delete them and/or remove them from your cache when done. You may not edit, print, or otherwise use these photos. All rights are reserved. The full gallery can be found at http://photos.ronmartblog.com/nikon/d750.

f/5.6 @ 120 mm, 1/125, ISO 320, No Flash, Shade White Balance
Reds and oranges are tough but I thought this sensor did a great job of showing a broad spectrum of reds and oranges. This is a fun camera to have for the fall!

f/7.1 @ 120 mm, 1/200, ISO 800, No Flash
Here the limitations of the kit lens become obvious because I think with a better lens the detail of this shot would be awesome. Even still, I was quite satisfied with what I saw overall.

f/5.6 @ 82 mm, 1/100, ISO 450, No Flash
Again, the wide dynamic range means a gorgeous spectrum of color

f/11 @ 50 mm, 1/640, ISO 280, No Flash
Shooting into the sun is the ultimate torture test but this camera did an excellent job of capturing a wide tone of colors and retaining a respectable amount of shadow detail. NICE!

f/7.1 @ 110 mm, 1/250, ISO 800, No Flash
Here’s another one that few cameras can capture this well. The alternating tones of the trees are captured very faithfully with the vivid richness coming from the shade white balance.

f/4.5 @ 105 mm, 1/30, ISO 100, No Flash
Ok, I didn’t really need to include this one (or the f/7.1 version in the gallery) but I was just having too much fun with this camera

f/4 @ 120 mm, 1/200, ISO 720, No Flash
At parks you’ve gotta photograph at least a duck or goose right? :)
The goose $hit was captured with such accuracy – ha, ha

f/7.1 @ 24 mm, 1/25, ISO 5000, No Flash
The great shadow detail means textures really come to life

f/4 @ 85 mm, 1/100, ISO 12800, No Flash
Here’s one place that the color sucked, but that can be blamed on ISO 12800, so keep that in mind if you shoot high ISO’s. The phone cover here is really bright red in real life. There was an abundance of natural daylight here so a better lens sure would have helped too.

f/4 @ 58 mm, 1/125, ISO 6400, No Flash, AWB
While it’s impossible to have identical conditions, it’s interesting to note that my shot like this with the D600 was way better at ISO 5000 @ f/5.6. I should manually dropped down a stop and adjusted the white balance but I was getting over confident about what this camera might do on its own. This is faithful to real life but it could have been better.

f/4 @ 120 mm, 1/125, ISO 7200, No Flash, Poorly Handheld - sorry
This statue has a strong light beam on it so many cameras require spot metering to avoid exposing properly for one part of the scene while botching the other. The default metering mode did a beautiful job with the AF point on the face. This is almost what the human eye sees the scene as in real life – sweet!

f/5.6 @ 35 mm, 1/125, ISO 12800, No Flash
If I had to pick the one thing that really impresses me is how well the metering handles complex scenes like this. With the great meter and awesome dynamic range, a shot like this goes from requiring HDR in the past to just point and shoot now (single exposure – no HDR).

f/4 @ 24 mm, 1/50, ISO 7200, No Flash
I included this one because this is a case where the dark ceiling means that you usually only get detail where the lights are. However, notice how much detail you can see in the ceiling. I think this is the best I’ve seen from a camera for this common test shot that I do.

f/4 @ 46 mm, 1/50, ISO 6400, No Flash
While I screwed up and had the AWB still on, what’s impressive is how much detail and tonal range from the statue and the wall behind are picking up. This is definitely a good sensor boys and girls!

I’ll have more photos to come, but suffice it to say that I’m sufficiently impressed with my early testing. The full gallery can be found at http://photos.ronmartblog.com/nikon/d750.

Conclusion

I’ll render my full conclusion when I’m done testing, but you can tell from my comments above that I love this camera. In fact, I was going to review other products first, but this one got such a wow out of me that I had to get my first part on the web early.

I’ll have more to come, but basically my current opinion is that if you are considering a Nikon and you can’t afford a D4s (who can right?) then this is the one you want. Sure the D610 is a great compromise if your budget is tight, and the D810 is the megapixel king but who cares though right? This is the best all-around, use it for anything, general purpose camera has right now. It’s definitely a great answer to the Canon 5D Mark III, so if your in the Nikon camp and have been lusting for a 5D Mark III then know that this is the camera you really should buy. If you are in the Canon camp, I still say don’t switch camps if you have invested in more than one L lens, but if you haven’t then I think from an image quality standpoint this might be the camera to own.

In short, is this camera worth the money and/or is it worth upgrading to? Heck yeah!

Please read my final conclusion in - REVIEW: Nikon D750–Yeah, it’s better than my 5D Mark III (Part II of II)

Where to order

Click here to learn more or order the D750 on the B&H web site.

Disclosure

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Monday, October 8, 2012

REVIEW: Nikon D600–A 5D Mark III Killer? (Part 2 of 2)

The Impressive Dynamic Range of the D600
f/5.6 @ 70 mm, 1/200, ISO 100, Shade WB

In the first part of this review entitled REVIEW: Nikon D600–My Favorite Nikon Ever?!!! (Part 1 of 2), I explained how impressed I was with this camera. After spending a couple weeks with it I simply love it. If I had the spare cash I’d pick one up, but it’s not compelling enough to make me want to switch camps.

Dispelling some rumors

When a new camera comes out there’s always the party poopers who have to whine about something. With this camera one of the major freak outs is that there is no AF On button on the rear of the camera. Well I wanted to point out that you can easily solve this problem by simply reprogramming the preview of Fn button on the front of the camera to act as a AF On button (that I might add is easier to use in that location anyway).

Another whine is that it can “only” do 3 bracketed exposures, but if you watch HDR guru Trey Ratcliff’s HDR Photo Course you’ll notice that he almost always only uses three exposures anyway. If you shoot in RAW you can pretty much have everything you need with 3, so despite my having cameras that can do more than 3 I always limit my bracketed shots to 3 as I’ve seen little value in more than 3 in all but very extreme cases.

The last gripe that seems to be real common right now is that this camera is a small body that is not well built, but I’d challenge that as well. Thanks to a nice grip with a rear raised thumb grip (shown above) this camera is easy to hold even for guys with big hands like me. Naturally a MB-D14 battery grip would make it even better, but I wouldn’t say this is a camera that requires the grip for it to be usable. I also think this camera body feels like a solid mid-range camera body worth of acceptance by those moving up from a D700. Yes, you read that right – I do think that despite the physical smaller size, this is a big step up from the D700 in terms of image quality.

The only rumor out there that I think is totally accurate is that the range of focus points in the viewfinder sucks, but I touched on that already in my previous article. You get used to it, but yes it really does suck. It doesn’t suck enough for me to prefer the D800 though, so unless you are a commercial photographer printing gigantic prints (i.e., greater than 36”x24”) then THIS IS THE BETTER CAMERA FOR YOU.

I will say that the (Q)uiet mode added to the D600 to match the (S)ilent mode of the 5D Mark III is a joke. On the Nikon it’s just a slower mirror slap with a crunch sound that is nearly the same as the regular mode. The Canon 5D Mark III is genuinely much quieter, so that is worth considering if you are a wedding photographer looking for the product with the least audible shutter release.

D600 vs 5D Mark III - Portrait Comparison using 24-70 f/2.8 lenses

In my popular article entitled COMPARISION: Nikon D600 vs Canon 5D Mark III using the latest 24-70 f/2.8 lenses, I compared the D600 against the 5D Mark III to see how they performed against each other using Nikon’s legendary AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens against the Canon 5D Mark III using its all new 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM (my review) lens. I had done a similar comparison with the Nikon D800 vs Canon 5D Mark III using the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM versus the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II using my favorite clear skin/straight hair model Juliet Dang.

I thought it would be fun to bring Juliet back into the studio to do a simple D600 vs 5D Mark III test with the 24-70mm lenses. This is your typical DMV mug shot under studio lights, but what it does is give you an idea of how each camera (and to a large extent the lens) renders detail in the hair, eyes and lips. In short, yeah it’s a boring shot but it’s somewhat helpful for reviewing cameras.

Testing Methodology

To do this shot I put both cameras on f/11 and ISO 100 and shot using the largest JPEG and uncompressed RAW format. Both cameras had their 24-70mm lens at 70mm and used auto white balance under an identical lighting setup. I took over 20 shots with a single focus point on the eye and chose the one that I felt like rendered the sharpest result on the eyelashes.

For the Canon I had to drop my shutter speed as 1/200 second caused sync speed issues which really sucks because the 5D Mark II had this same issue. For studio flashes it’s sync speed is really 1/160 instead of the advertised 1/200.

You can mouse in out and out of the the images below on your computer to see the original in-camera JPEG (mouse out) and the RAW file processed with Lightroom 4.1 with sharpening and noise reduction turned off (2012 method). The captions have links to the full size files with the in-camera JPEG being the exact in-camera JPEG that came from the camera with only a filename change and metadata update (via Lightroom). The sRGB color space was used on all of the images for displaying via web browsers using the industry standard color space (that nobody likes :p).

Mouse over to see RAW version, mouse out to see in-camera JPEG version
Nikon D600, f/11 @ 70 mm, 1/200, ISO 100
Mouse over to see Lightroom 4.1 processed RAW with no sharpening or noise reduction (full size)
Mouse out to see the in-camera JPEG with camera defaults (original)

70mm is a horrible focal length for Asian models, but Juliet was a trooper and gladly let me shoot away. Unlike the D800 review, and for a rare first time, I actually much prefer the auto white balance of the Nikon over Canon (honestly – first time I’ve ever felt that way – I hate Nikon AWB).

Canon 5D Mark III with 24-70mm f/2.8L IS II USM

Mouse over to see RAW version, mouse out to see in-camera JPEG version
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/11 @70 mm, 1/160, ISO 100, AWB
Mouse over to see Lightroom 4.1 processed RAW with no sharpening or noise reduction (full size)
Mouse out to see the in-camera JPEG with camera defaults (original)

Close-up Comparison Lips

Using Lightroom 4.1 as the RAW processing tool with no noise reduction or sharpening, you can see below how the lips compare against each other (using the shots above):

D600 Lips - 100% Actual Size (from RAW)

5D Mark III - 100% Actual Size (from RAW)

Overall I’d say this one is too close to call. The Canon has a tad bit more detail at the top and bottom of the lips, but both would sharpen up perfectly so I’d rule this as a draw.

Hair and Eyes Comparison

D600 - Hair and Eyes at 100% Actual Size (from RAW)

5D Mark III - Hair and Eyes at 100% Actual Size (from RAW)

This just shows what we saw from my previous comparison and that is that the new Canon lens is sharper. While the extra resolution of the D600 might give it a more shallow depth of field, I don’t think that is what we are seeing here because the veins in the eyes are clearly sharper on the Canon.

What to make of the results

Ultimately I think that Canon ended up with a sharper 24-70mm lens than Nikon, but then again it should since Nikon’s was released in 2007. It’s certainly clear from the D800 vs 5D Mark III test that the 70-200mm lenses from both Canon and Nikon blow away their 24-70mm counterparts!

What this ultimately tells me is that the resolution of the Nikon D600 is about the same as the 5D Mark III and that really the lens sharpness will be the only differentiating factor. This is a bit of a “no duh” since they are the nearly same resolution with almost identical sensor sizes, but I felt the need to make sure this was the case in practice.

What this also tells Canon shooters is that while the new Nikon D600 and D800 may be great new camera bodies, if you stick with the latest Canon lenses you’ll get sharper images. In other words, it’s not worth switching camps.

What this tells Nikon shooters is that there’s not any reason to lust after the Canon cameras as the subtle differences in sharpness are easily resolved in post-processing sharpening. In other words, it’s not worth switching camps.

High ISO Noise Performance vs 5D Mark III (Bookshelf Test)

You can see full details on my photos in my article entitled COMPARISION: Nikon D600 vs Canon 5D Mark III using the latest 24-70 f/2.8 lenses. What I present here are just a couple quick 100% crops to show the D600 high ISO noise performance. Both images were processed from their RAW original in Lightroom 4.1 with noise reduction and sharpening set to zero and they use the 2012 processing method:

D600 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/200, ISO 25,600 – 100% Crop from RAW in LR 4.1

5D Mark III 24-70mm II f/2.8 @24 mm, 1/200, ISO 25600 – 100% Crop from RAW in LR 4.1

Neither camera is pretty at its maximum ISO, but if you click the images above you’ll go to their in-camera JPEG which definitely favors the Canon quite a bit. What this tells us is that Canon does a better job with its in-camera processing of noise and detail preservation, but with the raw file and a copy of Dfine or Noiseware and standard sharpening, you can probably match the performance of the 5D Mark III. The D600 has less color noise and the Canon has more detail thanks to its sharper 24-70mm lens, and the Canon has more saturated images which I personally find more visually appealing. However, post-processing can put them on an equal footing.

Video

I hate video with a passion, so I don’t spend much time fooling with it. As a result, I’ll be brief and share two videos done with the D600 that give an idea of what to expect from the video. These are 1080p videos done at 24fps vs the maximum of 30fps simply because I prefer 24fps when I do bother to do video. Given the sunny day and the fact that shutter speed should be no more than 2x fps, the aperture needed for these videos was f/11 on the water shot and f/8 on the outdoor shot – both at ISO 100. I think this is a place where having a super sharp lens makes a huge difference, so I was a little disappointed with the performance (especially after some of the P&S cameras I’ve tested). I did use the Shade white balance and I was on a monopod, but handheld so there’s still the typical motion shake you’ll get unless you have proper HD video gear (like stabilizers). The focus is also kinda blah and you’ll hear in the video when I press the shutter button to reacquire focus.

Play in HD

To keep the pitchforks from coming out I did one 1080p 30fps video indoors under tungsten light with a custom white balance of 4350K at ISO 320 with an aperture of f/2.8 and pre-focused on the coffee pot. The internal camera microphone was set to the Auto setting, and I used a shutter speed of 1/60 sec (2x the fps). The custom white balance setting was chosen to match what the Live View preview showed versus what the actual room lighting looked like – they appeared to be identical at the capture time (and on playback), but on YouTube it still seems overly orange.

Play in HD

Overall I wasn’t blown away, but it doesn’t suck either. In much more capable hands with proper HD video gear I’d imagine it would create nice results. Personally I wouldn’t use this lens for video though.

Sample Images

D600, f/8 @ 48 mm, 1/50, ISO 8063 (huh? yep, that’s what the camera reports – ISO 8063!)
Most impressively, that odd ISO is pretty darn clean and usable if you ask me!

Visit the samples gallery to get more samples not featured in this article. Here’s one repeated for fun just because it shows off this camera at ISO 12,800:

f/8 @ 52 mm, 1/30, Hi-1 (ISO 12,800), WB 5560K (Kit Lens)
Click for unmodified original in-camera jpeg