Nikon D810 test drive

My everyday camera is a Fujifilm X-E2.  It's a happy medium in terms of quality, size, and price.  It's "portable enough" and I love the shots I get from it.  It works well for me.

There are times, however, when I miss shots that it just can't handle reliably.  Anything that requires fast focus in less than perfect light, or focus tracking on moving subjects... well, I know in advance that quite a few shots will be missed.  Some of the shots I've missed in the last few months have got me looking into alternatives for the times when I need more.

The gold standard, of course, are the professional models from Nikon (D4s) and Canon (1DX), but as much as I'm sure I'd love the performance, the price and the size/weight put me off.  I don't feel I need quite that much.

Then there's the Nikon D810, recently released, and said to have the D4s autofocus system (or a close facsimile of it).  It's still considerably bigger than what I'm used to and it's not cheap, but it is half the price of a D4s.  So last week I rented a D810 and a 70-200 f/2.8 lens from LensRentals.com to see for myself.

. . .

I used the word "wow" a lot in the short time I had that camera/lens combination.  The first time was when I attached the lens to the camera and hefted them -  I thought "wow, that's pretty heavy."  I've used the 70-200 before, attached to a D600, and I knew it would be heavy.  But over the past year I've grown accustomed to the X-E2 and its 55-200 lens, which weighs in at 2 lbs. compared to the 5.5 lbs. of the Nikon combo.  It goes with the territory, of course; for reliable shots I could make that tradeoff.  Might have to use a monopod sometimes, but no problem there.

Nikon D810 with 70-200 f 2.8 and Fujifilm X-E2 with 55-200 f 3.5-4.8.
Even this image doesn't convey how much bigger  and heavier the Nikon feels.

Looking over the camera body, I noticed a small switch near the viewfinder and wondered what it was for.  I switched it and saw that it was an eyepiece shutter, for blocking light from getting in when doing bulb exposures.  My old D600 had a separate little clip-on dealie that I never seemed to have with me on the few occasions when I wanted it.  Nice.  I tried adjusting the diopter control for my eye but it wouldn't turn.  A quick check of the manual showed me it needed to be popped out (like a watch winding stem) before it could be adjusted.  So once it's locked in, it won't get out of adjustment.  That was nice too.  I thought "These are the refinements you get when you spring for a high-end camera - cool."  (Side note:  on my X-E2, the diopter adjustment seems to get bumped out of position several times a year, and it's always confusing when it happens.)

I took a few random test shots.  Autofocus was instant and the shutter was quieter than my old D600.  Nice, but I wasn't taking any shots I couldn't have gotten with the X-E2.

When I went to import my test shots into Lightroom (some shot RAW, some JPG), it was another wow moment, as in "wow this is taking a long time."  Not an eternity, but noticeably longer than the X-E2 files.  It wasn't entirely unexpected, as there are more than twice as many megapixels per shot.  I grew a little concerned about the amount of hard disk space being consumed.  But of course modern disks are enormous, and once I did the math I calmed down.

Looking at detail in Lightroom I was favorably impressed by the sharpness (no back focus / front focus problem, no haziness), the amount of detail (36 megapixels, no surprise), and the amount if detail I could pull out of shadows (not massively better than the X-E2, but better).  Maybe not wow because I had high expectations, but definitely positive.

Time to do some real tests.  I went to a spot near a lake where geese were grazing on grass.  There was quite a bit of clutter in the background, tall weeds and trees.  I took around 200 shots, some in high speed burst mode.  Very few were out of focus, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those were due to technique problems (user error.)  Wow, that's good.  The D810 wasn't thrown by the background clutter.

Out-of-camera JPG, cropped, slight exposure adjustment in Lightroom.

As I was taking the shots of the geese on the ground I heard a weird sound overhead, like whooshing air.  I looked up to see a flock of geese coming in for a landing right over me.  As fast as I could, I switched to continuous high mode, pointed the camera upward, and mashed the shutter button.  I shot 23 pictures in a few seconds, and nearly all of them were in focus.  And this was on moving targets that were back lit.  This is a classic case where the X-E2 might get the shot, might not, but frequently not with the 55-200 lens.  A big wow.

Out-of-camera JPG, cropped but not otherwise modified.

Before returning the camera, I wanted to test its ability to acquire focus quickly in low light.  Indoors on a cloudy morning with no nights on, I ran a test where I pointed at a spot and took a shot, then pointed at a spot at a different distance and took another shot.  Because of the poor light, I could just see enough detail through the viewfinder to pick out a high contrast area to focus on, and in a couple cases I wasn't even sure I was doing that.  In all cases focus was acquired instantly, and all the shots contained enough detail that it looked as if they had been taken in a well-lit room (though of course there was some noise visible due to the high ISO.)  Only one out of thirty shots was out of focus.  I found that quite impressive.

. . .

A Nikon D4 review on PhotographyBlog.com stated that the D4 "seems to react instantly to anything you throw at it".  That's pretty much how the D810 struck me.  Maybe the D4 and D4s are even better, but for my purposes I think the D810 would be more than adequate.

Potential complication:  there's a rumor flying around that Nikon is set to announce a D750: Full frame, 24 megapixels, no anti-aliasing filter, same autofocus as the D4s and D810, lighter body, and it's going to be marketed it as an action/sports camera, implying fast frame rate and large buffer.  If true, it would check every box on my wish list and I'd choose it over the D810.  If not, I'll be looking seriously at a D810.

Size and image quality make the X-E2 my everyday camera.
(Admittedly unfair comparison shot.)

2014 Minnesota State Fair

I expected the state fair to provide some good photo opportunities, and it didn't disappoint.  It was a perfect late summer day.

Wood carving of a gopher.  Minnesota is the gopher state, for some reason.

Crowd levels were about average.

Agriculture is always a big thing at the state fair.  Farmers bring their animals to the fair, and some give birth while they're there.

Newborn calf on his first day.

The baby animals always draw a crowd.

The amount of work that goes into preparing animals for showing is amazing.  No detail is overlooked.

Horse getting brushed.

Cow tail getting de-tangled.

I've never seen anyone so absorbed in his work.

There are thrill rides, of course.

The racetrack.

The rapids.

The giant slide.

And parades.

Flute player in the St. Peter marching band.

None too subtle float from the Minnesota Beef Expo.

Band leader for East Central High School.

A first for me:  electric bass in a marching band.
Requires two guys, one to play and one to push the amplifier.

Gray Treefrog

Sometimes I think if it wasn't for Scout I'd never see anything.  It isn't so much that he notices things and brings them to my attention; far from it.  This past spring I looked up while walking him and saw a doe and fawn, not thirty feet away.  And even after I got out the camera and snapped a few pictures Scout was so immersed in sniffing a shrub he never saw them.  But he does give me a reason to get outside.

Today we were out at the dog park, and I was looking for something to photograph while he made his rounds.  I spotted some bumblebees on a clump of flowers in the sun, so I switched into macro mode to see what I could get.

I had taken a dozen shots when I noticed a green leaf that was shaped like a tiny frog.  Turns out it actually was a frog, a gray treefrog, which has the ability to mimic its environment by changing colors.  Its color was such a perfect match I took all my pictures with the frog in plain sight and hadn't seen it.  Here's a less cropped version of the photo above where you can see the frog in the upper left corner.

He (or she) must have been groggy from the sun, and was a good deal easier to get an in-focus shot of than the bumblebees.

Exploring the continental divide

I'm always on the lookout for a reason to take a road trip, and I was pretty sure I had a good one this time.  The western edge of Minnesota is a straight line from north to south, but there's a spot where the line deviates, bulging nearly ten miles westward into South Dakota.  Looking at it on a map, I got to wondering why this place was so important to the founders of Minnesota -  what was there?   I further discovered that a major geographical feature, the north/south continental divide, was located there, near a small town named Browns Valley.  Intrigued, I set out to see this for myself.

That was five years ago.  It's a long drive out there; with a little meandering, it ended up being a day-long project, and about 450 miles of driving in all.  But I never saw the continental divide.

Part of the problem is that I didn't know exactly where it was before I made the trip.  I just assumed Browns Valley would embrace a landmark like that, maybe putting up signs saying "North/South Continental Divide" with an arrow pointing toward it, and erect a monument on the spot itself.  I've seen numerous bronze roadside plaques around the state marking much lesser landmarks, so surely the continental divide deserves one.

But no.  I saw a few interesting buildings in the town, including a Carnegie library.  But I hadn't officially seen the continental divide.

Recently I decided to try again.  A Google search pulled up a map with "Continental Divide Historical Marker" at a spot inside the town of Browns Valley, conveniently located within a block of the main highway through town.  Now I knew where to look.

I talked to my dad about the project, and it turns out he had tried to find it too, and had also been unsuccessful.  With better preparation I was sure I'd find it this time.  He decided to join me for the trip.

It was a perfect summer day.  Highway 7, the route we took to Browns Valley, winds along Big Stone Lake, which is the source of the Minnesota River.  Rolling terrain, lake views, and bright sunshine.

We got to Browns Valley around 11:00.  I turned off at 2nd Street, where the monument was supposed to be located, and we searched the eight block length of it without finding anything.  No panic, though, the day was still young.

I had seen a wayside rest on our way into town, but had ignored it.  Now it occurred to me that it might have had a sign or a map... some clue, something helpful.  We drove back to it and pulled in.  It turned out to be a marker unrelated to the continental divide, and in my disappointment I didn't bother to finish reading it.  I pulled out my printed Google map and discovered we should have turned on 2nd Avenue, not 2nd Street.

We drove back into town and found the place indicated on the map.  There's a small campground there, and south of it, where the monument was supposed to be - homes.  That didn't seem right.  Thinking the monument might be in a vacant lot between one of the homes, we drove up the street, then made a u-turn and looked again.  Nothing.

I did a second u-turn and pulled into the parking lot at the park so we could regroup.  I had taken my dog Scout along on the trip and I thought both of us could use a rest room break.  Dad laid out the maps on the hood of the car and looked at them while I walked Scout.

After some head scratching, it occurred to me that maybe the map was slightly off, that maybe the monument was further south, maybe just on the other side of the houses.  We got in the car, drove until we found a connecting street, and then searched some more.  A couple blocks down was a large fenced-in area, with a historic log cabin and another building that looked like an old schoolhouse or church - and near those, a stone and bronze monument seven feet tall.  Surely that was the spot.

When we pulled up in front of it, we read the sign over the gate:  "Sam Brown Memorial Park".  A monument to the town founder.  But the location roughly matched the map, and what better spot for a park like this than the continental divide?  That would make the park doubly significant.  We proceeded to explore the place.  We read every sign and plaque, and even peeked in the windows of the log cabin.  No mention of the continental divide.

Not the continental divide

It was clearly time to find a person who lived in the town and ask them where the continental divide monument is located.  I drove to a gas station and went inside and asked the clerk.  She told me to proceed west of town on the highway and that the it would be located at the base of a hill, on the right hand side of the road.  The location she gave me was a mile west of the location shown on my Google map, and not in town at all.  So... my map had not been all that helpful, really.

We drove west on the highway and saw a roadside parking lot on the right side of the road at the base of a hill, just as the clerk had described.  Eureka!

The spot turned out to be a boat launch, though.  No monument.

We didn't even come to a stop, just turned around and got back on the highway.  Not a hundred yards west of the boat launch, there stood a brown road sign on wooden posts.  It was so badly faded from sun exposure it was a little hard to see, much less read.  No wonder I'd missed it on my previous try.  And not so much as a parking space next to it.  I pulled to the shoulder and switched on the four-way flashers so we could jump out and get pictures.

You'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth the trip.

North / South Continental Divide

Insect macro photography

There seemed to be an unusually large number of dragonflies and monarch butterflies down by the lake today.  I got the idea to haul out my underutilized Fujinon 60mm f/2.4 macro lens and see if I could get some nice closeups.

The 60mm is one of the few prime lenses I have.  I got it back in February when Fujifilm had their lens sale going on and I could get a new one for less than a used one typically goes for - a very nice deal.

I did some test shots with the 60mm shortly after I got it, and it's wonderfully sharp.  It was a typical indoor setup, stationary subject, camera on a tripod, using the remote release, basically stacking the odds in favor of a sharp photo.

Fuji XF 60mm f/2.4, 1/125 sec. at f/3.6, ISO 200 SOOC JPG (cropped).

Sadly, it's not the fastest focusing lens in the Fuji lineup.  So it wasn't ideally suited for capturing flying insects.  It doesn't have image stabilization either, so I used a monopod.  Inevitably, though, by the time I got the monopod into position at the right height, leaned in close enough to do a proper macro shot, and either waited for autofocus to zero in or focused manually, either a breeze would sway the subject's perch out of focus or the subject would fly away.

So I switched over to the 55-200mm.  It has image stabilization built in so I was able to dispense with the monopod and get into position more quickly.  Autofocus worked great in the bright sunlight.

The insects must have been feeling cooperative.  They happily ignored me, and I could swear some were even posing.  I was able to fire off over a hundred shots, the great majority of which were in focus.  The quality of the lenses combined with the sensor in the X-E2 captures a really nice level of detail for a compact(ish) camera.

Cooperative butterfly sitting at just the right angle, in the sun.
Fuji XF 55-200, 1/300 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 200 (cropped).

Dragonfly closeup.
Fuji XF 55-200,  1/400 sec. at f 5.6, ISO 200 (cropped).

Rainy Day at the Arboretum

We made a trip to the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this morning.  It had been raining all morning and the skies were still gray when we headed out.

Walking in, we saw some wild turkeys near the parking lot.  In the last few years these seem to be rebounding in number, or at least in willingness to show up in public places where I don't expect to see them.

My concern about the gray skies turned out to be unfounded.  The light was fine (with a little boost from flash) and the raindrops provided added visual interest.

The Arboretum has a nice mix of plantings and public spaces.  This is the arched entry into the rose gardens.

Not far away is a Japanese garden and the hosta garden.  Pleasant trails and places to rest throughout.

This summer there's a special Nature in Glass exhibition that showcases the glass sculptures of Craig Mitchell Smith.

And since the tour started with wildlife, I'll end with wildlife.  This chipmunk was good enough to pose on a rock.

Heavy rain, flooded lake

The June rain has been so heavy the lakes are unusually high.  We've lived here for twenty years and never seen Lotus Lake this high - the dock is actually under water.

That didn't deter some of the local fishermen, though.  We were walking Scout and when I saw this scene, I ran back home (literally) and got the camera.  Honest, this is not a staged shot.