A couple of questions about the D4?

jwicaksana said:
Yes I'd also like to hear your thoughts on this 😉
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Do you mean my thoughts? Well, most of what I do is product photography or my own fun photography. In the past I used Nikon "single digit" bodies and at the present I use a humble D7100 or I rent what I need for my product pictures. My fun stuff used to be mostly on film but recently is mostly...not really as much as I'd like. Now, recently I went back with full force to a old passion of mine which has revitalized my "photographic life": birding. I never gave it up but I just didn't go much in recent years. Here is where the problem lies. It seems to me that in recent years Nikon has mostly tried to push as many people into their FF cameras but they don't really sell a line of product which cover most needs at different level (like high def cheap, high def pro, fast cheap, fast pro etc). First of all every recent model seems to come out with some issue corrected later. Just a short list: SB900 flash overheat and stops (never admitted, corrected in the SB910), D800 with left focus and oil problem (same), D600 oil problem (never admitted corrected in the D610), D750 flare problem, 300mm VR with double image issues. So far the only one which don't seem to have problems are the single digit big guys. Also without taking into account the price simply it seems that there is not a "does it all" in their line, even if we accept a couple of limitations. The natural solution should be to have a D800E AND a D4 but that's a lot of money (and I live in South America, where the market is not really great). Canon with the EOS 7 ii has a cheapish fast and sealed camera which could be a good second body if I was in the Canon system but Nikon seem to have only the D4s. Well, not really original thoughts, and of course pictures come out with whatever we have, so not really important thought compared to the crucial facts of life (or even to the important fact of photography, like technique, inspiration, whatever). Just meditating on whether to put the money in the D4 and carry on with a prosumer body for my serious work when I don't rent (!!!), pass to Canon only for birds or simply not do anything and carry on without any "upgrade".

GLF
 
Keith said:
MotoX is an interesting sport to shoot ... picking out a rider as he goes though a corner or over a jump was simple with the D700's excellent AF but I often found myself looking at the image and regretting being late or early on the shot ... and these guys never seem to take the same line through a corner on subsequent or previous laps. I'll happily machine gun them at 10 FPS to get what I want! 😀
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I heard this to be called "spray and pray". 😀

GLF
 
giellaleafapmu said:
I heard this to be called "spray and pray". 😀

GLF
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Only if you're not sure the one you want will be in the burst! 😀

Seriously though - for stuff like MotoX as mentioned above, or archery - or even someone giving a speech at a podium, where that good facial expression can be elusive - 10 fps would solve a lot of problems!

I enjoyed your comments above about incremental fixes and the lack of a "do it all" solution. I would have thought of the D4, but then for really high pixel count landscapes printed very large, I guess it wouldn't be the right choice (D810 or *shudder* medium format?).

For me, with my limited experience and current DX (crop-sensor/roughly APS-C) glass, a D7100 or 7200 or whatever the current version is would be the best choice, considering price, internal AF motor and all the rest of it. That D4 was a lovely [EDIT - no it wasn't, it's really ugly IMHO - but lovely to use, heavy weight aside!] thing, though.

For your birding pursuits... ah, I have no good advice. Serious birders I know use things like that Sigma 150-500mm "Bigma", or similar. The f/2.8 glass is nice but horrendously expensive! Still, going to modern full frame lets you crank the ISO up a stop or more without worrying at all about noise... which lets you buy into much cheaper, and lighter, f/4 glass instead.

Sorry, way off topic now... OP, please let us know if you win that auction, or what other alternative you end up going with! 🙂
 
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rwintle said:
😀

Buy big cards! 🙂
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It comes with a 32 and 16 gig plus card reader .... that's a start if I win the auction!

Speaking of .... the damned thing's already two hundred dollars up on what it went for the first time around. I've set my maximum already and will just sit back and cross my fingers .... still a couple of days to go.

Ebay is a terrible trap .... my philosophy has always been to enter the price I'm willing to pay then stay away until it's over, to hell with the bidding wars. If you win you win .... if you don't there will always be another camera around the corner. 🙂
 
I used a D3 and D4 at my previous paper and loved them both. Frankly, though, the D3 a bit more. The files/images from the D3 just looked a bit cleaner and the white balance was a bit better, in my opinion for what I was doing.

But, when the time came to upgrade my personal camera, I went with the D4S and haven't looked back. I originally looked at the D810 (it was probably pixel envy), but opted for the D4S instead. The build quality, twice the expected life of the shutter and the size/weight (I'm a big guy, big hands, need big camera) sold me.

The D4S is crazy fast, as is the D4. I don't think you could go wrong with the D4, particularly if you're shooting motocross racing. Depending on the lens, shouldn't have any problem keeping up. Good luck.
 
rwintle said:
Only if you're not sure the one you want will be in the burst! 😀

For me, with my limited experience and current DX (crop-sensor/roughly APS-C) glass, a D7100 or 7200 or whatever the current version is would be the best choice, considering price, internal AF motor and all the rest of it. That D4 was a lovely [EDIT - no it wasn't, it's really ugly IMHO - but lovely to use, heavy weight aside!] thing, though.

For your birding pursuits... ah, I have no good advice. Serious birders I know use things like that Sigma 150-500mm "Bigma", or similar. The f/2.8 glass is nice but horrendously expensive! Still, going to modern full frame lets you crank the ISO up a stop or more without worrying at all about noise... which lets you buy into much cheaper, and lighter, f/4 glass instead.

Sorry, way off topic now... OP, please let us know if you win that auction, or what other alternative you end up going with! 🙂
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Small birds are also incredibly fast and humming birds are just near impossible to catch using the eye and finger alone. Or, better said, you can but you don't know wings position, whether the eyes are open or closed, nothing. In fact you need to get into flash technique proper to high speed photography to try and "freeze" them.

As for the lens, Sigma now has updated the "Bigma" with two new lenses, both 150-600 zoom, one in "Contemporary" and the other in the "Sport" line. The first is around 1,100 US$, the second is around 2,000 US$. Never tried either but both have a good reputation and from what I heard are way better than the original "Bigma", plus AF can be fine-tuned at different focal lens with the dock. The f2.8 aperture is not really that important in my opinion. I have pictures of small birds caught with a 300mm f4 which where a miss because the focus was on the chest of the bird instead of the head. DOF is so small that really, whenever I can, I close a few stops down, and if you want to use them with a teleconverter you are down again to not so bright lenses.
I don't even care for fast AF, what I think is indispensable is that the focus is sure and that you have a big buffer. The D7100 stops after just about 7 raw, even in 1.3x mode and with 12bit files and that's really annoying.

Ah, for whatever else I find it to be just great. Sure, it is not a pro body but for most application you cannot say this by looking at the files it produces.

As for big expensive glasses, they are nice but you can live without them. Also, if you really need that flourite, electronic iris, 400mm f2.8, it will cost you like a car but I bet that in a few years you can sell it at about the same price you payed it new. That's what usually happens with these exotic glasses. Not sure why, I always thought that few are produced and mostly are used and abused by sport photographers so the nice ones, which were kept by private owners and protected with LensCoat neoprene sleeves become almost impossible to find.

Ah, and for the OT...is there anything which is OT here? I mean, it is the "SLR - the unRF" section, we are not talking about potatoes...

GLF
 
Got home a few minutes ago to discover I am now the owner of a D4 .... the auction ended a couple of hundred dollars up on what I would have preferred but none the less I'm very pleased to get such a fine camera at around half what it cost new! 🙂
 
Keith said:
... but recently began photographing vintage motoX racing and will continue to do so for the next couple of years.
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The D4 will serve you well for motorsports. It's size and weight for this usage is not an issue. The lenses will be large as well... which means a monopod is required for survival.
 
when you get am XQD card, get the newest one Sony makes. Apparently they SMOKE, as in no buffer issues shooting NEFs with these. shoulda borrowed one from Nikon to try out
 
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