Photography News Issue 56

Long-term test 32

Photography News | Issue 56 | photographynews.co.uk

Nikon D850 It took a while but an ultra-high-resolution Nikon DSLR was announced last July. So, was the wait worth it? It certainly got great reviews at the time, but how about after 10,000 shots?

Words and images byWill Cheung

10,000 pictures for an enthusiast photographer is a lot in six months but in that time I have done a couple of trips abroad and a fair few miles around England andWales, so I have had plenty of chances to shoot. To be honest, I think I have only scratched the camera’s potential. For example, apart from when I was testing the camera, I haven’t tried any focus stacking nor have I shot fast action at seven frames-per-second or any 4K movies. But the camera has been sand-blasted and covered by sea spray several times, rained on (also several times) and endured sub-zero temperatures in Norway for hours at a time, and (touch wood) it is living up to its promise – mostly. To make the most of a high- resolution sensor you need suitably high-spec lenses and if you flick through the camera’s brochure the Nikon lenses used, as you’d expect, are top-end primes and zooms. There did seem to be an initial lack of clarity from Nikon about which lenses were needed to make the most of the camera’s 45.4 megapixels. Nikon’s global website currently lists 40 recommended lenses which does not include the 50mm f/1.4G or 70- 300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR, both of which I own and know perform well on the D800/D810. The odd thing is the recommended list includes optics like the 16-35mm f/4 G ED VR and personally I wouldn’t recommend that lens for anything unless it is stopped down to f/8. Just to cloud the lens issue, on page 285 of the instruction manual there is the mention of the possibility of fog with some VR Nikon lenses at high ISO settings or during long exposures, and they are not recommended for such shots. This list includes some lenses also on the list of those recommended for the D850. For example, my favoured travel zoom the 24-120mm f/4G ED VR is on both lists. The long and the short of it is that I used lenses that I normally use, which by pure coincidence happen to be the four lenses I’ve mentioned, plus the 14-24mmf/2.8GED for some aurora shots and my old 24-70mm f/2.8G ED. So, I did shoot with the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 and tried the 24- 120mm f/4 (with VR off, of course) at exposuresuptoeightminutes long, in daylight and at night. Any problems? Not really, I had no fogging issues with the last-named but I didmanage some blurry shots with the telezoom

Above No signs of fogging in this Venetian night shot taken with an exposure of 8secs at f/8 and ISO 200 taken with Nikon’s 24-120mm f/4. Highlight and shadow control was done in Lightroom.

but that was me using shutter speeds where I knew shake was going to be a risk, so this was user error. Typically, whenever I used the D850, I tried to keep handheld shutter speeds at 1/125sec or higher and often used Gitzo or Nova carbon- fibre full-size tripods. I did buy an Arca-Swiss D850 compatible L-plate for this purpose. All in all, I was pleased with the results I got. I processed Raws (14- bit, lossless compressed) through Lightroom and with either default or no sharpening at all. Noise reduction was generally set to zero too. Where I did use some noise reduction with some ISO 1600 shots the result was very pleasing. Pulling in highlights and recovering shadows from Raws worked really well. Strong highlights could be recovered without any of the grey veiling or strange contrast you get with someRaw formatswhile deep shadows came back without any noise being added. I do exposure bracket in high contrast situations – with suitable subjects of course – so I can HDR merge the files in software later and I

think I will still do that when, say, the sun is in the frame, but the D850’s Raws generally have great editing flexibility. With full file sizes measuring 8256x5504pixels, prints at 300ppi measure 69.8x46.5cm (27.5x18.3in)

Where I did use some noise reduction with some ISO 1600 shots the result was very pleasing