The P1000 is big (1 Viewer)

Happy with these

A few more from Monday, all about 30yds. Wren and Stonechat 2000mm 1/500 F6.3, Lapwing 1600mm 1/500 F6.3 all handheld

Sitting waiting for more chances at the Whinchat and spotted a tiny bird on the left, swung camera, half press shutter, focus achieved, click. Must admit to some surprise when viewing at home.

If I can replicate that all the time I will be a happy man.

Den

Looking good Den.....im tempted to get the 1000.

Cheers Neil, I have to say that reducing those images does them no justice. The Wren for example; friends who have received the images by email have all commented that "even zoomed in to fill the screen" it was still sharp.

Camera set to P mode, NR Normal, metering Centre weighted, Target finding AF, AF full time.

Having been a fan of Auto, trusting that Nikon know best, I am beginning to understand that sometimes a tweak here or there can help and with your expertise "who knows"

Den

I know what you mean about the image reduction.....it doesn't do the mighty nikons any justice at all.It seems to me that you are certainly taming the 1000......it's producing some lovely shots.

Hello all,

I have to admit I'm a bit lazy and reviewing this whole thread is a bit of work. Now that the P1000 has been out for a while, how would you grade it? For perching/stationary? For BIF? At 1000mm or 3000mm? How well does it crop at the ISOs you shoot at?

I've used a P900 casually and it was ok and it cropped a little, but overall I was willing to pay the weight for a DSLR + tamron 150-600 g2 for the added quality. I can crop the DSLR + Tamron to effectively over 3000mm equivalent. Where do you think that balance is with the P1000? What effective focal length can you reasonably crop to?

Thank you!

Marc

Hi Marc, can't answer your question as I have never used a DSLR and long lens. What I can tell you is that the 1000 is capable of producing shots at 3000mm that do not need any cropping, as the birds fill the frame.

I have had mixed results with mine so far, can't seem to get a decent pic in my garden, failed dismally when I first took it out birding, but the last few sessions have produced some (for me) brilliant shots, some of them have even impressed hardened long lens DSLR men

And then of course you have to add in the 4k video and macro down to 5cm or so, and all in all, a superb all round camera.
Birds in flight really don't do it for me, waving a camera about firing off bursts of shots and hoping for 1 good one is not my scene, I prefer to creep about quietly looking in the undergrowth/bushes/trees and spotting and getting a shot at various distances. I also sit and wait a lot
The 1000 can operate at F6.3 at 2000mm very effectively, one of the main reasons I went for it after my 900. There is no doubt at all that the much larger lens lets in more light, so can operate at wider apertures than the 900. Yes it does shut down to F8 at 3000mm, a point that many "professional" reviewers keep stressing, most don't mention the simple "1 click and turn the dial" manual focus, which can be done without taking your eye off the superb EVF.

If your only concern is to get that one extra special super sharp image then stick with a DSLR and separate lenses, they can look very impressive when walking about or resting on a bean bag in a hide, and to be honest, had I lots of cash to spare I may well have gone down that route myself some years ago, but having purchased a Sony FD185 (the first digital camera) with a 10x zoom I was hooked. I then went to video cameras due to the long zooms of 20X and then 30X and extracting stills from the video, then stuck an 80mm scope on the front.

When the Nikon 8800 came out I went for it and was well happy used it for a few years and sold it to help buy the 900 (which I still have) but when the 1000 came on the market I dug a bit deep and took the plunge, £1000 is a lot of money to me, but money well spent.

Sorry to go on a bit, really what I am trying to say is that "getting the shot" is more important than worrying technical issues, and the 1000 will get the shot in almost any situation you are likely to come across.

I only view my pics on a computer screen, albeit a very good screen, or pics for the album at 6"X 4" so even a just reasonable shot will be good enough. I don't pixel peep, or at least didn't until now now I am getting a bit obsessed with feather detail...……………...


Den

Hi Marc,
Here are two photos taken at around the same distance,one with a nikon d7200 and 200-500mm lens,the other with the p900,both images are cropped.Ultimately,a dslr will give you better quality up to a certain distance,after which the p900 and 1000 will equal the dslr and even beat it in certain instances.These images show larger optical zoom versus more cropping with the bigger sensor....which is best you can decide.You will always be better off with the dslr for bif shots.

Owl

Best of a big bunch today,

A lot to learn about this camera, seemed to freeze on the focus a couple of times while I was frantically waving it about and wildly pressing the shutter Missed a couple of really good chances when it perched 30 yds in front of me. I think I was not waiting for the buffer to clear and camera got confused and wouldn't refocus......

These were saved/ converted from Raw shots, next time I will take the pics with the dual setting taking Raw and JPEG at the same time (if that makes sense) Raw is not going to be much use for me, to much messing about converting back to Tiff or JPEG for very little gain in quality, but taking both types of image at the same time will give me the chance to directly compare the result.

But when I get it right the camera will do the job!

Den

Just goes to show that you can use a bridge camera for bif shots.....impressive first attempts.

poledark said:

These were saved/ converted from Raw shots, next time I will take the pics with the dual setting taking Raw and JPEG at the same time (if that makes sense) Raw is not going to be much use for me, to much messing about converting back to Tiff or JPEG for very little gain in quality, but taking both types of image at the same time will give me the chance to directly compare the result.
Den

Click to expand...

These are very good shots of a beautiful bird, especially when adjusting to a new (and heavy) camera. If you do have the opportunity for a BIF shot or two, keep in mind that taking both RAW and jpeg will fill the buffer faster, causing the camera to freeze (as you probably experienced).

Thanks for that BX (do you mind if I call you that ) Yes, that thought has occurred to me, especially after an hour or more fiddling about with the Raw shots.

Damned shame about the freezing up, Owl perched on a stake about 30yds in front and camera refused to focus (probably I had confused it), and you don't get time to start again.

Getting used to the size and bulk now, had no trouble finding and latching on to the Owl, so bodes well for the future.

If any of you are considering purchasing a 1000 bear in mind that most of the "so called experts" who have reviewed it, have failed to read the manual and failed to understand the AF/MF button and the focus ring!!!!. something as basic as that doesn't give much credence to the rest of their comments.

Den

poledark said:

These were saved/ converted from Raw shots, next time I will take the pics with the dual setting taking Raw and JPEG at the same time (if that makes sense) Raw is not going to be much use for me, to much messing about converting back to Tiff or JPEG for very little gain in quality, but taking both types of image at the same time will give me the chance to directly compare the result.

Click to expand...

The point of shooting RAWs is that you invariably get better results if you know how process the RAWs. And what's even more important, you can often rescue shots where something went wrong, eg. with the white balance, or if you didn't dial in exposure compensation when shooting against the sky.

Try Nikon NX-D for processing the RAWs. It's free, and the latest version (1.5.0) works very well.

Hermann

Hello Hermann, fully understand your comments, but have decided for the moment not to shoot in Raw. For the Owl pics I was firing off bursts of 7 shots with a super bird flying around in front of me for a few minutes giving me a wonderful chance to get loads of possibly very good shots, But the camera took so long to clear the buffer that I was trying to fire off the next batch as I got better and better views.

The EVF made keeping the bird in the frame very easy...chance of a lifetime......messed up by my over eagerness/inexperience with the camera and the camera freezing on me, My fault of course, but probably wouldn't have happened if I had just stuck to JPEG only.

The other thing is having to convert the pics before I can do anything with them. I had about 100+ shots to wade through, a job which is usually a pleasure became very tedious and took well over an hour, and I have been happy with good old Photoshop to enhance dodgy pics ( I get lots of practise at that )

So its stick with JPEG for me for now, sorry Nikon, and thanks for your advice Hermann

Den

2 subjects close to my heart....

P1000 vs DLSR - I do own an entry level DSLR and Sigma 150-600...carrying that combination is a job, in particular when I have also my binocs and I don't like staying in one place but walking the field, trek up the hills, etc. So the DSLR combo ends up taking away enjoyment to the activity which is my priority. I do use the DSLR when I know I will need it i.e. the shoot fast moving subjects or in low light conditions. The versatility of the P1000 at such a comparable light weight is unbeatable.

Raw - I can fully relate to Poledark. The additional quality that can be obtained from raws is not worth the additional effort required in PP. Fair enough if you like spending time in PP, it is just not my case. Having said that I do shoot jpeg&raw in tricky shooting conditions to have more options in PP in case I can not get anything decent from the jpeg.

Having said that, as/if my raw processing skills improve, I may get hooked into it.

Gzoladz74 said:

2 subjects close to my heart....

P1000 vs DLSR - I do own an entry level DSLR and Sigma 150-600...carrying that combination is a job, in particular when I have also my binocs and I don't like staying in one place but walking the field, trek up the hills, etc. So the DSLR combo ends up taking away enjoyment to the activity which is my priority. I do use the DSLR when I know I will need it i.e. the shoot fast moving subjects or in low light conditions. The versatility of the P1000 at such a comparable light weight is unbeatable.

Raw - I can fully relate to Poledark. The additional quality that can be obtained from raws is not worth the additional effort required in PP. Fair enough if you like spending time in PP, it is just not my case. Having said that I do shoot jpeg&raw in tricky shooting conditions to have more options in PP in case I can not get anything decent from the jpeg.

Having said that, as/if my raw processing skills improve, I may get hooked into it.

Click to expand...

The funny thing is, I do not see any difference in difficulty (actually it is easy!) editing raw vs jpg using ACDSee. I am pretty sure there are similar options in some adobe product where there is no real difference?

Niels

njlarsen said:

The funny thing is, I do not see any difference in difficulty (actually it is easy!) editing raw vs jpg using ACDSee. I am pretty sure there are similar options in some adobe product where there is no real difference?

Niels

Click to expand...

Ok good point, I didn't explain myself...the main consideration for me is that with jpeg I send the file directly to my tablet + Snapseed + done.

With raw, I need to send it to my PC (turn it on, cable connection, etc), edit it there and then export it, etc.

Just trying this out https://www.flickr.com/gp/157749533@N08/d8z47B

and have a look at this https://youtu.be/hPTyFrElY6Q

Den

Robin taken with a p900.I know this is a p1000 thread but the cameras produce similar results so this gives a good impression of what the cameras are capable of.Taken in low light at iso800 and handheld.....not too shabby.

Gzoladz74 said:

Raw - I can fully relate to Poledark. The additional quality that can be obtained from raws is not worth the additional effort required in PP. Fair enough if you like spending time in PP, it is just not my case. Having said that I do shoot jpeg&raw in tricky shooting conditions to have more options in PP in case I can not get anything decent from the jpeg.

Click to expand...

In tricky situations the difference between RAWs and jpegs is quite striking. And IME processing RAWs doesn't take more time than processing jpegs. On the contrary, in many cases processing RAWs is a heck of a lot faster, for instance when the camera didn't get the whitebalance right or you had to use high iso and want to clean up noise.

That said, shooting RAW+jpeg makes a lot of sense, at least in decent conditions. But doesn't it also mean your buffer gets smaller?

Hermann

Had one of those moments that make it all worthwhile yesterday. Spotted a Kestrel about 100yds away, set camera to infinity, zoomed out and got bird in frame, Kestrel swoops towards me and starts to hover about 20 ft directly above my head (I was wearing camo coat) "click click...click click and then it swooped down about 8 ft away from me, picked up something and flew off. Wonderful sight, just before it dropped I had a chance to say "hello bird"
https://www.flickr.com/photos/157749533@N08/45215584035/in/dateposted-public/

Den