Instead Nikon P900 (1 Viewer)

Hello everyone ,

I need your help.
I want to change my P900 and need good advice.

Usually I'm photographing birds over river , distance 60-200 meters. (196-656 feet)
Will I make mistake if I buy dslr and Sigma 150-600 contemporary ?
Can I have better photo quality on croped photo on this distance then with P1000 ?
By dslr I'm thinking on some entry level camera.

If not my second option is Nikon P1000 even if quality will not be as with dslr.

Thank you in advance.

Your asking a lot from any camera at that distance, i dont think i have ever done it.

Your P900 goes out to 2000mm. Is that where you normally shoot it? Are you cropping? The thing to do is figure out what 35mm equivalent focal length you need. Take one of your shots at 2000mm and figure out how much you're cropping it (a linear crop, such as measured horizontally if you preserve the aspect ratio). If you knock off, say, 25% of the horizontal, that's a 1/0.75 = 1.3x crop, so your effective focal length is 2000 * 1.3 = 2660mm.

A d7200 with 600mm lens is 900mm equivalent @ 24 MP. to get to 2000mm, you need a 2.22x crop, so you would be down to 4.86 MP. If you shoot raw and low enough ISO and fast enough shutter, you can get some good images at 5MP, but they won't have the detail of the p900 at 16 MP. There's lots of things that go into image quality than the number of pixels, but 5MP is getting rather low.

If you are shooting at 2000mm all the time and still cropping, I'd try the P1000 that gives you 3000mm optical zoom with the same size sensor and same 16MP. I'd also use a tripod with a decent fluid head or gimbal. Shooting at those focal lengths is like a small telescope -- it needs a solid support unless shooting at high shutter speeds.

I don't think M43 would help much here. A 20MP with 400mm lens is only 800mm, so you are down to 3.2MP at 2000mm.

Now, if you're missing shots because the AF doesn't work well or the camera is too slow or the JPEG files are too smoothed over, or you need more ISO range, then a highly cropped DSLR might help (though the P1000 w/ raw would fix JPEG problems).

So in summary: I doubt a reasonably priced DSLR + 150-600 lens will give you substantial improvement (if any) versus the P900 shooting at 2000mm. The P1000 seems like likely upgrade.

I should go do some tests. My girlfriend has the P900 and I have the DSLR + 150-600. Don't hold your breath, but I'll try a shootout when I have time.

Marc

Ok, I broke down and did the comparison.

https://tear.com/2019/09/z7-p900-em5m2-long-range-compare

Samples A, B, and C were taken with different camera/lens combos. They were shot at 1/2000, 1/1250, and 1/640 (1/500 in one case). There is a decoder table on the page to tell you which sample is which camera.

Alphabetically, they are:

Nikon P900 at 2000mm, f/6.5 shot hand held.
Nikon Z7 with Tammy 150-600 G2 at 600mm, f/6.3 full frame shot hand held.
Olympus E-M5m2 with Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-s, f/11 shot on tripod with cable release.

I uploaded them into Capture One (which I'm just trialing right now) and did auto exposure correction, but did not do anything with noise reduction or color balance. I saved them as 100% jpeg.

Which do you like the best?

marcsantacurz said:

Ok, I broke down and did the comparison.

https://tear.com/2019/09/z7-p900-em5m2-long-range-compare

Samples A, B, and C were taken with different camera/lens combos. They were shot at 1/2000, 1/1250, and 1/640 (1/500 in one case). There is a decoder table on the page to tell you which sample is which camera.

Alphabetically, they are:

Nikon P900 at 2000mm, f/6.5 shot hand held.
Nikon Z7 with Tammy 150-600 G2 at 600mm, f/6.3 full frame shot hand held.
Olympus E-M5m2 with Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AI-s, f/11 shot on tripod with cable release.

I uploaded them into Capture One (which I'm just trialing right now) and did auto exposure correction, but did not do anything with noise reduction or color balance. I saved them as 100% jpeg.

Which do you like the best?

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for advise and samples.
I also saw photos with Nikon D850, 800mm. Can have only hope that will have this set one day .

Also because of costs I not consider about Z7.

Maybe Nikon P1000 would be best for me because I will have 1000mm more on optical zoom comparing P900 and also there is ring for manual focus and RAW also.

If they only inserted biger sensor on P1000

Once again thank you very much for your help.

Matko

These are my conclusions from doing the test:

• The P900 is ok at this range. I think stopped down a little it would have done better too. A tripod would likely have helped too.
• The Z7 was not very good w/ the Tammy. I keep asking myself why I keep it. Rumors say there will be another AF update soon. For most people, the Z6 is a better wildlife camera anyway (or a Sony!).
• The d850 with Tammy did well too, though it is a small image compared to the P900. It was also stopped down to f/8.
• The d850 on the 800mm at f/11 did very well. I like these results the best of the lot. But it is a $2000 manual focus lens, so not very practical. And it weighs north of 10 pounds (4.5 kg) just for the lens, without the necessary tripod, gimbal head, and camera of course.

So, I think the P1000 would have done very well compared to the other things I shot. 77m (252ft) is a long way out there. I've taken photos of large birds like red tail hawks and egret and heron at that distance with a DSLR (d500 or d850) plus a 150-600 and they are OK, but highly cropped.

Marc

Hi Marco, first off, you can now get the 1000 for about £700. Secondly, as a field/birding camera it is a big step up from the 900 in respects except weight and size. I have both and saw an immediate improvement in image quality, I dont shoot Raw,
I have “sold” 5 P1000’s to members of my birding club, simply by letting them try out and take shots mostly at around 75mtrs, all of these guys had DSLRs and various “long” lenses.
Now the down side.........there will be many times when you will feel disappointed with long shots, small birds on the ground, dashing about at 60mtrs for example. You can fill the frame and the camera will focus well enough
But many will be “not quite there”. On the up side you can get pretty good shots of pigeon sized birds 50 Mtrs, even up to 300mtrs if the light is good and the air is clear.
I have pointed out several times that the only real downside of the 1000 is that having such a long zoom means we tend to over use it, especially for BIF, I have to keep telling my self to “back off”
If you buy a 1000 then set the EVF brightness to highest and the image is much brighter than the default (same on the 900) , stabilising on Normal, although the jury is still out on that when taking long shots hand held. I tend to sit in a hide and use a clamp so switch the IS off and forget to switch it back on when using it hand held, and believe me, it does make a big difference.

Den

Crickey Marc that is some testing and so helpful to all who view it.Thanks for your time and effort in producing this info......really interesting.

poledark said:

Hi Marco, first off, you can now get the 1000 for about £700. Secondly, as a field/birding camera it is a big step up from the 900 in respects except weight and size. I have both and saw an immediate improvement in image quality, I dont shoot Raw,
I have “sold” 5 P1000’s to members of my birding club, simply by letting them try out and take shots mostly at around 75mtrs, all of these guys had DSLRs and various “long” lenses.
Now the down side.........there will be many times when you will feel disappointed with long shots, small birds on the ground, dashing about at 60mtrs for example. You can fill the frame and the camera will focus well enough
But many will be “not quite there”. On the up side you can get pretty good shots of pigeon sized birds 50 Mtrs, even up to 300mtrs if the light is good and the air is clear.
I have pointed out several times that the only real downside of the 1000 is that having such a long zoom means we tend to over use it, especially for BIF, I have to keep telling my self to “back off”
If you buy a 1000 then set the EVF brightness to highest and the image is much brighter than the default (same on the 900) , stabilising on Normal, although the jury is still out on that when taking long shots hand held. I tend to sit in a hide and use a clamp so switch the IS off and forget to switch it back on when using it hand held, and believe me, it does make a big difference.

Den

Click to expand...

Thanks , if I understood I should use manual setings , not bird mode !?

Matco, Bird mode is OK but I tend to use Shutter speed set at 1/1000 or more. This allows bursts of up to 7 same as Bird.
Regarding the "small birds on the ground at 75mtrs" I suspect all cameras would have a problem, depth of field and lack of contrast between the bird and the background. No probs on water though.
I use manual quite a lot because it is so easy to flick a switch with my thumb and twist the focus ring all without taking my eye off the EVF , for a birder this is very useful in trees and anywhere the target is flitting about in foliage.

Check out some of my images in Flikr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157749533@N08/

Den

poledark said:

Matco, Bird mode is OK but I tend to use Shutter speed set at 1/1000 or more. This allows bursts of up to 7 same as Bird.
Regarding the "small birds on the ground at 75mtrs" I suspect all cameras would have a problem, depth of field and lack of contrast between the bird and the background. No probs on water though.
I use manual quite a lot because it is so easy to flick a switch with my thumb and twist the focus ring all without taking my eye off the EVF , for a birder this is very useful in trees and anywhere the target is flitting about in foliage.

Check out some of my images in Flikr

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157749533@N08/

Den

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for answer.
Your photos make me sure I will replace P900 with P1000.
Also below each photo there are your setings so I will try on manual. :t:

Another satisfied customer :clap::clap:

Den

Two more questions:

Can I use UV filter as lens protection , will it have any afect on image quality ?

When I should and when I should not use hood on P1000 ?

Thanks in advance.

Cheap UV filters definitely degrade the product. There may in theory be a good one that does not -- Maybe.

Niels

Bit of a can of worms UV filters, i always use them, on my P900 i had a rubber lens hood all the time, it would fold back for wide-angle shots.