DSLR or M43 - help me please! (1 Viewer)

kb57 · Jun 10, 2016

PeteQuad said:
Since no one mentioned it - Tamron and Sigma both have a 150-600mm lens for either Canon or Nikon that is cheaper (<$1000) and has been getting excellent reviews. They are hand holdable but of course they are a lot more to carry around than a 300 + 1.4.

I can see these are both probably great lenses with a better price / performance balance than the PF, but portability is a key criteria for me - not necessarily really lightweight kit, but compact so I am not carrying round a long lens as well as my binoculars, scope and tripod.

kb57 · Jun 10, 2016

HermitIbis said:
Nikon DSLRs are noisy, I prefer the V2 - which (btw) has a solid grip that won't break. It is possible to operate the V2 with the right hand only. (-:

Postscript. To avoid confusion, with "noisy" DSLRs I don't mean noise as in ISO, but noise as in SONE. In 2014 a German magazine compared the noise generated by various camera models coming to results which clearly favoured, unsurprisingly, electronic shutters over the common DSLR shutters. For example, they measured for the Nikon D7000: 18 Sone (shutter noise) + 5 Sone (AF noise of the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 2,8/24-70 mm G ED).

And these old-style shutters do not only generate noise, they eventually break, every 130,000 clicks or so, with repair costs of 150 Euro or more. Electronic shutters don't.

I get exactly what you mean about noise, I'm sure many have experienced being in a hide / blind when a key bird has appeared and multiple shutters fire off multiple shots! It's far from quiet. I've turned off all the bleeps and clicks on my FZ200, and appreciate this is a physical impossibility in a DSLR. I guess if I went for a DSLR / 300 PF combo there is nothing to stop me adding a Nikon 1 plus adaptor in the future...its reassuring to know the v3 is robust, I just worry I may find it a little too small in my hands compared to a DSLR type body.

HermitIbis · Jun 10, 2016

In January I met another birder who had a Canon 5Diii (with a Tamron 150-600), and he was fond of the "silent mode" of that camera. Indeed, it was pretty quiet - at least in comparison to my consumer model 450D. It's a personal choice, and I'd rather sacrifice a little image quality than deter the occasional shy bird.

kb57 · Jun 15, 2016

After all my deliberations, last saturday morning found me visiting a colleague who lived dangerously close to a camera shop - London Camera Exchange in Gosforth (Newcastle on Tyne). I went in to have a look at the 300 f4 PF, not expecting them to also have a D7200 in stock...once I got them in my hands I was hooked. Haven't had much opportunity to get out in the field since weather was really bad here at the weekend, but what I've seen so far has blown me away, coming as I did from a bridge camera.
I held back on the TC1.4 until at least my next paycheque - I know reach will be an issue, but for now 450mm 35mill equivalent isn't so bad coming from a 600mm equivalent small-sensor camera, coupled with much better cropping ability. The following House Sparrow and Woodpigeon pics won't win any prizes, but were taken in poor light in the garden, and cropped down quite heavily. Practising with different settings on the coots at my work pond, but they'd contravene BirdForum's nest ban.
Thanks everyone, this has been an instructive debate - I think this will work for me, but others will draw different and equally legitimate conclusions about what works for them.

nikonmike · Jun 15, 2016

kb57 said:
After all my deliberations, last saturday morning found me visiting a colleague who lived dangerously close to a camera shop - London Camera Exchange in Gosforth (Newcastle on Tyne). I went in to have a look at the 300 f4 PF, not expecting them to also have a D7200 in stock...once I got them in my hands I was hooked. Haven't had much opportunity to get out in the field since weather was really bad here at the weekend, but what I've seen so far has blown me away, coming as I did from a bridge camera.
I held back on the TC1.4 until at least my next paycheque - I know reach will be an issue, but for now 450mm 35mill equivalent isn't so bad coming from a 600mm equivalent small-sensor camera, coupled with much better cropping ability. The following House Sparrow and Woodpigeon pics won't win any prizes, but were taken in poor light in the garden, and cropped down quite heavily. Practising with different settings on the coots at my work pond, but they'd contravene BirdForum's nest ban.
Thanks everyone, this has been an instructive debate - I think this will work for me, but others will draw different and equally legitimate conclusions about what works for them.

Congratulations,hope you have fun and ime sure you will.

fstop · Jun 16, 2016

kb57 said:
I held back on the TC1.4 until at least my next paycheque - I know reach will be an issue, but for now 450mm 35mill equivalent isn't so bad coming from a 600mm equivalent small-sensor camera, coupled with much better cropping ability. The following House Sparrow and Woodpigeon pics won't win any prizes, but were taken in poor light in the garden, and cropped down quite heavily. Practising with different settings on the coots at my work pond, but they'd contravene BirdForum's nest ban.

I think that you made a choice that will be a good fit for you. There's usually more to a picture than meets the eye with an image straight from the card, usually they need to be tweaked a bit, which is why I would encourage you to shoot in RAW format if you don't already.
I was curious, so I took the liberty of some very light "tweaking". I hope you don't mind. It's a good sharp lens. I think you did quite well getting the feel of things. Again, best of luck, I look forward to seeing more of your images as time goes on.

nikonmike · Jun 16, 2016

I notice on the sparrow you used iso 100,the thing with the D7200 is dont be afraid of the higher iso,it will handle it,a sample at 1400 iso,i ran mine on auto iso upto 3200.
The duck is 1400 the crow 3200,ime not saying use it all the time but on auto iso it will only go to the limit if it needs to.

nikonmike · Jun 16, 2016

Tried to add this but it didnt work,3200 iso on the D7200

kb57 · Jun 16, 2016

Thanks Mike & fstop for the advice and comments , much appreciated. I have started shooting in RAW - in fact I'd started with the FZ200, but I must admit I really have a lot to learn with post-processing - so I set up the D7200 to write RAW to one card, jpeg to the other. I've also downloaded the Nikon DX-D software to get me started - I had been using Raw Therapee with the FZ200 but found it a bit complex, and difficult to really improve on the JPEGs.
I hadn't figured out how to change the ISO settings when I took my 'spuggy' picture - I later switched to auto ISO with a 3200 maximum value (thanks Mike, its good to know that is a reasonable limit). I then took a picture of a coot and chick in poor light in aperture priority mode, finding the camera was selecting too low a shutter speed, rather than boosting the ISO. The next evening, with better light, I switched to manual mode so I could set both aperture and shutter speed and allowed the ISO to do its own thing - much easier than my old 35mm days! Weather forecast seems better for the weekend so I'm planning on spending a lot more time getting to grips with it, and will hopefully be able to post some more pictures.

nikonmike · Jun 16, 2016

To be honest you could set and i have on occasion the upper limit to 12800,the reason being if you always use the slowest shutter speed and the widest aperture you can it would only go that high when your in the any picture is better than none situation.
Not suggesting you do it until your relaxed with the gear but try it some time when the light is poor.

Winterdune · Jun 16, 2016

fstop said:
so I took the liberty of some very light "tweaking"

Sorry but the 'tweaking' looks awful on my monitor!
Sean

fstop · Jun 16, 2016

seanofford said:
Sorry but the 'tweaking' looks awful on my monitor!
Sean

My monitor is calibrated to my light, monitor and output so there will be a lot of room for others to see very different things. I wasn't trying to make a work of art -it isn't my work, it was a quick and dirty application without worrying about settings. I was just curious what definition was in there and it showed a pretty sharp lens. Color-wise, it probably looks way too saturated for your monitor. Bottom line, getting away from what my quick rendition is, or is not, the important thing is the OP captured a nice image and should be happy with the sharpness of his lens. This has gotten off topic, my apologies, and a return to where it belongs, a discussion of the OP's samples and new camera experience.

Winterdune · Jun 16, 2016

Agreed - nice lens and nice setup. I am agonising over a similar upgrade so this thread is helpful!

rka · Jul 5, 2016

If portability and reach are key and willing to sacrifice a bit of sensor area, m43 is a good option. 600mm lens eq on DSLR lens size larger than 600mm eq on m43. You may also want to look at recent crop of high end bridge cameras with 1 inch sensors (e.g. RX 10 iii).

kb57 said:
I've currently got a bridge camera (Pana FZ200), which is great for portability and reach (600mm 35mm equivalent) and can take surprisingly good bird photos in the right circumstances, but can't match IQ of a DSLR.
I've 'rangefinder' style camera vs. chunkier DSLR / superzoom, and some talk of AF not being so good...
At the risk of starting a DSLR vs M43 bunfight, what do others think?

kb57 · Jul 17, 2016

D7200 - 300mm PF

Hi everyone,

I did promise some pictures once I got the hang of my camera - I've not been on BF for a while - I've started a flickr page with some of my efforts to date:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinbarrypics/

I have to say after a couple of weeks using the camera and lens the upgrade in quality from the superzoom is enormous, I'm getting reasonable images with quite heavy crops, and when I can get uncropped or light crops the quality (technical not artistic, lol!) is great.

I've also surprised myself by starting to shoot in manual mode with auto ISO up to a 3200 limit - some may say I need to reduce that for quality, but it has enabled me to use high shutter speed / reasonable d.o.f. combos to capture birds in flight. I'm pleased I didn't get a cheaper camera and buy a 1.4xTC, that may come later, but for a novice BIF photographer it is difficult enough to get gulls and terns in the frame at 300mm!

Thanks again for all the advice,

Kevin

nikonmike · Jul 17, 2016

kb57 said:
Hi everyone,

I did promise some pictures once I got the hang of my camera - I've not been on BF for a while - I've started a flickr page with some of my efforts to date:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinbarrypics/

I have to say after a couple of weeks using the camera and lens the upgrade in quality from the superzoom is enormous, I'm getting reasonable images with quite heavy crops, and when I can get uncropped or light crops the quality (technical not artistic, lol!) is great.

I've also surprised myself by starting to shoot in manual mode with auto ISO up to a 3200 limit - some may say I need to reduce that for quality, but it has enabled me to use high shutter speed / reasonable d.o.f. combos to capture birds in flight. I'm pleased I didn't get a cheaper camera and buy a 1.4xTC, that may come later, but for a novice BIF photographer it is difficult enough to get gulls and terns in the frame at 300mm!

Thanks again for all the advice,

Kevin

Your doing really well great images,if you find you can drop the shutter speed a bit your ISO will go down,will admit never shot terns but i didnt need to go above 1/2000th.

kb57 · Jul 19, 2016

nikonmike said:
Your doing really well great images,if you find you can drop the shutter speed a bit your ISO will go down,will admit never shot terns but i didnt need to go above 1/2000th.

Thanks for kind comments - I'll experiment with a lower ISO limit and 1/2000th - I was starting high with the shutter speed on the premise that my handholding / panning technique wasn't going to be great at first.

DSLR or M43 - help me please! (1 Viewer)

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