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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

83x anyone? The new Nikon P900 (1 Viewer)

I also bought a new memory card, a much faster one. Now the 7 frames / second burst mode takes 5 seconds instead of 9. I was using a class 4 memory card before and now I have a class 10 which writes as fast as 90mb/second.

Which makes me wonder why it takes 5 seconds. If each picture is about 3.5 megabytes and we multiply that by 7, we get 24.5 megabytes...let's round it off to 30 megabytes...per second. So in theory even a 30 mb/s memory card should be able to handle these pictures in one second. Why does a 90 mb/s take 5 seconds?

The key word is 'as fast as', which means it might achieve that speed when the planets align just so, but otherwise not.
The card speed ratings are painfully optimistic in most cases. The professional grade cards which carry huge price premiums have more realistic specs and often guarantee a minimum speed. Also note that there are different read standards, most with lower maximum speeds, so the camera may be limiting the throughput, not the card.
 
Looks pretty amazing specs although it also looks something of a beast - then again a bit of heft may make it better at the long end. Not sure though even in the best of conditions that you can hold a "x83" camera. Ideally my money would be on a camera with a 1" sensor and, say, x40/50 magnification .... but this has got to be worth a look!

They call that a V3 and 70-300cx :)
 
[...] so the camera may be limiting the throughput, not the card.

Seems so. The manual of the P900 lists various SDXC cards (Sandisk and others) that were tested and work in the camera, but nowhere mentions UHS-I. Just as the SX50 wasn't fit for UHS-I, so that it didn't really matter whether I used a mere class 10 or a 95 MByte/s card.
 
Seems I have to send mine back. Cannot get any thing even remotely sharp on the long end. There is this odd pattern to any specular highlight. I do not see that in other photos from the camera, must have gotten a bad one.
 
Took some more pictures today and only used the Birding mode. It's pretty good. It's still a bit dark but it's crazy how it doesn't appear dark on the display. Very misleading. I really gotta crank up the exposure tomorrow. But when the lighting is ideal (and I mean clear sky, sun right on the bird spectacular), it does a nice job.

Auto focus in birding mode is excellent, better than SX50. Quality is outstanding as well, also better than SX50. The zoom is slower than on the SX50, but the P900 turns on quicker and is ready to use quicker than the SX50. So it's almost a break-even in that aspect.

So overall I'm fairly pleased with the camera, it's not just a super-zoom...it actually is a great camera. I know it doesn't have RAW but I don't care about that...never use it.

On a negative note, I wasn't able to connect my phone to the camera. I do have a BlackBerry Passport so maybe that's why, even though I downloaded the Android app...perhaps the phone has to be a native Android device.

Oh well that's ok, but it would have been cool to share pics with the birding community as I'm birding, not just later when I get home. Right now I guess they'll just have to take my word for it. ;)
 
All these pictures are untouched:
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y469/Rotarren/DSCN0304_zpsaonryzps.jpg
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y469/Rotarren/DSCN0342_zpsp2jd1i9y.jpg
DSCN0346_zps3soge1yf.jpg
 
Seems I have to send mine back. Cannot get any thing even remotely sharp on the long end.

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried to set the noise reduction on "low"? This was a strict advice in a German forum from someone who has the P900 since March 18 and did some tests. It mirrors the results in the "Chip" test above, that the noise reduction is too aggressive.
 
Sorry to hear that. Have you tried to set the noise reduction on "low"? This was a strict advice in a German forum from someone who has the P900 since March 18 and did some tests. It mirrors the results in the "Chip" test above, that the noise reduction is too aggressive.

Yes I did, each specular highlight has multiple dots in it and a weird shape. Perhaps I have one with a bad IS system.
 
I think that this camera can be potentially spectacular. It's already taken some breath-taking images...under admittedly very good conditions, but it definitely surpassed the SX50.

And I think I can control the dark images by raising the exposure or shooting manually and softening the noise-reduction as well as increasing the D-Lighting. That also seemed to help.

I'll test these today and will post my results.
 
I've had my P900 for two days now but haven't been able to use it as much as I'd like to have. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic that it's a keeper. There are a few things that bother me, but I'm hoping to be able to work around them.
On the plus side; the zoom range is simply spectacular and autofocus is fast and accurate. The camera's big, but it's comfortable in the hand, not unwieldy. IQ seems good but conditions here have been pretty poor, so I'm withholding judgement there.
On the negative side; other than AF, performance is slow. Zooming is slow, snap-back is slow and buffering is slow. When using HS burst, buffering time seems to be about a second per shot. So if you take 3 shots you wait 3 seconds, 5 shots 5 seconds, etc. This is a lot faster than the P600, but still annoying when the bird you're shooting is cooperating, but you're waiting on the camera.
Unfortunately, tomorrow looks to be another gloomy day, but I'll take and post some pics as soon as I can.
 
I think that this camera can be potentially spectacular. It's already taken some breath-taking images...under admittedly very good conditions, but it definitely surpassed the SX50.

And I think I can control the dark images by raising the exposure or shooting manually and softening the noise-reduction as well as increasing the D-Lighting. That also seemed to help.

I'll test these today and will post my results.

Always check histograms in the field. Bright lcd screens can easily fool you, making you think the exposure is ok. The histogram should tell the truth!

cheers

Pete
 
Got my hands on a p900 briefly today. Very impressed with the IS - no jumping around at full optical zoom and no pesky button to fumble for. Yes the zoom was a little slower than the sx60 but it's zooming out a lot further. IQ seems really good, myself and the salesmen took some shots then zoomed them in and I was very surprised at the quality.

It's a big beast but shorter and lighter than my dslr with 75-300 zoom, though the lens is much bigger around than any other bridge I've seen. It feels nice in the hand and the size and weight wouldn't put me off.

I don't like the buffering speed and didn't have the chance to try video out. Looking out for other users videos on line now.

Cheers,

Phil
 
Got my hands on a p900 briefly today. Very impressed with the IS - no jumping around at full optical zoom and no pesky button to fumble for. Yes the zoom was a little slower than the sx60 but it's zooming out a lot further. IQ seems really good, myself and the salesmen took some shots then zoomed them in and I was very surprised at the quality.

It's a big beast but shorter and lighter than my dslr with 75-300 zoom, though the lens is much bigger around than any other bridge I've seen. It feels nice in the hand and the size and weight wouldn't put me off.

I don't like the buffering speed and didn't have the chance to try video out. Looking out for other users videos on line now.

Cheers,

Phil

I agree with your post. Great quality and incredible IS on such a crazy zoom. And yes the buffer does kinda bother me as well. I might try to go for a 150mb/s sd card to see if that makes a difference.

It's still better than the SX50 and I still got by. The SX60 is great though, the nice buffer on that one and continuous burst almost made me keep it. But it just wasn't good enough on all the other fronts.

I do feel that the P900 is probably a keeper. Especially since I'm planning a couple of trips later this year and I do want the best tool to snap pics with for ID purposes.
 
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This camera does not offer great low-light performance. May keep my SX50 for that.

This doesn't sound good. I was hoping that the P900 would beat the SX50 in its "winter performance". In other respects I am still quite satisfied with the SX50, was actually planning to buy a P900 in November 2015 or so, for a lower price.

User experiences seem mixed, e.g. "even in optimum condition image quality was at best only average", seen here: http://blog.digitaldepot.co.uk/?p=2515
 
I bought the camera on Saturday night, being an owner of Canon SX30, SX50 and SX60, I was expecting great results. Well on Sunday I had 3 occasions where the camera refused to switch on properly ( strange things going on in the LCD screen) I only solved the problem by taking the battery out and re-inserting it. The camera will be going to Nikon for replacement, it is strange that with all the PowerShots I have owned I have never had a problem.

Anyway I did get to take some shots for anybody interested

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jingbar/sets/72157649311876104/

Bob
 

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Zoom example

Thought those thinking about getting this camera might like to see an example of it's zoom power. These 4 pics were all taken from the same location, I'm guessing about a half mile from the truck in the last shot.
 

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This doesn't sound good. I was hoping that the P900 would beat the SX50 in its "winter performance". In other respects I am still quite satisfied with the SX50, was actually planning to buy a P900 in November 2015 or so, for a lower price.

User experiences seem mixed, e.g. "even in optimum condition image quality was at best only average", seen here: http://blog.digitaldepot.co.uk/?p=2515

Careful, I think you took that quote a bit out of context. In the review he seemed to be referring to the IQ @ full 83x zoom: " I simply found the incredible zoom didn’t always deliver the goods, wasn’t always useable and even in optimum condition image quality was at best only average."

And to be honest, he's right...but that's how it goes for any megazoom camera...you're never going to get good image quality at maximum zoom. In my opinion, that's not even what it's for. The zoom is there for a quick snap of something distant that you can't quite identify. It's a tool to bring distant birds closer, help with ID and get proof of sighting.

In my opinion the image quality at normal zooms is fantastic...if a bit on the dark side...but I suppose playing with settings and photo-editing software can help out with the darkness.
 
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