{"id":466,"date":"2012-03-31T20:05:56","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T18:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/?p=466"},"modified":"2012-03-31T20:05:56","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T18:05:56","slug":"my-first-bird-photos-with-nikon-d800-and-600mm-f4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/en\/2012\/03\/31\/my-first-bird-photos-with-nikon-d800-and-600mm-f4\/","title":{"rendered":"My First (Bird) Photos with Nikon D800 and 600mm f4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only few talked about it being good for wildlife, most said it’s only for landscape, architecture or studio. Many would have preferred a lower pixel count<\/a> and questioned whether it’s going to be of any use. But when shooting birds, especially small song birds, you never get close enough or can have enough pixels. So I didn’t listen, took the risk and pre-ordered mine on the day it was announced, the new Nikon D800.<\/p>\n

In the meantime its sensor got tested by DxOMark and became their new king<\/a>. Two days ago mine came by mail. I took some test shots to see if some of my lenses needed AF fine tuning<\/a>, already that revealed how good the camera will perform. It also showed what an incredibly sharp lens the 600mm f4 VR is (see photos further down on page). Yesterday and today I went out to test it and came back with a few shots of a male and female Goosander (Mergus merganser<\/em>). After looking at the results, pixel peeping included,\u00a0 I am a very, very happy and excited new Nikon D800 owner. But see and peep for yourself:<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Uncropped photo of Merganser (Mergus merganser) taken with the new Nikon D800 and the 600mm VR f4. You have 7360 x 4912 pixels available for cropping!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Cropped photo of a female Goosander (Mergus merganser) taken with the new Nikon D800 and the 600mm VR f4. Still a lot of pixels available for more cropping!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Photo of a female Goosander (Mergus merganser) taken with the new Nikon D800 and the 600mm VR f4. Cropped to 100% for pixel peeping! Please note this is ISO 800, f5, 1\/400s !<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aren’t the colors and detail amazing? When editing the photos on the computer screen it feels like CSI<\/a> or 24<\/a>, where they have some magic image enhancer which generates information out of nothing.<\/p>\n

\"Male
Uncropped photo of a yawning male Goosander (original size 7360 x 4912) and two 100% crops for pixel peepers. Note that the focus was set on the eye and not on the spider. Furthermore this is ISO 800 and f5.6. I think this shows how amazing the D800 and the 600mm are.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Crop of the above yawning male Goosander (Mergus merganser) taken with the new Nikon D800 and the 600mm VR f4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo
Crop of a photo of male Goosander (Mergus merganser) sitting on a rock taken with the new Nikon D800 and the 600mm VR f4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the AF fine tuning tests I used an aluminum ruler taped to a window frame. The tests revealed that the 600mm VR together with the D800 didn’t need any corrections, I was just awed by the results.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
The photo above was taken with a 50mm f1.8 The photo below was taken with the 600mm from the same standpoint. The crop to the left is done at 100%. Amazing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My setup for the above photos was the 600mm VR f4 mounted on a Gitzo GT5541LS. The tripod head is from Dietmar Nil<\/a>, which I can totally recommend especially for birds in flight. On top of the D800 the di-GPS Pro<\/a> for geolocation.<\/p>\n

\"Nikon
Nikon D800 with the 600mm VR f4 mounted on a Gitzo GT5541LS tripod. On top a di-GPS Pro.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I will publish more photos as soon as I can. Stay tuned or have a look at my photo database<\/a> in the meantime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only few talked about it being good for wildlife, most said it’s only for landscape, architecture or studio. Many would have preferred a lower pixel count and questioned whether it’s going to be of any use. But when shooting birds, especially small song birds, you never get close enough or can have enough pixels. So … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “My First (Bird) Photos with Nikon D800 and 600mm f4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,64],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","tag-birds","tag-nikon-d800","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speich.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}