Nikon D600 - a year on

Well, perhaps a few days short of a year, but it was this month a year ago that I acquired the D600. I remember, on one of the first outings being blown away by the dynamic range of this camera: with my old D80 I had become quite used to blending three bracketed shots to capture a high dynamic range scene. In the last year, I cannot remember ever having to blend shots with the D600 - I shot bracketed many times (an old habit) but never used more than one shot in final production. Today's shot of the Oxford Farmers Market is a case in point - one exposure (actually a four-shot stitched panorama) and everything from the distant clouds to the shadows under the market stools is well exposed (shot RAW and developed in Lightroom).

So, a year on and I'm still loving the D600 - can't blame the tools any more :-)

Lady with whip

Not sure how this will work out but I'm experimenting with this photo by uploading at HD (1080px high). "Lady with whip" was captured at the Oxford A&P show in March. I posted a B&W version on G+ but this is the original colour. Usually I tend to think that a particular photo should be either colour or black and white as dictated by the subject matter and the capture but, in this case, I really can't decide between the two:

D600 1/320 sec @ f5.6 and ISO 200. 210mm on a Nikkor 28-300. Processed in Lightroom and PhotoLine using Topaz filters.

More pictures here!

Shovels and clarity

This weekend I've been testing a new Topaz filter, "Clarity". It's not yet released (perhaps 2-4 weeks away) but it looks very promising and a worthy addition to the Topaz toolbox. I used it on this picture (in addition to other filters) to restore what was a rather flat 6,400 ISO RAW file, to what I remembered seeing:

Nikon D600, 1/5 sec (hand-held) @ f11 and ISO 6,400 28-300 Nikkor lens @ 62mm. Processed in Lightroom and Photoline using a variety of Topaz filters.

Autumn leaves

Annette brought home these beautiful autumn leaves from the hospital where her Mother is recuperating after a heart operation. So, under the camera they went.

Nikon D600, 6 seconds, f22. ISO 100. 300mm on a Nikkor 28-300 - natural light.

Show the show jumper

A couple of posts ago I included the 'straight out of Lightroom' version of this picture (as I usually do on this blog). However, after blogging, the better pictures then go into my 'to be processed' folder from where they are given a fresh and more careful development in Lightroom and a fairly intensive going over with other software tools (in this case Photoline, Topaz and OnOne). The best of these pictures then go on (hopefully) to be sold. This is one of those pictures.

A superficial glance at the before and after versions may possibly show only minor changes, but print them big and the improvements in clarity, detail and depth are quite amazing. I just wish I could show that at web sizes but you'll just have to take my word for it :-)

D600, 1/1250 sec, f5.6, 116mm on a Nikon 28-300 lens.

Shear skill

Watching the shearers at work is fascinating; a real display of speed, strength and skill. The D600 did a fantastic job under challenging lighting conditions, Lightroom brought out the shadow detail and Topaz dealt with the introduced noise (I keep trying other tools but these are the ones I come back to).  1/2500 sec @ f5.6 and 300mm on a Nikon 28-300 lens. Good job everyone; you too sheep.

Bird spotting

This morning's walk in the woods bagged a 'Bellbird' and a 'Silver eye' (sometimes known as a 'Wax eye'). There were also some lovely 'Fan tails' but they were moving so fast that I didn't manage to lock on for a good shot.

With the D80 I was never able to get close enough to these small birds to get a decent quality picture. Now, with the increased resolution and high ISO capabilities of the D600, I've been able to get the shots without too much difficulty (300mm lens + 1.4 tele-converter).

Out with the D600

I've been out and about with the D600 this weekend; what a lovely camera this is. My yardstick for this comment is my old D80 which I also thought was 'lovely' when I got it. But the goal posts for 'lovely' have moved a lot in the six years since the D80 was introduced - partly because technology has moved on and partly because this photographer has also moved on.

Despite only being announced a week ago, this D600 purchase was not an impulse buy; I have been looking to upgrade since the beginning of the year and knew that the D600 would be the way to go since the rumours started around June time. Sample pictures started appearing as soon as it was announced so image quality was well known, but there is nothing like using a camera with your own lenses and technique - that's what this weekend was about. I am duly impressed.

High ISO performance is incredible; I never used the D80 above ISO800 but the D600 doesn't give similar amounts of noise until ISO6400! Finally I feel comfortable allowing the camera to choose ISO automatically for general shooting. As well as improved ISO performance, the auto focus is  also a huge improvement over the D80; using the same set of lenses I find that auto-focus is fast and accurate - no more fidling around while the shot gets away from you:

I wouldn't have got this shot with the D80 - on the D600, fast focus acquisition and an ISO of 1600 gave a usable shot (actually six in burst mode). 

The other huge improvement is in Dynamic range. There are high dynamic range boosting settings but I wasn't even using these. This shot of the river bed was a single exposure at ISO 200 and everything from the sunlit snow on the mountains to the shadows under the trees was well within the dynamic range of the sensor (shot in aperture priority mode). This would have needed a three-shot bracketed exposure on the D80, on the D600 I didn't even need a graduated ND filter. Wonderful.

A different picture but a similar situation. This one uses also used the D600's continuous shooting mode which, with the highest quality RAW setting shoots up to 10 frames at a selected rate up to 5.5 frames per second. I used 3fps on this shot to make sure I got just the right composition (longest train possible without obscuring the green track light).

I can see that the D600 and I are going to become firm friends; she's certainly delivering a much higher 'keeper' rate than I was getting with the D80.