Yesterday I had a great opportunity for a perfect BIF session with a relatively nearby chasing marsh harrier. Still, I thought I failed because of my camera setup...
Even though I had the right lens-TC combo(840 mm) and perfect lightning conditions (evening sun in my back), my much too slow shutter speed, 1/320 sec, nearly ruined the party...
While most of the first 449 pictures of this session were unusable due to motion blur, some came out very good...
Here underneath one of the best, cropped from the original:
resized to 1500px longest side image. (original is 2656x1916px).
Not in flight, but still with Nikon Z8 & Z180-600+ 1.4TC (840mm). Captured handheld.
Underneath picture was initially a challenge for AF and the metering system because the bird was hidden in the tree, shadow area, and strong backlight.
I had to keep the shutter speed relatively slow to 1/500 sec not to raise the iso too much... (already iso 1100 right now) Compromise is some loss of sharpness because of motion blur.
After that, one more challenge for the potential and latitude of the Z8' NEF file... and I like the result.
The scene:
The crop, resized to 1000px wide: Click on the image to open the 1000px longest side image. (original is 1898x1824px).
Stany Buyle wrote: ↑Sun 6 Oct 2024 13:13...
The crop, resized to 1000px wide: Click on the image to open the 1000px longest side image. (original is 1898x1824px).
Thanks for looking and kindest regards,
Stany
What strikes me is this picture's total absence of purple fringing despite the perfect conditions in this shot to get this optical defect. With many of my former teles, especially while using TC's, but also the 200-500 without TC, there would have been purple fringing around the contours of the leaves.
Z lenses are optically fantastic and a big improvement over their predecessors.
Nikon Z8 & 180-600+ 1.4TC (840mm) - Long distance subject- heavily cropped Taken on 2024-10-27, with Z8 and Z180-600 + 1.4TC @ 840mm, handheld, iso 1400...
Scene, crop area and exif:
And the 100% crop: I am NOT happy with this image because it was initially underexposed. Recovering created quite a lot of noise...
After one year with this lens, and the much-appreciated advice of a Nikon technician in relation to shooting handheld with the Nikon 180-600, I put VR on "SPORT". Since that advice, I ONLY use the VR SPORT setting.