Nikon D5 - first impressions

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Thanks for the tip. I can now fix a few images. ;-)

[David H. Hartman]

I remember one instance where the LoCA correction in NX-D saved a crucial image of bride and groom exiting the church; activating this feature meant waiting for 1 minute for the processing to complete (!) but the outcome was perfect.

Any chance the time was increased because a hard drive had gong to sleep? I found sometimes I'd start working and then have a delay and cured the problem by adjusting the power saving settings to keep HD(s) awake longer. You probably already though of this. What about an SSD?

Dave

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I use an SSD for OS, programs, cache and typically also to store the images that are being edited (though I can't recall if that was the case 10 months ago when I was working on that image). I just now checked that turning on "Axial color aberration"  control feature causes the update to take 15s on my current setup on a D5 file (21MP); the image I was using it on was a D810 file (36MP) so it was larger and the process took longer. I know I should get a faster computer ... stretching the current one a bit further.

[David H. Hartman]

Ilkka,

I waited thirteen years to update my computer. It was so bad that CNX2 could not update the embedded JPG in a D800 NEF properly and saved an image that was fully striped with blue lines. The highpass filter gave me green stripes. I built a modest Windows 7 box with a Core i7 4700 3.6GHz and 16GB RAM. The OS is on an SSD. That solved all my problems with CNX2 and later with CNX-D 1.4.0.

A cousin gave me a vintage, mid 2007, 24" iMAC running El Capitan 10.11.5. It has a Core Duo (something) at 2.5GHz. I haven't tried to install CNX2 as I only have one license and it takes monkey business as the install doesn't work with El Capitan. It runs CNX-D slow but reliably and cut and paste VNX2 from an old Lepard OS.

These cameras require more CPU speed and more memory. There is no getting around it.

Dave

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I don't need Axial color aberration correction often so the speed of the correction alhorithm is not important to me. ACR opens a 21 MP file in 3s on my computer (which is 5-6 years old) that's fast enough for me for now (D810 files take slightly longer). Maybe next year I will get a new computer. I would like to get to a point where opening a file takes at most 1-2s.

[MFloyd]

Just digging up the topic: has anybody some feedback ?

Mine is now 5 ½ months in use (since March 31); about 8'000 clicks in varying conditions, but most sports (yachting, aviation, car racing, athletics). In a nutshell (my benchmark being my former D4s): camera with best color depth and tonal range; unbelievable AF, even more performing than the already excellent D4s; I love the rear touch screen and the new way to assign functions to the buttons; I have never been impeded by the lower dynamic range in lower ISO's.

It changed, to some extent, my behavior with regard to high ISO settings i.e. I let it go, without bothering, to ISO 25'600 (or even higher). I had to adapt my post-production settings (Lightroom) by reducing dramatically all basic settings: highlights,  shadows, black and white point, clarity and vibrance; in other words, you can take the images almost just from the camera body, without any postproduction - must be great for JPEG shooters (what I'm not).

Conclusion: best camera I had; but it took me some time to adapt and find the right settings (even coming from a D4s); and, let's touch wood, not one single problem.

[bobfriedman]

mine is 6 months and 58,000 actuations... no complaints

[Ilkka Nissilä]

My D5 has also been flawless (purchased in June, shot about 9000 frames so far). I love the AF, and the responsiveness of the camera. The XQD cards are superb, download to computer is mind bogglingly fast.  Battery life is very long as expected, and the camera feels great in the hand. I have learned to love the viewfinder, it feels more evenly lit to the corners than in the smaller cameras.

The sound of the camera is a bit loud and at a Lied concert I had to turn on Quiet mode, which subdued the sounds appreciably but I had to learn to time my shots all over again. I will investigate the quality of frame grabs from 4K video at some point to see if that would give useful results for this type of a situation. I would then be focusing manually and use a loupe or external display.

I have mostly been happy with what I am getting from auto AF fine tune but with the 105/1.4, the first real exception occured. Auto fine tuning gave me a value of +2 but in the real world -5 works best. I don't know the reason for this discrepancy. With my other f/1.4 lenses I have been happy with auto fine tuned results and the focusing is nearly flawless even at f/1.4. 

What I would like to see in the future is 1)if possible,  increased AF point spread along the short dimension of the frame (long dimension AF point spread is now more than sufficient for me), 2) LCD zooming during video recording, 3) a Nikon manufactured loupe for the LCD, which fits perfectly on the camera and doesn't require a heavy construction or gluing a frame to the camera, 4) a semi-quiet mode which approximates D810 S mode shutter delay and sound level and can match its operational speed, 5) when the semi quiet (or semi slow) mode is used, increased low to mid ISO dynamic range through a slower sensor read operation would be great to have. 6) I would prefer more firmative click when pressing the AF-ON button (now that button alone feels loose and flimsy).

However, results from this camera are fantastic and the ability to get the shot (in focus) is remarkable. The only real drawbacks I can find are the loud sound, and the fact that it doesn't handle high scene contrast at low ISO as sweetly and smoothly as the D810. I know this doesn't bother a lot of users but I would like to see an improvement in this area.

Although the auto white balance usually gives more neutral images in general, sometimes I have gotten "cold" images using it in indoor venues and I got some feedback on this from my wedding photos, after which I adjusted them by hand to bring them a bit closer to what we are used to seeing in similar conditions. The location had warm interior surfaces which may have thrown the AWB off. However, I've run into it elsewhere occasionally as well. Overall I find the AWB an improvement over my previous Nikons.

[bobfriedman]

correction... sadly.. auto fine tune is my only complaint.. i currently fine tune using lensalign and it takes many hours..

for long lenses 500-600-800 it is critically important.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

How does the auto fine tune fail in your case?

I mostly find the values I'm getting (with a few repeated attempts followed by averaging) to work well in practice, with the exception of the 105 which required a different setting in practice.

I don't currently use lenses longer than 300mm (without TC; with 1.4X I have 420mm). Auto fine tune gave a useful value with the 300 PF with and without TC-14E III. With TC-20E III I'm not getting useable autofocus at all when used with this lens.

[bobfriedman]

auto-fine tune: 

1) nothing is repeatable.. and the results widely vary.

2) results are not even close to the lensalign result. - sometime entirely opposite

believe me i spend many hours to focus tune and have tried the auto tune with the same target that i just focus tuned using lens align - not even close

followed their procedure as well... not even close.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I am not doubting you! I just wonder what the cause of the issue is. I get reproducible results using auto fine tuning by using a homogeneous dark background and making sure the light on the target is daylight and brighter on the target than the light on the background. Distance between background and target about 1m, and between target and camera about 50 x focal length. I use Lensalign targets and align it using the holes. Then I put on the bigger target intended for long lenses (to make sure the af sensor doesn't see the surround). I then make sure both focus points (Lv and viewfinder) are centered. I go through the auto AF fine tune process 3-5 times and I seem to get similar values each time. My tripod is oversize for the lenses that I use so there is no noticeable flexing while pressing the controls on the camera.

I would guess that with long lenses and outdoor testing, light and background features may add to the "noise" in the measurement. Also touching the camera when the lens is mounted using Nikon collars may cause some flexing and erratic results.

Of course, a whole another question is whether the auto fine tune process gives the correct mean after averaging. Apart from one lens I've been happy. I realize that my studio setup would not work for testing really long lenses. The reason I am particular about the background is that autofocus often misses the target in backlight and thus I want to exclude any stray light from the background.

I don't know if this helps but I am keen on better understanding how we can obtain reliable fine tune settings and developing procedures for that.
 

[bobfriedman]

i do all that... indoors.. very large room which is hard to find with continuous studio lighting.

beats me.. just doesn't work... also... the DoF for these lenses+TC's is about a half a foot.

[MFloyd]

I never had to fine tune lenses with the D5 and before: I'm probably lucky, or it may be to the fact that the distance I shoot with telelenses is rarely less than 15 meters which gives you almost 20 cm DOF, which is, I believe, within the boundaries of any fine tuning.

I tried a couple of times the auto fine tuning at the very beginning, to find out how it works and how it compares to the more classical method. I admit, I did not made any further investigation, but the few results didn't seem consistent nor reliable. So I quickly abandoned and went back to "no fine tuning".

This is my own and very limited experience, which I simply convey. I do not to try to prove or to demonstrate something.

[bobfriedman]

well i have seen the difference and now religiously focus tune for wildlife .. with big glass that is..

i havene't tuned anything under 200mm except the 200/2 without issues.  i had to shoot a relative's wedding using the 24-70/2.8 and the 70-200/2.8G no problem untuned two weeks ago with the D5