Nikon D6 formally announced by Nikon

[MFloyd]

Very nice with the disturbed air flow and lines in the back ground makes the car stand out in a very unique way!

Thx Erik  The background consists of solar panels.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I had my first chance to use the D6 for sports today at the first qualifiers for synchronized skating in Finland.

At first (years ago) I was shooting figure skating with single point as there was no other mode I could really trust to do a logical thing. ;-) In the D5 generation I followed Nikon's advice and shot 25-point dynamic for most things and group area for distant skaters (group area focuses on the closest subject within the area). Dynamic area in D5 is quite demanding as it only gives a short grace period where it will use the supplementary points if there is nothing focusable under the primary point, so it's easy to get the system to focus on background if one is not paying close attention to what is happening. With the D6, there are other options that one can use. I was shooting with 7x1 horizontal row of points in custom group mode 1 and turned face-detection on since the subjects now are human. I thought it worked well but occasionally there can be a little jitter as the subject moves over a gap and by increasing the size to 3 rows (7x3) this seemed to disappear, but of course some precision and control may be lost because the area is enlarged so one may not be always aware of what it'll focus on. But it mostly focused on the closest face within the custom group area, which was what I wanted.

I almost didn't have to move the focus area at all as I found these settings that worked well for almost all the situations I encountered in synchronized skating. Typically I would keep the group area as high as it can go, in the center. In death spirals I wanted to move the horizontal row or 3-row area to a lower position and that required me to manually move it with the joystick or multi-controller. However, generally the custom group area makes many times of action shooting much easier.

One now has a number of different sizes of dynamic area (where there is no closest-subject priority but perhaps in some situations more control as it allows one to focus on other things than the closest subject within the area, but it requires more skill and precision from the user) as before, and different sizes and shapes of group-area which has closest-subject priority built into the algorithm, and now it can also be selected to prioritize faces (or not). This worked very well today.

I used the 300/4 PF. 1/1000s, f/4.5 (increases contrast as the white background tends to produce slight flare so I noticed stopping down slightly improves the result), ISO 5000.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

This photo shows the focus points of the group and how it focuses on the closest face within the designated region. Very convenient and easy to use. Selecting a row of seven points works well for me as it allows me to position the in-focus face laterally at a convenient position without having to move the group around often (which I previously did a lot). Here I get some compositional freedom in the direction of the long axes of the frame but I can dictate the height of the focused face by positioning the row in the place where I want it to be. This means when the skater changes direction I can just think about the composition (usually I want the direction of travel to be towards the center of the frame, not away from it, but it depends) and not have to do so much joystick/multi-selector action. But it restricts the autofocus to a narrow slit horizontally so I maintain sufficient control over which skater is to be in focus.

To what extent turning face-priority in group area on affects the behavior of the algorithm, I will try to investigate. I think closest-subject priority is strongly ingrained in group area AF, it'll be interesting to test it out with faces and non-faces in some semi-rigorous way.

[MFloyd]

Great Ilkka ! An alternative way to use AF Group. Happy to have a “D6 buddy” 

[Ilkka Nissilä]

It's just amazing how easy the custom group-area is to use for sports. I first was skeptical about the idea of expanded group-area with closest-subject priority but with the face-weighting it seems to work really well and make it a rare event when I have to juggle the focus area to a different position (in this case the death spiral is one such case where I moved the 7x3 group-area to the lower part of the frame). Pin-sharp focus on the face with 200/2 II at f/2, 1/1250s, ISO 1250.

[Erik Lund]

Glad the D6 seems to work out very well for the both of you!Nice sharp images! 
My guess is that the (any) face detect system is very challenged with the faces being a very small area of the frame, there are very limited data for the system to work with.

[MFloyd]

Noteworthy is that for changing the Group Area dimensions, you have not to dig into menus, but you can simply adjust the size by pushing the AF side button and by using the the Multi Selector.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Glad the D6 seems to work out very well for the both of you!Nice sharp images! 
My guess is that the (any) face detect system is very challenged with the faces being a very small area of the frame, there are very limited data for the system to work with.

Right, as far as I can tell, it won't tell the user whether a face was recognized or if it just did the regular group-area which focuses on the closest subject within the group area. What it can likely do is recognize what appear to be human bodies (based on the matrix meter RGB images) and then estimate where the face would be and if there are any group area focus points in that area. I haven't used the regular group area much in the D5/D850 as it seemed to have a high propensity to focus on whatever is closest: hat rim, arm, or in the case of facial close-ups, the nose. So with these cameras I mostly used 9- and 25-point dynamic area. It doesn't prioritise closest subject so it is easier to avoid arms, noses and subjects cutting the line of sight, but it also has the downside of high probability of slipping to focus on something in the background if the photographer is not able to hold the primary point on the subject. For a subject that is small in the frame the old group area worked well but was fixed size. These modes required a lot of juggling the focus point around manually. The new custom shaped and sized group area with face priority on produces a high rate of keepers for me while not requiring a lot of work in moving the focus point around depending on which way the skater turns. I don't really know how much effect the face priority has (it doesn't always find a face even when present, that much is clear) but I am happy with the results and will try to do some tests to see what it is doing.

The focus with the 200/2 II is very fast but it used to run around a lot when using older cameras (it would always be going somewhere, following some small changes in focus sensor data) but it's very stable with the D6 when using custom group area of sufficient size, very accurate and no restless behavior. I think it's the nicest lens I've used in terms of how the images look. Of course, too much of a good thing, and Nikon seem to have discontinued it. I understand it is not a long lens and it is heavy but in terms of results it delivers a unique look. I read that Nikon justified that with the high iso capabilities it is no longer needed for photojournalism. This isn't about a "need" in terms of getting "a picture" - no, a 200/2 is not "needed" for that but it does deliver results that differentiate from the many 70-200/2.8 lenses that are everywhere. Why then make the 58/0.95 if they only want to make lenses that are "needed"?

105/2 DC, 135/2 DC, 180/2.8, 200/2: discontinued, what is in their place? 70-200/2,8, 70-200/2.8, 70-200/2.8 and 70-200/2.8. How is one supposed to make images that don't look like everyone else's, if only one option is provided?

[Erik Lund]

Thx for elaborating!

Yes, four very nice lenses, I settled for keeping the 105 f/2.0 DC AF-D and 180 f/2.8 AF-D because of that fact.
I agree on all your points on the 200mm f/2.0 AF-S re ISO, cameras and uniqueness!

[Birna Rørslett]

Time to stock up on those unique lenses while supplies last, apparently. With the exception of the low-volume runs of the AFS 200/2, availability of the others should suffice at present. How long this state of bliss will remain is anybody's guess.

The position of the 58/0.95 is an enigma considering what other lenses are being discontinued at present. Perhaps I'd should close my eyes to its costs and just get myself one of them??

[Eddie Draaisma]

But is the 200/2 really discontinued? It is still listed on global and local Nikon sites without mention of being discontinued, and the lens is on stock at some of the bigger outlets here in NL.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

But is the 200/2 really discontinued? It is still listed on global and local Nikon sites without mention of being discontinued, and the lens is on stock at some of the bigger outlets here in NL.

Here it is listed among these discontinued lenses:

https://www.nikon-image.com/products/nikkor/discontinue_fmount/

I asked the company who does Nikon repairs in my country about spare parts (especially the SWM motor) and they said they do sell them. I also asked my local store about this. Apparently the motor stays in better condition if it is regularly in use. These spare motors have never been used and they have just been sitting in storage, so it's possible that they might not work at the time when I would like to use them. So, I could buy the motor, but there is no telling if it will work when I need it. They said that spare parts for the 200/2 II have been readily available and they don't know when the parts might become scarce. So it is a little hard to prepare for this.

When (if) the motor stops working, is it the motor itself that fails, or some other parts of the electronics that control it? If I could know this, I could better prepare on what to stock up on. I can buy a motor if that increases the probability of a long life for my lens. Of course, by using the lens regularly I will get more results out of it (and the motor stays in good condition), so I should probably keep this in mind. 

[MILLIREHM]

Fine D6-Shots Illkka and MFloyd have presented here recently, I like the density of the heat wave shown behind the cars and the approach to group ice-skating photography - watching this not being involved in sports-photography at all.

[MILLIREHM]

Discontinuing the 200 mm f/2 VR-II means the maybe best and unique lens will become even scarcer than italready is (have only once seen a second-hand offer (besides online) and immediately took it. There are a few reasons for justifying this - limited sales and demand, Market saturation, high production costs, market situation gone worse, need to cut costs - or bringing a new FL Versoin as it appeared to have been planned.
But arguing that the fast f-Stop is no more needed to get Shutter speeds fast enough because of high ISOSensors does not nail the point in any way- Would that be a reasonable justification then this lens linewould have to be removed when the D3 came out.

The advantage of this lens is that besides being sharp it has an absolutely unique and i'd say ethereal rendering, it is long and fast enough to use narrow DOF and selective sharpness it has one of the best bokehs and a stellar treatment of out of focus Highlights. It has personality and amongst other gems it is the nikon lens with even the most of it. For me it is the best portrait lens, can do night photograpy, landscape but also fast action like Illka just showed us together with his D6.

The "holy trinity" of zoom lenses is good to stellar performance but somewhat boring nevertheless. 70-200 is not the most used zoom lens but the recent FL design now has bevcomevery fine (so does the Z lens) despite the misplaced zoom ring - but noreplacement for the  200/2
I do say that the rather new 105 mm f/1,4 was and is an impressive new introduction butcant replace the 200/2 as well

Good approach to get hands on this or other lenses like the two DCs as well

[MFloyd]

Fine D6-Shots Illkka and MFloyd have presented here recently, I like the density of the heat wave shown behind the cars and the approach to group ice-skating photography - watching this not being involved in sports-photography at all.

Thx Millirehm 

I heard that the 200mm f/2 is very similar in design compared to the 300mm f/2.8.

With regard to the 70-200mm f/2.8E FL, it’s my lens which shows the most clicks in my statistics. It’s probably one of the best zoom lenses made by Nikon. Even with my TC-2.0 III it performs superbly.

Another shot with the D6 and the aforementioned lens of two of my colleagues, at Le Mans, taking a break from the hot sun. Having taken shots on the burning asphalt of the track.


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