I got a loaner copy of the Nikon Df DSLR and two Nikon prime lenses from UPS this morning – the “D” series 24mm f1.8 and 35mm f2.0. I’m gonna shoot with this gear for the next month and a half or so and see if a mirrorless lover like myself can find anything like happiness in the deep dark world of the DSLR…
When I got back into photography almost four years ago now, I swore I wasn’t gonna get back into the SLR / DSLR world. I’d shot SLRs as a kid and got out of photography partly because I didn’t want to haul all of that gear around AND haul my kids around – the kids won and the cameras lost. So I spent many years in the P&S wilderness until m43 caught my fancy when I decided it was time to get a decent camera again a few years ago. I liked the small size and the IQ was better than anything I’d shot with back in the film days so I was happy with it and continue to be for the most part.
DF testing-52-Edit by ramboorider1, on Flickr
But I found you can still carry a fair amount of mirrorless gear around if you want and then the lure of full frame bit me right in the butt about a year ago in the form of the RX1 and I’ve been doing some thinking about how I might move forward into full frame gear. I don’t want it for longer lenses (where the m43 size advantage is downright overwhelming), but for wide to normal focal lengths, I think a relatively smallish DSLR and a few prime lenses might work really well for how I tend to shoot. I've been loving the RX1, but the thought of a few more focal lengths is pretty enticing. Full frame is obviously not strictly necessary and, arguably, it’s pretty silly for how I shoot and how I process my stuff. But there’s something about being able to shoot with confidence into the ISO stratosphere and be able to pull all sorts of interesting things out of the resulting files that really appeals to me. And the bottom line is I’m often carrying a fair amount of gear around these days anyway and if I can carry a similar amount with a DSLR, it might be worth checking out.
Hence, the Df. I wanted to check out the Df rather than something like the D610 or Canon 6D not because of the retro looks or controls but because of the sensor. It shares a 16mp sensor with the pro-level D4 and what little it lacks in resolution (compared to the modern day mega-pickel kings that come in at 24 and 36mp) it makes up for in low light and incredible looking files. In terms of the controls, I actually think I’d probably prefer a D610 or D800 (which is too large to even have thought about). And if I have ANY chance of making this work, I have to go with small lenses, so I’m sticking with the relatively cheap lower end Nikon “D” series of primes, which are about the size of the Fuji 35mm or maybe slightly larger than the Panasonic 25mm. I’m starting with a 24mm and 35mm. If I ever got serious and actually bought into this system, I’d probably add a 20 and an 85 and some sort of ultra wide solution – maybe a Rokinon 14mm or something. These are not premium lenses, but I figured they might be an OK match for a lower resolution camera whereas something like the D800 might out-resolve them and actually not look that great. And f1.8 – 2.8 is more than fast enough for me with full frame – it’s usually fast enough with m43 and APS as well, so this foray in full frame is no time to start chasing the elusive f1.2-1.4. Plenty shallow DOF too...
DF testing-42-Edit by ramboorider1, on Flickr
Over the next many weeks I hope to do a fair amount of “real” shooting, once the weather lets up a bit around here in the recently Arctic Mid-Atlantic and I’m gonna spend a week in San Francisco at the end of February and beginning of March. So I’m gonna do some shooting, which I’ll report on as fully as I can. But on my first day, I mostly tried to figure the camera out and did a bunch of shooting around the house to see how it worked and how it handled the variety of lighting conditions.
For now, some first impressions:
• This is a larger camera than I’m used to, but not by as much as I’d expected. It’s not a lot larger than the Olympus EM1 or the Fuji X-Pro I had for about a year and a half. With large lenses, I think it could feel pretty unwieldy, but with these small primes, it’s not a bad shooting experience at all. The grip isn’t big but my hand seemed to know exactly how to fall into it and I find it quite comfortable to use, at least with the smaller primes – a big zoom might be a different story, a story I fully intend not to read!
• I’d forgotten how much I like a good dslr OVF. I don’t even know if this is a good one relative to others, but it’s the first one I’ve used in many years and I think it’s freaking brilliant. As great as EVFs are getting, there’s just something about a big clear OVF that brings a little something different to the game.
• OTOH, I sort of miss the precision of a good live view setup – I used the live view on the Df a few times and it’s actually not terrible for some types of shooting, but it’s nothing like an EM1 or a Nex or Fuji or whatever.
• The PDAF (phase detection AF) is really good. I wouldn’t say it’s better than the CDAF (contrast detection) system in the m43 bodies (tracking aside – something I’ve never found much use for in my shooting), but it’s got a different feel and it’s quite fast and seemingly good in very very low light. I’ll probably hate it if I ever have to get into correcting back or front focus issues, but so far, no issues. OTOH, I haven’t figured out a way to equal the face detection performance of the EM1 with this – I know there’s SOME sort of face detection in it, but it’s pretty well hidden and I don’t know if PDAF can hope to do that specific a task as well as CDAF can. Another possible reason to stick with m43 for portrait and longer lenses…
DF testing-27-2-Edit by ramboorider1, on Flickr
• To my surprise, and contrary to what I'd read, manual focus doesn't suck even a little bit. There's nothing like the split prism focussing screen I used to have in my 1970's SLRs, but the view is plenty clear and there's no mystery about when what you want in focus is in focus. I don't think I'd be using MF much with such a camera, but I wouldn't be scared away from it. And these lenses still show a nice distance scale on the barrel of the lens so if I ever want to try zone focussing with them, it shouldn't be a problem at all.
• The retro looking dials on this particular DSLR are almost totally wasted on me and the one that isn’t I actively dislike with a vengeance. The shutter speed dial I’ll almost never use because I shoot in A mode 99% of the time, particularly in a camera with such a GREAT auto-ISO setup an so much latitude to put it to use. Which means I’ll pretty much never use the ISO dial either. So that's two out of three retro dials wasted. The one dial I would use is the exposure comp dial but it’s on the left shoulder of the camera (when god clearly intended it to be on the right) and it also has a locking pin in that you have to depress while you turn it (which she never would have approved of either)! So, it’s a nice look, but not at all functional to me. Also, I was pleased to see that the D lenses I got have actual aperture rings on them, but dis-pleased to find that they don’t actually work with the camera in any of the modes I’m apt to shoot in – you just disable it and change aperture with one of the two modern dials on the camera. As I said, I think I’d have preferred the controls of the D610 or D800 or D4 for that matter. But I don’t have to use them much, so at least they’re semi-cool looking…
• An irony of my dislike for the exposure comp dial’s location and function is that using an OVF, I’m less apt to actually USE the exposure comp dial. With a live view setup like my mirrorless gear uses, I tend to immediately see when I need to up the exposure comp to deal with backlighting or something, or back it off when a large dark area in the frame may be biasing the exposure. With this big bright OVF, I’m just not automatically seeing that, at least not yet. And when I do, the spot meter is so wonderfully accessible that I’m apt to just flick that little switch with my right thumb and meter the part of the scene I’m trying to catch rather than go off in search of exposure compensation. AND, with as much latitude as this sensor has, I think I can probably get by without using much exposure comp anyway – you can almost always fix it in PP. A nice option, sacrilege or not.
DF testing-21-2-Edit by ramboorider1, on Flickr
• Aside from the useless retro-dials, I like the interface a lot. The bracketing and AF controls are both extensive and ridiculously easy to use on the fly. Who knows, when it’s this easy to use, maybe I will try some AF tracking at some point.
• The shutter button is nice, with threading for an old-fashioned cable release or a soft release. I stuck a soft release in there first thing – really love the feel of those.
• I wouldn’t have minded a couple of custom user setting slots on the “mode dial”, but the mode dial is a tiny little thing I doubt I’ll be using much. Oddly, you have to pull it up from the body to turn it. But no custom slots – I think custom settings are available in the menus, but I haven’t figured them out yet…
• The files are sublime! Which was the whole point of this exercise. At ISO 12,800 they’re incredibly good – a bit of easily treatable noise but incredible color and detail. And there’s just a smoothness to them that I already find quite intoxicating. I wouldn’t say they’re better or worse than what I get from the RX1, (which has more resolution and a much nicer lens than I’m using with the Df), but they have a different look to them and they ARE better at the highest ISOs. Although the RX1 is no slouch at 12,800 either, but the Df is cleaner. This one is at 12,800, taken in a VERY dark hallway:
DF testing-60-Edit by ramboorider1, on Flickr
I'll report back as this experiment continues, maybe in this thread, maybe in others if it seems appropriate. And I'll no doubt start a dedicated thread from my trip to the Bay Area as well, with what should be shaping up as final impressions / verdicts by then.
-Ray