D500 General Discussion Thread

Ironheart

The problem is that a small temperature variation can throw off precise infinity focus, so no bueno on superglue, tape, fixed focus, or even hard-stop infinity old manual focus lenses for astrophotography use. Unless you've been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt you won't understand.

@spraynpray this is why astrophotography is so much fun! If everyone could do it, we wouldn't be getting paid the big bucks, right? I'll give a quick summary of how I achieve critical focus, but the best way is to practice. Reminds me of an old joke. A man stops a hipster in NYC to ask for directions, "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?", he answers, "Practice man, practice".

@spraynpray I know most of this will be second nature for you, but I wanted to give folks a flavor of what it takes to achieve critical focus on stars.

1) Set up your gear, tripod, lens, body and let it all temperature stabilize for at least 30min. Also best if you don't keep your gear in an environment that is drastically different from outside ambient temp (e.g. hot car, air-conditioned house) Special means are needed if you are going to be outside long enough to cross the dew-point and get a layer of moisture over everything including the front element of the lens. (A fine layer of moisture there will ruin focus for sure )

2) Turn the camera on, make sure you have all of your settings correct. Make sure to set manual focus on the lens and body. Find the brightest object in the sky, (not the moon) and center your lens on it using the optical viewfinder and set the focus as best you can here. This is usually a planet, they move surprisingly quickly, so don't dawdle. If there are no planets visible (highly unlikely, but possible) find the brightest star you can.

3) Turn on live view, and get the planet/bright star centered on the screen. Zoom in to the maximum on live view. Now the fun begins!

4) Get a feel for the lens, move back and forth through the focus point, feeling for any backlash (play) in the mechanism. I usually find approaching from the near focus towards infinity vs the other way is more effective, but this is somewhat lens dependent. What you are looking for is the smallest possible circle of light. Just moving your fingers off the focus ring can cause a slight jump, so you need to be very precise.

5) Take a photo, and check the focus there by zooming into the picture all of the way. This is also a good time to check histogram and exposure. If the focus has moved, go back to step 3. Once you are satisfied, recompose the photo back to the location of the sky/landscape you want. Be very careful to not bump focus!

6) Take a few more test shots, re-check focus. Turn off live view and wait a few minutes if possible, as you don't want that sensor to be too toasty. Then step back and take your final shots. I usually re-check critical focus every 20-30min as it can move around, especially if the temp is dropping rapidly.

7) Have fun!

heartyfisher

Ironheart said:

...
7) Have fun!

That doesn't sound like "Fun!" ... sounds like freezing .. sore knees/back .. simulated blindness.. and possible falling over and dieing in the middle of nowhere ...

retread

Thanks ironheart I have shot some moon eclipses and lightning in a night thunder storm but that is about it. I have always wanted to photograph aurora since I was a kid.

spraynpray

@retread: Trouble with that idea is the lens would only be right at one temperature. The dissimilar materials they use these days are bizarre - plastics, aluminium, steel etc.

@Sports: I like that idea a lot, but I have no idea how/where to start with it.

spraynpray

@Ironheart: Yes, finally, someone who gets it! Add to that, the best nights are the coldest and I suffer from Raynauds disease so within 1/2 hour my thumbs feel like I have hit them hard with hammers and I can't feel any controls at all. I think the controls of the D500 are illuminated so that would help. Electrically heated gloves help too.

@heartyfisher: The problem surprisingly isn't the absolute ISO performance of the lens, it is the maximum native ISO (that is what live view seems to use) which really helps with the focusing. My mate's 7D2 is a doddle to focus and we both use the same lenses. I spoke to Nikon and they were absolutely no help at all although to be fair they did try. When I asked them about the hideous liveview noise, they said 'yeah, it seems they do that'. I later found that turning exposure preview off helped that a lot.

ExpensiveHobby

I'm not sure if this is worth a new topic or just adding to the posts on this thread, but I am having some major power issues with my new D500. The D500 treats the Li-ion20 battery that came with it just like the li-ion01 batteries that I have from my D7000. Even just last night I had a 3% power drain while the camera was off (airplane mode on). I am aware of the -01 vs -20 swap offer, but I want to see if I can identify any additional hardware I need to send off to Nikon and do it all at once.

Since I'm an engineer... I plan to make a spreadsheet.

I know the sample size is rather small, but I will log date, time, charge %, battery, battery charger, camera, power state, number of shots taken, fps setting. I will try to match the shooting settings between both cameras where possible and see what I get from that.

As my first data point, I just pulled the -20 off the MH-25a charger (solid light) and the D500 says the battery is at 97%, not a good start. I popped the battery back on the charger till the light was solid again and it still says 97% in the D500. My D7000 says the -20 battery is at 98%.

I tossed a fully charged -01 in both cameras and the D500 said 98%, D7000 said 100%.

heartyfisher

sounds like a faulty battery.. take it to a shop and see if it registers at 98 % too

ExpensiveHobby

I will do that tomorrow. My concern is that the D500 is treating the -20 like a -01 and not reading charge properly/draining the battery too fast. I can only get 300-500 shots normal usage on a single charge. When I was using the D7000 with the -20, it didn't have any issues.

Ironheart

You have a flaky battery, just swap it.

BVS

D7000 needs less juice to run than D500, so it'll still work with an underperforming battery.

pictureted

After using my D500 for months, I don't find batteries usage much different than either D7100 or D810. At first they went fast, but not any longer. I wouldn't expect the cameras to read the batteries closer than 5% accuracy, so the 97 vs 98% seems close enough.

retread

Has anyone used a D500 and a D7200 side by side. I was shooting a basket ball game with a D500 and tried my D5100 with a second lens to get both ends of the court. The D5100 was slow focusing compared to the D500. I was missing more shots than so I put it down and just used the D500. I have access to a D7200 so I am wondering if it would benefit me any to try it with a second lens.

Ironheart

I have both the D7200 and D500. I put the wide angle lenses on the D7200 since those are generally used for "slower" shooting. I use the D500 with the long glass since those subjects are generally "faster". Great pair. My walk around is D500 with 300mm PF/E + 1.4TCIII, plus the D7200 with a 16-80 or 70-300 depending again on subject matter. Sometimes it's 16-80 on the D500 with the 70-300 on the D7200.

retread

Thanks Ironheart, the D7200 is my son's and hasn't been used yet. Just taken out of the box to look at. My usual set up is the D500 with 70-200 but on cropped frame is maybe a little long. I shoot close up shots of just the player not half the kids on the court. It sets me apart from others shooting here. I had a request for a full figure shot of a gal making a lay up so was using the 24-70.

Using the D5100 for just a few minutes with the D500 made me realize why hitting the shot at the right moment went up after I got the D500.

Ironheart

I had a D5100 for many years, great camera for the $$. Just looking at AF capabilities, the difference between the D5100 and the D7200 is night and day, adding in the speed and buffer, it's still a giant step-up. The difference between the D7200 and the D500 is much smaller. For most shooting situations, and I would include well-lit indoor sports, the D7200 is probably 80% of what the D500 is, meaning a 20% uptick. There are certain situations, BIF, extremely low light, very fast action, where the D500 will feel like the difference between the D5100 and D7200. This is really only at the extremes though.

donaldejose

The speed and large viewfinder of my D500 is wonderul. BUT, for slow paced shooting like portraiture or landscapes you don't need that speed. Most people can save the money and keep shooting the D7xxx series bodies.

Photobug

donaldejose said:

The speed and large viewfinder of my D500 is wonderul. BUT, for slow paced shooting like portraiture or landscapes you don't need that speed. Most people can save the money and keep shooting the D7xxx series bodies.

+1 great recommendation donaldejose. Great post.

DaveyJ

On UTube we have a D500 low light video named Frozen By Ice under our Black Sky Films, the video was shot exclusively with D500 and one of very favorite lens, the 16-80
Nikkor lens, Christjen shot the video, note the Ice Palace, and the flame twirlers, and lake ice.....I had my D7200 with me, and a 10-20 lens but figured my grandson had it covered, his edit....

manhattanboy

@DaveyJ Watched the video. Did you shoot handheld 4K and was the lens VR enough to keep the shots steady or did you have to adjust in post? I have been thinking of trying video with the D500.

DaveyJ

Christjen started off with a rig to film, pretty complicated, did not seem to achieve that much, finished so most of it was handheld. He has been doing both Florida State ads, and his Dad did the first part of I Love NY, aerial video. Christjen chose to use only the D500 in this video since the blacks did not match from the other rigs. His rating of the D500 and the 16-80 is superb. Very little is adjusted in post. He edits this stuff all the time and this was a one evening edit, I do know that. We do a lot if aerial and underwater, the aerial Again looked great in this, but he felt it could not be added to the D500 imagery without a shift he could not tolerate. Does show the D500 is the real deal!

There are some events that I feel are almost meaningless without video, stills of fireworks? Your eye doesn't see it that way, your ears sure hear it, give me video for that. My D7200 with a 10-20 DX lens of fireworks at the Same Palace of Ice at night is very good. That night (about two weeks earlier) it was snowing hard! The D7200 and 10-20, handheld, on a step ladder standing a Moose Scultpure which my son did, recorded straight up, no post processing, the Fireworks and music of the event. I have seen many photo pro shots from that opening ceremony, and NONE are as good as mine, and my son's shot on aerial, using two ships......and Go Pros, some of them by the way with worthless images as they were covered by snow! Since my son does a lot building ice walls and then all Ice Sculptures which he bangs out with a Husqvarna chainsaw pretty fast, we want to record that work. This was our first year inviting the Fire Twillers! That took place after the closing ceremony by several days. So one mild evening several days later, the Fire and Ice video here was shot. That was a great addition and we will do it again. Palace taken down a couple of days later with huge machinery....too risky for the heavy public interest!

DaveyJ

Manhattanboy: Five videos down from the Frozen by Ice is the video Ice Palace Saranac Lake Winter Carnival 2016. That video gives you both D7200, aerial, etc. of the fireworks at night my video part of this with D7200 and 10-20 was handheld with no post editing I again shot on a ladder with padding on base of camera, and it was snowing and quite cold. The stills I have seen did not do the scenes justice...but there were sure a lot of them taken as there is a crowd! And the photogs that shot the stills were very happy with theirs! Our 2016 video i refer to is roughly 4 minutes.

heartyfisher

picked up my d500 yesterday...(shakes head) too good.....have not had a chance really to play.. but the af is crazy... just crazy...

spraynpray

Still...fighting...the...temptation!

BVS

Wish they'd update the 17-55 2.8 one of these days to go with it. I guess the 16-80 is probably the replacement though. Anyone know what the max aperture is on the 16-80 at 55mm?

retread

spraynpray said:

Still...fighting...the...temptation!

Resistance is futile you will be assimilated.