What should the D6 have had?

WestEndFoto

I would concur.

But someone asked me once if I would rathe be a live jackal or a dead lion. Guess what I answered.

donaldejose

Used Fujifilm GFX 50s and 50r are going for about $3,500 on e-bay; used GFX 100 bodies are hard to find. But, the biggest expense would be having to buy new lenses. I think it is more economical to wait for a higher mp Nikon full frame body and see if Capture One for Nikon improves images.

retread

I use the stand alone version of C1as one of my programs. I have a lot to learn but am beginning to like it more as time goes by.

Pistnbroke

If you actually listen to this Taylor Jackson guy he has the D780 because he stops and uses it for video and has a 85mm on it all day . But he has a D850 for the rest . An 85mm is far too long for 95% of wedding shots .
Personally, I would not entertain a 24MP FX for weddings ..not enough cropability and spread the output from a 14mm across it and you are in fuzzy land.
Its horses for courses and The D6 would not cut it at a wedding either. But to revert to the post topic a 24MP sensor would have made it more acceptable and probably increased sales ( but so would a $1000 price tag)
Best wedding camera Nikon made was the D810

PB_PM

donaldejose said:

Used Fujifilm GFX 50s and 50r are going for about $3,500 on e-bay; used GFX 100 bodies are hard to find. But, the biggest expense would be having to buy new lenses. I think it is more economical to wait for a higher mp Nikon full frame body and see if Capture One for Nikon improves images.

Which is why I said if you were spending D6 money ($5999 MSRP). If you have D6 money, there are plenty of options, and buying lenses likely isn’t a problem.

donaldejose

"buying lenses likely isn’t a problem" I just checked ebay for used lenses, not many available. For landscape photography one would likely want to use a wide angle lens and a small f-stop so there is no need for fast lenses. The 18mm FF equivalent 23mm f4 lens is about $1,600 used if you can find one. The 36mm equivalent 45 mm f2.8 lens is about $1.000 used if you can find one. So with $3,500 for a 50 mp body and $1,600 for a lens a person could shoot medium format wide angle for a total cost of about $5,100 which is less than a D6. PB_PM is correct. Personally, I am going to stay in the Nikon ecosystem system. I just have no need for larger printing ability or more dynamic range or more megapixels than the Z bodies and lenses I will be able to get when the Z8 is released. If I was selling very large prints I may make a different choice, but I am not.

donaldejose

It is good to hear from a very experienced wedding photographer that in his judgment the D810 was the best wedding camera. You can get them now on ebay for about $1,000. That is a very good price for the best Nikon wedding camera, all things considered.

snakebunk

Yes, the D810 is nice. I am at 115 k exposures on my now, and I still don't see enough reason to make me spend money on an upgrade.

I can see that the D6 can be a great wildlife camera if you shoot large animals from a hide and don't need to crop much. I do that sometimes, but often I need high resolution and I can't see myself buying a camera with less pixels than what I have.

To me the specs ot the D6 are not much different from the D5. What do you think is the main reason to upgrade?

PB_PM

donaldejose said:

It is good to hear from a very experienced wedding photographer that in his judgment the D810 was the best wedding camera. You can get them now on ebay for about $1,000. That is a very good price for the best Nikon wedding camera, all things considered.

The D810 does not do well in low light, compared to the D750/D780, it's focusing isn't as accurate or fast as the D750/D780. If you use a flash the D810 is a good camera, but personally I only use mine for still life and landscapes, while my D750 does everything else.

If I wanted a camera to do flashless shooting a D750/D780 or D6 would be the way to go.

spraynpray

Pistnbroke said:

If you actually listen to this Taylor Jackson guy he has the D780 because he stops and uses it for video and has a 85mm on it all day . But he has a D850 for the rest . An 85mm is far too long for 95% of wedding shots .
Personally, I would not entertain a 24MP FX for weddings ..not enough cropability and spread the output from a 14mm across it and you are in fuzzy land.
Its horses for courses and The D6 would not cut it at a wedding either. But to revert to the post topic a 24MP sensor would have made it more acceptable and probably increased sales ( but so would a $1000 price tag)
Best wedding camera Nikon made was the D810

I thought you said your business model was to snap and run, giving the output from your camera on a USB key at the end? I thought that was the whole 'tape everything up, sharpness up to 11 and shoot jpeg' philosophy? Where does editing/cropping fit into that?

Pistnbroke

It usually took my wife about 12 hours to edit the wedding photos in Lightroom and photoshop if requied. Often every photo would get her touch. Sharpness only goes to +9 but if you shoot RAW it does not matter and taping up dials is so they cannot get knocked in the heat of battle . My wife will not use a strap so her hands are all over the camera for hours ..she does not even turn it off .
The idea that the D810 or D850 is not good in low light is rubbish. Even in a 13th century church I shoot at f8 and 1/60 iso about 2500 ..No problem. For some years I used a D7100 without problems in the same black holes. Nobody wants albums today so what's wrong with a memory stick shaped like a jewelled heart?
The website is still up with 40,000 bad wedding photos if you want to look
www.1and1photography.co.uk use [email protected] for access.
I think the lockdown is getting to you spray.

spraynpray

No, I was just saying that one minute you are extolling the virtues of click and run handing over the USB at the event, then you say you are editing. Just an observation. I used the jewelled hearts myself. They're good. I used to give them away with the albums when they were wanted. I found people did want albums personally, but I could never charge what they were worth so I hated them.

We will not agree about the noise though. If you don't print large, its OK, but I do so its not.

Pistnbroke

I have never said or done a hand over of or images at an event so can you quote me the post that says that ..You are sounding like Trump with these malicious statements.
Where does this reference to noise come from? Explain yourself or resign.

PB_PM

If you want to restrict yourself to 1/60s at F8 that's your choice, not everyone does. I'm sure it worked for you, and that's fine, but please get it through your skull that not everyone shoots like you, or has any desire to do so. If everyone was the same the world would be one boring place.

Pistnbroke

Min 1/60 floating iso.... I agree do as you like ..some want to fiddle with the camera all the time while I prefer to concentrate on the people in front of it .
Still want to know where the moderator gets his mis information from.

spraynpray

I certainly don't have the time (or inclination) to look back through all your posts for the many times you have directed other people on how they should shoot weddings Pistnbroke and I am not provoked by your posts. There is nothing inflammatory, defamatory or malicious about my comments and I do not understand why you have thrown your teddy out of your pram.

If you want to complain to Peter about my moderation style (which has nothing to do with my comments above by the way), feel free to do so. I am as sure he will weigh our respective contributions before making his decision as I am sure you would struggle to find many or any other moderators more relaxed than me.

Now, this is the D6 thread, back on track.

Pistnbroke

You have the inclination to make unfounded suggestions that I am being unprofessional in just loading pics from the camera to a memory stick at the end of a wedding . How many people do you have on here who are members of the MPA BIPP and RPS . Not many . My suggestions on how to set camera etc are to help the inexperienced who have enough stress at a wedding without worrying about camera settings.

D6 should have had a function to lock all the settings and de activate all but the shutter release .

PB_PM

If that's what you want get a point and shoot. People buy a D6 because they want to control all aspects of the photo making process.

Pistnbroke

You control all aspects before you arrive at the job or when you arrive and then lock it in the assurance that you know your settings,
and they won't change

snakebunk

There is a lock swich on most (all?) of the Nikon DSLRs. It would only need a software update from Nikon to make a setting saying if this switch should apply to the focus point selector or to all buttons except the shutter. Is that what you want Pistnbroke?

donaldejose

"D6 should have had a function to lock all the settings and de activate all but the shutter release ." I like that idea. Nikon can put it on all upper level bodies. I also "pre-plan" a shoot. Usually, I shoot in manual mode with auto ISO. That lets me set the f-stop and the shutter speed with the ISO floating up to a level of acceptable noise (for me which depends upon the body and ultimate use of the image). I too try to avoid fiddling with camera settings during a shoot and try to keep my focus on the subject. However, sometimes I do have to stop and change settings because the light or something isn't working out as I had expected or hoped. I do sometimes find that handling the camera during a shoot has somehow knocked my set f-stop or shutter speed off where it should be and I have no ideal how that happened. A set and lock feature would be good for me.

I too had the impression that Pistnbroke did little editing other than cropping which is why he wanted 36 mp. Perhaps it was comments about not liking to fiddle with images and comments about getting it right in camera so you don't need to shoot RAW that created the impression. What I don't remember ever being said until said in this thread is that his wife spends a lot of time post-processing the images. Thus, I think the false impression came from the difference between what he did and what his wife did in the business. Many of us assumed what he said he did was the entire business model, that's all.

I did take the time to check out his album. Congratulations Pistnbroke (and Mrs. Pistnbroke). You do good work. You have memorialized many wonderful memories for a large number of people which is a great public service. Many of us are much more selfish and shoot mainly for the benefit of either ourselves or a few people we know. Our photography does not benefit humanity in general whereas yours does.

PB_PM

Pistnbroke said:

You control all aspects before you arrive at the job or when you arrive and then lock it in the assurance that you know your settings,
and they won't change

I honestly cannot think of a single photo session when I would have wanted this, but I’m a tinkerer by nature, and deal with quickly changing light, shutter speed, and aperture requirements. I can see the appeal for someone who shoots the same type of photos in the same location(s) regularly though. I kind of use the user mode on my D750 this way to create a starting point, but of course the “pro” cameras like the D6/D850/D500 don’t have that and the banks, as we all know, fall far short of it. Why Nikon continues to have the almost useless bank settings is rather odd.

Pistnbroke

Yes that would be excellent snakebunk and I thank donaldjose for his nice comments.
Considering I take 2 or 3 of every shot to avoid blinkers it would be impossible to copy to a memory stick right from the camera ,,, sorry from 3 cameras,,,you would have a right mixed up mess of shots.
So Nikon lets have the impossible a lock function for all but the shutter release.

donaldejose

Useful?

Pistnbroke

Not at all as they need to go through perfectly clear ..be sorted in time by lightroom ( GPS lock on each camera )and some touching up in photoshop...not just a shoot and ship at all.