Photo-A-Day

FreezeAction

The Z6III would be more than a replacement with fps if the focus lock would be as good. I have no clue as to how the Z6II compares to the D500 with focus lock. It would be nice to hear from someone who has shot both in equal situations.

FreezeAction

Legs showing off for his adversaries.

FreezeAction

donaldejose

I have only seen one of those once and that was in a Florida swamp. It was too dark and the bird disappeared too quickly to get a photograph. They are very impressive birds.

donaldejose

FreezeAction

That woodpecker came down to my set that I built to photograph on. I shot hundreds of birds through the French Door that opened up to the deck.

Capt_Spaulding

Hi friends. I've been away for a while dealing with some health issues and am slowly working my way back into my photo addiction. Along the way, I sold my D7200 and 200-500 f5.6 and bought a Z8. More as an incentive to keep working on the rehab, but, after loading the 2.0 FW I now have the camera I've always dreamed of. I'm not driving yet, but a buddy takes me out for a cruise in the country every couple of weeks and I've started shaking down the Z8. It is an extremely impressive and daunting piece of equipment.

I'll be posting some of those shakedown images over the next few weeks and hope to be able to take some more with the new FW. I'm hoping your efforts to keep the forum alive succeed. I'll try to help.

FreezeAction

Thanks for sharing the update and the photo.

donaldejose

Capt_Spaulding: Good to have you back in action. Looking forward to your posts. Freezaction: Being able to shoot from inside the house is a great way to photograph birds!

FreezeAction

gene_mcgill

donaldejose

Here it is, my first attempt at pixel shifting with the Z8. 50mm f1.8 lens, f 5.6, ISO 400, 1/2000 sec shutter speed, 32 images, processed in NX Studio. The result is a 189 mb jpeg of 16, 512 x 11,008 pixels. The image is nothing special. It was choses because it is inanimate and should have lots of detail. Click on the image below and go to flckr where you can pixel peep the original full size file. I don't know whether it is impressive or not since I uploaded it without examining the file myself. Just wanted to get it out to all ASAP.

Capt_Spaulding

The partner to yesterday's image. 25 years ago this was a working gas station/general store.

FreezeAction

donaldejose said:

Here it is, my first attempt at pixel shifting with the Z8. 50mm f1.8 lens, f 5.6, ISO 400, 1/2000 sec shutter speed, 32 images, processed in NX Studio. The result is a 189 mb jpeg of 16, 512 x 11,008 pixels. The image is nothing special. It was choses because it is inanimate and should have lots of detail. Click on the image below and go to flckr where you can pixel peep the original full size file. I don't know whether it is impressive or not since I uploaded it without examining the file myself. Just wanted to get it out to all ASAP.

Very impressive. I easily spotted the missing stucco on the chimney when pixel peeping.

donaldejose

I will do a few more when I can and post them. Maybe we don't need to clamor so much for higher megapixel sensors? But then, these have to be static subjects. A higher megapixel sensor can do moving subjects.

FreezeAction

I can do all I need to do now with 20mp. I don't know that my large format printer is fixable and no desired to replace it. Even the 17" printer has an error code I don't know what is and I need to get that seen about. 16x20 prints are as large as I care to do now. When I was running a 44" large format I would have loved a 45mp sensor that would have made 36" x 84" canvas prints. A larger sensor does allow for heavy cropping to get a subject out of an image.

donaldejose

I am running the 189 mb image through Topaz AI now to upscale it 1.9 times which should create a 670 mb file containing 32,000 x 21,333 pixel image. It is taking a long, long, long time to do this. If it is possible to post such an image on flickr I will do so when done and link it here so everyone can see what Nikon Pixel Shift plus Topaz AI can do if you want to print very large images. I estimate, if this works, that you can print an image 8.8 feet wide and 5.9 feet high at 300 dpi so if you walk up to it and look at a small part from one yard away that small part will still be sharp. No need to rely upon normal viewing distance for large prints. We will see if it works. As of now I don't plan to print larger than poster size which can be done fine with the original 45 megapixels. Just interesting to me to see how much can be gotten out of Nikon's Pixel Shift technology plus Topaz AI.

FreezeAction

donaldejose

Sorry, I cannot upload the Topaz Photo AI enlarged Z8 pixel shift image to flckr. Flckr only allows uploads of an image up to 200 mb and when I run the 189 pixel shift image through Topaz Photo AI to enlarge it 1.9 times I get a 538 mb file which is 32,000 x 21,333 pixels. But I can say that it still looks just fine at that huge size.

donaldejose

While I cannot upload the entire image above, I was able to crop out part of the image and upload that. Look for detail in the stucco, a piece of stucco missing in the chimney, blinds in the windows, a chunk out of a rock under a second story window, details in the rocks, etc. Notice the flag by the front door. A part was apparently moving and renders as bar lines? Perhaps this is what happens if something moves. But the tree branches didn't seem to move so I am not sure that is what happened to the flag. Anyway, I hope it is interesting.

FreezeAction

donaldejose said:

While I cannot upload the entire image above, I was able to crop out part of the image and upload that. Look for detail in the stucco, a piece of stucco missing in the chimney, blinds in the windows, a chunk out of a rock under a second story window, details in the rocks, etc. Notice the flag by the front door. A part was apparently moving and renders as bar lines? Perhaps this is what happens if something moves. But the tree branches didn't seem to move so I am not sure that is what happened to the flag. Anyway, I hope it is interesting.

Very Interesting. So interesting it had me looking at 60" large format printers and dream a bit.

donaldejose

Maybe you should consider a Z8 instead of a Z6III although I suspect the Z6III will also have pixel shift but it will be about 96 instead of 180 mp for the resultant image. Yet, you can get to about 100mp through Topez Photo AI anyway. Yes, now that I see what can be done I am tempted to take a large file and have it printed by a local shop that has a printer which prints on roll paper 5 or 6 feet wide (don't remember exactly). Then I would have to figure out how to mount such a huge print and were to put it! Just cannot find the use case for such large prints. Too bad I am not famous and some art museum wants to make a huge print show of my work. LOL

donaldejose

I am surprised I have not seen more interest in Z8 pixel shift work on-line and more attention paid to this thread. Seems that you and I are the only two ones interested.

donaldejose

I think another thing that has to be done now is determine which Z lenses have the most resolving power so we know what lens to use at what f-stop to originally capture the most detail for the huge final image. With pixel shifting we are no longer working with just a 45 mp sensor. The pixel shift technology shifts the sensor half a pixel in the 32 image setting so we need a lens able to resolve better than 45 megapixels. I used the 50mm Z 1.8 lens in my photo above because I thought it would be one of the sharpest but I do not know if that is true. (An old maxim was to stop down two stops from maximum to get best sharpness out of a lens.) I used it at f5.6 but perhaps f8 is sharper? Again, I don't know. Maybe a Z macro lens is sharpest? They often are very sharp lenses.

Capt_Spaulding

Thanks Donald. Impressive what level detail becomes available. ATTM I don’t have subject matter suitable for a 180MP image but when I find it, I’ll give PS a whirl.