Nikon D750 test: the red fox Patricay smiled slyly at the camera

The leading manufacturers of photographic equipment have always strived to create a universal SLR camera ideal for most people who call themselves photographers. The small circle of these manufacturers definitely includes Nikon. Every few years a revolutionary engineering solution comes along that developers use to create an entire family of equipment. From this family, everyone can find an instrument to their liking, their task, their wallet.

Nikon D750 full format camera

About Nikon’s line of full-frame cameras

At the top of Nikon’s lineup is a heavy and expensive reporter’s camera. It can confidently work in any environment, shooting more than a dozen frames per second, and its numerous sensors and signal processors don’t let the slightest change in the shooting situation slip by. These are the tools used by those for whom photography is a news-making profession. And since the agency’s ribbon and magazine strip do not require excessive resolution, the file size is modest and sufficient, not exceeding 20 megapixels. Such a camera in Nikon’s system is the D4s.

Studio photographers, advertisers, landscapers such resolution may not be enough, because the result of their work often need to print in a very large size, designers make with them deep manipulation. The Nikon D810, with its high resolution of 36 megapixels, was made for them. In everyday work, files of this size require professional computer solutions, very high computing power, and sometimes even a special assistant. This becomes clear when you know that a simple photoshoot of 400 frames is 30 GB in size, which you need to transfer to an open space, review, select and edit. This is inconvenient for many photographers, not to mention amateurs.

For the army of photographers who don’t feel an urgent need for machine-gun speed or the highest resolution, but want to experience the advantage of the full format and the magic of a wide open aperture, the Nikon D600 was created, then upgraded to the Nikon 610. I wrote about it in detail a few years ago – The Nikon D600 Test

But times are passing, technologies are developing, the user gets used to useful innovations quickly, stops noticing them. But it doesn’t forgive you any minor inconveniences. Engineers also try to offer the buyer the most convenient and versatile solutions. It’s time to get acquainted with the upgraded Nikon D750 full-frame DSLR camera, designed for the widest possible range of users. All its features and advantages we will try to consider in this review, some of them with practical examples.

Specifications

Sensor – Full-HD 23.9 x36 mm, 24.3 megapixel CMOS, 6016×4016 pixels

Lens – interchangeable, F lens mount with electrical contacts. Retro Lens Control is not supported.

Image stabilization – not present in the camera, many interchangeable lenses have optical stabilization

The viewfinder is a glass pentaprism, 100% of the frame.

Display Diagonal 8 cm. 1229 thousand. Aperture, horizontal swivel

Focusing – Automatic single and tracking, manual

Live View focusing, 51 focus points.

Shutter speed range: 30 sec. – 1/4000 sec, long by hand, flash sync 1/250 secThe modes of shooting – P, A, S, M, two user settings, 17 scene modes, D-Lighting, HDR

Exposure metering – 91000 point sensor, multi-segment, center-weighted. Correction ± 5 EV

Flash – Built-in, I-TTL, guide number 12, the ability to connect an external system of creative lighting.

Sensitivity – ISO 100-12800 ISO, software expansion, Auto ISO with selectable range

The photo formats are RAW 12 and 14 bit, RAW+JPG, JPG

Memory Cards – All types of SD cards, two slots

Continuous shooting – Single, continuous up to 6.5 fps, self-timer with adjustable delay, remote shutter

Interval video – yes, flexibly configurable

Full HD video shooting 1920×1080 30 fps

Interfaces – USB mini B, HDMI mini C, microphone and headphones, Wi-Fi

Powered by EL-EN 15, 7 V, 1900 mAh battery

Dimensions – 141 x 113 x 78 mm

Weight 840 grams with battery and memory card

Appearance and design Nikon D750

The appearance of the new camera is virtually the same as the previous Nikon D600 D610 models. You can tell them apart if you look closely at the name on the body. The main differences from the “classmates” are hidden inside. The evolution of the camera is revealed when studying the technical specifications, but some innovations are immediately noticeable to the naked eye.

First of all, the full-frame DSLR finally got a flip-up screen, which has long and successfully been used in models with a frame size of 15×22.5 mm, in non-mirror systems, in compact cameras. Such a solution when implemented high quality significantly expands the opportunities of the photographer in nature photography, sometimes in reportage shooting with a hidden camera, when working with a tripod. As a practitioner, I by no means agree with the claim that a tilt or swivel screen weakens camera protection and leads to the risk of equipment breakage.

During the test shooting, the camera was exposed to damp snow for about 10 days, and experienced strong vibrations. Despite the excitement of the Internet community and virtual testers, I could not find any problems with the connection of the flip screen stub to the camera body. It’s worth noting that the implementation of the flip-down screen has, in my opinion, a lot of potential to upgrade. On rare occasions, I missed another degree of freedom of the flip-up screen, when working with a tripod from awkward positions.

The size of the body has gotten a little smaller. The handle by which the photographer holds the camera is slightly smaller. Camera can still be held securely with the fingers of one hand. Three fingers underneath fit snugly around the grip, with the index finger resting on the shutter release button and camera trigger. I anticipated that the grip would be particularly well suited to a woman’s or a man’s small hand. However, a survey conducted among reputable practicing photographers showed that even the “big shots” found the camera quite comfortable. The power button is very logically located, and the other controls are protected from accidental switching during transport or reportage.

Despite the excitement of the online community and virtual testers, I was unable to detect a problem with the hinged screen stub connecting to the camera body.

Nikon DSLRs traditionally allow you to adjust almost every conceivable camera setting, even adjusting the color balance of the LCD monitor.

Nikon DSLRs traditionally allow you to adjust almost every conceivable camera setting, even adjusting the color balance of the LCD monitor. I find it particularly helpful in my work to be able to flexibly set up remote shooting with self-timer, delay seconds, interval, and number of shots. This can be useful not only for selfies, but for a number of serious applications.

Admittedly, such laudable versatility does not come easily. The menu gets cluttered, in real fast-paced shooting conditions it is sometimes hard to find the function you want, especially if you are pressed for time, need to quickly switch from photo to video or drastically change the way you work. The American translation of some of the tabs is not always easy to understand, e.g. such options as “Comfortable ISO” or “Uniform Marking” stumped me.

So it is worth customizing the “My Menu” tab and having a paper version of the user manual at hand at first, just so you don’t forget about all the great features of the controls. Especially if you want to have a creative influence on all shooting parameters, or if this is the first time you’ve touched Nikon’s camera control philosophy.

Benefits of the Nikon D750

Sensor and processor

Gone are the days when photos taken at very high ISO speeds resulted in catastrophic image degradation or required serious post-processing in a graphic editor. The new sensor used in the Nikon D750 surprises you with its capabilities. the whole range of ISO sensitivity has become fully usable, with proper exposure, fine details are preserved up to 10,000 ISO.

And in challenging conditions, by candlelight, streetlight or even the moonlight, you can use the sensitivity of 12800 ISO for the best possible results. Of course, when familiarizing yourself with the specifications of the Nikon D750, as well as other models, you can come across more ambitious figures, such as 25,000 ISO or even 204,000 ISO. Let’s be realistic: At these settings you can get a good picture, but the details are seriously impaired.

On the Nikon D750, the lowest possible sensitivity is 50 ISO denoted Lo1 . This is software-generated and can be used when you want the longest possible shutter speed in any way. This achieves blurred outlines of people and animals, the illusion of moving water, wire photography, and a few other tricks. 100 to 800 ISO speed range produces the best image quality, with rich detail and no noise.

For low-light conditions overcast, morning or evening, no light , I recommend a setting of 1600 to 3200 ISO, which gives you great results. And if there is a particular need, such as the need to capture the movement indoors, the rapid movement of athletes in the room or the scene at dusk, go to higher values from 6400 to 8000 ISO. For evening and night scenes, you can safely go for the highest values.

Daylight shooting D750

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

D750 Night Scene

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 128000

The Nikon D750 not only has a high quality image sensor, it’s also capable of capturing a wide variety of different scenes in a variety of scenes. The whole philosophy of signal conversion with EXPEED technology helps to cut down on noise, broadens the tonal range and gently converts the image to JPG format, which is comfortable for most non-professional photographers. Noise is suppressed selectively, fine and contrast details are preserved, large areas of monochrome images become smooth without digital artifacts.

You can adjust the effect of the inline noise suppressor. Too much noise reduction results in a strong loss of detail, a so-called “plastic picture. That’s why I recommend setting the Noise Reduction to LOW, because this way the fine details, hair, eyelashes, branches and textures of fabric are preserved. Slow shutter noise reduction should be turned off if you are not shooting the stars.

It’s worth mentioning that the high resolution of 24 million pixels gives you the ability to crop a lot of the original image after shooting without a noticeable loss of quality. This is called “proper cropping”, or “cropping” as they say in amateurish slang these days. That’s what sets the D750 apart from the professional Nikon D4s and Df, though professionals compose their shots with complete precision.

Improved focusing and metering system

Last generation general-purpose camera had a 39-point focus system. Quantitative enough for an amateur camera. But they were composed in such a way that they concentrated in the central part of the frame, without affecting the scene-important parts of the image at the edges. Had to move the camera a lot right in the middle of a shot.

The Nikon D750 got a professional refined version of autofocus with 51 points, which is more proportionally distributed throughout the frame. It is possible to precisely choose the point of focus not only in the center, but also on the edge of the frame. This option is especially important when shooting with portrait, telephoto and macro lenses.

Focus sensors can be used individually or in groups, which will help when working with wide-angle lenses in reportage photography. 15 points could track horizontal and vertical lines. The ability to focus in the dark has been improved, which helped to shoot test scenes after sunset, in the dark.

91,000-point element metering allows the use of matrix metering in almost any shooting situation. In especially complicated situations, other metering systems, such as Spot and Bright Spot metering, can be used. Manual exposure correction is possible in a very large range, five exposure steps. During the test shooting, there were no dark or very light shots caused by the exposure metering, indicating that the intelligent work of this system is accurate.

Other features of the camera

The camera has two SD card slots. They can be set so that the recording during shooting is not interrupted when one of the cards is full, or so that there is an automatic sorting by format, for example a small JPG is recorded on the first card, large RAW for creative editing on the second card.

The Nikon D750 has a built-in Wi Fi module for remotely controlling the camera and transferring your picture to a modern mobile device. The range of stable communication with a smartphone or tablet was tested in practice. Indoors it is 3 -4 meters, the range in open terrain does not exceed 12 meters.

To establish a connection, you need a single presence of the smartphone or tablet in the network and a free Wireless Mobile Utility app installation, the connection is almost instantaneous. Unfortunately, there were several devices with which the connection via Wi-Fi could not be established due to software and hardware conflicts.

The manufacturer claims that the camera has slightly reduced power consumption. Perhaps it is true, the EN-EL15 battery is more economical to use. The only advice I can give is to have a spare battery or use the MB-D16 external power pack when shooting movies, interval shooting and working in the winter.

Shooting videos

With a traditional DSLR camera, video is most often shot with a tripod or other mount, and tracking focus is not possible. The style of the DSLR in video mode is more like filming a professional cameraman and usually does not involve the active movement of the videographer himself.

So it’s worth composing the shot, adjusting the focus, and shooting a short scene. The camera produces very high-quality results for amateur filmmaking. You can also connect an external microphone. Technical video settings are separated from the photo menu, allowing you to adjust photo and video modes independently of each other.

Full HD one-shot duration at 60 fps is 10 minutes, with 20 and 30 minutes in less demanding modes.

The most interesting is the proprietary option of slow-motion video shooting in Time-lapse photography, or as it is called, time-lapse photography. But you have to set it up first. The settings tab is located in the “Video” menu. The longer the process being filmed, the longer the interval between the images.

For example, the sunrise can be filmed in 2 or 3 second intervals, while the blooming flower or the erection of a house will require a longer interval. When we set the shooting duration, the camera calculates the final length of the finished video. You can stop filming at any time, for example to see how fast the scene is progressing, and start filming again later.

The camera automatically captures long periods of unattended footage and compiles a video file based on the selected settings. If the lighting changes over the course of the scene, the exposure smoothing option can automatically correct the differences in light and shadow. You might want to turn off autofocus and optical stabilizer so the picture stays still.

A further development of the advanced automatic control options was interval shooting without the presence of a person. The camera will take a series of pictures at a pre-set time interval. This option allows us to observe animals or record scientific research from a tripod.

Software and image processing

Today’s cameras are perfectly capable of obtaining photos in compressed JPG format, apply intelligent methods of editing dark and light areas of the image and in simple typical cases accurately determines the color white balance on the fly. But if the author wants to have a more subtle effect on the result and intervene creatively in the image processing, he needs the full array of data obtained directly from the sensor.

On Nikon cameras such a file is called *.NEF. In most cases it is only visible in the form of an icon on a personal computer, you can’t see the content itself. With the release of the new camera, the company developed the free software Nikon Capture NX-D ver 1.0.3, can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website at //nikon_RU/product/software/capture-nx-d , which allows you to make any changes to the file and save the work in JPG and TIFF format.

Unfortunately, the familiar to many in the software environment of Adobe Lightroom and Adobe ACR does not yet support the new camera, as well as other old handy program from the manufacturer Nikon Capture NX 2.4.7. There is, however, a solution. We have to get used to the new NX-D so far I find it incomprehensible and lacking in features , or try the free Adobe Digital Negative converter 8.7.0 to create a DNG file and return to the familiar working environment of Lightroom.

What’s the difference? Nikon NX-D converter creates the most low-noise, smooth and realistic images, but it is difficult to work with subtle shades of color and gradation, changing only parts of the picture. Adobe Lightroom is intuitive and easy to understand, has the greatest ability to change the image, but can not take into account the proprietary algorithms noise reduction. Which path is best for the user is up to you. It is worth noting that the Nikon Capture NX-D does not have a American-language interface.

The difference of results with default settings is seen on the example of low-contrast scene without bright spots of color. In the shotCarture NX-D.jpg It’s obvious that the program took into account the geometric distortions introduced by the wide-angle lens. Pictured in Lightroom 1.jpg-visible characteristic changes in contrast and color, which are usually introduced in the image by Adobe’s conversion module.

Another useful software solution for Windows users could be NEF Codec. This free tool from Nikon lets you see raw NEF files on your monitor screen like a simple photo…

Camera techniques for different situations. Practical photography

In a recent interview photojournalist Sergey Maksimishin, a multiple World Press Photo award winner, said that following canons of classical photography or having a thorough knowledge of technique is not the same as creating a photographic masterpiece. It’s the specific impulse which makes you press the shutter.

It’s the fleeting, unrepeatable photo that fascinates. The wizard is definitely right. But in order not to miss that special and unforgettable moment, it’s worth confidently using a tool that can help you capture that moment. And autofocus will help us to capture recognizable pictures.

Which focus mode to use, single-frame or tracking mode?

The auto-focus module can be set to more than 10 different operating algorithms. Pressing the autofocus button with the left thumb, we can use the click wheel with the right thumb to select three modes: Single AF, Tracking AF and Auto AF. Single AFS is the most common AFS option, used in 90% of all situations.

Landscapes, groups of people, portraits, architecture – all subjects for single AF. Tracking mode AFC is used if the object moves fast relative to the camera and must always be in sharpness. Athletes, animals, flying birds, cars, children – these are the heroes for automatic tracking. Automatic switching mode AFA observes the object and decides by itself when to apply a single focus and when to apply tracking focus. I always use only mode one and two, trying to judge the situation for myself.

Choosing which focus points to use

A large number of focus points presented the photographer with the problem of choosing how many to use and when to use them. It seems to me that the most accurate and predictable results are obtained with a single point. You should place it in the place where there is an important subject that should be in sharpness. It’s easy to do with the joystick under the right thumb.

This is how you avoid the common mistake of all boring and monotonous photos in which the main subject is exactly in the center of the frame. With this minimum of knowledge, let’s go for a walk in the city light, without the obligatory tripod before. We’ve already figured out that the sensor is capable of taking great shots at very high sensitivities.

Taking pictures of night scenes in the city

The time when the lights are already on, but the sky has not yet turned dark, is only a few minutes. When shooting with a 200mm telephoto lens, the shutter speed should have been faster, but I relied on the optical Image Stabilizer in the Nikkor 70-200 1:2.8. Single focus, on the lattice contrast dome matrix metering was not affected by the presence of light sources in the frame. Auto white balance precisely retained the color gamma of the image.

After just five minutes the sky has changed color and turned dark blue, increasing the contrast. In this situation, an important factor was the need to avoid overexposure on the illuminated walls of the Bolshoi building. The desire to keep the foreground and background sharpness caused the aperture to drop a bit, and the shutter speed for hand-held photography was never slower than 1/15th of a second.

The image was focused on the left side, the leftmost point did the job. The blue shades of the dark sky were lightened during the conversion in Adobe Lightroom 5.4, the geometric distortions of the vertical walls of the building were corrected in the image editor.

It’s always difficult to focus when the subject matter is behind the foreground objects. If you apply a large number of focus points centrally located, the camera will definitely focus on the brightest and most contrasting part of the picture, in our case that would be the bright yellow bulbs of the electric light. By selecting one of the uppermost focus points and setting the aperture wide open, you can create a beautifully blurred out frame from the foreground.

Ambient light from electric street lamps is enough for reportage-style photography. Wide open aperture and long focal distance help to reproduce the atmosphere of a metropolitan street at night, unobtrusively approaching passers-by.

But the depth of the sharply portrayed space becomes very small, it takes just one step for the characters of the picture to turn into a blurred spot with lost details. So let’s use tracking focus by setting its mode to AFC. The focus point should be chosen so that it follows the faces. If you shoot a short burst at 6 frames per second, you can choose the sharpest shot.

When I take pictures at high sensitivities I try to choose the lowest possible value. For example, if the focal length of the lens is long, as in the previous picture, it is worth choosing a higher value of 8000 ISO.

By reducing the focal length with the zoom, you can lower the ISO sensitivity for the general photography. This will give a noticeable improvement in the quality of fine detail reproduction. You should set the level of digital noise reduction to Low moderate , and in some cases turn it off altogether.

Even if it’s not night in the city, but rather a cloudy gray sky, snow or rain, either way the new camera and its sensor provoke the use of high sensitivity. If before you had to hold your breath and think about the risk of blurring, now you can simply shoot thinking about the moments and associations that caught your eye.

The sun in the frame

The sun in the frame is always a big problem. The brightness of the sun is very high and the contrast between the foreground and the sky is great. The camera metering system is usually wrong in one direction or another, and the picture shows a correctly exposed sky with a very dark foreground. But it could be the other way around, with a well defined foreground standing in front of a light sky that’s devoid of any detail.

This is because the dynamic range of the scene is very wide when shooting “against the light”. Also, a very bright point light source produces multiple reflections in the lens, which appear as bright bands, highlights and blotches in the image. Some photographers call them “hares”, probably because they appear at the most inopportune moment and are not always visible when the picture is taken.

A lens hood that comes with interchangeable lenses can be a very effective method of avoiding flare. Sometimes with wide angle lenses you can completely eliminate the influence of stray rabbits with an outstretched arm, a headdress or other improvised means, or you can make the bright disk of the sun appear behind some object, a thin branch of a tree. Sometimes you just have to move the camera a millimeter to get great contrast and richness.

When the light source is in the frame, you have to correct the automatic exposure by adjusting the + or – Ev. The Nikon D750 lets you make up to five different exposure compensation settings. This can seriously change the impression of the scene and turn a sunny day into a moonlit night.

Usually I don’t trust the matrix metering in complicated scenes, I correct it quite a bit or switch to manual “M” mode to adjust the exposure values myself. Surprisingly, the Nikon D750’s matrix metering worked precisely and didn’t require much correction.

I had the same situation many times, it seemed to me that the Nikon D750’s matrix metering precisely works for most of the scenes I shoot.

Flash photography. Creative Lighting System

Long gone are the days when photo reporters lit magnesium powder to get a strong momentary pulse of light. The flash units are no longer used to create a flat beam of light, but are instead used as a tool to create the light pattern, the atmosphere of an image. Almost all advertising and studio photo productions are created with the help of impulse illuminators, often very big ones.

While our camera is great in low light, the flash is still a tool for the photographer. Small system flashes can also create unique lighting patterns, highlight shadows in nature shots, and create a stroboscopic effect. Nikon CLS Creative Lighting System is able to coordinate several pulse sources, control them from a distance and dose their power. The D750 is fully compatible with this system.

Even in a wildlife photographer’s work, there are times when it is desirable to use multiple flash units. Often happens with macro photography when you want to get a large aperture on the lens, get a large depth of field and create the lighting pattern you want.

When photographing the fall maple wingtips, I wanted to convey their complex structure. One source, a Nikon SB800 handheld computer flash shone directly into the camera to make the macro subject look like a silhouette. Another Nikon SB910 flash illuminated shadows and controlled two light sources when the shutter was released. The pulses were delicate, there was no overexposure, but the flashes were adjusted in manual mode, and the flash output of the SB 800 was thirty-two times greater than the fill-in SB 910.

Powerful handheld remote flash with high-speed FP sync. Normally the shutter speed of a camera when shooting with flash is 1/200 or 1/250 sec. This is clearly not enough when shooting in nature. By using high-speed sync, we can make use of the switched light source when photographing in the field, to lighten shadows, reduce contrast and maintain a beautiful backdrop.

And in order to avoid overexposure and to make sure the flash fires delicately, it pays to use exposure compensation. You have to reduce the exposure the camera will work off and lessen the flash’s pulse power. This is determined experimentally by the author of the sketch, according to his intentions.

A similar but more complicated situation occurred when photographing the bark of an ancient oak tree with a wide angle lens. I had to delicately illuminate the bark, and take the shot with the diaphragm open as much as possible, so that the trees in the background appear blurry, while preserving the blue of the sky. The camera’s deep adjustments allowed us to set the sensitivity to the minimum and match the bright light of a frosty day with the deep shadows of an ebony tree. It’s worth mentioning that such sketches are often shot during expeditions when there is no time to wait for the necessary light. That’s where a portable flash comes in handy.

And the last, the easiest case of working with flash during an unpredictable encounter with a scene that just needs to be shot very quickly, and there is no time to think about it. A wild fox illuminated by a powerful stream of low morning sun. I shot some pictures in natural light, the silhouette type of lighting did not satisfy me. I simply used the built-in flash and lit the shadows in auto mode.

Using AFC and continuous shooting

The most difficult and challenging thing for a camera and photographer is shooting sports or wildlife photo shoots. They are similar in some respects. Heavy long-focus optics are used, subject movements are unpredictable, you can predict them, but you can’t offer to do a take if something doesn’t work out. When photo hunting the need to hide is added. That’s why high speed continuous shooting and active use of AFC Auto Tracking Focus can help you catch an interesting moment.

Before a responsible photo hunt, especially with a new camera model, I try to simulate the scenes I normally shoot. The galloping dog Nika almost the namesake of the camera was my heroine to show me the peculiarities of the auto tracking autofocus.

The depth of field in front of the subject’s eyes is only a few centimeters. Shooting at 6.5 fps experimentally helped me to figure out how many focus sensors to use during a photo hunt. If the animal is big, and you want to get a sharp image of its eyes, you should use a single point. More of these could cause the camera to focus on fur, nose, ears, and the eyes to be out of focus, ruining the shot.

In order to track an object that occupies less space in the frame – a bird in the sky, a skier on a slope – you can use a group of 9 or 21 points. Series should be short so that there is always room in the camera buffer for a few more frames. This way we don’t miss the interesting part.

Speed shooting with the D750

ISO 500, f/4, 1/1250 s

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ISO 500, f/4, 1/2000 s

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ISO 800, f/4, 1/3200 s

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ISO 500, f/4, 1/2500 s

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ISO 500, f/4, 1/2500 s

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, ISO 500, f/4, 1/2500 s

It was the continuous shooting that made it possible to accidentally catch the smiling fox Patrykei living in the Bryansk Forest Reserve. The 500mm lens I had doesn’t have optical stabilization, so the minimum shutter speed must be no faster than 1/400 or better than 1/500 of a second.

If that’s not possible, you have to get down to earth. The lens rests on a sandbag, stick, root, or any improvised means. The camera is held still by a heavy camera system that is difficult to hold without a tripod. You can’t set up a tripod because the pretty beast will just get scared and run away.

A free herd of bison wandering through the Bryansk forest, very skittish. The steam from the hot breath escapes from the giants nostrils and makes it seriously difficult to focus, which is difficult to do through the branches of an old fallen tree. Hiding by the roots, I try to hold my breath, but it still makes the viewfinder sweat a lot. It’s dark under the forest canopy, and I need to use a higher sensitivity, but it’s not possible to make the necessary adjustments blindly, because I haven’t yet learned to intuitively operate the new camera in an uncomfortable position for a few days.

So I pressed the Live View button, focused and took a series of shots, several of which were sharp. The thing is that shooting in this mode is quiet, the mirror is not raised, does not create strong vibrations, only the shutter works. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to take pictures by any other method at such a long focal length at a shutter speed of 1/60 sec.

A shot of a bison feeding in the woods, mostly in dark tones, with only a dry leaf serving as a bright spot. Having had experience shooting bison in overcast light, I assume that the camera’s exposure metering will lighten the image and get it wrong. It is worth taking into account the mistakes of the previous encounters, to set the sensitivity to a high of 4000 ISO and to introduce the minus correction. The shutter sound during bursts of the D750 is quiet, it doesn’t disturb the beast that is engrossed in feeding and you can catch a glimpse of the heavy forest dweller gently picking off thin twigs.

Using AutoISO. First experience

Never in my shooting practice have I used the auto sensitivity setting, because I thought I could do it easily and on my own. With the Nikon D750, I was convinced that it is possible to let the automation do that when the light situation changes frequently, floodlights and plasma panels are working, lenses are frequently changed and the flash is occasionally used for backlighting.

This often happens during reportage, at concerts. I limited the maximum sensitivity to 10,000 ISO, and started shooting without paying attention to sensitivity, including a fill-in flash when I wanted to beat the efforts of homebrew flashers, who fill people’s faces with blue and yellow. I took a bunch of shots with sensitivity between 800 and 10000 ISO, white balance was fully automatic, and I used the traditional aperture priority “A” mode.

When I examined the results, I saw that the program tracks the focal length of the lens, and tries to set the shutter speed, which is approximately equal to the focal length of the optics. This ensures that blurred images are kept to a minimum. The sensitivity is raised where needed. The nature of the images viewed on the monitor did not allow me to easily distinguish pictures taken at high sensitivities. This shows that Auto ISO mode is quite usable.

Please, take a look at some pictures and see the shutter speed algorithm. I was satisfied with the results obtained in such different light conditions using completely different shooting techniques. I assume that manually calculating correction values for shoots would be difficult.

Reportage shooting the D750

Conclusions

To wrap up the review of the new Nikon D750, I would guess that this model is the best all-around DSLR camera for the creative photographer at the moment. Huge number of settings can satisfy most advanced photographers. A lot of my friends, professional photographers and wildlife photo enthusiasts have already bought this camera and are quite happy with it.

Please keep in mind that realizing the potential of your camera requires professional-grade high luminosity optics and the confidence of your photography software.

Photographers who are just starting out and don’t have a lot of experience with photography can be pleased with the camera’s precise auto modes, while the large number of presets in the SCENE menu and the EFFECTS collection provide material for experimentation in exploring the camera’s capabilities.

Have fun owning this camera and take lots of pictures that will please both the photographers and the audience.