Nikon DF field test: a new classic in the wild

REVIEW * SPECIAL PROJECT * PHOTO CONTEST

Going on a long expedition to explore nature many thousands of kilometers away from home, you have to trust your equipment. Because if you find yourself in a hard-to-reach area, calling for service or asking for a replacement would be impossible. You can not increase the number of cameras and lenses indefinitely either, the weight of luggage transported by plane, boat and carried in a backpack has its own limitations.

To make a nature photographic story, it’s advisable to use the whole range of lenses, from wide-angle to super-telephoto. This set was kindly provided by Nikon New York representative office. The relative compactness of the camera helped me pack the entire kit into a single LowePro Rower AW II backpack, which isn’t very big.

Wildlife photography

The most critical part of nature photography – observing wildlife. They often behave unpredictably, so the speed and precision of the autofocus tracking is very important. The spawning crucian carp move under the water and surface for a second, making noise, foaming the water. I used a long focal-length lens AF-S Nikkor 500 1:4 G in combination with a TC 17EII converter.

Thanks to it it was possible to receive necessary approach to an object, the minimum distance of focusing turned out hardly more than 3 meters. Let’s choose the AF-C autofocus tracking mode in the camera. We make a mental composition beforehand and choose not the central but the point of focus shifted to the left, but not the innermost one. The focus point closest to the focus point is always the one with the lowest precision and speed, so it must be taken into account.

Since the subject is in the water, we need to set the camera as low as possible to the water’s edge, on a tripod. Do not lock the tripod head and always hold the camera with your hands to prevent it from accidentally falling. Shutter speed should be fast enough to freeze the water, and shooting is done in series, with 5.5 frames per second, in short bursts of 2-4 frames each. It’s worth to do so in order to select the best phase of the object’s movement afterwards, but not to overflow the memory buffer so that the camera is always ready for a new fish jump.

Photo 1. ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/2000 s, aperture f/11 for increased depth of field. AND_0497.jpg

A fundamentally different situation in terms of using autofocus occurs when taking pictures of intimidating subjects from a shelter. The Far Eastern stork is an endangered bird that is under international protection, and its photography is monitored by scientists. Disturbance at the nesting site should be completely eliminated.

Shot through a pile of branches in the foreground, from a special pre-installed tent. The camera stayed in the tent in nature for several days, the photographer would go in and out of the shelter under the cover of night. The camera and optics endured temperature fluctuations of almost 30 degrees a day and natural dew fallout.

Automatic focusing is impossible or imprecise in these conditions. The Live View system with the full magnification of the image area helped me to focus on the bird’s eyes. I again shot in a short series to eliminate the blurring at such a long focal length. When selecting, I chose not the first but the second or the third shot in the sequence.

Photo 2. ISO 400, shutter speed 1/500 s, aperture f/16. AND_4843.jpg

In the past it was recommended to take pictures of insects at a low sensitivity, to preserve the smallest details. It was complicated because we had to shoot shy objects early in the morning, using a tripod, when the butterflies are in a kind of anabiosis. Now the image quality at high sensitivity is so good that I can shoot at any sensitivity, but I choose the lowest one possible.

A tripod is desirable to eliminate vibrations, but this might scare the rare butterfly away. So if your lens has optical stabilization, you should definitely use it. Make a series of photos, holding your breath for a while. Then, on the computer choose the shot where wing flakes turned out without double contour.

Photo 3. ISO 640, shutter speed 1/125 s, aperture f/5.6. AND_6688.jpg

To make a landscape photo of the Amur riverbed from a height, it was necessary to climb a half-destroyed survey tower early in the morning while the air was still clear and the streams of vapor from the water space didn’t distort the distant plans. The main factor was compactness and low weight of the equipment. Long lens made it possible to zoom in and capture the foothills of Sikhote-Alin, Amur and the Gorin river estuary.

Photo 4. ISO 400, shutter speed 1/200 s, aperture f/11. AND_2113.jpg

The Nikon Df does not have an automatic panorama capture and stitching option. But such necessity in shooting natural landscapes arises very often, and the results of high resolution are demanded for polygraphy and electronic guidebooks, virtual guides. Turning off auto focus and setting the exposure method to manual, I took a series of shots. I used my graphics editor to assemble a panorama from five different sources.

Photo 5. ISO 400, shutter speed 1/320 s, aperture f/9. AND_2084.jpg

I had to take a shot in complete darkness, in an abandoned Gulag tunnel that I found in the taiga, lighting the underground with two headlamps, one of which I placed behind the turn of the rocky underground. From this main source I experimentally determined the exposure. I was able to get the record shutter speed, using a simple mechanical cable to control the shutter button. I kept my hands free in the dungeon and used the second flashlight as a brush to paint the foreground.

Photo 6. ISO 400, shutter speed 130s, aperture f/22 for depth of field, contrast reduction with image editor. AND_2679.jpg

Photographing small birds at close range with the long-focal-length optics has its own peculiarities. The depth of field in this situation is so shallow that if you just aim at the center, the picture will be ruined. The wings feathers are sharp, but the eye is in the blur zone. I have to move the camera a little, focusing just on the eyes and close the aperture a little.

Photo 7. ISO 1000, shutter speed 1/320 s, aperture f/11 for depth of field. AND_2048.jpg

Taking pictures with Nikon Df at different sensitivities, at sunset

Shooting with Nikon Df at different sensitivities indoors

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Some of the files were converted in Adobe Lightroom. It’s no secret that the ACR module has a wealth of fine-tuning options, but applying simple default settings can lead to oversaturated, unnatural images. You can often see the results of such conversion on the web. I liked the work in my own conversion program Capture NX 2 ver. 2.4.6, it is more simple and obvious for a user with ordinary, not professional, experience in conversion programs.

Conclusions

Let’s try to summarize the purely photographic results of the field test.

The camera’s sensor makes it possible to take great photos and seriously edit the resulting image if necessary. Sensitivity for any kind of sensitivity. The camera requires accurate cropping when taking pictures, making a significant cropping without loss of quality is not allowed by the resolution of the sensor. It is the precision of the framing that makes a good photographer. The quality of the signal conversion to JPG format allows in many cases to avoid the long and resource-consuming process of converting from RAW format on a personal computer.

The camera requires great care in use due to the construction of its controls. The camera is perfectly suited for studio work, travel, dark locations and reaches its full potential when using high luminosity interchangeable optics. The lack of automatic programs, built-in flash and some design features suggest, in my opinion, that the main consumer of this camera could be a practicing photographer with a confident knowledge of photography techniques.

REVIEW * REPORTAGE IN THE FIRE * DAY TIME SHOOTING * BUFFET SHOOTING