More Nikon D850 Minutia

Comments / Notes - updated 12/1/2018

I decided I needed a place to post things I've found about the D850 that I want to point out for one reason or another. A lot of these items are likely to be differences between the D610 and D850 - comparing my previous body experiences. These are not listed in any order of importance.

12/1/2018 - Formatting the memory card deletes the settings file

I have been curious about this so tried it out. If you save your settings to the memory card in the D850 (Setup Menu > Save/Load settings), it creates a NCSETUPM.BIN file at the root of the card. If you then choose to reformat your card (), it deletes your settings file! 

When I import files from the memory card I try to also make a backup of the NCSETUPM.BIN file. Another thing to try to do is to save your settings again after formatting the memory card.

I have only tried this with the XQD card.

The Unboxing

Everyone does unboxing videos of their Nikon D850. Well, perhaps not everyone but there are a lot of unboxing videos on YouTube. As I opened my D850, I took a few snaps with my D610, but hadn't shot photos for about a year and a half and I had the aperture opened up too wide to get good depth of field and being hand held, they aren't in focus. So, here's the extent to which I'll share my D850 unboxing:

My Nikon D850 - unboxed, 11/06/2018

In one of the unboxing videos I watched, the guy (I don't think I've seen one unboxing with a woman owner - hmmm) threw his manual back in the box unwrapped (it comes wrapped in plastic). I wish I hadn't opened mine either - I won't read the paper copy. Like him, I had already downloaded the D850 User Manual from Nikon's site (~400 pages) along with the separate Menu Guide (~200 pages). I have it on my iPhone and iPad and that's where I've read it.

Likewise I won't use the D850 camera strap although I sure wouldn't be ashamed to! I am tickled with this camera and glad I got it. And that's without having even gotten out much with it. It's just satisfying knowing that I have what a lot of folks consider the top DSLR of it's time. Now if only I had the skills to go with it!

What about my Nikon D610?

My Nikon D610

I don't know what to do with my Nikon D610. My wife wants me to keep it but I don't see much sense in that. I'm not a pro, and I'm not shooting events where I must get the shot. In other words, I don't need a backup camera. Even if I did, I still have my little Nikon D3200 still.

The downside of selling them is that neither one of the other bodies are worth much. If I sold it to B&H or Adorama, they might give me $300 or so for it. The reason I've kept the D3200 is because it isn't worth much either, and neither are the DX format lenses.

I could get more selling it myself online but I hate messing with that stuff. It's a conundrum.

I'm also surprised that I could let the D610 go so easily, but I don't really have a connection to it like I do my dogs or other material things I sold in the past (like my Yamaha MO6 keyboard). I don't know why that is but I have 2 thoughts: 1) the actual camera body wasn't the focus of my experiences or memories from being out shooting, or 2) I've grown emotionally this year. Either way, I truly enjoyed what the D610 did for me and hope to continue down the same path with the D850.

Nikon D850 - Focusing

Like learning how to focus for the first time - almost

Encanto Park, Phoenix AZ
Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 @ 16mm

I went out to shoot with my new Nikon D850 last weekend and wasn't terribly happy with my results.

I was hoping, okay, expecting, to be blown away with the detail and sharpness of the better sensor. I forgot to account for the ability of the photographer!

The image at right was probably the best result I got. I was using my Nikkor 16-35mm f/4/G lens at 16 mm and f/4.5. I used the autofocus in live view, focusing on the fountain on the left of the little island. I used the self timer mode with a 4 second delay on the shutter release. None of this image seems terribly sharp to me.

On Thom Hogan's site, I had read about which lenses are recommended for the D850 and this lens is semi-recommended (the exception being that an LED used in the vibration reduction circuitry can cause "fogging" of an image). I was aware that there is some discussion about the performance of lenses with the higher resolution sensor so I was worried - was I going to have to replace all of my lenses? I hoped not.

After pondering the issue over the last week, I decided to try some additional settings.

Today I enabled the electronic front curtain shutter (Custom Setting d5). I also used the full Mup release mode. In addition, I manually focused in live view with focus peaking enabled while zoomed in at 100%. Between all of those settings, this new image looks pretty good to me.

Neighbor's Palm Tree, Phoenix AZ
Nikon D850, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D @ f/1.8

This was taken with my lowly Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens, which is NOT on the recommended list for the D850 and it still looks better than any of the shots I did the prior weekend. Woo hoo! This crop does have some sharpening applied in Lightroom, but now I can see what the rig can do even with a less than stellar lens.

Here are the full size jpegs of the above images for reference:

More reflections

Wireless Remote for the D850

One thing I always did with my D610 was to use an infrared (IR) remote shutter release to trigger the shutter. The D850 doesn't have that functionality built in. The IR remote doesn't work with the D850. I've been looking for solutions and am torn about how to address the issue. For now I'll just use the Mup mode with a release delay. I really don't like having to use an attachment with a cord, and am considering the Vello FreeWave Micro Wireless Remote Shutter Release - it has a receiver that plugs in to the 10 pin connecter and doesn't need a cable flopping around.

XQD Memory Card

I have been using a new Sony XQD G series 64G memory card. It's fine and should hold around 589 images at 14 bit lossless compressed (~45 Mb per file for the files I've taken so far). The burst rate of the camera at 7 frames per secong (FPS) is pretty cool and impressed my friend Jon.

However, during my photography hiatus, SanDisk and others have come out with some new UHS-3 SD cards that are impressive for that format - they have write speeds around 250-300MB/s! They're somewhat cheaper than the XQD cards too.

However, since most of what I have shot is landscape, I really don't need to use burst mode to try and freeze a mountain or valley or tree. Consequently, my 95MB/s SD cards work just fine. Getting the XQD was not really necessary, and it also required me to get an XQD card reader. 

It's Here!

Just a quick post -

I ordered my D850 from B & H last Sunday (11/4/2018) and got it the following Tuesday (11/6/2018). Now that's service! I was sick and didn't get to do much with it except unbox it.

Today, 11/8/2018, I got my Sony 64 G XQD G series card. I shot a few pics and got them transferred to my PC using my new Sony XQD USB Adapter.

The pics were bad (taken indoors with no flash) so I'm not going to post them.

I was happy to get the ingest chain working again since I haven't done any photography for almost 2 years. That was the good part.

The bad part, kind of, is that I have forgotten how to use my software. I figured out the Nikon Transfer 2 that I use and have liked (I may look for something else but it does what I want - allows me to rename and to copy to 2 destinations so I get my backup at the same time). And, now that I'm using USB 3 for reading from the card, it was faster than off the SD cards even with about 45M files.

Lightroom, Photoshop, and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) were different stories.

In Lightroom, once I imported the files, the images wouldn't show up in the Develop module. I found a solution on Adobe's web - you have to disable using the graphics card.

When I opened the image in Photoshop and ACR, I realized I don't have any of my old settings any longer. Part or all of that is because I swapped out my main hard drive a year ago for an SSD and re-installed all of my software including the Adobe stuff.

So now I've got some work to do in addition to learning the D850 - I need to re-learn the Adobe software. I've been paying for the CC software for almost 2 years now without using it so this will be a good thing and I'm actually getting excited about it. It's like I'm a New Photographer all over again!

I've done it now! My D850 is on order!

Now for the hard part!

Nikon D850

I've just placed my order for a Nikon D850 from B&H (body only). Now I have to try to be patient for it to arrive!

I was poking around the interweb the last day or 2 and decided to look at the B&H site for the D850. I was surprised to see that they had them in stock and were offering free next day delivery! Now I could order it and have it in my hands in a few days!

Decisions, decisions. My wife convinced me to pull the trigger (she'd just spent more money on a horse trailer) and now it's on order.

Woo hoo!

I held off on ordering an XQD card for now - I've got SD cards and for what I shoot I really don't need the extra speed. Once I find I do need the speed of an XQD, I'll order one or more along with a card reader.

I've already been reading the D850 manual for a while; now I'll have to order Thom Hogan's D850 Guide. I liked his D600/D610 guide and know his guide will have a lot of great information. I even made my D850 purchase after clicking through on his affiliate page! Note that I'm not associated with Thom, I just like his technical approach and thoughts.

Now - what to do with my D610?