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Nikon D4

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M38A1

M38A1

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:drool:

Stopped by Precision Camera today to look at the 2x TC v3.0 they have. Duke shot some races with it and spoke highly of it's capability, and the reviews have been quite good for it as well. So that's probably going to wind up in the tool kit shortly.

They mounted it up to a 70-200 f/2.8 and D800 body. I thought it was a bit darker through the viewfinder than my D700, but then again, we were inside.

So as he's putting it up, I casually asked "you wouldn't have a D4 body would you"? Silly me - It's Precision and they have ALL the cool stuff. He trots away and comes back with the D4 and swaps the 70-200 and 2xTC over to that body.

Oh. My. God.

First shot was not pretty, then I asked "what in the world is the ISO on this thing set at"? High2 at something crazy like 120,000. :eek2: Not a great image, but usable.

So I dialed it down to something more manageable, like 2000 lol.... Then I hit the go-fast button on a pretty gal on the other side of the store. This thing cranks off at TEN frames/second. Music to my ears. The wife even said "wow, that's fast". So in that half-second, I had five shots to look at, and each of those five shots was spot-dead-on for a perfect exposure inside.

I asked how much.......




Crickets........




.
 
well.... did you ask forgiveness or permission :D
 
As is usual - lots of buyers because the camera body says D4 on it and they can be seen with it. Few buyers because they will actually use the capability of the camera.
 
I still have my 1983 Nikon F3HP with the MD 4 motor drive! Do you what an investment that was for a young Army lieutenant!? :lol2:
 
I recall we had that conversation at Luckenbach one beautiful day over a beer. Although I might use a reasonably small number of functions in my current body, I still do use a lot of the functions shooting Aperture, Shutter priority and Manual, off-camera flash, burst mode, EV comps, focus modes, metering modes, varying shutterspeed/f-stop, continuous/single focus mode, flash comp, floating ISO and others come to mind. And with those functions, I think it's safe to say I'm using the camera as designed.

Just a few of the things which are significantly better on this body than my D700 include the following.

10fps
Quality, usable ISO above 5000
EXPEED3 processor
1/2000th flash sync speed potential
Weatherproof/environmental case
50% larger files (although that presents challenges at the moment)

So yeah, I USE the cameras functions more than the guy who just wants to show the world what's around his neck as owning the Nikon line flagship body. The million dollar question (actually 6000 dollar question) is - is there a significant cost/benefit ratio for a shooter such as myself to upgrade to something like this? At present, no. Yet if I move forward with shooting auto/motorcycle track days, triathlons, charity events, swim/bike/run events and those dang fast birds, there is no doubt I would benefit from the increased capability of the D4 over the D700.

.
 
kojack06 said:
I still have my 1983 Nikon F3HP with the MD 4 motor drive! Do you what an investment that was for a young Army lieutenant!? :lol2:
Click to expand...

I LOVE shooting my Nikon FE with its MD-12 motor drive and the 50mmf/1.4 combo from that era.... That split prism is kind of tough for me, but it's still fun.
 
M38A1 said:
So yeah, I USE the cameras functions more than the guy who just wants to show the world what's around his neck as owning the Nikon line flagship body. .
Click to expand...

Do you remember going up to the guy at Luckenbach and asking him - "Is that a D3"!?

That was music to that guy's ears

But I know guys who have this year's GSA in their garage, and can't wait for the water cooled edition to replace it with

The saving grace is that you can bet Nikon already had the D5 on the sequencer, so all the D4 guys will be out of luck soon :lol2:
 
What a bad move! :doh: That's like taking a test drive on your absolute dream bike and then having to hand the keys back. :drool:

As of right now, if I had a serious hankering, I'd look strongly at a used D3S. I've heard of people upgrading to the D4 and then moving back to the D3S. It's supposed to be an absolute beast. :trust:
 
M38A1 said:
I recall we had that conversation at Luckenbach one beautiful day over a beer. Although I might use a reasonably small number of functions in my current body, I still do use a lot of the functions shooting Aperture, Shutter priority and Manual, off-camera flash, burst mode, EV comps, focus modes, metering modes, varying shutterspeed/f-stop, continuous/single focus mode, flash comp, floating ISO and others come to mind. And with those functions, I think it's safe to say I'm using the camera as designed.
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat as you. I use most of those functions whenever I shoot although since I am rarely in a sports environment I typically still to Aperture priority or full manual. Eventually I would love to move up to a camera that could command TTL, but that is a ways in the future. The biggest reason I'm glad I ditched the point and shoots was for off camera flash.

That being said, unless I am getting paid fairly regularly a D3 or D4 is going to remain on the same wish list as an 1198r from Ducati.
 
klb1122 said:
What a bad move! :doh: That's like taking a test drive on your absolute dream bike and then having to hand the keys back. :drool:

As of right now, if I had a serious hankering, I'd look strongly at a used D3S. I've heard of people upgrading to the D4 and then moving back to the D3S. It's supposed to be an absolute beast. :trust:
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree with you more sir.

I have been watching the prices of a D3 or a D3S for about 3 months now on ebay, and prices are actually going up :giveup:

The D4 has been a good thing to the used D3/D3S market.
 
Duke said:
I couldn't agree with you more sir.

I have been watching the prices of a D3 or a D3S for about 3 months now on ebay, and prices are actually going up :giveup:

The D4 has been a good thing to the used D3/D3S market.
Click to expand...

I, though, have not been watching the prices used prices on ebay. That would be about as mean to my little heart as playing with a D4 at the camera shop. :lol2: :mrgreen:
 
Picked up the 2xTC today and while there chatted with the General Manager, a riding buddy of mine. Since it was raining pretty hard, not many customers in there so a few sales guys were also gathered around and we talked about the D4. Precision-Camera is a full-service shop, so they carry it all. Canon, Sony, Nikon etc. They all said there is no equal to the D4 at this time in the DSLR space. For sheer speed in focus and frames per second, in addition to ISO performance, it is THE body at the moment.

So we got talking about the next logical move from a D700 and surprisingly, it was not the D800 with their reasons being the speed of the D4 in fps, EXCEED processor were in a different league than the D800. This was sort of prefaced with my desire to shoot motorcycle/car racing, sports, swim/bike/run events.

There was also another guy with a couple D700's and he was asking many of the same questions. We ALL agreed the D700 IS an excellent body, even today. They were talking about the sheer volume of dollars the D700 platform has generated over the years as THE workhorse for portrait, family, architecture, studio, food and landscape work.

The takeaway from this discussion was for sports oriented shooting, the D4 is the only real solution. Another cool thing was, I have an open invite to go shoot the Round Rock Express from the photographers dug-out anytime I want with my D700 and 70-200 f/2.8 using the 2xTC to see just how my ISO/setup works. Then the sales rep said "oh, and you can shoot one of my D4's with your lens combo or we'll drop the 400mm on it for you". :drool:

I might just have to take him up on his offer. I saw his "Brag Book" on the counter and he does some amazing work.
 
M38A1 said:
Then the sales rep said "oh, and you can shoot one of my D4's with your lens combo or we'll drop the 400mm on it for you". :drool:

I might just have to take him up on his offer. I saw his "Brag Book" on the counter and he does some amazing work.
Click to expand...

Careful, drug dealers have a similar business model.

:duck:
 
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