Nikon D2H

D2H – It’s all about PHOTOGRAPHY!

Original D2H Review & Opinions | Firmware 2 User Notes
D2H Settings v1 A&B | D2H Settings v2 A&B

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I’m told there’s a phone call, I pick up the line. “Mr. Peterson, I’m thinking about buying a D2H but looking at your images on the web, they all appear yellow.” I say, “Oh really, what kind of monitor are you using and has it been calibrated recently?” The caller replies, “I got the monitor off eBay and I don’t know the brand. And what’s calibrated mean?

Digital photography is still photography, just with some new twists you MUST know! You still must, I repeat, must know, understand and use to your fullest light. Then there are things like color, proper handholding and tripod techniques and all the rest that goes into making an image. The new twists are things like calibrated monitor and printer profiles. I’m not about to tell you I thoroughly understand or use things like hot mirror filters, curves, graphs and the like because I don’t. I’m an old fart photographer and all I really know anything about is making images and selling them. When it comes to those two things, the D2H works beautifully for me, the best I’ve had to shoot with in a long time!

In the process of writing my D2H book I did two things, I shot tons, more than I would normally and I used for the first time, a large sample base. I had 37 testers around the globe who owned D2Hs who I trusted to perform tests and send me their results (these were not tests shooting color charts or other sterile lab tests but real world photography). None of the tests involved things like hot mirror filters, graphs, curves or shooting in a closest at ISO 3200. The combination of all this info is what I drew on for the book and what I have to say here.

Once again, those who don’t want to read further, you can head to your favorite forum, post that Moose Peterson loves the D2H and can’t find anything wrong with it. I’m sure there will be lots of posts, misquoting as before, but anyone who cares to read what I originally posted, you’ll find what I said has now been proven correct. So knock yourself out posting and reading the forum, wringing your hands about problems rather than going out and MAKING PHOTOS with the D2H!

It is very important you understand where I’m coming from. I am a wildlife photographer who sells his images in two market places, editorially and as fine art. While I photograph sports, people and other subjects not under the umbrella of wildlife, I don’t make a living doing so. This means that I shoot at the lowest ISO I can find, even if the sun has long set and it’s dark out. With these two markets where I make my money, my photography is geared to produce the best results for those markets. If your photography takes you to other realms with other demands, our results might not match up. That’s only common sense which folks need to take into account. Here’s some of the things I’ve found in the last months shooting with the D2H.

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Autofocus

The D2H is really fast, beautifully fast. I’ve gotten really fast at switching the AF-area mode from Dynamic-area, Group dynamic and Dynamic-area with closest subject priority as well as using the M/A mode on lenses. I’ve not found just one AF mode that does everything for me. I’ve not gotten so fast at knowing which is the best AF mode for the subject at hand with my goals for the image. The majority of the time, I use Group Dynamic, pattern 2. I find that when using this mode tracking a moving subject and keeping the system to hold focus can be a challenge at times. Not figured out what the common dominator is with this problem.

I often have to let up and then re-depress the shutter release to relock the focus. The system doesn’t start searching, it just looses track. Have I missed images because of this, not that I’m aware of. It just takes a little more brain power and to be a photographer to capture the image. I have noticed that this AF mode isn’t the best when minimum DOF is in use as it tends not to focus on the exact subject I have in mind and is beyond the limited DOF I have to use. For example if photographing a bear and you have to have the eye in focus, the multiple sensors might lock on another feature of the face and not the eye. This is NOT a camera problem but pilot error!

I’ve found much to my surprise that the Dynamic-area, Closest Priority to work incredibly well for my style of photography. This mode which basically creates one huge AF sensor works great when I have more than three subjects I’m trying to photograph in one frame. And the traditional AF mode of Dynamic-area I use the least now and is normally used when I’m photographing a static subject.

The AF system acts as if it is more sensitive in low light than previous Nikons. I can use the AF system in lower light with more success than before. With those results, I was hopeful that AF with the TC-20e on the 600f4 would be better then on the D1 Family. No such luck, it’s the same results as on the D1 Family.

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ISO – Noise

As I stated in my original D2H write up, the D2H does have noise just not as much as the D1 Family. Can you find fault with this statement? Sure, go shoot in a closet at ISO3200 and you’ll find horrible noise appearing in your image. If you’re a photographer who shoots down in the ISO 200-320 range, noise will not be an issue in your photography. If you shoot in this ISO range in low light levels, the noise increases. But just like the D1 Family, when noise appears, using NIK Dfine cleans it right up. Many moan that noise shouldn’t be present at all in a new generation camera. (I wonder if a manufacture should come out with such a camera producing no noise but had to charge the ole day prices of $10-15k for such results, if photographers could even afford the “perfect” camera?)

If you read the D2H instruction book, I mean carefully, every word, you’ll find that Nikon mentions noise and possible reasons for increased noise more than all the D1 Family instruction books combined. It doesn’t take rocket scientist to realize that Nikon realized the D2H produces noise in certain instances and with certain settings. If you shoot at high ISOs, 640 and higher, you don’t want sharpening and Auto Tone turned on (if you’re only shooting JPEGs). Another possible noise multiplier might be shooting in Auto WB. It is possible that setting the WB yourself using the K setting might lessen noise. The key here is to test your camera with your subject shooting your style of photography.

I’ve made one print that is shy of 4x6.5 feet that was shot in RAW and processed with NIK’s new D2H profile and the results are stunning, much better than the same image shot with the D1H (folks don’t remember, I wasn’t a D1X shooter so I don’t have those images to compare in this way). The image, taken in less than three stops of light and using all the other key elements of photography, made the client and myself very happy. (Yeah, it was a fine art print.)

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Custom Settings

When I receive these odd ball emails and phone calls from D2H owners, I truly wonder if they have ever turned on their camera, let alone read and understand their IB. I’ve had correspondence with over a 100 D2H owners (not my testers) who have had bad results and when we go over basic D2H settings, they haven’t a clue what I’m talking about and haven’t set any of them. It might just be me, but the first thing I do with a new camera is set all the settings and then go test to see what works and what doesn’t work. Here's an example.

CS #b1 ISO-Auto. Yeah, it works but you would think the ISO if set low (in theory minimizing noise which the IB warns might happen using this CS) would rise in low light situations. Well turn it on, set the ISO to 200 and then try to get it to rise in low light levels. I had to walk into a dark closet to get it to move. Now, set your ISO to 1600 and you’ll see when using ISO-Auto the ISO lowered in a heart beat in bright light. This action of course minimizes noise at higher ISOs. SO yeah, it works, but not as well as one would believe.

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D2H Flash Magic

Flash with the D2H is simply amazing! I’m totally in love with its FP abilities. This is so well thought out. FP mode only works in front-curtain flash mode. Previously this meant that the lowest shutter speed available to you was 1/60. That’s way too fast for syncing flash with ambient light. Nikon fixed this with the D2H so you can set the slowest shutter speed you want to use with the FP mode. This gives us the ability to shoot at the fastest shutter speed to the lowest shutter speed we want with basically TTL flash quality. There are two drawbacks to this.

When you use flash fill over the shutter’s 1/250 flash sync, the amount of light available for flash fill drops. This decrease in useable power is basically 1 stop of flash light for each one stop of increase of shutter speed. Since the SB-800 is no more powerful than the SB-80DX, this can be a drawback. The other drawback is if you set the shutter speed range below 1/15 you might start having ghosting. There is no quick way to change the low end shutter speed to fix this if you are aware of the problem.

I am amazed that no one else has found that rear-curtain sync has a problem. Blown out exposures are common. In this flash mode, the flash fires when the shutter opens (it seems it's a pre-monitor flash)and when the shutter closes. Why we can see a pre-monitor flash and it's one burst and not a series is a mystery still.

01.06.04 update: since posting this, two D2H owners have contacted me to say their rear-curtain sync works. They have two bursts from the flash, but the first one seems very weak like a pre-monitor flash and their exposures are not blown out.

The SC-29 is killer. First, it's no longer that horrible gray color that looked like it was dragged through the mud after its first use. More importantly, the wide AF-illum works great and does put out more light at further distances. It's made shooting nocturnal subjects the easiest ever. That's worth the price of admission for this wildlife photographer!

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Magenta Cast

I’ve been bombarded with questions about the mysterious “magenta” cast. My D2Hs don’t exhibit this problem. In fact, only 1 out of the 37 test cameras showed the magenta cast when photographing people. While not a high percentage, I can only conclude that if there is one, there are more.

Now it’s really important for folks to note that this seems to be a JPEG problem. When shooting RAW and using NC4, the magenta cast even in the one camera that exhibited it, the cast disappeared. One D2H photographer sent me their “magenta” cast image to prove their point. On my calibrated monitor, neither the image appearance or numbers indicated a cast. When conversing with the owner of the image, I learned he only has a notebook in which to view their images. When I finally convinced them to print their image out on a calibrated printer, they found that the cast disappeared.

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8FPS

What can I say, having that speed again is great! Clocking my camera, it seems to be delivering about 8.61FPS shooting above 1/250. That’s pretty darn cool. Coupled with the ability to shoot RAW + JPEG, it’s a great system.

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EL-EN4

The power plant for the D2H just keeps on amazing me. The record captures I had so far is 6121 with 1% battery charge left. I’ve been able to shoot hard and heavy for two days and still had charge left for the first half of the third day. Keep in mind I’m shooting with AF-S lenses and I rarely chimp. I did one test with a battery shooting at near zero. The power dropped only 3% because of the cold. Only 3%! I’ve taken the D2H to -14 now and it worked just fine even when exposed to this temp for over 90 minutes.

Monitor

The LCD monitor on the back of the D2H is no better than any other when previewing for exposure or color. You cannot, repeat cannot judge color or exposure by simply viewing the monitor. I have found that by setting the monitor to -1, the “feel” of the final photograph is more accurately viewed when looking at the monitor. I still use Highlight Warning (blinkies) as a very important tool to seeing light.

Wrap Up

More than any other camera in my 20+yrs of shooting, I’ve talked with more camera owners, D2H owners than ever before. The vast majority of D2H owners like myself, just love the camera and the results they’re capturing. I’m not saying, nor have I ever said the D2H is perfect. I personally don’t think I could afford a perfect digital camera if it were to be introduced. In fact, I’ve never had a perfect camera nor perfect film when I shot conventional. But to me, that’s what photography is all about. It’s about discovering the strengths and weaknesses of a camera, film or both by shooting REAL world subjects and making them work for your style of photography. Why is it that some photographers always moan about a camera’s downfalls rather than blaming like Mother Nature for not producing the perfect light at the perfect moment? Moaning to me about either does about the same good. You can’t control either so you best be a photographer and make the decisions to create the best possible image with what you’ve got.

Yeah, you can apply a hot mirror filter or thoroughly understand graphs and charts, but I still don’t understand how that knowledge translates into great images (which is why the 2nd chapter of my D2H book is all about digital PHOTOGRAPHY). Hot mirror filters don’t fit the drop-in drawer of my 600mm and knowing what a chart says doesn’t make it possible to change it. The D2H is an amazing tool that for me has produced marvelous images over and over again. The only time I make money is when I’m behind the camera so that’s where I am going right now. Shooting with the D2H makes me money, it makes me happy and makes photography fun. That’s in part because of the camera and the solutions it brings with it, and in part because of the person behind the camera!

Note: the images here are straight from the camera. No, I won’t be posting full images. Web theft of images is still a major problem!

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Text & Images Copyright © 2007 Moose Peterson/WRP, All Rights Reserved.
Wildlife Research Photography · PO Box 3628 · Mammoth Lakes, CA 93546 · 760.924.8632 (9-5 PST M-F)

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