I couldn’t bear it anymore with all the cloudy skies at night so I started to squirrel around with the D810A as an everyday camera. Sorry, I couldn’t pass up the bad pun start, but this weekend, we started our Sierra Bird weekend with a 1yr Black Bear and then it just kept getting better from there so had plenty of opportunities to put the D810A through normal shooting situations. I’ve had a WHOLE bunch of emails asking if the D810A can be used for normal photography. So the quick answer is, Yes/No!
Taking a step back, understand the D810A is NOT designed nor intended for everyday photography! Using the D810A for general shooting may result in a red cast in certain scenes – you can see well what the outcome may be in this site dedicated to the D810A. I’m being told some people are trying to “correct” this by using a hot mirror filter in front of the lens – theoretically it would bring down the IR portion so that it is within use for general photography but you take your risks whenever you put a filter in front of a lens in terms of quality (I’ve not tried this). Personally, I dialed in +2 Saturation in the Picture Control and then dialed out the remaining red cast in post. So the bottomline is, if you are very Color Management savvy and don’t mind spending your time doing that, then the D810A works just fine. If this is not your cup of tea, then the D810A IS NOT for you for everyday photography. Of course, I’m dying for clear night skies to put this bad boy to the real test, what it was meant to do. So more to come!
[envira-gallery slug=”d810a-pano”]
When comes to these photos, the Black Bear (brown phase) came through the property and the folks were able to photograph it point blank when it climbed tree three and said hello and then I photographed it once it came back down. I shot it with the 300PF which works great on the D810A. The Douglas Tree Squirrel was also photographed on tree three with the same gear with the addition of the TC-17E II. And the pano shot down on the flats was taken with the 24-85AFS which is a sweet lens. All these images were taken as mentioned and processed through ACR.