Frederik is a photographer, blogger and youtuber living in Denmark in the Copenhagen region. Outdoor photography is the preference, but Frederik can also be found doing flash photography applied to product shoots and stills.
You select manual mode on the mode dial top of the camera, right next to the right of the viewfinder. Turn the dial to position (M) for manual mode:
Make sure the pivoting LCD screen is facing outwards (i.e. not towards the camera body) and press the Info button located right next to the viewfinder and just above the LCD screen. This should give you a picture with an M top left, and the shutter speed, aperture and ISO values shown (your picture may be different, but the information content should be the same):
Here the shutter speed is 1/160th of a second, the aperture is f/5 and the ISO is at 3200
Shutter speed
The command dial is located on the camera top right. The command dial controls the shutter speed – turning the dial increases and decreases the shutter speed. The slowest shutter speed is 30 seconds, after that follows bulb and time mode (will not be addressed here). The fastest shutter speed is 1/4000th second. To avoid camera shake, be careful not to use a shutter speed slower than 1/80th of a second, unless the camera is mounted on a tripod (or you have a very steady hand!).
Aperture
Just in front of the main dial, a smaller button is located:
You can see the graphics is +/- and also a circle illustrating a shutter:
This button, when pressed down, alters the effect of the command dial, so that instead of controlling exposure compensation, it changes the aperture. So hold down the +/- button while turning the main dial, and this changes the aperture. The aperture values are subject to the lens mounted, but typically range from f/1.8 to f/22 or thereabout. The larger the number (the f-stop), the smaller the aperture and the less light is let in by the lens.
ISO (sensor sensitivity)
Finally, to change the ISO setting, find the “Fn” button on the front left of the camera. Pressing this button while turning the command dial changes the ISO value, the same way holding down the +/- button did for aperture:
The Fn (function) button is located on the front left of the camera.
You can also change the ISO setting using menus: press the information button (i) as shown here, and a menu appears on the LCD screen:
In the top right corner is the ISO value. Use the multi selector (the large round button just below the (i) button) to move the cursor to the top rightmost cell in the screen. It says “iso” with small letters in the bar just above the cell. In the picture above, the ISO is set to 250. Place the cursor over the ISO cell and push the center of the multi selector (ok) and the ISO selection screen appears. Using the multi selector again, the cursor can be moved to the new ISO value, ok pressed and the ISO value is changed.
Auto ISO sensitivity control
There is an option to let the camera (within boundaries) select the ISO value itself, in order to arrive at a properly exposed picture, given the aperture and shutter speed selected by you. It is not a perfect solution in all cases, but it can be a great aid in the beginning especially, in order to avoid over- or under exposed pictures. And it enables you to focus on one thing less in the beginning of your work with shooting in manual mode.
To switch on Auto ISO, press the “menu” button located top left on the back side of the D5600 camera body. Using the command dial (the big round button middle right), scroll down to the so called shooting menu. The shooting menu has a green icon that looks like a camera viewed from the front. Press the right hand side of the command dial to enter the shooting menu, and press the bottom side of the command dial to scroll down to the “ISO sensitivity settings” menu:
Press the center of the command dial (ok) to select the ISO sensitivity settings. In this menu you can switch the Auto ISO sensitivity on and off, set the maximum allowed ISO sensitivity setting (high values gives grainy pictures), set the minimum shutter speed and select the ISO sensitivity.
Auto ISO sensitivity control…
The minimum ISO value for the Nikon D5600 is 100 – this is a value determined by the nature of the sensor in the camera, and cannot be changed via camera setting.
Notice that when Auto ISO is on, the camera ignores the ISO sensitivity value you have chosen. Only when you switch the Auto ISO off, the ISO setting chosen by you will be used by the camera.
Getting the exposure right
When shooting in manual mode (and Auto ISO is not on), it is very easy to select aperture and shutter speed values that give an over- or underexposed picture. In the bottom of the viewfinder, and also when you press the “info” button, there is a light meter indicating if the picture will be over- or underexposed:
-│ – – │ – – 0 – -│ – – │ +
<————│
If the arrow below the meter points to the left, then the picture will be underexposed. This is the case in the example shown above. If the arrow points to the right the picture will be overexposed, as the picture below illustrates:
The markings to the right of the zero shows the image is over exposed…
Only if there is no arrow visible, the picture will be exposed just right. Minor deviations can be fixed in post, only to some extend for JPG files, more so when shooting in Raw format, but the easiest is to get the exposure right in camera.
The use of negative space is simply using nothing to put emphasis on something, i.e. leave a lot of unused or empty space to draw the viewers attention to what is in the frame:
It doesn’t really matter what the subject you want to emphasise is – it can be the tree above (or the man walking), or it can be a spider sitting on your kitchen window:
It may seem counter intuitive to use negative space, as the frame itself is a reduction or a selection of a part of reality, but it does give the picture a special mood of calmness:
However, it is important that there is a subject to be emphasised, otherwise the viewer is simply puzzled and cannot figure out what the point with the picture is. In the below example, there really is no apparent subject to be emphasised:
Sometimes negative space can be used to express isolation and loneliness:
Or being together in a bigger frame:
Or put emphasis on the sunrise and the silhouettes:
Or feeling very insignificant in a big universe:
Or simply majestically rise above the haze:
Or waiting for something to happen:
Or simply emphasizing a beautiful view:
Whatever your chosen use of negative space is, I hope the above has given inspiration for your creative work. Please leave a comment or question below – happy to try to give answers and inspiration for your work.
If your are new to photography like me, your first thought when you see a picture of a beautiful flower may well be: How difficult can it be to take a good picture of a flower? But I think that if you give it a try, you’ll find that there is more to it than just point-and-shoot. Not that it is complicated or anything fancy, but there are a number of things you can do to maximize your chances of a good picture. I’ll cover the basics here.
Taking flower pictures involves many hours out and about, so before moving into all the photo specifics: remember yourself first! I find that a rain coat, a cap, a bit of sunscreen, something to keep the mosquitoes at bay, a bottle of water, good walking boots (that supports your ankles) and a few biscuits are invaluable items when spending many hours in nature.
1. Bad weather is good weather!
Bad weather is your friend! Quite counter intuitive, bad weather is good weather for flower photography! A cloudy day, even a rainy day, is excellent: direct sunshine from a cloud free sky gives harsh light and strong shadows and can make it really difficult to get some appealing shots of flowers. And a few drops of water on a flowers petal almost always looks beautiful! I know that some use a spray bottle to add water but I find that mother nature is so much better at this, that I prefer not to, and instead shoot flowers after the rain has ended.
If the sun is beating down and there is no clouds in sight at all, you can diffuse the light with a thin white piece of cloth (like a piece of sheet wrapped around a hanger) or you can buy an umbrella designed to diffuse the light – you can get one for a very reasonable price, they wont take up much space in your camera bag and it doubles as a wind shield.
2. Stabilize your subject
Wind will push your subject around and make focus difficult. See if you can find a quiet corner if it is windy. Flowers sitting low are typically less prone to wind, and you can also try to see if a shield (yourself or a piece of cardboard) can help. Supporting the flower with a stick and a clothespin can also help, especially if in combination with some kind of shield. Finally, there tends to be less wind early in the morning or in the evening.
In the picture below (yes, I admit it is somewhat busy) you can see that I have a clamp around the stem of the little purple flower I am shooting. The clamp is not holding the stem as such (it would probably ruin the stem), instead it simply creates a tight space where the stem can only move very little and that is enough to stabilize the flower head also. The stand that I am using was too tall for this flower, so I had to tilt the stand 90 degrees to get it low enough. This is where more clever photographers buy one of these flexible arms with a clamp (also known as a plamp) to get the job done in a more elegant way!
The reason a stable subject is vital for flower photography is that you typically shoot with the lens very close to the flower, and hence the depth of field (how much of your picture that is in focus) becomes very shallow, so that even a very small movement of the flower can change it from in focus to out of focus. In other words, a stable subject is key to success.
3. Stabilize your camera
3.1 Tripods and monopods
Stabilizing your camera is as important as stabilizing your subject. You can get really great stabilization either via the lens or the camera body (IBIS – in body image stabilization), but you may not have access to such gear and anyway it can never be a bad thing to have a stable camera to avoid camera shake.
I am only too aware that not everyone likes a tripod, but if you don’t mind, get a heavy tripod like the Manfrotto 550 (no, not sponsored by Manfrotto). You can of course use a sand bag or something heavy to make the tripod more heavy and stable, but I find it is easier if it is simply born heavy. Also, if you can get a model that (as in the picture above) can go really low by spreading the legs almost parallel to the ground, this is a great aid when trying to capture a flower sitting low.
If a heavy tripod is not to your liking, then a lighter travel friendly tripod could work for you, like the Manfrotto Befree (no, still not sponsored by Manfrotto), and if that is to heavy for you or takes up to much space, a mono pod could be the answer.
A mono pod only stabilizes the up/downwards movements obviously, but it is better than no stabilization. If you wear a camera strap around your neck, you can push the camera away from you so that the strap is tight, further eliminating back and forth movement. A mono pod may seem like the least optimal solution, but if you go looking for flowers where the ground is covered by bushes or other stuff that makes it difficult for the tripod to get footing, the mono pod may simply be the only viable option for such locations.
If none of all this sounds appealing to you, then my best advice is to use your own body for stabilization. Squat down and let your elbow rest on your knee and hold the camera tight to your face to reduce movements and shake.
3.2 Remote triggers
In the best of worlds, you should also use a remote trigger. I seldom do, I must admit, but if you want to minimize all the factors that contribute to camera shake, there is no way around a remote trigger. Notice that with many cameras you can remotely trigger your camera via your smartphone and an app – no need to invest in a separate remote trigger.
A good compromise is to you can use the timer function so that your camera releases the shutter after 5 or 10 seconds – this is my preferred option, as it is almost as good as a remote trigger and it gives me one piece of gear less to remember when I pack my bag.
4. The gear
4.1 Use a reflector
A reflector is cheap, light, packs down easily and does a lot of good in terms of casting more light to your subject! I find it is one of the most overlooked or under-praised aids of photography! Even on an overcast day the reflector helps a lot and can remove unwanted shadows or simply give you more light to work with.
So always bring a pack able reflector! You can get smaller version that the one in the picture above (!). If you don’t have a reflector, use something reflective to add light to the flower – try using your smartphone or a piece of tin foil.
If you do decide to buy a reflector, no need to buy a big one. The one that I show here is 30 centimeters in diameter, and it does not need to be much larger than that to work for flower bud shooting. This version is a 5-in-one version that has both diffusor, reflector (white, silver, gold) and a black side. It serves me well.
If you find you don’t need the reflector, it can double as wind shield, so in my mind it always comes in handy. The biggest problem with a reflector (other than learning how to fold it down!) is to hold it in the right position and stay there! If you have someone with you, this is where an extra pair of hands really make a big difference. And if not, this is where you will be extra glad that your tripod holds your camera steady, so you have one moving part less to deal with!
4.2 Use an artificial background
Experienced flower shooters knows that a good part of a good flower picture is the background. Sometimes the background can be difficult to control – no matter how much you change your angle and try to be creative, the background is simply too busy or too bright. You can try to use the reflect as background (many reflectors have a black side and a white side in addition to the silver) and even better you can bring a piece of cloth or cardboard or whatever in the color of your liking:
Above I am using a green piece of cloth to isolate the rose, but you can try with many different colors. If you don’t have a piece of cloth, the reflector can be used as a background – here I am using the black side of the reflector to create a more “calm” background:
This enables you to – with a bit of post processing – to create a picture where the flower is the only subject of interest in the frame and hence no distracting elements.
If you instead use the reflector as background, you get a very different expression. Here I was so lucky that the sun lit up the diffusor that I held just behind the flower, and as you can see the expression in this picture is very different from the one above:
4.3. Use the lens you have
I suggest you to start out with the lens that you have available and see how you like flower photography, before you move on and invest in a lens. A kit lens or a 50mm nifty fifty can be used for starters. In my mind the most important for your lens is to go close to the subject. If you cannot help investing in a new lens, see if you can lend or borrow it and try it out, before you make the decision.
I know that some like to use a long lens and zoom in heavily, and if you have a long lens available, you should certainly give this a try. The advantage of using a long lens is that the background is more compressed and hence it is easier to compose the picture. Further, the increased distance between lens and subject also increases the depth of field, making it easier to get the entire flower in focus – when you are very close to the subject, even with very narrow aperture (high f-stop numbers), the depth of field is paper thin.
However, I find that the camera shakes in such setup simply make me seasick as the slightest move of the lens makes what I see in the viewfinder jump up and down vigorously! So I use a lens that can go close to the subject, i.e. where the minimal focal distance is 30-40 cm or so. If you have a long lens, give extension tubes a try – they are metal rings (extension tubes) that you put between the lens and the camera body to increase the distance between the two. The effect is a reduced minimum focus distance, i.e. your lens becomes more of a macro lens.
If you decide to invest in a lens, one way to save money is to go for a used vintage lens. I use the Nikon Nikkor 35-70 mm 2.8D that I think you can get on e-bay for 100 EUR or a little more, subject to the condition. The Nikon has a macro mode that enables you to really fill the frame with the flower.
Another classic lens for macro / close-up photography is the 100mm Tokina F2.8D, which is very fairly priced even from new. I think it comes with different mount systems, so with a bit of luck, there also is a version for your camera body. The Tokina is known to be a budget friendly lens that produces pictures with a sharpness you would expect only from much more expensive lenses.
4.4. Using a non-macro lens
Sometimes the scene or the setting is as important as the subject. With macro lenses or lenses that can go very close to the subject, you often want the subject to fill the frame and be the only start in the picture. However, sometimes the flower sits in a wonderful setting, where the scene or the setting is as big a star as the flower itself. In such cases you can use a short lens to capture this:
The above picture was shot with a Samyang 14mm f/2.8 which is a very short lens (manual focus, aperture control on the lens). You can also give a nifty-fifty lens a try in order to capture the setting.
In the examples above I used the 50mm Pentax Super Takumar f/1.4 vintage lens. As you can see I cannot get as close to the flower as with a macro lens (and cropping would yield a too low resolution result). So I have included more of the setting or the scene the flower sits in.
4.5 Add flash
Adding a flash may sound like a lot of complication for taking a simple picture of a flower, but you will find that adding a flash will raise the quality of your pictures. I have heard that most professional flower photographers shoot with flash maybe 95% of the time, so it is worth a try to see if it works for you. Rather than being frustrated with all the technical terms like TTL and other advanced flash features, simply set the flash in manual mode at say 1/64th for starters and see what it does to your pictures. If you can get the flash off camera so that you can control the angle of the flash independent of your camera angle, then that can really help getting those dark areas and shadows lit.
Try moving the flash closer to and further from the flower and also try to change the power of the flash output – start with say 1/64th and work your way up and down from there. You will quickly find a level that too much power makes your picture look artificial, too little will leave the shades too dark.
If you want to rely solely on the flash light, that is also possible. Simply set the ISO and shutter speed so that the ambient light alone gives a completely black picture. Then add flash and see what happens. The picture above of the yellow flower is made that way. It gives some great options for isolating the flower completely on a pitch black background. Notice that the flash will make the flower cast a shadow and reflect light from any objects close near by – make sure the flash light is reflected outside your frame.
4.6 Take care of yourself!
I think many of us photographers get so into the process of shooting pictures that we forget everything around us, including ourselves! If you plan to stay out for several hours, think about your own comfort and that you will need drink and food. A banana and a bottle of water cannot hurt – the weight penalty in the camera bag is small compared the benefit.
And in terms of comfort, I know that some bring a little fold-able chair along, others – like me – even bring a pillow of some sort to lie on when shooting flowers close to the ground.
When you lie flat on the ground face down, your elbows and body make up a very natural tripod, so if you know you are going to shoot some flowers close to the ground and only that, then you may find that you can do without your tripod.
5. The site
5.1. Start close to home at first
Before your run into the woods or up a mountain or whatever your plans are, my advice is to start close to your home or your base, so that it is easy to return to base. I often find that I forget something (like the SD card!) that I need for my flower photography, so test your setup in your own garden or in the yard where you live, so it is not too much of a pain if you have forgotten something. After a few shooting sessions close to home, you will know the gear you need. Make a checklist and follow it every time before you leave home. You will not regret it, although it not that exciting.
5.2 Location scouting
Obviously you need to find some beautiful flowers to shoot, and my guess is that you may already have some ideas as to where they can be found. If not, see if there is a public available flower garden near you, or simply take a walk in the woods or in the city. You will find that flowers are everywhere, especially if you look for small ones!
Once at your location my best advice is: take your time. Go look! Use your eyes! Wait at least 5 minutes before you start shooting pictures. Scouting the location will give you a good overview of what is available and what to expect. And you can start with some of the best flowers rather than the first flower you com across. So no stress. Take your time!
6. Plan the shot
6.1. Arrange!
I know this is a bit controversial, but I think we are allowed to intervene and arrange things to make it look as beautiful or pleasing as possible. I know some purists will say that this is cheating and that mother nature put that faded leave in your frame for a reason, but I suggest you arrange and compose as you see fit. It can be removing withered leaves, pushing some less-than- beautiful leaves to the side or whatever is required. Of course, all with moderation and in respect of the locations you are using (the gardener may not like it if you cut off some of his flowers!), but I think we are allowed to improve the composition. Take this example where a flower stands out from the crowd:
And you may think that mother nature has arranged this composition? Not quite:
6.2 Composition is important
Much has been said about composition, and it is a big subject, so I will refrain from diving into it extensively here. But it is always a good idea to have the subject a bit off center and have a beautiful background to go along with the flower. Many good flower pictures are ruined not so much because of the composition, but due to the wrong background.
The rule of odds says that we like uneven numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on. You can use this when making your composition, so that there are e.g. 5 flowers in your frame:
Balance and symmetry is another thing to look for when composing your picture – a nice balance between the elements in the picture makes it more appealing and easy to take in:
Framing, i.e. “boxing in” your subject to guide the viewer to find the subject is also a classic composition technique, and often nature itself provides the framing if you look for it:
Make it easy for the viewer to find the “star” in your picture. In this example, as beautiful as it may be, it is confusing who is the star and what the photographers point with the picture actually is:
So, keep it simple. Both for your own sake, and to help the viewer read your picture.
Finding a good balance in the picture, maybe even symmetrical, is also a good composition principle, so that your picture is not e.g. “too lefty” meaning that a lot of the visually heavy elements in your picture are to the left. Try to strike a good balance:
When shooting, simply to change your angle of view (move your camera a little bit up, to the side, etc) to see the effect in the viewfinder. I am often surprised how moving the camera just a little bit can take a messy ad confusing background and turn it into a nice balanced scene for the flower.
6.3 Help the viewer
Your eyes tend to search towards things that are bright and in focus. Dark and blurry things the opposite. When you work with your pictures in post or when you select your composition during the shoot, think about how you can guide the viewers eyes to the main subject (the star!).
In the example above, the two flowers to the right are out of focus whereas the dust prisoners on the flower to the left are in focus. So your eyes will naturally go to the sharp areas whereas the rest of the picture is perceived more as a scene or framing.
6.4 Flat, flat, flat
You can angle your lens towards the flower as you see fit, but one way of making the picture very simple is to shoot a flat flower where the lens front glass is 100% parallel to the flower: This way you get the focal plane and the flower to be aligned, so that the shallow depth of field does not stop you from getting the entire flower in focus.This way of shooting can give some very simple yet powerful pictures where the flower seems to be “floating” in mid air as the flower is sharp but the rest of the frame is blurry.Some photographers are so dedicated to this way if shooting, that they only go for “flat” flowers, i.e. with very limited depth.I don’t think you should limit yourself in such way, but “straight on” pictures like the one above is good to include in your photography toolbox.
6.5 Morning light is good light
Morning light is special. I don’t know why, but I guess it is because the sun is lower in the horizon and hence the light has to travel further through the atmosphere before it reaches the ground? Anyway, the light is very soft and even if the sun is shining from a cloudless sky, the morning effect softens the light so you don’t get the same problem with harsh shadows that I mentioned in the start of this post. So if you are up for it, set the alarm clock and shoot flowers in the morning!
6.6 Back lit is a good variation
If you can get the angle right, then a back lit flower gives a very different expression than the more traditional “front lit”. You see the structure and the composition of the flower so much better: Droplets of rain (or some you add yourself) is another good variation, so shooting just after the rain has stopped is another way to vary your flower photography.
7. When shooting
7.1 Think background first
The headline seems counter intuitive. Of course you want the subject to be beautiful and stunning, but a good subject deserves the right setting, so work with the angles when you shoot. A messy and confusing background can distract the viewer from the beauty of your subject.
The example above is not an award winning picture, I agree, but it serves to illustrated the point: I managed to get the red to contrast with the black background. As you can see, had I chosen an angle just a little different, then both green and brown would have joined the party and made the picture more messy. I have heard experienced photographers say that the background is almost more important than the subject – not sure that I completely follow, but the background is as important to bring out the best in your subject.
7.2 Work with the aperture
As you probably know, the more you open the aperture, the more light the lens lets in but it also makes the depth of field more shallow meaning that backgrounds will be blurred. This picture is shot at f/2, meaning very wide open and with a paper thin depth of field:
Whereas this picture of the same flower with the same camera and lens is shot at f/16, and you can see much more of the background:
You may find the first picture more attractive as it has a more dreamy feel to it, but the challenge with shooting with wide apertures is that you get a very shallow depth of field and keeping the subject in focus is more difficult. In this case the flower is flat so you can’t really see it, but had it been deeper, it is likely that not all of the flower would have been in focus.
If you can, see if you can get the subject close to you and the background far away. That will give a blurred background, also at narrow apertures (high f-stop numbers). That way you can get the flower in focus even if it is a “deep” one and still have the blurred background. This one is shot at f/16 and the background is blurred despite the brutal f-stop:
For flower photography I always shoot in aperture mode, so I can control the aperture “manually”. I leave the shutter speed and the ISO for the camera to select (sometimes I also control the ISO manually), but most of the time I shoot in aperture priority with auto-ISO in. I find it is the best way that allows me to use my focus on the aperture setting and leave the rest to the camera.
7.3 Shoot, shoot, shoot!
I find that even though I hit the shutter with a few seconds interval, the result that emerges in Lightroom can be very different. I don’t know why it is so, but I guess that one explanation can be the flower moving a bit, me moving the camera a bit, or both. It can also be due to changes in the ambient light that you do not notice. Whatever the reason, I find that of two pictures taken seconds apart can come out as brilliant and hopeless respectively. So maximize your chances for success and fire away. In a digital world, all it takes is a bit of space on the SD card and a bit of battery power. And you can always delete when you work with the pictures in post.
7.4 Try manual focus
Should you be so lucky to have auto focus, then it is of course a big comfort, provided you can get the camera to focus exactly where you want it to. The number of focus points in a modern camera has inflated over the last years, but I find that the only one that works for me is single point focus, where I can control the focus point completely.
If you are up for it, give manual focus a try. Be prepared to invest a bit of time before you you get the hang of it, but it is worth every minutes spent in my opinion, and it is a more engaging way of shooting.
When not shooting with a tripod, I zoom in all the way and throw the focus ring to the closest to the subject possible, and then instead of focusing, I rock back and forth with the camera until focus is obtained. That way I know I have filled the frame to the max.
7.5 Watch the shutter speed
When you shoot in daylight with a very open aperture, your camera will – in the automated or semi automated modes – compensate by reducing both the ISO and the shutter speed to the minimum. Your cameras max shutter speed (typically 1/4000th of a second or 1/8000th), will sometimes not be fast enough to get the picture exposed correct. The result is that your pictures are over exposed, so watch out for the shutter speed – it will typically be flashing (or in other ways try to get your attention!) when the max shutter speed is exceeded.
The fix is to close the aperture a bit – one or two stops usually does it. You will then not get the ultra thin and shallow depth of field that gives the “dreamy” pictures that so many find appealing, but better that than overexposed pictures. Alternatively you can start working with ND filters or see if an umbrella or the like can reduce the amount of light in your frame, but then I find that things become too cumbersome for me and I take the easy way out and reduce the aperture a bit.
7.6 Try underexposing just a little bit
If you dial down on the exposure compensation, this may help you make the background more dark and hence make your subject stand out more clearly and even contribute to a more “dreamy” expression. You can do a lot of “recovery” in post processing with an underexposed picture – in my experience it is far more difficult to work with and overexposed picture because the details in the high end of the spectrum have gone lost. As with so many other things in photography, there is a balance balance to be found, so try to dial down maybe 1/4 or 1/2 a stop for starters, and see how you like it. Then you can always go to more extreme settings if you like to underexpose.
8. After the shoot
8.1 Post processing
I think most photographers do some level of editing although some dislike it and find it to be a bit of cheating. I just want to bring the best out in my pictures, so I have no problems with post processing in Lightroom or Photoshop or whatever you prefer.
When editing I have a few ground rules:
For every edit done, be careful not to edit too much. Less is more.
Leave the picture for 5 minutes (coffee break) and come back and see if you still like the edits. If you edit for too long without a break, your sense of proportion gets skewed and it gets worse and worse the longer you edit. Take a break.
Take a few steps back from the screen and see if you still like the picture. Sometimes your are too close to the picture when sitting in front of the monitor. Assessing the composition is difficult when your nose is 30 centimeters or so from the subject. Take a step back!
Remember that what is sharp and bright gets attention. Dark and out of focus the opposite. Use this to help the viewer take in the picture and focus on the important parts.
8.2 Try black and white
Often flowers are about vivid colors and the beauty in that, but you can try to blend in a few black and white photographs, to put emphasis on the structure and the form rather than the color. It may also open your eyes to new dimensions in the flowers and thereby take your color flower photography to a new level. I prefer to shoot everything in color and then convert to black and white in post processing, that that is due to my lack of experience: I have a hard time forecasting if a subject will work better in color or monochrome. So taking everything in colors gives me options for both at the price of a little bit of post processing.
Questions and comments
Thank you for reading this far! Questions and comments are always welcome! Hope you will enjoy shooting flowers as much as I do!
Starting my “career” as a photographer on a Nikon D5600, I quickly built a portfolio of good and less-good glass. One of my favorite lenses was the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC, and must admit that this lens was one of the reasons why I hesitated to go full frame – it is that good!!
However, someone kind told me that not all is lost. The Nikon F-mount is still the Nikon F-mount and the lens will fit and you will get all the EXIF information still. So what happens if you use the DX lens on an FX camera body?
Limited coverage
As you probably have figured out, the DX lens for the cropped sensor is designed to cover a smaller area than the FX sensor, so when you shoot with the DX lens, you will get vignetting meaning that especially the corners of the picture are darker or pitch black. The lens throws a light intended to cover the DX area comfortably, but when challenged with the FX sensors larger area, the circle cannot cover, and especially the corners are cut off.
However, how much depends on the zoom. The wider you go, the bigger the problem becomes. The first example here is at 35mm, i.e. the most zoom that the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC can give and as you can see there is some vignetting in the corners:
If you widen the perspective to 22mm (this is not even the widest it will go), you will see that the problems have gotten worse and now more of the corners are cut off:
However, if you study the pictures carefully, you will see that the 22mm has a wider reach than the 35mm despite the vignetting. In the water, top left, there are two buoys and you can see that there is more of the horizon to the left of them in the bottom picture. So although you have to crop the picture in post processing to get something useful, you still get a fairly wide picture using the Sigma 18-35 mm 1.8 DC on a FX body.
So, don’t sell all your DX glass if you decide to go for full frame – you may find that the DX glass is useful on a FX body. But it varies a lot from lens to lens, so the best is if you can test your lenses with the camera body you plan to buy, so you know exactly how useful your DX glass is on the FX frame.
Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm 3.5-5.6 ED DX VR
One of Nikons classic kit lenses is the Nikkor AF-S 18-140mm, and as you can see the vignetting is bad both when zoomed out (18mm) as this shot of a window frame shows:
And it only gets a notch better when zoomed in close – here at 140mm of the same window frame:
If you compare this to the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX, you can see that the vignetting here is much less, actually – I think – hard to see unless you know it is a DX lens on a FX frame:
I think you have to compare it to the 50mm FX equivalent (Nikkor AF 50mm 1.4D) to notice the difference:
So the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX in my mind is highly usable on a FX frame whereas the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1.8G DX is much less. Finally, lets take a look at another classic kit lens.
Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 G II ED DX
This lens is probably one of the most common kit lenses, and at 18 mm it – not surprisingly – shows the same vignetting as the 18-140mm:
However, at 55 mm there is hardly any vignetting:
So I think this illustrates that you need to test the specific lens you want to put on a FX camera as it is hard to make a conclusion or a guide that applies to all lenses.
Questions and comments
Questions and comments are more than welcome – please post below. Hope you found this blog useful. Thank you for reading! Please share if you find this post useful.
Yes, the Nikon D5600 is not a modern camera. It came out in November 2016 and here in 2023 it is about 7 years old! That is a long time in this day and age, looking at the expedient development of mirrorless cameras with backlit sensors and image stabilisation and what not.
However, if you are willing to live with a camera that will not make the heads turn when you flash it in the local café, you may find that you get a camera that takes some excellent pictures and does so offering a wonderfully easy to use sets of dials and buttons. And for a price that does not break the bank.
The Nikon D5600 with a 50mm AF lens mounted.
But let’s have a look at some strongholds and some shortcomings, based upon my personal experience after owning and using this solid camera for more than a year.
Strong features
Price
Maybe the biggest advantage of the D5600 is the price: 530 EUR new with kit lens (Europe, April 2019) and 389 EUR for a camera body only version. That is less than what a battery grip costs for some mirror-less cameras! And if you further can live with a model that is a little older (the D5300) but with many of the same features as the D5600, then I have found it used on e-bay for 230 EUR and you have entered the world of photography on a budget.
A very good sensor still
It is still a very good sensor that sits in this camera, also compared to standards of today. It has 24 megapixels which is still very common for cropped sensor cameras (e.g. most of the Fujifilm x-series cameras). Despite an anti aliasing filter that it has become fashion to remove because some say it affects picture sharpness, it still produces some very great pictures with Nikon’s well known picture quality and color rendition. And you can shoot both RAW and JPG, and the JPGs are fine as well.
Ergonomics and user friendliness is top
Maybe what I enjoy the most with the D5600 is that the camera body is very light and the grip is deep. Some say the grip is not tall enough and that their pinky lacks a place to rest, but I have a very big hands and I have never had that as an issue. The camera is so light that holding it for hours has never been an issue for me. The user interface it the “good old” Nikon one, and although the D5600 lacks a front dial, the D5600 interface is very similar to other Nikon models, so if you speak Nikon, the D5600 is very easy to use. And if you don’t, you will quickly get familiar with the controls.
Superior ergonomics, especially if you – like me – do not have the smallest of hands.
The LCD screen is a bonus
Maybe the LCD screen by today’s standards does not have the best resolution, but the screen is pivoting, touch sensitive, and it reacts – even compared to a modern smartphone – fairly quick.
Articulating rear LCD
Further, it can turn “inwards” when not used, i.e. protected from scratches and guaranteed not to bother you when using the viewfinder. This is a good thing when you shoot at night or throw the camera into an ordinary bag with other stuff – you don’t have to worry about that side of the camera!
Articulating rear LCD can turn “inwards” for maximum protection.
Crop factor = “longer” lenses
The fact that the D5600 sensor is a cropped sensor (APS-C) means that the length of all lenses you attach to the D5600 are multiplied by 1.5. My 70-300mm Tamron lens suddenly becomes a 450mm at the far end which enables me take loads of pictures of birds sitting at the bird-feeder in the far end of my garden. So although some photographers claim that only full frame sensors will do, it is worth noticing that a cropped sensor also has some capabilities that full frame does not offer.
The full frame versus cropped sensor debate is one of the oldest in the photo community, and I do not want to add to the discussion, but for an entry level camera like the D5600 with 24 megapixels, I think you will find that you have plenty of resolution and picture quality for both social media and an occasional print.
Nikon glass and Nikon f-mount
The Nikon F-mount has been around since Donald duck was an egg, and there is literally thousands of lenses available for the Nikon D5600 and its f-mount. Shop around on e-bay and the local flea market, and you will be able to find some cheap vintage glass for your D5600, provided you are not afraid of manual focus. And the good thing is that if you later decide to upgrade to a higher level camera, then much of your glass can be reused. You can also find some new glass at a fair price – Nikons kit lens is a good start, and a 35mm prime lens can be achieved brand new for a reasonable price.
The 135mm prime from Nikon. A wonderful lens!
It is not a mirror-less
Yes it is a strange headline. But after going mirror-less also, I have come to learn to appreciate some of the features of the D5600 that I miss with the mirror-less cameras:
Battery life is awesome! As the D5600 has an optical viewfinder (and not an electronic one that needs to be powered like a tv-screen), the power consumption of the D5600 is very low, both when it sleeps and when it is switched off. I have my D5600 lying in the windowsill for weeks for an occasional bird shot without charging. That is so nice!
Sensor cleaning. On a DSLR the mirror sits between the sensor and the lens mount and that gives some protection to the sensor that I have never thought of. On a mirror-less the sensor is exposed at every lens change and that leads to dust and dirt on the sensor much faster than a DSLR. In fact, after more than a year of use, I have only cleaned the D5600 sensor once.
Shortcomings
It is a DSLR after all
Yes, a DSLR is a bit old-school and does not give you all the benefits found with a mirror-less:
There is no viewfinder with all the “heads up display” benefits. So you cannot in the viewfinder have aids like focus peek or a level meter or in general see what your picture exposure will be like before the fact.
The DSLR is noisy and it has mechanical elements. So if silent shooting is important to you, you need to look for a mirror-less camera. Many DSLRs have silent shooting modes, but you will find that they are not silent at all!
Live view is SLOOOOOW! The reason being that the camera swings the mirror away when going in live view mode (where the LSD is your viewfinder) and for each picture it swings the mirror forth and back again. That takes ages!
No 4K video
If you do a lot of video and 4K is important to you, this camera is not for you. It only does 1080p and a DSLR in my opinion is best suited for stills. If you want a great video camera, I would turn to mirror-less instead, or maybe simply use your smartphone for starters (my iPhone X offers 4K!).
No in-camera AF motor
Many of the older Nikon lenses, although it says AF for auto focus on the tin, assumes that your camera body has a built in motor to control the auto focus on the lens. The lens itself does not have a motor. Unfortunately the D3x00 and D5x00 series Nikon do not have this motor and you have to look at the D750 or the D7x00 series or higher. Or live with manual focus. Or buy only lenses that have motors built in (AF-S), but that of course rules out the vintage lenses.
The lens needs a motor in the camera body in order for auto focus to work.
If you are not sure if your camera – or the one you plan to get – has a built in AF motor, look for a little metal “ear” that sticks out bottom left on the f-mount ring when you look at the camera front. In the picture above, the bottom camera is the D7500 that has an AF motor (you can see the pen pointing at the metal “ear”), whereas the top one is the D5600 and you can see the AF motor is missing. The pen at the upper camera points to where the AF motor “ear” should have been.
No image stabilization
For years and years photographers have taken great photos without image stabilization in neither the lens nor the camera body. Now both seem to be a big wish from many, all of a sudden. So be aware that the D5600 does not have in body image stabilization (IBIS) so you either need a tripod or to buy lenses with stabilization, if you want to avoid camera shake with shutter speeds slower than 1/80th.
One SD card
People looking for a camera to be used professionally often shy away from cameras with only one SD card. I doubt that this is a concern for you if you are considering the D5600. but if coming home with pictures secured 100% on digital media, then a dual slot camera is key. The D5600 “only” as one. I underline that statistics show that it is seldom that an SD card fail, but it does happen and probably when you want it the least (that important child birthday or passing a long time dreaded exam). So if data security is high on your agenda, then a dual card solution is worth a consideration and the Nikon D7100 and D7200 deliver in this department.
Only one card slot. Often makes event photographers run for the hills….
Snapbridge…?
The smartphone integration (Snapbridge) could be more user friendly and many reviewers love to hate Snapbridge. I think it is better than its reputation, and you can actually remotely control your camera from the smartphone via snapbridge. But compared to say Sonys solutions for integrating your camera and smartphone, Snapbridge is cumbersome and has stability issues.
Conclusion
The Nikon D5600 with a 50mm f/1.4 lens – a good combo at 75mm FF equivalent.The Nikon D5600 with the 50mm 1.4D (a nifty fifty)
So, to answer the question if this is the right camera for you here in 2019, depends on your decision criteria and personal preferences: If you are a video shooter, I would seriously consider alternatives to the D5600. If a silent camera is important, I would look toward mirror-less. But if you simply want to take the step from shooting with your smartphone to a level above that, say for friends, family and an occasional landscape photo, the D5600 should be on your short list, provided you want a solution that does not break the bank. It is a very capable camera still, although the future probably is mirror-less. But some still listen to old Long Play records. And others still shoot 35 mm film based photos. Leading edge technology the D5600 is not, but it is still capable of producing great pictures worthy of social media and an occasional print. But before you make your decision, a few alternatives are worth considering.
Alternatives
I am not an expert on Canon or other brands, but I am sure that Canon and Sony and Pentax and … etc … has alternatives that compete in the same price range. The camera vendors know that if they can get you to like their camera system when you enter the market, it is likely that you will stay with that brand so you can re-use your glass. So typically they price their entry level products aggressive, in the hope they get a life-long friend in you.
If a lower pixel count is not a problem for you, and compact and portable is important, maybe your smartphone will simply do. You can get click-on lenses that fits your smartphone, and I started my photo career shooting with an olloclip lens on my iPhone 7 (the alternative is Moments). The problem with that solution is that if you upgrade your smartphone, you are likely to be in need of buying new glass or mount as well, but it is still a small investment compared to a full camera. The pictures you take can compete with an entry level camera in my opinion, and for example the iPhone X shoots 4K video, so it is actually a capable video camera! If you want the higher resolution but portability and compact is important to you, you may want to look for compact cameras such as the Sony RX100 series.
The entry-entry level camera from Nikon is the D3x00 series, and I believe the D3400 is the current model. The D3400 is available at a lower price point, but be ready to loose the pivoting screen and the touch sensitive screen as well, along with exposure bracketing and time lapses. If these features are not important to you, the D3400 could be your camera – the sensor and hence picture quality is very much the same, but check the full list of specifications to get a full overview of what the D3400 misses compared to the D5600.
Within the D5x00 series you can also go backwards on go for one of the earlier models, say the D5300. You will get very much the same camera, but a few features are different or missing on the D5300 but it is fundamentally very much the same camera.
If you are willing to spend a bit more on a camera an you want to stay with Nikon, then the D7100 and the D7200 are where you should look. These cameras are – as far as I can tell – still used by many professionals, and I have read many posts praising the pictures that these cameras produce. And then you have a camera with which you can grow as a photographer – with the D5600 you may find that you quickly grow out of it if you are bid by the photography bug.
Finally, if you want to go mirrorless, the Z50 is a very attractive alternative to the entry level DSLRs from Nikon. It is a APS-C mirrorless camera with the new lens mount that Nikon developed for the Z-series. If you do not have a lot of vintage or F-mount glass you want to re-use, then the Z50 as an entry level alternative should definitely be on your short list.
In this post I will be looking at Nikon’s enthusiast DSLR camera line up to explain why I ended up buying the D750 after owning the D5600 for a year or so. I look at digital cameras here – film is another story!
If you want to get to know the Nikon camera lineup, this wiki page gives a good overview, both in terms of available models and which were released when.
This post is intended to give you inspiration if you are to buy a Nikon camera. Your decision criteria and personal preferences are probably different from mine. So most likely you will end up making a different decision than me, or arrive at the same decision but for different reasons. So please read this post in that context.
Nikon D5600 and D3400
The 3×00 series is the entry level model whereas the 5×00 is considered a notch above that but still in the entry level end of the Nikon scale. I have no experience with the D3x00 but I would imagine it is a budget friendly (scaled down) version of the D5x00 with very much the same look and feel. My D5600 is solid workhorse that has served me well and I only sold it because I moved to full frame.
The reason why I moved away from the 3×00/5×00 series is the lack of a in-body auto focus (AF) motor. Nikon (and Sony) have been around for ages, and their legacy gives access to a wide range of vintage glass that can be bought for a fraction of the prices of new glass. However, many of these lenses either have manual focus or focus via a screwdriver setup, where a small motor driven pin in the camera body as shown here:
The AF motor pin.
It drives the focus mechanism in the lens. I absolutely love the low prices and high quality of vintage Nikkor glass in combination with the comfort of auto focus – the D3x00/D5x00 series were no longer an option for me.
Nikon D7500
The need for an in-body AF motor literally drove me to the 7×00 series. These APS-C sensor cameras have many fans, and especially when reading blog comments from D7100 and D7200 owners, these cameras apparently serve their owners very well. And both used and new, these cameras are close to unbeatable when it comes to the price/performance ratio – a steal.
Despite these two strong candidates, I went for the D7500 – the camera that the internet loves to hate, as Steve Perry says in his review of the camera. I absolutely loved it – super fast frames per second, stunning low light performance, tilt screen, nice LCD and a deep grip. I felt I got a scaled down version of the D500 for a bargain.
The Nikon D7500.
I would probably have owned and used the D7500 today had it not been for an unfortunate accident where I dipped the camera in salt water to save myself from falling. That taught me always wear a camera strap when out and about, but it also meant that my D7500 was ruined in a cannot-be-saved way (salt water simply eats the thin metal in the electronics inside the camera). So I went back to my D5600 for a while, saving money and contemplating my next move.
Cropped versus full-frame
In the photo community on social media the debate regarding full frame versus cropped sensors (APS-C) is probably one of the oldest around. And it goes on and on. I think that over the years the APS-C sensors have moved closer and closer to the full frame sensors in terms of performance, and many will claim that the differences are small if visible at all. I have no ambition to add to this discussion.
I can see that many – also professional – wildlife photographers prefer the APS-C sensor due to the crop factor. So it is a matter of horses for courses – you cannot say that full frame is this A-team and APS-C is the B-team. It is more complicated than that. A Nikon D500 (APS-C) is by many considered more professional grade than the full frame Nikon D610.
So all this just to say that I eventually went for a full frame model simply because I was curious! I wanted to experience what a full frame camera could do when compared to an APS-C. Is it rational and clear thinking to go for full frame just because you are curious? No, absolutely not. But it is my honest answer, and the reason why you should consult your own personal preferences when making a purchase decision. You can read more here about the arguments for shifting from APS-C to full frame.
The Nikon D750
After deciding to go for a full frame Nikon DSLR camera body, it was really down to 4 different models: the D610, D750, D810 and D850. And before I started to look at reviews, I started with the specs and prices – budget is important to me. In February 2019, this is what a simple table of comparison looked like:
The models are across, starting with the D610 and ending with the D850. In the bottom the last 3 lines gives the prices in Euro, the increase going from one model to the next and finally the index comparing towards the D610. So for example, the D850 is 3 times as expensive as the D610, and you will have to raise your budget by 26% if you decide to go for the D810 over the D750.
Let me start with the easy part: the D850. This one is undoubtedly the DSLR of my dreams, but also way out of my league budget wise. It has an impressive 45 mp sensor and an Expeed 5 processor, so I have every reason to believe that this is as good as it gets. But but, budget budget.
In the other end of the scale is the D610 which is much closer to my budget and what I intend to spend. However, having seen what the modern Expeed processor did in the D7500 camera, I wanted to go for the most modern Expeed processor possible, and here the D750 had an advantage (as marked in the lower red circle). Also, as I often shoot low light, the ISO performance of the D750 also seemed very attractive (top red circle). Of course you should buy as cheap as possible, but on the other hand it is silly spending 800 EUR on a camera body and then missing the features of a 300 EUR more expensive body – then I think it is better to save for a little longer and then go for the better model.
So the final choice was between the D750 and the D810. After going in circles for weeks, I finally decided that I could not defend the need for a 36 mp sensor – it is way more than what I need. Most of my pictures are for social media and the like and are condensed/reduced in resolution to a level where 24 mp is more than sufficient.
With this in the back of my head, I started to study reviews of the Nikon D750, and especially two videos caught my attention. The first one is a professional wedding photographer (“this one will shoot in the dark”). The second one is a video from Seattle Museum of flight. Of course I read many more reviews of the D750 like the one from Techradar.
And piling all this together, I found the choice of the D750 an easy one. So I ended up buying the D750, and I am a happy camper!
Afterthought
Here in 2023, I still have my Nikon D750. I also have a Nikon D4, a Nikon Z6ii and a Nikon D700. But I hold on to the D750. It is just a workhorse that does exactly what you ask it to.
It is still my preferred camera for a product shoot, simply because it is so easy to work with. I once read in a review of the car BMW 320 that the reviewer liked the care more and more, the more he drove in it, and that one of the reasons was that every dial and button sat exactly where he wanted them to. There was no strange design features or experimentations going on here – every button and dial was functional and tested in detail. My feeling about the D750 is exactly the same: it is a workhorse that does what you tell it to. The shooting experience is great!
The D750 does not have the heavy sound or feel of say a professional grade Nikon D4, in fact, some will say it feels a little too light and made of too much plastic. That may well be, but if you judge the camera on it’s usability, features and output, I think you will find that it is an all round DSLR that is hard to beat. Add to that the massive lineup of used / vintage f-mount glass that can be mounted on the D750 and you have a very capable package that is hard to beat when it comes to price / performance.
I have several Z-mount lenses and a Nikon Z6ii. The Z-mount glass is better than the F-mount, I think that is evident when you read reviews and see it for yourself. The question is if you need the better technical performance from the Z-mount glass? It is a pleasure to work with the Z-mount glass, but to be honest, I think most photographers really don’t need the additional performance.
You could of course go for the Nikon Z6ii, which is the mirrorless competitor to the Nikon D750, and then mount F-mount glass on the Z6ii using a FTZ adapter. But than all your AF glass with mechanical autofocus would be manual focus, as the Z6ii has no focus motor!
The benefit of a mirrorless camera is eg. a silent camera with no mirror flicking and the focus peaking highlights (my full list of mirrorless advantages is here). And if this is important to you, the Z6ii may be an alternative to consider. But again, if you look at the price / performance, I think you will find that the D750 is an option that is hard to beat. The mirrorless features comes at a high price.
My only reservation is this: If you want a hybrid camera, the video capabilities of the Nikon D750 shows the age of the camera (no 4K). But for photography it is still a very capable camera.
My copy of the D750 has been with me now for several years, and I think I have enough experience with the camera to give my thoughts on the good and the bad about this camera. It is not going to be a complete or an exhaustive review covering all corners of the D750 but some highlights that I as a happy enthusiast have encountered. I suggest you check the full specs of this camera and of course other reviews if you are considering to buy the D750.
My beloved Nikon D750. A true workhorse.
History
Back in September 2014, Nikon released the D750 camera and back then the retail price was around 2399 dollars. In late 2019, the camera was offered on black Friday sales for prices as low as 1000 dollars, and some comments on various blogs suggest the price was even lower than that (USD 699). So a significant price drop since the introduction of the camera. The D750 is also an aging camera body and the professionals seem to go for the mirrorless camera bodies with the release of the Z6 and Z7’s. But my copy has been with me now for several years despite the fact that I also own several mirrorless cameras. So maybe the D750 could be a good enthusiast camera for you. But let’s start to look at what you will not get if you buy the D750 and then afterwards dive into what you will get.
Big and bulky – just as we know DSLRs..
What the D750 will not offer
I have noted a few things on my list of things that I miss. It is not a comprehensive list – it is just what I have found relevant.
No 4K Video
First of all, if you are a video or hybrid shooter with the ambition to make 4K video, then the D750 will disappoint you. It only does 1080, but it does so very well. However, 4K it is not.
No 4K video option….
No IBIS
If you drink too much coffee like me or simply would like to shoot with a slow shutter speed without getting blurred pictures due to camera shake, then the D750 itself cannot help you. There is no in body image stabilization. You can get F-mount lenses with built in stabilization but the body itself has no stabilization.
The D750 – here the mirror is visible.
LCD screen flexibility
The LCD screen is not fully articulating – it only flips up or down, and the LCD is not touch sensitive, meaning that zooming in and out is done via pushing buttons. I think you can get used to it, but I use swiping and pinching all the time on my smartphone, so I do miss it on the D750.
The rear LCD flips out but cannot pivot.
Auto focus system
The auto focus system is very good and I understand it is the same system that sits in the big brother the D810. But measured towards a modern mirrorless camera, the 51 focus points and the fact that they sit very much toward the centre of the frame, cannot match a modern mirrorless where you easily find several hundred focus points and covering most of the frame. Also, the advanced AF systems with eye detect is not part what the D750 has to offer.
AF points
Optical viewfinder gives limitations
As this is a DSLR, there is no focus peak or focus zoom option to help you focus with a manual focus lens. The D750 has a little indicator in the bottom left of the optical viewfinder, but it not as easy to use as the focus peak systems where you can almost see the focal plan walking back and forth as you change focus.
Live view and the gyro.
Likewise the full blown level indicator is only available in live view – it is not to be seen in the optical viewfinder. However, you can re-assign the PV button (sits on the front of the camera, top right just below the AF assist illumination) via the CUSTOM SETTINGS MENU item f3, “assign preview button” to “viewfinder virtual horizon” which will give you a level indicator in the bottom of the viewfinder, just above the exposure meter. You can also assign the f2 button to do the same – see the manual page 359.
Not exactly quiet
Quiet operation is not a D750 stronghold, on the contrary it seems like the D750 enjoys to be loud and noisy. It has a so called quiet mode, but it is really not very quiet at all!
ISO button
A dedicated ISO button on top of the camera would be nice. You can re-program the video record button on top of the camera to act as the ISO button, but for reasons beyond me, it also activates the LCD which is a bit annoying if you are using the optical viewfinder.
No dedicated ISO button.
What you do get!
With all the negative stuff out of the way, let’s look at the positive with the D750. First of all, this is a very good camera for stills. I know the megapixel war is on and that 24MP may be is in the low end of the scale today, but many manufacturers have 24MP or thereabout as a sweet spot for good and sufficient resolution. Unless you print very large or want to crop heavily, I think you as an enthusiast will find that the resolution the D750 offers is more than enough. On top of this the D750 is a full frame camera and the colour rendition is great, even the JPGs I find to look amazing straight out of the camera. And don’t take my words for it, if you google among written reviews or benchmarks, the D750 is still a top performer.
Vibrant colors.Great contrasts.Getting close to the subject.Winter.Vibrant colors.
Low light performance
Add to this the low light performance of the D750 is outstanding. This camera sees in the dark and this is the case for both the sensor and the auto-focus system. I know that some will argue that photography is writing with light and the low light performance is irrelevant – they will argue that I should buy a flash, but I like low light and low key photography. None of my other cameras that all are mirrorless can compete with the low light performance of the D750 in my humble opinion. And I have several times in post processing recovered details that I could not see with the naked eye when I took the picture.
A night out. Not much light, and a flash would ruin the scene.
Long exposure. Nikon D750.Nikon D750 at night.
Ergonomics
A third area where I enjoy the D750 especially in compare with the mirror-less is in terms of ergonomics. The body is feels solid, it is weather sealed, the grip is deep, most buttons and dials sit where they should. AND the battery life is outstanding. I have never bought a grip for my D750 for the simple reason that one battery can last for a full day of shooting. Not so with the mirror-less – I think it has to do with the power required to feed the electronic viewfinder.
The ergonomics of the D750 is just right for me.
Start up time
On the note of benchmarking towards the mirror-less cameras, I simply enjoy that this camera is ready to go in no time. When I do street photography, I sometime miss a situation simply because the mirror-less camera takes a few seconds to be ready. It is like booting a computer or starting your television set – it takes a little while to be ready. Not so with the D750 – it is ready in no time. I miss that so much on my mirror-less systems!
Back-up of your pictures
Another thing that is important to some is the fact that the D750 has dual card slots. For event shooters, this is key. And to me this also is a strong signal that Nikon back in the days when this camera was launched knew, that many professionals would consider this camera due to its many qualities and the price point. The dual card slot was the little extra thing that made professionals go for the D750 even though it probably was targeted for the serious enthusiast.
Dual card slots in the Nikon D750.
Good glass and plenty of it
The D750 has Nikons old F-mount lens interface that has been around since Donald duck was an egg. Nikons new interface for the mirror-less world is the Z-mount and I doubt that we will see many new lenses in the future for the F-mount from Nikon as such. Maybe from 3rd party vendors like Sigma or Samyang. But the amount of both 2nd hand and new glass and lenses for the F-mount system is huge and you can on a budget get hold of used glass that for other systems would break the bank. You may not get the latest and greatest in terms of coating and super silent and fast focus motors, but if you shoot for example landscape or flowers or macro, I doubt that you will miss it.
Lots of great glass made by Nikon.
And if you buy the right glass with screwdriver auto-focus, you can enjoy the comfort of auto focus via the motor that is built into the D750 camera body.
AF motor built into the camera body
Etcetera…
There are many other things I could mention regarding the D750 like a built in flash, WiFi, it is well equipped with connectors…
External microphone and headset is an option.
…shoots 6.5 FPS, the max shutter speed is 1/4000th of a second, and so on. But I stay clear of that to underline that the main point here is that this is a great stills camera with tons of second hand glass available on e-bay or amazon or wherever you shop. And if you can cave in a little bit on prestige and not owning the latest and greatest, I think you will find that the D750 is a fantastic stills camera, that will deliver great pictures for years to come.
Conclusion
And as you have guessed it is a camera that I am very pleased with. I think it has served me well. If you are considering to go for the D750, you should of course also look to the competition within the Nikon line-up, look to the levels below (D610) and the levels above (D810 + D850). You should also consider some of the competition – I think Canon recently has released the EOS R which price point wise is getting closer to the D750, but the problem for the mirrorless Canon is that there is very little glass out there. But of course that will change over time. And I definitely think the Canon should be on your short list of cameras to look into.
Don’t worry, be a happy shooter
I guess we all like to make informed decisions and the right decisions relative to our decision criteria’s and personal preferences. But I just want to make a little point towards the end of this review, as I can see that a lot of the traffic on my blog and channel relates to camera and gear selection and decisions. And that is all fair. I think we all want to make informed decisions it is natural that we want to spend some time on making the right choices in terms of camera. But don’t overdo it. Don’t spend too much time on a an article like this one. Spend the time on getting out there and taking some great photos!
Nikon the 7th of January 2020 announced the long awaited Nikon D780 to replace the Nikon D750. The D750 has hence been around for more than 5 years, and an upgrade was very much due, although I still consider the D750 a great camera for stills.
The fact that 98% or so of the Nikon camera bodies out there are DSLRs with the good old F-mount, gives the financially stressed Nikon company a great opportunity to upgrade some of the DSLR models so all of us with lots of F-mount glass with no desire for a mirror less can upgrade to a more recent camera body.
The Nikon D780 from the Nikon homepage
The big picture
The big change when it comes to the D780 is a merger of the Nikon Z6 and the D750, so you get all the good stuff you know from the D750 when shooting with the mirror flicking, and all the goods from the Z6 when shooting in liveview.
What stays the same?
It is still a full frame DSLR with an 25 MP sensor and 51 AF points, so the sensor seems very similar to the D750 although back-light illuminated. The AF system is still the one we know from the D810. No image stabilization in body (No IBIS).
The outstanding battery life performance when not shooting in liveview mode continues – Nikon reports up to approx. 2300 shots per battery!
And the dual card slot setup that event shooters are so dependent upon remains.
Major improvements
The video specs now cover 4K and certainly also the capabilities in liveview mode, where all the good stuff from the Z6 is inherited, like the 273 AF points, and eye detect AF.
Although many do not notice, the fact that the processor is the EXPEED6 and hence jumps several generations forward, will be a major improvement, especially for color rendition and JPGs. I really look forward to the performance boost that this will give and also suspect that the low light improvements to some extend will be rooted in the new processor generation.
Many professionals will be happy to see that the max shutter speed is now 1/8000th of a second and that FPS has been lifted from 6.5 to 7, and the continuous electronic shutter speed is 12 FPS.
Another major improvement is the LCD screen with much better resolution, but still not fully articulating – we will have to do with the flip screen. And it is touch sensitive, which is a major step forward compared to the D750.
Minor improvements
As far as I can tell from the pictures from the announcements, the D780 will have a dedicated ISO button, like the D7500. That is a minor thing, but if you missed it like me, then this is a small but important improvement.
The USB-C port and the option to charge via USB is great news. I find that as more and more vendors use USB-C connectors my life becomes more easy, as the number of chargers I have to keep track of drops significantly. This is great news IMO.
And the eye-cup seems to be deeper and stick more out from the body, a thing that shooters like me wearing glasses will appreciate.
What worries
There is no contacts for a battery grip. For many professionals this will be a major issue as a battery grip is key in terms of ergonomics when you work with the camera all day long. I will say though that the leaked pictures to me look like there is a grip available, but I cannot say with certainty.
The jury is still out when it comes to the built in AF motor. I really hope that Nikon does not save the production cost of adding the AF motor – for many enthusiasts with lots of Nikon AF glass with the screwdriver AF, this is key.
A built in flash has been removed and to me this is a big setback. I often use the built in flash to trigger other (non Nikon) flashes in optical slave mode and it is a bit of a nuisance that the flash is gone.
Price and availability
The D780 is available from February 2020.
The price is set to 2299 USD. That will then be double the price for a brand new D750. I think you will have to be a professional looking for the improved specs in order to accept the steep price – a happy enthusiast like me cannot justify doubling the price for better video quality and improved AF in liveview. Good news is that the D750, while on stock, is likely to drop further in price. During black friday sales in November 2019, the D750 was available at prices well below 1000 USD.
What do you think?
Will you invest in a Nikon D780? Or what are your thoughts. Please let me know in the comments below.
