I have been trying to find a reason to use the expensive and comprehensive Nikon SLR kit I have been issued.
No really, I have.
The reality is though, every time I pick it up and try to find a valid space in my work flow for it, It just falls down.
Take this comparison for example. I was trying to find a happy place for my near new 70-200 FLED on the D750. Ignoring the fact that it alone weighs as much as my 40-150 f4 and EM1 mk2 body combined, I thought for small jaunts, close work or the jobs where you really do not want to be flogging your own gear, it could be the best option. AF was good, but the results were less impressive (I blame the D750 camera).
The 24-70 f2.8, bit old, bit batterred, does not impress at all. It reminds me far too much of older Canon lenses that needed work every file and had “points of consideration” in their range. With several MFT lenses in the wings to cover both of these lenses, I guess they were bound to come up short. I would even put my kit 12-60 up against it.
The base D750 image. RAW (this time), ISO 4500 to achieve 1/200 at f2.8. There is a massive depth of field difference here as well as the good old SLR “guess the exposure compensation” issue. Don’t get me wrong, I used to be ok at that, but why go back?
After some light processing. Very shallow depth of field, quite sharp, little hazy (have applied de-haze) and the white balance was a little yellow that I failed to fix completely.
EM1 with 40-150 f4 image ISO 1600 f4 1/90th. Exposure and white balance are spot on.
More depth of field, razor sharp, well exposed with near perfect white balance (and 100mm closer). This had less processing than above! This is not supposed to be my best tele lens. remember also, this is a 20mp MFT vs a 24mp Full Frame.
I am not cheating, pushing one over the other, just trying to get to the bottom of this. In an ideal world, I would use the work gear, but see no reason yet to compromise.
I could use the Nikon gear at a pinch and honestly thought processing through C1 would make all the difference, but if anything it pushed them further apart. When I compared the 24-70 to my Leica 12-60 in Lightroom, the Adobe programme actually bought them down to being quite close. In C1 they were streets apart.
More tests, with ISO not a consideration.
Oly file, Nikon file and uncropped base file.
Now putting weight into the mix.
No I am not going to use gear over twice the weight and size of mine, especially is it is less reliable to use. I carry without issue, two bodies (saves mucking around), 16-300 range with several fast prime options. With the Nikon I would go 2 zooms and 1 body only and still be behind. What if I need a wider or longer lens? Immediately 1kg+ gets added.
This goes to one of my biggest frustrations, something I hit reguarly in the shop. Only the major brands get proper support from Adobe and unfortuantely most reviewers use the industry standard Adobe RAW as their base line. Bit like using a standard Toyota to try out a race track.
If you shoot Fuji, Panasonic, Olympus or even until recently Sony, look somewhere else for best service. Adobe will “normalise” your images down to their level making them become their stereo-type. Fuji will have weird artefacts, MFT will be overly noisy and Sony will have crap colour.
Does not need to be that way.
Until I switched, I thought ISO 1600 was my upper limit. With C1, I use ISO 6400 regulalry and with ON1 No Noise, I even push to 12,800 with decent results.