By: Wayne Kliewer
Thanks to everyone at Unique Photo for getting me a Nikon D4 so fast. I picked up the new body on March 15 and have shot with it almost every day since. I have extensive experience with the Nikon D3S which is one very sweet camera. Almost all of my photography experience is nature oriented. Rarely photograph people or architecture and never shoot video. And that is the reason that I hesitated on the D4 purchase. On paper it looked like most of the big improvements in the D4 over the D3S were video related. Great for those shooting video, but… There were two reasons I was interested in the D4: the small bump in resolution with no loss in High ISO performance and claimed, improved focus speed. The D3S is a wonderful camera and it is unreasonable to expect a quantum leap in performance in all areas, especially still photography. D3S has great High ISO performance, fast frame rate, good metering; however, in my experience it had one negative. At times, it seemed slow to acquire and lock in focus. Sure, if the subject was larger and not moving fast, it was never an issue, but throw in a bird in flight, coming in fast, angling towards the camera and it was very hit or miss. Might miss the entire series, might lock in on the third image and keep focus or might lose focus. It did not seem to matter which focus mode was used. Yes, the D3S got it right most of the time, but it was frustrating when it did not, especially if sitting for hours waiting for that one shot.
So how does the Nikon D4 look after three weeks in the field? Have not shot video, have not done a very controlled ISO and noise test (having too much fun in the field), and have barely scratched the surface of the features of this camera but I can address the two aspects mentioned above: focus speed and ISO performance.
We can start with the bad news. The D4 does not beat or even match the D3S for High ISO noise levels. That is my opinion based on some simple comparisons. Still need to do a larger, more controlled test. Yes, the D4 is good at the higher ISO values but it looks like Nikon has turned up the noise reduction at the higher ISOs. Even though the camera has an extra 4 MP, at around 6400 ISO it does not seem to hold as much detail in the image. In my case this is not a big issue because under that little light, my subject will likely not have much pop, contrast, or color anyway. While it does not match the D3S, it is still very good up to around 6400 ISO. Maybe we are getting a little spoiled and are expecting big steps in this area with every new model. Not sure if that is reasonable or not. So maybe the way to look at it is that the D4 is better than the D3 for High ISO shooting and almost as good as the D3S.
While the bad news is really not all that bad, the good news appears to be truly great—focus speed and accuracy. It is near impossible in the field to determine what the real focus speed is. I just look at the results at the end of the day. For the three weeks, I have used only one lens on the D4—the Sigma 300-800mm f5.6. Why not the Nikon 500mm f4 or the even faster shorter lenses? Simple. The Sigma is a fairly fast focus lens, but not as fast as the Nikon 500mm or the 70-200mm f2.8 lens or a wide angle. Might as well see how fast the D4 is on my slowest focus lens. Is it fast? Oh yeah, and accurate, too.
On the D3S, the big Sigma lens will do birds in flight but is not quite as fast as the 500mm Nikon. On the D4, it looks like it has focus locked on the first or second image. I am assuming that my technique is the same with this lens and either camera. With the D3S, I had to discard a number of images because the camera had not locked in focus or focus was a little soft. This was true even for slow moving, large subjects like a Canada goose swimming on a pond. At 800mm, depth of field is shallow. So any focus error is magnified. The D3S took some great images at 800mm but it also missed the focus slightly at times—or my technique was bad. The D4 with the same lens, tripod, technique, etc. has yet to miss a reasonable shot. Accurate? Does not matter if it is small or large, bird or flower, it is on. Birds in flight have been good to very good. I am very impressed. Next I am switching to the Nikon 500mm lens. That lens should snap into focus on the D4. The focus speed is the main reason I got the D4 and it has not disappointed. Recently I photographed wild turkeys strutting their stuff. It was at sunrise and light was still low. At 800mm, f6.3-7.1 and ISO 3200, shutter speed was 1/30-1/60 second. Focus was still fast in the low light on dark subjects.
Sometimes the little things can add up to a lot. 16 MP versus 12 MP? It looks a little smoother. It does allow deeper cropping of an image. That is a big thumbs up for me. The new Sony memory card versus a fast CF card? I have been using the new Sony card. Ripped off 30 fast RAW images with no sign of frame rate slowing down. Very likely never to hit the buffer limit again. However, I am not sure if that would have been any different with a very fast CF card. Not wild about carrying two types of cards and card readers, but the new cards supposedly have a big edge in future advancements. 3.2” versus 3” LCD screen? Would not have noticed if they had not listed that as an improvement. Better in bright light? Yes, but glare is still a problem. Big thumbs down from me for the change in selecting focus versus the D3S. The D4 uses the D7000 approach. Push a button on the front of the camera (not far below the lens release button), hold the button, and turn a thumb wheel to select single point or a variety of multi-focus point modes. The D3S has a nice, easy to locate and operate lever. Sure, it will be second nature in time but a single operation is faster and easier than doing two operations at the same time. It would have been great to have used the D3S battery and charger. Still cannot charge two batteries at the same time. It charges sequentially. Also I routinely shot 2800 images on the D3S battery before charging and the battery still had at least 20% charge even with that many images. Have yet to determine the number of images on the D4 before the battery reaches the 20% level but it appears to be quite a bit less than the D3S. Big improvements (which seem small on paper) include the buttons that light up. Sitting in a blind with low light and then you realize that you want to change a setting but the flashlight is in the car—flick the switch and the buttons have a very faint glow; easy to read but not glaring. There are so many really interesting features of the D4 that it will take a while to try them all.
Bottom line: The D4 is a great camera. So is the D3S, but the D4 seems to focus faster and the huge buffer is great for grabbing those action shots. If you absolutely, truly need super low noise and maintain detail at very high ISO levels, get the D3S or wait for a D4S. Throw in the video improvements people are raving about and the D4 really shines.