D600 with full fat AF system!

Tbh I'm not interested in machine gunning anything, which is probably why I have no interest in photographing football and the like, I don't see what's artistic about chasing people around in your viewfinder, letting the camera track focus and machine gunning the subject.
I don't mind some motor sports though, in fact I love the artistry of Darren Heath's work, but that's an exception rather than the rule.
 
10% margin on small, light boxes of £2k+ items is not paltry. Far from it. Try having 0.001% margin on pallets the size and weights of small cars for a paltry margin :p It's all relative to how quick this things will shift, and they will shift.

The D600 fills a massive gap in the market. The price difference between the D300s and D800 is humongous. The D600 is in the middle. Or, as I suspect, this is a "consumer" grade FF.. the first on the market.

As I said before.. this is a base spec FF camera.
 
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D.P. said:
Many other features are more important, I would much rather have a 4FPS camera with reliable, fast and accurate AF with amazing tracking abilities than 6FPS with hit or miss AF which is often the case. These are the features that professional sports togs demand, the higher FPS is just a nice feature to have that can be useful in difficult situations. I have never heard of a Pro sports tog who pre which to machine gun than take care of the timing. Even at 10-12FPS there is a good chance of missing the critical moment when machine gunning while being more careful and planned can get you the exact desired timing.
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Talking about "machine gunning" just tells me you don't know what you're on about. It's still all about the timing of a shot but you have the ability to take 2 or 3 frames at that moment. So on a 10 fps camera we're talking about quarter to less than a third of a second. As your fps drops you may have to rely on a single shot that can be easily ruined by elements out of your control. Even being able to get 2 frames (which 6 v 4 fps may give you) doubles your chances.

I agree with An Exception though, I'd be looking at the crop mode fps on the D800 if I went that route.
 
An Exception said:
Tbh I'm not interested in machine gunning anything, which is probably why I have no interest in photographing football and the like, I don't see what's artistic about chasing people around in your viewfinder, letting the camera track focus and machine gunning the subject.
I don't mind some motor sports though, in fact I love the artistry of Darren Heath's work, but that's an exception rather than the rule.
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It's "similar" to wedding photography, in that you're striving to catch "that moment". You are limited due perhaps due to the location, but that depends on what/where you are as well I suppose. There is a lot of interesting sports photography out there, well to me anyway :D

http://www.bobmartin.com/bob1.html
 
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Porceliamone said:
D.P. - no need to get personal on people who may have a differing view to you. Effectively calling me an unducated fanboy simply makes you an ar*e. I'll leave you and this thread to it.
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I was being personal in the slightest! I'm sorry if you feel that I insulted you, it was completely not my aim.
 
Rojin said:
Talking about "machine gunning" just tells me you don't know what you're on about. It's still all about the timing of a shot but you have the ability to take 2 or 3 frames at that moment. So on a 10 fps camera we're talking about quarter to less than a third of a second. As your fps drops you may have to rely on a single shot that can be easily ruined by elements out of your control. Even being able to get 2 frames (which 6 v 4 fps may give you) doubles your chances.

I agree with An Exception though, I'd be looking at the crop mode fps on the D800 if I went that route.
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You are right, I am not a pro sports tog but I am friends with some and follow a few pro togs and I listen to what they say.

besides which i cannot follow your math at all here. lets say there is a particular event to photograph (someone crossing a finishing line. there is a 0.5seocnd window of opportunity, by raw number a 6FPS camera might capture 3 frames and a 4 FPS camera 2 frames, but if the AF system on the 6FPS camera failed then one might have 3 out of focus photos while the 4 FPS camera has 2 perfectly in focus photos. Ever pro sports tog on the planet will prefer 2 perfectly focused photos of a critical event than any number of failed photos. Hence raw FPS is not of critical important, AF performance tracking ability, consistency etc if more important.

there is also the issue of filling the buffer too quickly at high speeds, which is a problem if you machine gun away. Given the same buffer size and a slower shooting rate will cause less problems here, which is one of the main reasons camera have both a continuous High and low speeds because sometimes the low speeds are more useful (although on the pro bodies the buffer is usually sufficient, on some lower end bodies that have high FS the buffer will fill very rapidly).
 
D.P. said:
You are right, I am not a pro sports tog but I am friends with some and follow a few pro togs and I listen to what they say.

besides which i cannot follow your math at all here. lets say there is a particular event to photograph (someone crossing a finishing line. there is a 0.5seocnd window of opportunity, by raw number a 6FPS camera might capture 3 frames and a 4 FPS camera 2 frames, but if the AF system on the 6FPS camera failed then one might have 3 out of focus photos while the 4 FPS camera has 2 perfectly in focus photos. Ever pro sports tog on the planet will prefer 2 perfectly focused photos of a critical event than any number of failed photos. Hence raw FPS is not of critical important, AF performance tracking ability, consistency etc if more important.

there is also the issue of filling the buffer too quickly at high speeds, which is a problem if you machine gun away. Given the same buffer size and a slower shooting rate will cause less problems here, which is one of the main reasons camera have both a continuous High and low speeds because sometimes the low speeds are more useful (although on the pro bodies the buffer is usually sufficient, on some lower end bodies that have high FS the buffer will fill very rapidly).
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We're not talking about half a second, that is aaaaages! :D AF is another matter and of course accuracy and consistency are paramount. I've not used a high fps body where that's been an issue yet though. There has to be a lot going on to fill the buffer, but it is a consideration.
 
D.P. said:
You are right, I am not a pro sports tog but I am friends with some and follow a few pro togs and I listen to what they say.

besides which i cannot follow your math at all here. lets say there is a particular event to photograph (someone crossing a finishing line. there is a 0.5seocnd window of opportunity, by raw number a 6FPS camera might capture 3 frames and a 4 FPS camera 2 frames, but if the AF system on the 6FPS camera failed then one might have 3 out of focus photos while the 4 FPS camera has 2 perfectly in focus photos. Ever pro sports tog on the planet will prefer 2 perfectly focused photos of a critical event than any number of failed photos. Hence raw FPS is not of critical important, AF performance tracking ability, consistency etc if more important.

there is also the issue of filling the buffer too quickly at high speeds, which is a problem if you machine gun away. Given the same buffer size and a slower shooting rate will cause less problems here, which is one of the main reasons camera have both a continuous High and low speeds because sometimes the low speeds are more useful (although on the pro bodies the buffer is usually sufficient, on some lower end bodies that have high FS the buffer will fill very rapidly).
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I think Rojin is basically saying all else being equal, more FPS = Better - and can make a big difference.

Obviously in this particular case of D600 Vs D800, I'm with you DP.
5.5FPS of the D600 is only an advantage over the D800 if it's AF has the same hit rate. As it is a less capable AF system it is unlikely to perform as well as the D800, thus in real use the D800 may provide more usable frames in a given moment.
 
An Exception said:
I think Rojin is basically saying all else being equal, more FPS = Better and can make a big difference.

Obviously in this particular case of D600 Vs D800, I'm with you DP.
5.5FPS of the D600 is only an advantage over the D800 if it's AF has the same hit rate. As it is a less capable AF system it is unlikely to perform as well as the D800, thus in real use the D800 may provide more usable frames in a given moment.
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Yeah, the D600 AF is an unknown but if it does suck then even 10 fps ain't gonna help. I was only really responding to "4 v 6 is academic", apologies if this was talking at cross purposes.
 
Agreed - all things being equal having a higher frame rate can sometimes make a difference.

But, I'd still place good panning/tracking technique and an excellent AF system as being more vital to obtaining a sharp action photograph ( and even Thom Hogan agrees with this statement ;) )

That said though, usually the cameras which have the highest frame rate also have cracking AF systems eg. D4
 
xaldub said:
Agreed - all things being equal having a higher frame rate can sometimes make a difference.

But, I'd still place good panning/tracking technique and an excellent AF system as being more vital to obtaining a sharp action photograph ( and even Thom Hogan agrees with this statement ;) )

That said though, usually the cameras which have the highest frame rate also have cracking AF systems eg. D4
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Well if you don't have decent technique no amount of fps or AF power is going to help :)
 
xaldub said:
Absolutely, although there are many ( to which DP alluded ) that think spray & pray is a valid method to compensate.
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Indeed, and that is all I was really getting at.

All things being equal, more FPS can be better but there are more important things to consider like AF accuracy.

I have the same opinion on resolution, more is better as long as it doesn't have negative side effects.
 
xaldub said:
Absolutely, although there are many ( to which DP alluded ) that think spray & pray is a valid method to compensate.
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In my experience the only people who refer to spray and pray and machine gunning are those who haven't actually done much sport related shooting.

Actually I did think of one area where I do shoot a full second at full fps, it's not sports though but shooting at slow shutter speeds at a long focal length. This is at an airshow shooting at 1/60 @ 400-500mm whilst panning (hand held) to get prop blur. Mind you on the 1Ds2 this only gives me 4 shots :D At the moment I don't get a lot of keepers so use any help I can get!
 
D.P. said:
Indeed, and that is all I was really getting at.

All things being equal, more FPS can be better but there are more important things to consider like AF accuracy.

I have the same opinion on resolution, more is better as long as it doesn't have negative side effects.
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Yes sorry, I fixated just on the fps comparison. The fps difference is academic if the AF isn't up to the task in the first place. I'll read the thread properly next time!
 
Nikon D600 just got official :o

Wow it doesn't look half bad, will wait and see what the price will be in the UK though (looks like it will be 2400 euros)... But still now that Nikon have two 'smaller' Full Frame camera's could it be a segment of the market they start to take over, has Canon got something in the works that is similar??!

Specs:

24.3MP Full-frame CMOS sensor (10.5MP DX-format crop mode)
ISO 100-6400 (expandable to ISO 50-25,600 equivalent)
Maximum 5.5fps continuous shooting
39-point AF system with 9 cross-type AF points
3.2in 921k-dot LCD screen
1080p30 full HD video mode with stereo sound recording
Headphone jack for audio monitoring in movie mode
Uncompressed video recording via HDMI
Dimensions: 141mm x 113mm x 82mm (5.5 × 4.4 × 3.2 in).
Weight: 760 g (1.6 lbs) (camera body only, no battery)

Links:

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikon-d600/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/13/nikon-d600-full-frame-dslr/
 
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