DxO Mark scores D600 vs D610

[Marcel]

Yes, I know, Marcel. But I expose for their faces--the curtains and stage floor are black, and with no extra light except for 2 spotlights, the rest of the photo is very dark. I also used my D90 but blew out their faces a little too much and wasn't able to recover enough detail. I'm hesitant to overexpose their faces too much because I've run into that problem before. If push comes to shove, it will be the ISO that goes higher though! In the past I've used both ISO 1600 and 3200. I've also had some photos with motion blur so I am well aware of that happening. And there have been times when I've lowered my aperture to f/2.8 simply because of the lighting and shutter speed. I shall see how it goes tonight!

Have I mentioned I am REALLY stoked to try this Nikon lens?!!

What I have found out is that the camera meter is very ineffective for live shows. I'm in no way an expert, but the times I did have success, I did a few test shots and then went manual all the way and kept the same settings all through. It really depends on how the lights vary throughout... Sometimes they are stable and others not so. But, there is so much black as you mentioned, that I find metering to be more of a trap than a crutch. But this was my experience, and your's might be very different. Have fun and do all you can.

Oh, and don't forget to share your shots.

 

[aroy]

Yes, I know, Marcel. But I expose for their faces--the curtains and stage floor are black, and with no extra light except for 2 spotlights, the rest of the photo is very dark. I also used my D90 but blew out their faces a little too much and wasn't able to recover enough detail. I'm hesitant to overexpose their faces too much because I've run into that problem before. If push comes to shove, it will be the ISO that goes higher though! In the past I've used both ISO 1600 and 3200. I've also had some photos with motion blur so I am well aware of that happening. And there have been times when I've lowered my aperture to f/2.8 simply because of the lighting and shutter speed. I shall see how it goes tonight!

Have I mentioned I am REALLY stoked to try this Nikon lens?!!

In my D3300 there is at least 1EV margin at highlight end, that is in post I can shift the histogram 1EV left and recover over exposed parts. Must be same in D610. I suggest you check the exposure as determined by the camera, set it with histogram at extreme left and then over expose to 1/2, 1 and 1 1/2 EV. Check how much is recoverable in the post.

Here is what I was able to recover


Out of the camera


Some highlights recovered. This was overexposed by more than 2 EV

Similarly the wide DR enables you to recover from the shadows


Out of Camera


Shadows recovered

With nearly 14EV DR available, you can really dig deep into the shadows, and/or use high ISO to freeze the motion.

 

[BackdoorArts]

I happen to fire these off last night at a Leo Kottke show. These were all taken from what I'm guessing is about the same distance and similar conditions to what you're dealing with. I shot this with a D600 and 24-120mm f/4, and this is at ISO 6400 and f/5, matrix metered, no exposure compensation (though had I been thinking and shooting seriously instead of enjoying a night out I would have set it to -0.7 or -1.0).

Uncropped and untouched

100% crop, same photo

Light Adjusted in Lightroom

Lightroom Noise Reduction & Sharpening

Pumping this into Photoshop and using Dfine 2.0 to do the NR I could get it even more detailed since I can vary levels of NR by color (which will help a ton with the skin tones), but I think that in the scope of things this is pretty darned good, and a usable starting point to do serious work on tweaking it more completely if you don't have access to other tools. This was 30 seconds of actual LR work, with me spending more time getting a 1000px crop and typing than anything else.

I really don't know how DoF would be in any way effected by the change in lens, but you could indeed get a clarity bump.

 

[aroy]

I use the Nikon NX -D beta to do the same manipulation. Only here I use the exposure compensation and D light option to tune the exposure. What D Light does is to adjust the shadows/highlight while keeping the rest of the scene unchanged. So I get shadow recovery with little effect on the highlights and vice versa. I would strongly recommend users to at least try out this free beta version. It does wonders to the RAW Nikon images.

 

[aroy]

here is what I achieved by shiting the contrast/brightness in windows picture manager. With Nikon NX-D if would be better as the controls are finer.

 

[BackdoorArts]

here is what I achieved by shiting the contrast/brightness in windows picture manager. With Nikon NX-D if would be better as the controls are finer.

Granted, I could and would go a lot farther with the image, but that's not my point. My intent was simply to show noise levels at 100% crop and ISO 6400 of an image taken in similar conditions to what @hark is working in, as well as to back up Marcel's comments - not to fully edit a photo. This is merely Step 1.

 

[hark]

The rented Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 was awesome! The down side is that they used at least 4 spotlights so the stage was lit pretty well (which is not the norm). That means I couldn't isolate whether low light conditions are a factor with the D610. Oh well. The lens was superb. And since there was plenty of light, these don't have the noise I've dealt with in the past.

I was requested to supply several photos for a showcase in the lobby--the photos were needed by this morning. Since LR4 won't read files from the D610 without editing each photo's properties, I opted to do some quick jpeg edits in PSE 10 instead. Normally I don't post their drama photos, but since these will be on public display for tomorrow's performance, I'll share a few.

Notice the girl hiding underneath the steps below.

Wish I had used a slightly faster shutter speed below. However, her expression is priceless!

 

[aroy]

Could some one clarify this.

Some times as in the above photographs, the shutter speed is displayed as 10/1250. Is it 1/1250 or really 10/1250=1/125?

 

[Marcel]

Could some one clarify this.

Some times as in the above photographs, the shutter speed is displayed as 10/1250. Is it 1/1250 or really 10/1250=1/125?

1/125. I don't know exactly why sometimes there seems to be a x10 multiplier there... I wonder if even Nikon knows.

 

[aroy]

Thank you for clarifying. This has been bugging me for quite some time.

 

[hark]

1/125. I don't know exactly why sometimes there seems to be a x10 multiplier there... I wonder if even Nikon knows.

The shutter speed is displayed correctly in each files' properties so I assume it has something to do with the forum software that reads the EXIF data. Does it only happen with photos taken by Nikon cameras, or has it happened with some of the non-Nikon photos that are uploaded? Does anyone know?