Nikon D810 Highlight Priority Metering, Pentax 645Z notes, Leica T

2014-08-10 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: Leica, Leica APS_C, Leica M, Leica T, medium format, Nikon, Nikon D810, Nikon DSLR, Pentax, Pentax 645Z, Pentax DSLR, Pentax medium format

Up in the mountains field shooting, writeups follow when I’m back in a week or so.

I’ve now studied the new “highlight priority” metering in the Nikon D810 and I have plenty to say (and show about it).

In a nutshell, Nikon D810 highlight priority metering works great sometimes and works worse at other times (as in a bug). And sometimes absolutely awful as in blowing out the image. Not ready for prime time, and most definitely not a replacement for expert manual exposure, and maybe too unreliable to rely on in any case.

Other brief notes:

• In the space of 20 minutes, I found 20 issues with the Leica T, ranging from bugs requiring power-cycling to severe usability problems to “who could have thought that up as making sense?”. A few nice things too, but with grating behavioral flaws that undermine it. I felt my frustration level steadily building as I used it. With a few (obvious) changes, it could work a lot better. It’s baffling how this software gets out the door.
• The Pentax 645Z offers awesome dynamic range in the field. It does have some minor time-wasting behaviors for field use that could be eliminated with a firmware update, but these are relatively minor in the scheme of things, the image quality is outstanding.
• The Nikon D810 Live View (with Zacuto) is unequivocally the best experience I’ve ever had in a camera, and I definitely prefer it over the EVF on the Sony A7R. Not just a practical time saver but a hit rate improvement for focus, snapping in and out obviously. Awesome. I investigated Picture Profiles in some detail, and will be posting the one I prefer for Live View use.