Experiencing my new D600

Ok it’s easy to take snap shots of cats with the D600 and ED class glass (see this shot). However what about action shots of sports with this cam?

My fiance’s son plays basketball in a local community stadium. He had his grand final last night. So off we went, fully charged D600 in hand.

Now this stadium has some very ordinary lighting, one court had some good light but of course the court we were on has lighting that really needs updating. Anyhow, ideal really, to push the high iso capability of the D600 perhaps...

One thing I learnt, the hard way, is to discover the various methods of setting focus tracking BEFORE one sets out on a session such as this. The experience is not like my D200.

With the conditions of this shoot, this was gunna be HARD and as it turns out it sure was. Hard lighting conditions and as it turned out no idea how to drive the cam. Good one Pete.

I have a number of DX and FX lenses. I have ordered a 24-70 in lieu of my 17-55 ED DX however it is still on back order. So the only FX lenses I have are a 60mm 2.8 macro Nikkor and my 70-200 VR1.

I tried the 60mm first then the 70-200. I had access to any area I wanted around the court. 

A few things I noted:

1.      Unfortunately the battery grip is still on order. The cam is great with just the 60mm lens but put on the 70-200 and the weight of the lens is immediately obvious. Seemingly more so than with my D200 with grip. The D600 grip for my long fingered hands is, I dunno, too small and perhaps ‘squarish’. After while I seemed to get sweaty hands. I’m sure it was because I had to grip harder than I do with the D200 with grip than the D600 without grip. Hopefully this will change when I get the D600 grip.

2.       As I had no idea how to change the focus method from ’39 point ‘auto’ (no manual and no time to read it anyhow). I looked and looked but it eluded me on how to do it. (30 seconds when I got home with the manual and I found it’s easy but the operation is nothing like the D200).

3.       Sport, fast action, hard light and cam on 39 point auto is NOT the ideal setting. The cam would take too long to focus or not focus at all. Often with back focussing. Bummer. Hopefully when I work out the best focusing options this will vastly improve. See this shot as an example. On the night I shot high res jpg only, I usually shoot raw only but the only SD card I had is a small 4gig job and the cam indicated only 77 shots available with RAW).

4.       It’s great not to have to fart arse around with Compact Flash cards and adapters etc. Most devices have SD card slots including my laptop, tablet etc. Great stuff.

5.       It's REALLY great to be able to use up to 6400 ISO. REALLY great. See here for examples.

I’ve a looong way to go :)