Well, I did it. I bought a Nikon D810 several weeks ago, and I’m extremely impressed with the camera. I won’t go into all the details about the D810, as there are many, many reviews on the Web. However, I will note one feature that has not been talked about much, and that is the split screen live view mode. This is incredibly useful for landscape photography using Nikon’s tilt/shift lenses. Activate Live View, tap the i button, and select split screen. The live view image is divided in two, across the short dimension of the frame. The “plus” and “minus” buttons allows zooming in for a magnified view.
Here’s where this comes into play with a T/S lens. If you’re making a tilt while the camera is in a vertical orientation, the split live view allows you to zoom into separate points on both foreground and background, on both near and far, and consequently to accurately position the tilted plane of focus. Being able to view near and far points simultaneously makes using a T/S a lot easier. I do wish Nikon had allowed repositioning the split across the long dimension of the frame also, for when the camera is used in a horizontal orientation. But, hey, I’m really happy with what we got. Really happy.
3 Comments
Thanks for the insight John! It’s always a bonus to hear what you think about various new products and how you have applied some new feature into your photography.
On a side note; Any news about when we might see a rewrite of your Nature Photography Fieldguide? Christmas is getting close! 🙂
A remarkable camera from everything I see.
Makes me wonder what’s next. As a long-time Nikon user, it is great to see them at the forefront once again.
Congratulations John. I did same back in July when they first announced the D810. I traded up from the D800 after I read about the improvements. It’s an incredible camera and don’t regret trading in my D800. Besides the split screen, I am taking advantage of the native ISO 64 for landscape photography as well as the higher ISO for astrophotography. Am looking forward to seeing some of your photos with the D810.