20fps with Nikon V3 and 70-300CX

[The Smoking Camera]

First of all warning - lots of photos so please don't reply with quote otherwise you will re-copy all the images.

With that out of the way, this morning I decided to test continuous focusing of BIF at 20fps at the local marsh. On the way I saw a fun run at the beach so stopped and took a few shots of the runners.

I don't recommend shooting 20fps unless you really want to capture an entire sequence or it's important to get that one perfect shot during a sequence. Otherwise too many photos to review. However, it is really quite amazing to shoot at this speed. What is more amazing is the V3 can acquire focus even if the first few shots are out of focus. When I reviewed the sequence of the girl running, I noticed I completely missed focus at the beginning. Focus was on a small wave in the background. However after about three shots the wave disappeared and the camera on its own acquired focus on the runner and maintained focus throughout the sequence.

Anyway, here are four examples (male runner, female runner, heron and egret) to give you an idea of what to expect with the V3 and 70-300CX at 20fps. Hopefully not too boring.









































































































































































































































--
Joe

http://www.thesmokingcamera.com

 

[JP Scherrer]

Wow.. indeed the V3 is doing a he££ of a fast and good job ! (ok, the photographer too ;-) )

Now, do you mind giving away your settings ?



J-P.

Photo Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/scherrer
Spherical Panoramas at http://www.360cities.net/profile/jps

 

[The Smoking Camera]

Wow.. indeed the V3 is doing a he££ of a fast and good job ! (ok, the photographer too ;-) )

Now, do you mind giving away your settings ?



J-P.

Photo Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/scherrer
Spherical Panoramas at http://www.360cities.net/profile/jps

Thanks JP. Settings pretty simple: aperture priority with compensation minus a third or two thirds of a stop depending on subject matter. AFC, Auto Area and AE-AL button assigned to AF-ON just like a DSLR.

 

[pwilly]

Hi Joe,

Those are awesome.

I have been playing with my shots from the Pikes Peak hillclimb and have decided that even 10 FPS is too fast for some of what I want. Here is a panoramic image sequence I did with photoshop of a 914-6 passing me at 120 mph. I had to drop every other frame at 10 fps to get what I was looking for, i.e. no overlap.


914 sequence

--
Paul
Just an old dos guy

 

[Sonyshine]

..and the naysayers and scoffers say fast FPS is just a gimmick...

A great set Joe!

 

[Vlasty]

These are the first series of BIF's I have seen at high shutter speeds in good light that showcases the new lenses abilities.

 

[JP Scherrer]

Wow.. indeed the V3 is doing a he££ of a fast and good job ! (ok, the photographer too ;-) )

Now, do you mind giving away your settings ?



J-P.

Photo Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/scherrer
Spherical Panoramas at http://www.360cities.net/profile/jps

Thanks JP. Settings pretty simple: aperture priority with compensation minus a third or two thirds of a stop depending on subject matter. AFC, Auto Area and AE-AL button assigned to AF-ON just like a DSLR.

Hi Joe !

Thanks for the settings ! Seems that the newer mirrorless Nikon are slowly but surely approaching the IQ of their big brothers.... the next Nikon 1 bodies (V3, V5, etc...) will be extremely interesting !

:-D

J-P.

Photo Galleries at http://www.pbase.com/scherrer
Spherical Panoramas at http://www.360cities.net/profile/jps

 

[The Smoking Camera]

Cool pano philly. Thanks Sonyshine hopefully these images are proof of concept for me and now I know 20fps is doable if necessary (e.g. surfing, ballet …). I’m not surprised Vlasty - not easy to keep a BIF in the viewfinder for a few shots let alone 20 or more. JP, IQ is pretty good particularly in good light but things fall apart in low light - big brothers will always win this battle.

 

[Dick Lund]

Hello smoking camera

did you shoot raw? If not what jpg file size were these shot at.

thank you

****

 

[The Smoking Camera]

Hello smoking camera

did you shoot raw? If not what jpg file size were these shot at.

thank you

****

All shot raw.

 

[Bill Hollinger]

Thanks for posting these. I’d love to find a smaller, lightweight camera I could use instead of the D3s for action, nd this looks very promising. Do you have a sense how well it would work in shade or under overcast skies?

Bill

 

[The Smoking Camera]

Thanks for posting these. I’d love to find a smaller, lightweight camera I could use instead of the D3s for action, nd this looks very promising. Do you have a sense how well it would work in shade or under overcast skies?

Bill

Hi Bill. Good question. I used a D3s for several years to shoot action until I moved to a D4 which I still use for low light action. My sense is the V3 focuses fine in shade and overcast. I've managed to capture a few BIF images in overcast and some of the people shots I posted in a separate thread were in shade. The problem is IQ if iso has to be raised too high. The smallish CX sensor is inherently noisy and that noise can cause a loss of detail once iso is the 1600 plus range. One cure is a fast native lens such as the 32 f1.2. I've managed to take ballet shots in a theatre with this fast lens. The alternative is using a fast FX prime such as the 85 f1.8 and use the Ft1 adapter to get over 200mm of reach at 1.8. Not bad. All in all these are smaller lightweight setups than the D3s. If you want to test things out I recommend buying a used V1, Ft1 adapter and some of your native lenses. Good, inexpensive way to test the waters.

--
Joe
http://www.thesmokingcamera.com

 

[twg]

this is really impressive and amazing !!!

Very glad to know also that V3 continues to focus in burst mode, which my V2 cannot do !

p.s. I have the 70-300cx n V2...:-|

 

[Bobby Handal]

nice series, can't wait to shoot mine at high speed !!

 

[Bill Hollinger]

Thanks Joe. Are the V1 and V2 equivalent to the V3 in their ability to track movement (AFC)? I do a lot of dog action photography, a subject I assume is roughly equivalent in difficulty for the AF system to tracking birds in flight. If so, I’ll try this idea. I’ve stayed with the D3s because it works so well in AFC mode and I don’t usually need large high res images. I occasionally use the D800E for action, and the quality difference, especially in shadow detail, is obvious - but the frame rate is too slow for most action (plus viewing and processing time is an issue with the larger files). Ideally someone would make a small weather-proof (for rain, snow and water splashing) camera with good, fast longer lenses and AF tracking capability like the D3 and newer iterations of this camera. The difficulty I have is finding convincing examples of images form the small cameras, which is why I was so happy to see your post!

Bill

Thanks for posting these. I’d love to find a smaller, lightweight camera I could use instead of the D3s for action, nd this looks very promising. Do you have a sense how well it would work in shade or under overcast skies?

Bill

Hi Bill. Good question. I used a D3s for several years to shoot action until I moved to a D4 which I still use for low light action. My sense is the V3 focuses fine in shade and overcast. I've managed to capture a few BIF images in overcast and some of the people shots I posted in a separate thread were in shade. The problem is IQ if iso has to be raised too high. The smallish CX sensor is inherently noisy and that noise can cause a loss of detail once iso is the 1600 plus range. One cure is a fast native lens such as the 32 f1.2. I've managed to take ballet shots in a theatre with this fast lens. The alternative is using a fast FX prime such as the 85 f1.8 and use the Ft1 adapter to get over 200mm of reach at 1.8. Not bad. All in all these are smaller lightweight setups than the D3s. If you want to test things out I recommend buying a used V1, Ft1 adapter and some of your native lenses. Good, inexpensive way to test the waters.

--
Joe
http://www.thesmokingcamera.com

 

[The Smoking Camera]

nice series, can't wait to shoot mine at high speed !!

 

[The Smoking Camera]

Thanks Joe. Are the V1 and V2 equivalent to the V3 in their ability to track movement (AFC)? I do a lot of dog action photography, a subject I assume is roughly equivalent in difficulty for the AF system to tracking birds in flight. If so, I’ll try this idea. I’ve stayed with the D3s because it works so well in AFC mode and I don’t usually need large high res images. I occasionally use the D800E for action, and the quality difference, especially in shadow detail, is obvious - but the frame rate is too slow for most action (plus viewing and processing time is an issue with the larger files). Ideally someone would make a small weather-proof (for rain, snow and water splashing) camera with good, fast longer lenses and AF tracking capability like the D3 and newer iterations of this camera. The difficulty I have is finding convincing examples of images form the small cameras, which is why I was so happy to see your post!

Bill

Thanks for posting these. I’d love to find a smaller, lightweight camera I could use instead of the D3s for action, nd this looks very promising. Do you have a sense how well it would work in shade or under overcast skies?

Bill

Hi Bill. Good question. I used a D3s for several years to shoot action until I moved to a D4 which I still use for low light action. My sense is the V3 focuses fine in shade and overcast. I've managed to capture a few BIF images in overcast and some of the people shots I posted in a separate thread were in shade. The problem is IQ if iso has to be raised too high. The smallish CX sensor is inherently noisy and that noise can cause a loss of detail once iso is the 1600 plus range. One cure is a fast native lens such as the 32 f1.2. I've managed to take ballet shots in a theatre with this fast lens. The alternative is using a fast FX prime such as the 85 f1.8 and use the Ft1 adapter to get over 200mm of reach at 1.8. Not bad. All in all these are smaller lightweight setups than the D3s. If you want to test things out I recommend buying a used V1, Ft1 adapter and some of your native lenses. Good, inexpensive way to test the waters.

--
Joe
http://www.thesmokingcamera.com

Hi Bill, the problem you will have with a V camera is the buffer. They are the cheetah equivalent of a camera - great burst of speed for a short period of time, then rest is needed before the next burst. The V3 will max out at 40 shots total at high frame rates then it takes time for the buffer to empty and images written onto the card. I’m guessing about ten to twenty seconds or so. This is better than the V1 but nowhere near the D3s which can keep shooting for a much longer period of time albeit at slower fps. So when I was shooting the BIF I had to time when to begin my burst knowing I would have about two seconds at 20fps to get the maximum of 40 images.

I believe the V1 maxes out at 10fps and V2 maxes out at 15fps with continuous focusing. The V3 betters these with 20fps.

Hope this helps.

--
Joe
http://www.thesmokingcamera.com

 

[pwilly]

this is really impressive and amazing !!!

Very glad to know also that V3 continues to focus in burst mode, which my V2 cannot do !

p.s. I have the 70-300cx n V2...:-|

 

[The Smoking Camera]

this is really impressive and amazing !!!

Very glad to know also that V3 continues to focus in burst mode, which my V2 cannot do !

p.s. I have the 70-300cx n V2...:-|