Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park is by far my favourite photography playground. All my Nikon cameras (D3, D4, D800, D810, D7000, D500, Df) have been with me to Bromo so I am very well aware of the Nikon experience in photographing the numerous aspects of photography that are available in Bromo.
This is the reason why the new D850 had to make this visit to Bromo. So how did this Ultra High Resolution 7FPS monster do ?
The D850's standard 7 Frames Per Second (FPS) burst rate never had any issues keeping up with the action or when I needed it while executing hand-held bracketing shots. Definitely a blessing if I compared it to my D810.
Tengger Horseman galloping at full speed
ISO1000 , 1/500s , f4.0 , 110mm focal length, Hand-Held , AF-C , Single point Tracking , JPEG FINE
Focus Hit rate was excellent , only 1 shot out 12 was off and was my fault as the AF point was a little off.
Tengger Horseman interacting with his horse
ISO400 , 1/4000s , f4.0 , 24mm focal length, Hand-Held , AF-S , Single point Tracking , JPEG FINE
The D850's HIGH ISO performance was brilliant for a 45.7MP DSLR. I especially liked both the D850's JPEG FINE performance with High ISO Noise Reduction set to NORMAL and RAW format. Details retention were excellent up to ISO12,800 and when needed ISO 25,600 was still dependable especially when photographing the Milky Way (Stars) with longer focal lengths.
Again to me this is better than what the D810 could do at extreme high ISOs.
Milky Way @75mm focal length , ISO25,600 , f2.8 , 4 seconds exposure time , RAW
Milky Way with Tengger Horseman
ISO20,000 , f2.8 , 5 seconds exposure time , 20mm focal length , RAW
Horseman, horse and milky way all captured in a single frame
Milky Way with Tengger Horseman
ISO20,000 , f2.8 , 5 seconds exposure time , 20mm focal length , RAW
Horseman, horse and milky way all captured in a single frame
Tengger Horseman at dusk after the sun had set
ISO1600 , 1/30s , f4.5 , RAW
There was really nothing much that the Nikon D850 could not handle.
- At 45.7 MP resolution , dynamic range was not sacrificed.
- Response was superb , it was easy to "nail" peak moments
- Auto-Focus was a significant improvement be it tracking speed or tracking in low light
- 7 FPS burst rate was excellent for hand-held exposure bracketing and most action scenes
ISO3200 , f4.5 , 1/500s , 20mm focal length , Panorma from 2 Blended stitched shots
If compared to all my other Nikon cameras , the D850 is currently my favorite ALL-Rounder, there is now not a single genre that I cannot photograph with full confidence.
The D850 even got me to record timelapse videos with ease. Will definitely be doing more videography in future.
The following timelapse recorded in Full HD 60P using the D850 in silent mode uploaded from my Youtube channel ..... don't laugh please !! Hope it does not dissapoint too much ha ha ha , definitely not the D850's fault.
Till my next overseas adventure with the D850 .......