First impressions of the Nikon D750

Ignore the crap “studio” pictures, I don’t have a proper setup to take fancy pictures 😛

So as some of you are aware I upgraded from a Nikon D610 to a Nikon D750 and while I haven’t had a chance to properly test it yet, I just wanted to write down my initial thoughts.

Native ISO of 12800 is immense!

ISO12800, 14mm, f/2.8, 1/800th

Although I only upgraded from a D610 which is a fantastic high ISO low noise camera, I just wanted more! I was looking forward to this the most. Being able to shoot in low light conditions at 12800 and having absolutely minimal noise is just great.

I was able to test this in some astro shots last night.  My first exposure was ISO12800 with a 15 second shutter and I actually blew out the picture.  I had to reduce down the exposure time to 10 seconds!

ISO12800, 14mm, f/2.8, 15 sec

I also was able to shoot some aurora last night.  I like shooting at low shutter speeds for the aurora so that I can capture the details rather than smoothing it out with longer exposures.  ISO12800 with a 3 second shutter got me a perfect exposure and caught some great detail in the aurora.

ISO12800, f/3.5, 3 secs

Auto Focusing in low light

I had read online about the ability to pretty much autofocus this camera in the dark if you could find any light source at all. I got to test this last night and it worked like a charm.  I picked a faint light in the distance, pressed the focus button and low and behold it focused the camera perfect.

Smaller, thinner body

The first thing I noticed when I took the camera out of the box was just how nice it feels in the hand.  With the D750 having a thinner body, you have a deeper grip now which also feels more secure than my D610.

Histogram/Image Details

Last night I went down the road and did some tests shots.  I was trying to check my histogram by pressing up in the D-Pad and it wouldn’t show nothing.  You have to enable this option in the menu.  For anyone knows how this works in the D610, it’s just a nice display. Personally I don’t like it, I’d rather have the display from the D610.

LCD Screen

Although the screen itself is fantastic, with a lot more colors, I absolutely loathe the fact I can’t turn off the screen when adjusting the ISO/Qual/WB – this is a serious issue for any keen astrophotographer, the only solution for this problem seems to be either covering it (pain in the ass) or turning down the brightness of the LCD screen. I’m really hoping Nikon release a firmware upgrade so there is an option to turn this off.

LCD Tilting Screen

Personally, if I had the option of having a tilting screen or a fixed screen, I would choose a fixed screen.  I just think having the tilting screen is a gimmick that I will never use, although some people will love it, and it’s just asking to be broke when it catches on something accidental.

Conclusion

This isn’t really a conclusion to be honest.  But having only owned it for about 16 hours while writing this,  I’m already in love with it and I think this camera and I are going to have a great relationship together and I can’t wait to properly test it in my astrophotography.

At this stage though, I’d have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone.