Nikon D850 Handy Features

Nikon D850 Handy Features

Two of the features I've always felt were missing from pro-camera bodies are a tilt or flip out rear LCD display and more recently, Touch Screen. The benefits when shooting macro and certain landscape in Live View and being able to flip out the screen are many, not the least of which is not having to lie on the ground to see through the viewfinder when shooting a low subject.

Reasons why such a feature was missing from pro camera bodies in the past varied from difficulty with water and dust resistance to the possibility of damage with rough handling.

So when Nikon released the D5 FX flagship with touchscreen, I thought things are looking up. Next, along comes the Nikon D500 DX flagship camera with touch screen and tilt screen. Now I started to get excited Hoping that Nikon would continue the trend when they released the D850 I was overjoyed to see the features included. Macro, landscape, image review and much more were about to get a whole lot easier for Nikon FX pro body users.

One thing I hadn't considered in depth was using such features for wildlife and bird photography. Many of you who have attended my workshops would have heard me say (on numerous occasions) 'Always try and shoot from the eye level of your subject'. It's not always possible but it's good practice to try. Recently whilst running a bird photography workshop in North Queensland with Dick Jenkin we were at the waters edge shooting waders such as Bar-tailed Godwits, Great Knots and many others.

The best angle was to lie down at the waters edge in the wet sand which was also covered in sharp broken shells. I was keen but not quite that keen. Time to experiment. I flipped out the LCD screen and switched on Live View. I was using the somewhat weighty Nikkor 400 f/2.8 VR lens with a 1.4 TC so it was a challenging balancing act but it does have the convenient collar mount which doubles as a handle.

Crouching down I used the touchscreen to select the focus point. I use back button focus so it then a simple matter to focus and shoot. In hindsight I could have switched on the touch screen focus/shoot option which may have made things even easier (you simply touch the screen where you want to focus and when focus is achieved the shutter is activated). The end result was exactly what I was after. A beautifully blurred background and a nice sharp subject.

Happy days :-)

Nikon D850, Nikkor 400 f/2.8 with 1.4TC (effective 560mm f/4) 1/1250s @ f/4 ISO360