u/theLightSlide

One of the craziest things I've ever seen. Arizona skies are unbelievable.

Thinking I ought to invest in the 150-300.

ETA: holy crap, I exported the files at max 2048 pixels wide and reddit STILL murdered the detail. These are all sharp. Is there a trick to this?!

Key:

1. missed focus (but I kinda dig it??)
2. almost in focus
3. small part in focus (stopped down a little I believe)
4. wide open, but in focus, if you can believe it
5. stopped down to maybe f2.8
6. stopped down to 5.6 or 8
7. f8
8. wide open, foliage/sticks for bokeh test

This lens is impossible to focus wide open, even when a camera that has lots of tools to help (the Sigma fp's focus magnification is hard to beat), and with experience. And wide open, it glows more than anything I've seen short of an actual soft focus lens.

Reddit has sort of murdered the bokeh in some of these shots, and softened the sharpness in others. The bokeh is not globby in terms of color artifacts. It does get sharp.

Photo from Pentax 645D. Very little editing.

I live in one of the more challenging areas for photography: the sunny, contrasty, subtle, and sometimes incredibly punchy desert southwest.

I'm really looking for something that's A. higher res, B. ideally more dynamic range while still having great colors, and C. easier to get the shot with (aka IBIS) than my current lineup which is a Sigma fp (FF 24mp), Pentax 645D (MF 40mp CCD), and Sony a350 (APS-C 14mp CCD).

And, as I just learned the hard way, virtually no modern mirrorless system offers more DR than my fp. Except… the GFX 100s and 100s II. (The 100 II also but I don't need video and it's a chonker.)

Please show me what your systems can do!

Let me preface this: I shoot extensively using pro CCD cameras (Pentax 645D, Phase One, Fujifilm Finepix S5 Pro) and consumer models (Sony a350, Olympus e400, etc) as well as a Samsung NX 500 (28mp BSI APS-C) for adapted APS-C lenses, a Nikon D750, and a Sigma fp (24mp BSI, 2019) for when I want something mirrorless in FF. I am used to older / weirder cameras that are nowhere near as feature-packed, but I do know plenty about limited DR blowing highlights. I always shoot raw. I nearly always shoot aperture priority.

The used ZR I picked up this week blows highlights constantly.

All the unmarked samples above were shot with the ZR set to highlight-weighted metering. The two ISO 80 shots were both with highlight-weighted metering, and taken literally a moment apart; the metering seems unpredictable in a way I'm not used to.

(Note: Yes, the compositions are garbage; I'm just taking them as a test.)

What's extra weird is that when I briefly had a Z5, I did not have this problem. (I sold it again because I hated the slow-as-f manual focus magnification.) Overall I got much better IQ out of the Z5 as well as better exposures and better "apparent" DR. The 2 shots of the cat against a window are under similar lighting conditions, both unedited; the Z5 gave me lots of highlight data and the shaded area is much more dynamic, unlike the ZR. This doesn't seem right.

I'm using the latest LR Classic.

So far, I have:

1. reset it to factory settings
2. set the shooting profile to Flat (& re-assigned in LRC as needed)
3. turned on Highlight-weighted Metering
4. tried ISO 800 + 3200 (which are the dual native ISOs, right?)
5. tried ISO 100-500
6. tried ISO 80 (low 1)

And the ZR still overexposes in situations where HP metering ought to shine. And the colors are very dull (regardless of profile), unlike the Z5, and especially recovered highlights in LR seem kind of… grey, unlike the Z5.

This doesn't seem right either.

The ZR seems to have less DR than my Sigma fp (24mp BSI, from 2019), which I'm pretty sure can't be true. The auto-metering seems both duller and more prone to blow highlights than my Pentax 645D, which feels really weird.

When I deliberately manually underexpose to protect highlights, the shadows block up much faster than I'm used to with my fp, and are harder to raise while looking natural. And recovered highlights seem muddy.

Before I bought my ZR, I downloaded sample ZR raws taken in very harsh lighting environments (a glowing sign at night, etc., Amsterdam canal at night, dark subway station) and edited them. The colors were rich. I was able to bring down the highlights and bring up shadows without it looking artificial or muddy. The files felt very flexible. Not so with the files I'm getting out of my own camera.

This is true whether I'm shooting a vintage adapted lens or the Z 24-200, which came with my Z5, that I kept.

So I figure either my settings are whack (but I have no idea how), or my ZR is faulty. I did buy it used, but from a reputable camera shop.

My ZR also says "Cannot access media card" about half the time when I insert my micro SD in it. This card works flawlessly elsewhere. Reinserting it works. And yes it was fully seated every time.

So…

Help!

I did it. I pulled the trigger!! It arrives Wednesday and I can't wait.

I'm almost exclusively a stills photographer, with a focus on adapting vintage lenses, of mainly slow or stationary subjects (landscapes, cityscapes, plants).

I bought the ZR because of the huge screen, the flippy switch for focus magnification, and the size. Putting my eye to an EVF makes me feel physically ill (dizzy + nauseated) so not having one is a bonus.

I could use any and all advice, tips, lessons learned!

How do you set up your ZR for stills?

What are your tips for using a lot of manual focus in your workflow?

The newest Nikon I've used for any length of time is the D750 but it wasn't mine so I didn't futz with the setup much at all. My main "modern" camera for years has been the Sigma fp, which is sort of a spiritual ancestor to the ZR, but the fp has a beautifully simple & transparent user interface and has not prepared me for the Nikon menus lol.

Question — I can shoot stills exclusively onto MicroSD for now, right? Or do I have to order a CFExpress Type B right away?