Interesting Discussion With Nikon After Firmware Upgrade
After upgrading my D4 Firmware last night it did not seem right and I confirmed it this morning in preparation for a month long trip for eagle and owl photography. I had the prolonged on/off other people have and all my 10 Lexar 1000x cards do not work. But the most interesting point was that the exposure and AF on my 800mm VR was not as crisp as in the past. After explaining the problem to the senior technician who called I was asked why I used the settings I used for birds in flight photos? I normally use AF C 21 point as I feel, and was told, this was the best. He said to use 51 point C Dynamic and switch to "Focus" from "Release". He said I would be slightly slower obtaining focus but would have more precise focus for the series. He said the 3-D would enable AF in all planes where the way I way setting it up would only be good for horizontal tracking. He said to also play with the focus lock on time depending on background. These instructions seem to go against the normal setup and made me wonder if, in fact, some changes to the AF of the D4 were made during the Firmware update. Has any one heard of any possible changes or have I always been off base with my AF settings.
Randy,
I did the firmware update, but have not seen any adverse issues. I'm using Lexar 1000x cards, but the serial numbers are not in the affected batch. Just coming back from a trip where I shot over 10,000 frames with my D4 but haven't noticed anything different after the upgrade. I don't have the 800, but shoot a lot with the 600. My settings are continuous high speed release mode with 21 point dynamic focus. I've tried the 3-D but was not happy with the results. 51 point is slower to acquire focus, IMO. I also always use the AF button for focus, not the shutter release. This helps a lot in "bumping" the focus. Will be interesting to see if anyone else is having issues.