Nikon D4 Underwater Testing

Awesome photos Alex....again you blow our minds away!

Look forward too see you handling the north!

All best

Gisli

www.divethenorth.is

Stunning as always Alex- thank you for sharing and inspiring

Alex,

As great as is these images are, it's hard to tell if they are any better say than your D7000. Any plans to take both underwater at the same time for comparisons?

Awersome!!!

Thanks for sharing......

I was waiting D800 review

very enjoyable Alex - these all look fantastic images

Alex,

Stunning shots !!!

Thank you for sharing.

Do you plan to use a D4 rather than a D800?

Thanks,

Only got one dive today as we had to travel north. And only have one tomorrow. So not much more to report. Shot the Sigma 15mm today, rather than Nikon 16mm. Not downloaded the images yet.

Also I will have a Compact Flash card reader tomorrow - so will be able to download some of the movies (the stills were on the XQD card).

As great as is these images are, it's hard to tell if they are any better say than your D7000. Any plans to take both underwater at the same time for comparisons?

Yeah, when the pictures are down rezzed to 650 pixels they always look good.

I had the D7000 with me in Iceland last year and didn't want to use it then! Silfra is much, much darker than it looks in the photos. Ideally, I won't take the D7000 over ISO 400. By the same criteria I won't take the D700 past ISO 800 and the D4 past 3200. When I used the D800 back in January I figure it was almost identical to the D700 for ISO performance at a pixel level (but I didn't want to post anything at the time because I couldn't believe it). And what I didn't consider at the time, its that when it is down rezzed to the same resolution it D700 it exceeds it.

Of course, you'd get the same compositions with any camera - but getting the shots with sufficient depth of field and corner performance (especially with rectilinear) really benefits from ISO performance. I'll compare the cameras more in the review and I'd like to shoot the D4 more underwater before I do that.

I was waiting D800 review

Wetpixel are working on it! But like this review we'll keep it pretty quiet until we are actually using it. What this space (website).

Alex

Still unsure of which AF modes I prefer - as they all just work. These were shot on AUTO area!

I've been surprised at how well AUTO area works

Here are some topsides from today. I can't share all my UW shots or I won't have anything left for the review. These were all taken with D7000:

The D4 housing is very big (like those for D2 and D3), but still smaller than a big dome, such as my Zen 230. It looks about twice the size of the D7000 housing. I'll photograph them together tomorrow.

Cheer up Alex - you've got the world's only D4 housing! In my defence, my face was still frozen in this position after an hour in the very cold water. The housing doesn't look so big with me for scale!

Spent the afternoon heading north. Weather looks good, but v. cold.

Alex

Hi Alex, great as ever! What about HDR?

Hi Alex, great as ever! What about HDR?

The in camera HDR is JPG only. :-(

I tried it on the pre-prod D800 back in January and it works - but as JPG only I think I'd rather do it long-hand and have RAW files.

More later - in the middle of shooting.

Alex

Here are some topsides from today. I can't share all my UW shots or I won't have anything left for the review. These were all taken with D7000:

 

The D4 housing is very big (like those for D2 and D3), but still smaller than a big dome, such as my Zen 230. It looks about twice the size of the D7000 housing. I'll photograph them together tomorrow.

Looks like dome is half full of water, Alex.

Just KIDDING (although the reflection did make it look like that at first glance), and I'm knocking on wood such a thing never happens to any of us

I hope so too!

Today was a day of extremes. In the morning diving around the hydrothermal chimney (this fjord has the world's only hydrothermal chimney in dive able depths). There are many places hot water from volcanoes comes into the ocean, but this is full on hydrothermal water, super-saturated with minerals which precipitate out when the hot water cools on contact with the cold water - and has made a chimney more than 60m tall. This is from the very top, the diver (Nina) is obscured by the waters not mixing because of the different temps (I want to save the other shots for the review):

Then in the afternoon I went out to shoot splits in rivers and in the sea, including in this bay filled with sea ice, which was pretty funky. Camera and housing performed perfectly.

Tomorrow it will be even colder. One of the guys today told me that last time he was there his video wouldn't focus because of all the ice particles in the water. Lovely. I'll not have internet for the next few days as we are at sea. But I'll try and post a few more before we go and then some new stuff when I am next online.

Alex

Here are a few more pictures from today, from the north of Iceland.

Diver exploring the side of the big chimney.

Life colonises the chimney.

Ton on safety stop. The lower frame is me taking the shot (see the dome reflection). My fingers were too cold to turn off my Inons - it was easier to point them out to the side.

River split level.

New problem for me and splits. Not droplets on the port, but ice on the port (licking the dome didn't help!).

Alex

Hi Alex,

I really admire your extreme effort and courage travelling to this bizarre part of the earth and bringing to us these stunning images. You are surely pushing the camera and our housing to their limit. I never would dream of diving in such conditions.

Edward

Thanks Howard!

The lanyard and ball mounts is a standard Nauticam part - I have the same on my D7000. Easy to carry even with strobes mounted. Great for passing your housing to someone who is not accustomed to carrying such things. And I fix my focus light to one of the additional ball mounts.

 

http://nauticam.com.au/products/light-moun...em/accessories/

Edward or Alex,

Does Nauticam support the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens? Are there currently zoom gears, focus and extension ring solutions for this lens? Will there be a HDMI out option?

Thanks!

Espen.

Yes 16-35 is supported.

Yes 16-35 is supported.

Thanks Alex, all of the above? I have not seen this listed at Nauticam.com

Espen

Great shots Alex!

I can't see any ISO noise at all. Have you tried ISO higher than 2500

Looking forward to the full rewiev!