Pacific Brown Pelican
2008
D200, AF-S 300/4 with TC-17EII
I'm simply blown away and cannot believe that the D200 was capable of producing images like this when processed by someone who knows what he is doing - which I clearly did not back in 2008 (and not claiming nowadays either).
For whatever reason (likely operator error), the JPEG previews the D200 generated look nothing like the RAW images that open up in ACR. The up-to-date version of ACR is a far cry from what it was in 2008 - many more options to tweak the image to ones liking and to eek the last bit of information out of them. ACR Denoise and Topaz Sharpen Ai then help eliminating some of the remaining shortcomings.
In those days, I may or may not have used spot-metering (before discovering that it is entirely useless in most scenarios). I likely was also in S mode (shutter priority) with Auto ISO enables. Given the chosen fast shutter speed and the very limited useful ISO range of the D200, the aperture would always stay wide open and the ISO could float up to a max of 1600 - already beyond the reasonable limit of the D200. I tried A mode (aperture priority) with limits on how slow the shutter speed could go - but that proved cumbersome to change if I indeed wanted a slower shutter speed (stationary bird, for example).
Nowadays, the issue is solved by staying in M (manual) mode with Auto ISO engaged - and easily turned off when the situation asked for it. But now the high ISO limit is 32000! Giving some freedom to select shutter speed or aperture. My standard shutter speed now is 1/3200s - something I could hardly dream of when using the D200 or D300.
Pacific Brown Pelican
2008
D200, AF-S 300/4 with TC-17EII
I'm simply blown away and cannot believe that the D200 was capable of producing images like this when processed by someone who knows what he is doing - which I clearly did not back in 2008 (and not claiming nowadays either).
For whatever reason (likely operator error), the JPEG previews the D200 generated look nothing like the RAW images that open up in ACR. The up-to-date version of ACR is a far cry from what it was in 2008 - many more options to tweak the image to ones liking and to eek the last bit of information out of them. ACR Denoise and Topaz Sharpen Ai then help eliminating some of the remaining shortcomings.
In those days, I may or may not have used spot-metering (before discovering that it is entirely useless in most scenarios). I likely was also in S mode (shutter priority) with Auto ISO enables. Given the chosen fast shutter speed and the very limited useful ISO range of the D200, the aperture would always stay wide open and the ISO could float up to a max of 1600 - already beyond the reasonable limit of the D200. I tried A mode (aperture priority) with limits on how slow the shutter speed could go - but that proved cumbersome to change if I indeed wanted a slower shutter speed (stationary bird, for example).
Nowadays, the issue is solved by staying in M (manual) mode with Auto ISO engaged - and easily turned off when the situation asked for it. But now the high ISO limit is 32000! Giving some freedom to select shutter speed or aperture. My standard shutter speed now is 1/3200s - something I could hardly dream of when using the D200 or D300.