Nikon P900 - the First Six Months

Back in December last year I wrote a post entitled Nikon P900 - Initial Steps, designed to help non-photographer type birders get to grips with the Nikon Coolpix P900, a camera which many of us are employing to enhance our birding. At the time I'd owned one for a couple of months, found some settings which worked okay for me, and simply shared that info in case anyone else found it useful. Indirectly I was reminded today that I ought to write an update, because I've moved on a little bit since then. Nothing major, but a few tweaks have now made the camera more versatile, and even better suited to my needs. If that sounds useful, read on...

So, what are my needs? What do I want from this camera?

1. If I find a good bird, I want at least what you might call record shots.
2. If a nice photographic opportunity presents itself (obliging bird, good light, etc) ideally I want better than record shots. A few really nice photos now and then would be great.
3. I want a reasonable chance of getting flight shots.

I like to illustrate NQS with nice pics, so I've been using the camera on almost every outing. What follows is based upon that experience, and I can honestly say that the settings I use get the best results of which I am currently capable, and the evidence is scattered through the last umpteen posts in this blog. I'm sure a good photographer with decent skill and a critical eye would do much better than me, but largely I am very happy with results so far.

Right then, here is the nitty gritty...



'U' Mode
Four months ago I didn't understand what 'U' mode did. I do now. It is massively useful, as will hopefully become clear...

For almost all my shooting I use the exact same settings, and when I wrote 'Initial Steps' I had those settings installed in 'A' Mode. Here they are, copied from that post, except for a couple of more recent tweaks which I've explained in italics. [PS. The reason for the highlighting becomes obvious later]

   Image Quality - FINE
   Image size - 16M (4608x3456)
   Picture Control - Standard (with default values)
   White Balance - Auto1
   Metering - Spot
   Continuous - Single
   ISO Sensitivity - AUTO
[Updated from 'ISO Auto 400' - I've mostly found that photos in poor light, when the camera assigns an ISO higher than 400, are not as bad as I thought they would be. Definitely more noisy (grainy) than ISO 400 or less, but not a show-stopper. That said, on a really gloomy day I can always change it again if I feel the need, and sacrifice shutter speed.]
   Exposure bracketing - OFF
   AF area mode - Manual (spot)
   Autofocus mode - AF-F
   Flash exp. comp. - 0.0
   Noise reduction filter - NR- (low)
   Active D-Lighting - OFF
   Multiple exposure - OFF
   Zoom memory - ON (and I've set 800, 1200, 1600 and 2000)
[I've added 300 and 500 to this lot, because 800 is sometimes way too much initial zoom.]  
   Startup zoom position - 50
   M exposure preview - OFF

So here's the procedure...

1. Turn the mode dial to 'A'
2. Input the settings as above.
3. This is the killer step. As you scroll through the menu you will have noticed 'Save user settings'. Highlight it and press OK. Your settings are now magically saved in a memory. A memory which you access by turning the mode dial to 'U'.
4. Turn the mode dial to 'U'.
5. Take photos.

In other words, 'U' becomes a saved version of 'A'. So 'U' is now an 'Aperture Priority' mode, with all your favourite settings attached. In practice I usually just turn the aperture to as small a number as possible and fire away. Unless I want a flight shot...



Flight Shots
For flight shots I am using 'S' mode (Shutter Priority) and generally set a speed of 1/500 sec, though I'll go a bit faster if the light is good, slower if poor. The settings are as above, except for two fundamental differences...

   Continuous - Continuous H
[This a high speed burst of up to something like ten shots. The camera then takes a few seconds to process them before it's ready for another go, so you might only get one chance at a fly-by. Though you can fire off a shorter burst of three or four at a time, which process a bit quicker. I highly recommend this rather than one shot at a time.]
   AF area mode - Target finding AF
[This locks on to a flying bird far better than the 'Manual (spot)' setting used for birds on the deck.]

Now here's the thing. Both the above settings, once input, will apply to both 'S' and 'A' modes (also 'P' and 'M' - all four modes are linked). For certain parameters the camera does not allow for these modes to have independant settings. Until I learned that 'U' mode is totally separate, and locked, I was cursing this fact, because I only wanted high-speed burst shooting and target finding AF for flight shots, nothing else. Well, by utilising 'U' mode that becomes possible.

Basically I now use just those two modes, each with independant settings - 'U' for everyday stuff, and 'S' for flight shots. I hope that makes sense! Anyway, I'm not going to say anything further about flight shots, but will instead point you towards this excellent article (with thanks to Jeff Hazell for telling me about it):

P900 and P610 Birds in Flight method

I was chuffed to learn that what the writer recommends was pretty much what I had discovered for myself, but he explains it much better than I could. There are some great tips and insight in this article. Well worth studying.

Incidentally, getting flight shots is hard, and I am not very good at it. Locking onto a bird and panning with it is undoubtedly a skill. A skill which I have not mastered. I need to practice, practice, practice!



Video
I'm just going to mention one further thing. Simply pressing the red 'record' button has produced some terrific video. Among other things it clinched the ID of a Caspian Gull which I would otherwise have struggled to document convincingly, and gave me some gripping footage of the Axe American Herring Gull. It is a feature of the camera that I neglect badly, and if I ever find a nice rarity I do hope I remember to press that button at some stage.

As illustrated in yesterday's post, the video function is great for capturing sound too. And a tip for anyone who uses it for such: zoom the lens a bit, even if you can't actually see the bird. Doing this turns the microphone into a mini shotgun mic, focusing in on (and therefore highlighting) the sound you want, and minimising everything else.

I'm no photographer, so a camera which can give me this, hand-held at full 2000mm optical zoom, is a-a-a-alright.