Hey! You’ve been able to Live View in Lightroom with the D800E? I’ve been looking at the Nikon Full Frame cameras and would love to Tether + Live View directly in Lightroom, but they aren’t on Adobe’s compatibility list for Live View (Though D750 and D850 are on the list) so I assumed the D800 and D810 could not live view in Lightroom.
How is the lag and the transfer speed? The live view with my X-T2 to Capture One is too slow to use for focusing and the tranfer takes 5-10 seconds per raw frame, which feels crazy long.
Hi Sid,
I have been able to do Tethered Capture with the D800E in Lightroom Classic, which has a live view feature. There are drawbacks, namely the live view resolution is too low to accurately focus with and I can’t use a remote shutter while tethered, so I have to click the shutter in Lightroom. Not the end of the world, just means I have to think about where the mouse is on the screen. Maybe there is a hotkey I don’t know about.
I can’t compare the lag or transfer speed to anything else since I have not used any other cameras in Tethered Capture. I will say the lag is not bad, probably 1/10 second. The transfer speed is a couple seconds, but definitely not ten.
All in all it works well and is far better for my neck than looking into the viewfinder or even the LCD screen on the back of the camera.
Cheers.
Same speed and quality for me using the D800 in Lightroom classic.
Best upgrade for me is the USB to USB-C cable to connect the camera directly to my MacBook.
Thanks, I’ve read through that list a dozen times. The D800 and D800E are distinctly missing from the list of cameras which Adobe says are Live View compatible. But clearly they do work!
I guess while I’m on the topic, might as well post. It’s still a WIP, but here’s my setup. I just received vlad’s test targets in the mail, went through a whole little test session tonight, only to realize I have no comparable point of reference, ideally a pro drumscan of the same neg. (not that i’m trying to get to that level, but curious to see the delta for myself) but it was an informative initial calibration, for dialing in alignment, and exposure settings. But I still need to work on alignment and leveling. Ultimately will have to do a print test at a few target, largest sizes I plan to print at for both 35mm and 120 respectively, but getting there!
Vlad does provide a section of a very high res scan on his website here together with an example shot on a 42MP Sony:
I’m a bit surprised at the CA on there as well, have you used the lens profile to correct for this? I’m thinking this is the standard Sigma 105mm f2.8 and not the ART version?
Another view of a section of the very high res scan in this article, there is certainly separation of the target lines down to Group 0 Level 4:
Ah thanks! I was trying to find where I saw those, but on film4ever.com was just the charts with lpi.
Yea this was without correction, the lens profile does reduce it but a fair amount of magenta/red fringing is still present. I am going to do a more thorough test at a few more apertures. Yea its the non ART version:
the analysis i’ve seen online led me to believe that it would be way less then I am seeing. I wonder if the backlighting nature of scanning could be making it worse? not sure.
I’ve got a feeling that f13 isn’t helping with your resolution. A friend using a D800 (but a different lens) decided not to do such a tight crop to fill the frame at 36MP, opted for around 24MP, felt he got better results overall as of course all lenses deteriorate, however slightly, towards the outside of the image circle.
yea i started at f5.6, but i didn’t take my time to really compare. gong from 5.6 to 8 to 11 and really pixel peep. So thats my next to do. I was also surpirsed that i ended up at f13 as it didnt look like diffraction was setting in, but i must have not been looking carefully enough.
Yea, I could probably get away with 24mp final for the 35mm, good call. But I plan to use this for 120 so was trying to get full frame as much as possible. but my bacup plan is to get select things that i want to print large professionally scanned, and use this setup more to process full rolls to do previewing, photo editing and selection for what to print.
If you wish to have an absolutely rock-solid high-end comparator scan by which to benchmark what your system is doing, I recommend you visit the high-end-scans site and arrange with Dominique to do the work for you. He is in Berlin, but it’s no big deal to send a couple of negatives forth and back safely. He can do both drum scans and digital scans, but I recommend you only order the digital. Here is a link to his website: https://www.high-end-scans.de/en/about/. His work is excellent, to the highest available standards in the world, and his pricing is reasonable. Make sure to select a couple of the sharpest negs you have and preferably with good tonal (and colour if applicable) information. You could send a scan of the target too, though sending negs of real photographs tells you a lot more about the relative capabilities of your whole system in all respects that will matter to you.
That’s actually the same outfit that Vlad Serebryany uses to get high resolution reference scans of his targets, quoted in this article. He quotes 24,146 pixels per inch, it would indeed be very interesting to see a scan at that resolution. The tech section on his HXY and drum scanning is definitely worth a read.
Just getting started with NLB and digital camera scanning, and wow, I’m very impressed. I haven’t shot film or done any negative scanning for probably 10 or 12 years. My workflow used to include a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Dual Scan IV and whatever version of SilverFast was most current at the time - talk about tedious! It just took forever, and the software was not user friendly. NPL is the polar opposite - very intuitive and it just works. I’m so thankful that someone decided to make and continue to develop this software - I gather it’s a pretty small operation, which makes it all the more impressive. Digital camera scanning itself has been a revelation. It’s just so fast and easy, and it’s actually FUN. If I had known I could’ve been doing it this way I would’ve gotten back into film a lot sooner.
Anyway, this is my scanning set up:
Leica SL (Typ 601) with remote release, on a Manfrotto PIXI mini tripod
Kipon NIK-SL adapter, in order to mount a Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D
Nikon ES-2 Film Digitizing Adapter
Logitech Litra Glow mounted onto a second Manfrotto PIXI mini tripod - this is marketed as a light source for social media streamers, but it’s perfect for scanning, with nice diffuse light, a color temperature range of 2700-6500 K, wide range of brightness settings, and a color rendering index (CRI) of 93 - oh, and it’s cheap, less than $60!
wow this is a great resource thanks! for very select shots that i want to print for presentation purposes I plan to have them professional scanned, the dslr scanning is to have working copies, so this is great info! thanks.
A nice simple setup, a good lens at 1:1, no problems with alignment, no need to mask off the light source, the camera can’t move with respect to the slide so stability of support is much less of an issue, compact, easy to store and setup and relatively inexpensive.
I have an ES-1, not the ES-2 with the neg strip holder. A slight worry is that the diffuser is so close to the slide so needs to be in perfect condition and dust-free and I imagine it’s not easy to include the film rebate with the neg holder - or am I wrong about that (never used one!).
I have the 55mm Micro-Nikkor, what’s the manual focusing action like on the 60mm f2.8 AF Micro-Nikkor, smooth, well-damped etc.?
Yeah, I agree with all of your points about the ES-1/ES-2 set up. Nikon really knocked it out of the park. It’s about as simple and idiot-proof as you can get with this stuff, and it’s not like the results suffer for it.
I don’t quite know what you mean by film rebate? Regarding the diffuser on the ES-2, I did notice some dust that was visible on scans the first time I used it, but it was just a matter of wiping it down. Which I guess is fair, since I had just unpacked it after acquiring it secondhand.
The Micro-Nikkor is a perfectly serviceable lens. In terms of build quality and feel, I mean, it’s not the nicest lens I own, but it’s not bad or anything. Plus, it basically has one job (copy work) and the focus range I’m working in is very narrow. If I’m honest, I would’ve preferred to pick up an old Contax/Zeiss macro lens to add to my collection, but I wasn’t sure if they would work with the ES-2 or not. I could’ve chosen a 1:1 lens with a 67mm filter thread, or one with a 55mm filter thread but only a 1:2 magnification ratio. I’m not very familiar with macro lenses in general, so I just chose something that was pretty much guaranteed to work. Plus the Micro-Nikkor was quite cheap, around $180 I think.
Thanks, my 55mm Micro-Nikkor f2.8 is an all manual lens of course, very good quality though. I had read that the 60mm Micro-Nikkor f2.8 might be slightly better, especially in the corners but often AF lenses have a pretty unsatisfactory manual focusing ‘feel’. Sounds like yours is OK.
By rebate I mean the clear area around the frame so that you can be sure to capture the entire negative, and also print it to include that black frame if one so desires. Also useful for sampling with colour negative. I had a feeling that the Es-2 negative holder didn’t allow this.
Oh yeah, the ES-2 negative holder does mask off the edges, so you have to be pretty careful to get the film lined up just right and can’t, for example, scan in the sprocket holes (if that’s your thing). Ultimately though, it makes for quicker scanning because you can just click from one frame to the next while shooting - this wouldn’t be nearly as easy if the holder didn’t hold the negative in a very precise way, if that makes sense.
I just checked the Micro-Nikkor against some of my nicer lenses, and it definitely has a coarser focusing feel, but still not bad. Plus like I said, once I get focus nailed for the first frame, I’m making very tiny (if any) adjustments frame-to-frame, so it’s hardly bothersome. It does have an “MF-AF” switch and I think it was designed with at least occasional MF use in mind.
Ultimately will have to do a print test at a few target, largest sizes I plan to print at for both 35mm and 120 respectively, but getting there!
