Gollum (Smeagol) lusted after the Ring of Power.
The Knights Templar sought the Holy Grail.
And, alas, I sit here hoping to, once again, hold a Nikon D750 in my two impish hands.
It all began with an innocent request to test three new Nikon lenses:
- The AF-S Fisheye Nikkor 8-15mm f/3.5-4 SE ED ($1,249.95)
- The AF-S Nikkor 28mm f/1.4E ED ($1,999.95)
- The AF-P Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR ($749.95)
Unfortunately none of these lenses were compatible with my cropped-format Nikon D7200 DX camera.
The good folks at Nikon then made a fatal mistake. They suggested that I use the lenses with a Nikon D750 ($1,999.95), which they would provide for a short period.
The deal was the camera and lenses were to be returned to them after three months. As an addicted snapaholic, I agreed.
Never having used a camera with a full-format sensor before, the next three months only added fuel to the fire. My “old” camera was set aside as I wandered my little corner of the globe, snapping pictures like a madman - - - amazed by how much of an image my old rig had missed.
The greatest eye-opening experience was when I tried it out with my old DX lenses. A red outline appeared in the viewfinder, showing me what the lenses “saw” in comparison to a full-format image. That, was the final fuel to fire up my addiction.
I started petting the camera, calling it “my precious.” I plotted strategies, hoping that the folks at Nikon would forget I had it. The addiction became real!
Alas, now the D7200 DX is back in my case and the D750 has been returned to a warehouse somewhere in New Jersey.
Key features of “My Precious” include:
- A 24.3 megapixel sensor
- The ability to shoot at 6.5 frames per second
- Full HD video at 60 frames per second
- A wide-angle, 3.2-inch tilting TFT-LCD monitor
- Two SD card slots
- A shutter speed range from 30 seconds to 1/4000th of a second
Of course there’s everything you’d expect from a digital SLR including a built-in flash and variable shooting modes ranging from manual to point and shoot.
The first thing I noticed about the three lenses I requested was how much bigger (and heavier) they were than their DX counterparts. This, I assumed, was because they had to work with the full-format (FX) chip in the camera.
The images were noticeably sharper than those I had taken with my DX rig, especially around the edges where many lenses fail to maintain focus.
The only problem I had was with the fisheye zoom lens - - - and this is a “defect” that I’ve found with most lenses of this type: You can see the tubular structure of the interior of the lens as you use the zoom to increase the fisheye effect. A bit of creative cropping solved this problem. My suggestion is to forget the zoom and use a fixed-format fisheye.
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