D600 set up

[wedgtail]

I bit the Bullet yesterday and bought my first Nikon a d600 with a Tamron 24-70 2.8 my first new body and lens combo ever .
Now to the set up has any one any tips tricks to doing this . I am reading the manual :confused013

Cheers Mark

[fisher]

Hi Mark , There is a forum in the U.S.A. called nikonions which could be helpfull.

Cheers Glen

[Lurchorama]

Lets us know how you go with the move from/with the K5.
I'm doing a Nikon move myself soon and would be interested in how you find it.

[wedgtail]

First impressions very solid much like the K5 you really do need to read the manual so many more options avaliable found this sight www.kenrockwell.com lots of good info there.
I plan to keep the k5 with the DA40-dA70 as a back up Lots going on in Adelaide this weekend so hope to give it a run .

[ricktas]

First impressions very solid much like the K5 you really do need to read the manual so many more options avaliable found this sight www.kenrockwell.com lots of good info there.
I plan to keep the k5 with the DA40-dA70 as a back up Lots going on in Adelaide this weekend so hope to give it a run .

Be very careful relying on Ken Rockwell. His infamy is legendary. Ken has this habit of telling you how great something is, and then next week contradicting himself. Most of his site is purely created to get you to click links and buy stuff, thus getting him commission.

If you do read what he says over a few weeks, you will see what I mean. He will post that something is the best ever, the next week he will post that something else is the best, and then a week later he will be back onto the first thing saying it is better. He is basically a spruiker.

[wedgtail]

Thanks for the warning.

[I @ M]

Mark, I have always found Thom Hogans (http://www.bythom.com/) site to be a good place to find out more factual information on Nikon related matters.

He publishes very comprehensive guides to the various model Nikon bodies ( at a pretty fair price ) and I suspect that he will have one in the works for the D600 at the moment. An email to him will get a pretty quick answer about if and when he is releasing a guide book for that model.
They are not only model specific but also encompass flashes and some accessories and as such make a good introduction series for "new" Nikon owners.

[wedgtail]

Thanks Rick and Andrew I came across this sight has a simple PDF on set up http://visadventures.com/nikon-d600-setup-guide/. Comming from Pentax to Nikon has been a bit of a shock with the amount of variation on settings but a good learning curve for me .

[ricktas]

It also depends on what you want to shoot. You have some shooting banks available and you can set them up based on genre. Say shooting bank A is landscapes, so initial settings could be ISO 100, f16. Or say you shoot sport, you could set bank B up as ISO 800, shutter speed 1/500th second.

Or you could use a camera like I do and ignore all those banks etc and just set it up for each shoot based on what I know and want for the shoot.

[Cage]

Hi wedgetail.

I've just made the same move from a K5 and to be honest I couldn't believe how smooth the transition was.

I may have had a dicky copy of the K5, and suffice it to say, I wasn't overly enamoured with it.

The D600 has been a joy to use for me. I shoot RAW and the first thing I did was to turn off most in-camera processing.

The only other things I did from memory was to set my auto focus and metering preferences, and I set the AE-L/AF-L button as my Auto Focus button, just my preference for not using the shutter button to focus.

Great bit of gear and as I said coming from the K5 I found the transition pretty intuitive.

Enjoy !

[arthurking83]

In camera processing won't make any difference to raw images if you don't use Nikon software to initially process them.

Where the use of in camera setting may have an affect, is in jpgs straight out of the camera, and the embedded preview files within the raw file(and obviously on a raw file inititally opened with Nikon's software).

Using Nikon's software, I found it's actually better to find a good medium point as to which Picture Control setting works best for your average image type.
I've stuck with Standard, but adjusted all the in camera sliders to 0 for all tweaks.
It must be understood tho that you can't actually turn off in camera processing per se .. only set it to something that gives you what you may want to see.

Reading Ken's writings is a lesson in hilarity ... I'll bet his recommended settings are jpg mode, Vivid Picture Control with all sliders maxed out! :p

There's not really much to actually set out, a few AF tweaks you can do, just as long as you understand what it is they achieve. I'd be inclined to set NEF mode to max quality, uncompressed 14bit(if this option is available).

Other things you can try is to set the AE-L button to operate as an AF-On trigger for focusing. Other tweaks can make this focusing mode work really smoothly.

[JM Tran]

Just shot an incredibly long 16 hour wedding day, my 2nd body was the D600. I dont know, I set it up according to different scenarios and jobs. Today it was on Auto ISO with a max of 6400, Raw, single centre AF point, RAW, usual stuff for personal preferences:)

[wedgtail]

Long day was it a Serbian wedding :) with a stretch pink Hummer and one black one as the bridal party cars :)

[JM Tran]

Long day was it a Serbian wedding :) with a stretch pink Hummer and one black one as the bridal party cars :)

hahaha luckily a bit more classy and stylish than that:) Just a big Vietnamese wedding.

The one thing that I didnt like was the ergonomics of holding the D600, but thats just me.

[wedgtail]

Thanks Kevin my K5 was a gem right from the start, Arthur your the 3rd person to mention the af button assignment I will try this. The 2 button reset has become my friend . I have set the NEF TO 14 BIT as you suggested Arthur . Just a side issue not with the D600 but ADOBE MY VERSON OF cs5 did not support the NEF files I had to down load the raw plug in 7.2 to convert nef to dng and then open CS5 to work on the files . Does CS 6 support NEF would it be worth an upgrade .
Cheers Mark

[arthurking83]

..... Just a side issue not with the D600 but ADOBE MY VERSON OF cs5 did not support the NEF files I had to down load the raw plug in 7.2 to convert nef to dng and then open CS5 to work on the files . Does CS 6 support NEF would it be worth an upgrade .
Cheers Mark


It's all in the version of ACR you have installed. As long as the latest version of ACR can be installed to work with CS5, then you have D600 support.

As I understand it, CS does directly work on the raw file(that I've seen)... the basics are done via ACR and or Bridge, and then CS takes over but via an intermediary format .. most likely an Adobe proprietary format or TIFF.
All this is transparent, and I haven't really chased it up in detail myself.
But prior to installing or updating ACR, my trial copy of CS6 wouldn't open a D800 raw file either.

[zollo]

you can work on NEF files within Photoshop CS6 as a smart object. From Lightroom it is: photo>edit in>open as smart object in photoshop...
and IMO cs6 is well worth the upgrade if you are chasing the very highest image quality > not so much essential for general use

[wedgtail]

Thanks Zollo for me being more a low end user I think i will invest in some more glass, Picassa reads NEF files straight from the card so Iwill use this to sort the wheat from the chaff and only convert the keepers to dng .
Final settings on my camera are factory standard except for the Fn button I have assigned that to Spot metering when pressed should be good for those low light performerance shots getting the artists faces properly exposed you find this on pg 242 of the manual and on pg 244 I have set my AEL/AF-L button to AF on
Thanks for the help and hope this helps the other newbies lurking out there :D

[Cage]

I downloaded the CS6 trial version and it works with NEF files.

I refuse to pay the rip-off price to license it.

I abhor Adobe's attitude to Australian pricing. Jeez, Julia must have convinced all O'seas Manufacturers that the Carbon Tax has indeed made us all rich.

I may have to 'adopt' someone who goes to school or Uni to get the Student/Teacher version.

[arthurking83]

Even tho it appears that CS works with NEF files, it's actually ACR that does the conversion.
This may be hidden from the user if your raw file is open in CS.

It's important to keep ACR up to date so that you get the best quality or even simple support for the latest raw file types available.

Another good alternative for using CS with new raw file types is to use the manufacturer's software initially, so that means Nikon's ViewNX2 with respect to NEF files, do some minor tweaking(WB etc ...) and then open with CS if you prefer to use this software for more intricate detail work.
If you have ViewNX2 set to open an NEF with Adobe's software, it will convert to tiff seamlessly and invoke CS to work on a tiff file for 'ya.

[MrQ]

How are you finding the Tamron 24-70 2.8? I've just recently got a D600 myself and this is a lens I'm looking at for it.

[wedgtail]

I have used 3 times now ,each outing my photos are getting better my first outing pics are here http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?117137-First-outing-with-the-D600 2nd time here http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?117205-Lilly
So far so good I can' see any problems with this combo