Preparation

There's been this 7 Ps rule I tend to follow. Even when it comes to leisure and hobby. In general terms, I'm not entirely sure whether 7 Ps for leisure is a good thing, but I just find so much fun and satisfaction in the preparation process itself that I just can't help doing it... And also... because "a goal without a plan is just a wish" (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) - efficacy has always been in my blood...

I'm planning a vacation trip to Africa next summer, and as it was the case with most of my trips, I'll be taking many pictures. When it comes to photography, I'm a beginner but I love exploring technology and learning. As mentioned in the Photo Musings post, the preparation has already started and it is well on track.

As planned, I've acquired two essential pieces of gear: the Nikkor AF-S 80-400mm VR II lens at the Nikon D750 body. It's been a while since I tried a new DSLR - 7 years to be precise, so one can expect a lot of progress during that time. I love the long zoom glass. It is perfect for portraits, very sharp at the long end, with very fast and accurate AF, promising for wildlife shots. I am also absolutely amazed with the low light / high ISO performance of the D750. I have not seen anything close, ever. Even have not imagined such performance possible (look: this is a straight-from-the-camera JPEG shot at ISO 12800, 400mm at 1/40s hand-held!). Most of indoor action I'm shooting at ISO 12800, coupled with the excellent VR, shutter speeds like 1/100 give perfectly sharp casual portraits indoors without using any flash. But believe it or not, the D750 may not be my primary long-reach wildlife camera for the trip. Doing several practice shots to learn the new setup I found I may need lens longer than 400mm. At the same time I want to keep my flexibility, weight and budget withing reasonable bounds. So just after upgrading to the full frame FX format I may find myself going back to DX (APS-C crop sensor). I did some tests with the 80-400mm lens attached to an old D40 that has been collecting dust on a shelf, and the instant upgrade to the 120-600mm range the crop sensor gives, really makes sense. I've almost pulled the trigger on the D7100 body, but it would be premature. Patience, my friend! As it really paid off to wait for the D750 (instead of settling for the Df last autumn), I think it is time to wait for the D7100's successor, as it should be based on the identical platform the D750 is, just with a smaller sensor (D750 styled body/screen and menu/controls, the Expeed 4 processor).

The plan is to take the DX body coupled with the 80-400mm FX zoom for wildlife shots and the FX with a 28-300mm walkaround zoom during the day. There is a temptation to try the optional TC 1.4E III to extend the range to 168-840mm (or close to 1100mm in the 1.3 crop mode), although I have to test the impact of the teleconverter on the high pixel density 24Mp DX sensor.

At night the FX body would be armed the AF-S 20mm f/1.8 for shots of the Milky Way. I've been studying the theory of night sky photography for some time now and it is a very exciting stuff with several rules you have to learn (like the 500 rule). It has also led me to the discovery of the International Dark-Sky Association and the absolutely phenomenal astronomy guide application called the Star Walk. Can't wait to put this knowledge to the real world tests...

One of the Sigma Merrill's will be traveling with me too, as for general landscape shots I still doubt any of the latest high end DSLRs can match the output of the Foveon sensor.