Archives for 2014

Next up, in the series of lenses that I’m using for EFCS testing on the D810: the Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8 D II. Not a VR lens; the one just before the Canon patents ran out. I started at f/5 at 1/500 and worked down in 1/3 stop intervals. The results, measured for horizontal edges:… [Read More]

I posted sharpness test results with and without EFCS with the Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO-Sonnar here. EFCS seemed to make a significant difference at shutter speeds from a few tenths of a second to a hundreth or so. Some people have reported no improvement with common zoom lenses. I thought I’d try the AF-S Nikkor… [Read More]

Before I get to how the electronic first curtain shutter (EFCS) on the D810 works, it will be instructive to look at how the all-mechanical focal plane shutter operates. Here’s a photograph of an analog oscilloscope with the time base set to 0,5 milliseconds/division. EFCS was disabled, and the shutter speed was 1/1000 second:  … [Read More]

[This post, like the previous one, was extensively revised on 7/28/2014, and for the same reason.] I repeated the tests of the previous post with the camera in portrait orientation. This is a more severe test, since the shutter moves in the left/right direction when the camera is oriented with the long side up and… [Read More]