I am so sorry for the length, I know everyone's time is precious so dislike taking up too much of yours, but I had a lot to get through tonight. I've been having a frustrating experience with the Nikon P1000 so far. Some may be because of a learning curve for this old gal but there's quite a few negatives which has me rethinking this purchase. (I know me and I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping it lol).
After reading the specs and watching so much of the pre-release videos, I thought this would be my Canon 80D on Zoom Steroids, so my expectations were quite high, but that's on me.
A major improvement I was looking forward to was being able to record onto an external monitor/recorder - and that was my first extremely frustrating experience. I can't get the audio to pass through to the Ninja Flame. I worked hours upon hours on this to no avail. The camera was set to the clean HDMI out settings, I swapped out my Pearstone 4k micro hdmi cable with a different one - no go. The Flame doesn't recognize the camera but did at least know it was an hdmi device with 1080p, so at least it could record the video portion, but no audio even though the audio levels would move on the recorder. I tried changing the audio options on the Ninja, used the internal and external mics on the camera - but still it's been a no go. A search of the internet didn't bring up anything either. Frustrating. If anyone has a solution for this please let me know, I'd appreciate it greatly. :)
Then there's the audio from the onboard camera - it's horrible! I thought it'd be more similar to the P900's which I didn't think was awful, not the greatest but still usable, but on the P1000 it is atrocious. I realize that camera mics generally suck, but this was far worse than I had anticipated. A nice feature on the P1000 is being able to hook up an external mic, of which I did.
Now on Thursday evening I had tried to get Mars and Saturn but that was such a frustrating experience. I couldn't even see Saturn on the monitor no matter what settings I used, even at the highest ISO - it was pure luck that I eventually was able to get it. This would be my first experience with the super duper zoom of 3,000mm (x4 for 12,000mm), and the quality was so poor at the highest end for the photos they were unusable. The video part didn't come out too bad though. With Mars I had the same issues with the quality of the photos and the video was equally as bad. I basically use the same manual settings on all the other cameras, a slight change here and there, but even making drastic changes didn't help. This could be old lady error too, except the image quality at the highest end not being suitable at all - just my opinion though.
Nikon uses a NRW raw file for this camera and my favorite editing software didn't recognize it. I did attempt to use Nikon's software but found it lacking. I really like the on1photo raw program and hope they support this soon.
I have to admit that the bulk of this camera is almost too big for my hands. The weight isn't horrible but it's not something I'd be able to use handheld like the P900, but the girth of this thing is massive. I do have a hard time just lifting it off the table and must use 2 hands.
I was surprised that the highest ISO was only 6400 as I was hoping for higher. There are little niggles of which ISO setting can be used during video depending on what settings, etc are used.
Menu diving to turn hdmi on or off can be a pain when switching from Movie to any other mode. Might need to try a User setting for that, if it's possible.
Anyway, I know this may sound like nitpicking and do apologize if coming across that way - it's just been a frustrating experience so far. Now onto the positives - it takes incredible pictures & video during the daylight. I think they're better than the P900, just my opinion though. These types of cameras do have trouble in low light.
Oh my, I've written an essay already and didn't even touch on Hurricane Florence - sorry! Anyway, there was a 31% Crescent Moon tonight, which is now tomorrow! (lol).
8:10pm to 9:02pm Friday Sept 14, 2018, NE Ohio, 78°F - SW Sky
~Jayling
(Ohio is in the Eastern Time Zone)
-Nikon P1000
-Atomos Ninja Flame 7" 4K Field Monitor/Recorder
-Nikon P900 with 83x optical zoom & 166x digital zoom
-B&W ND Filters, 10 Stop & 6 Stop Stacked for Solar Viewing
