INTRODUCTION
Since
the Nikon D2x has an APS-sized digital imaging sensor your
long lenses act like even longer lenses. A 400mm on my Nikon
F5 is only a medium powered lens, but on the D2x with its
1.5x lens factor, moves into the range of the "big gun"
telephotos. With the lens factor, the field of view of my
400mm VR Nikkor is 600mm.
With
the extra "reach," I can easily get images I couldn't
before. Here is one of my favorite examples, an American Goldfinch
male sitting in a Cherry tree in my front yard.
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When
you add in the "crop factor" of the High-Speed
Crop Mode the lens' apparent field of view springs to double
the
normal focal length (2x), so my 400mm lens becomes effectively
an 800mm lens. And, the speed of my D2x maxes out at 8-frames-per
second, instead of the normal five FPS. There is a trade
off
in maximum resolution since only the center section of
the sensor area is being used in HS-Crop mode. The D2x's
megapixel
rate drops from 12.4 to 6.8 megapixels.
Many
sports and wildlife shooters prefer to use this mode, both
for the extra apparent reach, and the increased motor drive
speed it allows.
Below
is a comparison for the two modes side-by-side. I used an
AF Nikkor 24-120 VR lens at 120mm for both
pictures. The 1.5x lens factor in normal mode, on the left,
makes this lens perform like a 180mm lens. The 2.0x lens factor,
on the right, makes it perform like a 240mm lens instead.
Cool, huh?
Have
you ever used the High-Speed Crop Mode on your D2x. Many that
I've spoken to haven't, simply because they have not taken
the time to figure out how to enable it on the D2x. Why not
get your D2x and the user's manual, and let's look at how
it's done.
