SteveDickinson
Nikon D850 – Multiple Exposures

There are many reasons why you may want to take multiple exposures, from bracketing exposure to capturing fast changing events, to overlaying images to provide the feeling of movement, and the D850 provides a raft of options and is able to operate at a capture rate of up 9 fps. And the good thing about digital cameras is that the only cost is battery power and your time filtering out the ones you want.

Release Mode

First mechanism is the Release Mode dial on the top left (looking from the rear). This allows you to select:

  • Single – Single image per shutter release
  • Continuous Low Speed (Cl) – Continues to take images whilst the shutter release button is depressed. Up to 6 fps ( 8 with theMB-D18 vertical grip fitted).
  • Continuous High Speed (Ch) – Continues to take images whilst the shutter release button is depressed. Up to 7 fps ( 9 with theMB-D18 vertical grip fitted).
  • Quiet – Single image, but quieter. (Note: Quieter – Not Quiet, and definitely Not Silent)
  • Quiet Continuous – Continuous whilst shutter release is depressed. Fixed at 3 fps.
  • Timer – Single image, but delayed shutter release
  • Mirror Up (Mup) – Single image, but with the mirror up, so reduced vibration when taking an image. Note Mirror up does change how auto focusing is performed (switches from Phased to Contrast) and alters how Matrix Metering performs.

A trick: I find Quiet Continuous – Qc – great for exposure bracketing. I usually execute exposure bracketing at 3 frames with a 0.3 or 0.7 Ev change. Quiet Continuous gives me any easy 3 frame sequence, with, probably, not a lot changing in the images

Exposure Bracketing

Whilst turning on Exposure Bracketing it self does not switch the D850 into a multiple exposure mode, it does link a sequence of images. With Exposure Bracketing you set the D850 up to take a series of images at varying exposures.

To set up bracketing hold own the Bracketing button. Top Front Left view finder. Use the main dial to selected the number of frames to take, and the exposure distribution, and the sub dial to set the exposure value. By default you can choose 3, 5, or 7 frames, distributed either all -ve, all +ve, or either side of D850’s selected exposure. The exposure increments are, by default, 0.3, 0.7, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0

Live View – Silent Mode

The D850 has yet another trick of taking multiple images, but this one is a bit different. It is only available in Live View, and basically you are using the D850 as a video camera, but instead of creating a video you are creating images at a rate of 30 fps. The caveats to this:

  • Image capture is DX, not FX
  • Encoding is JPEG
  • Maximum number of images is 90 (i.e. 3 secs)
  • Uses an electronic shutter – some banding may be noticeable with fast moving objects.

However, one really great benefit of this mode, is that it truly is silent.

To enable you need to:

  • Switch to Live View
  • Press the ‘i’ button on the back
  • Select Option 2.

To cancel simply switch back to View Finder mode or turn the camera off.