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You will likely be disappointed in - AF performance, very dark viewfinder, and at least a 25% loss of sharpness. Consider your next move very carefully. It would make good sense to rent, just to make sure you don't end up with something you will regret later. Listen to Larry (Imagemeister).

Numbers seldom lie. Bias aside, the D850 is a pretty phenomenal camera. And Canon's R5 is as well. But while it has an amazing feature set, at the end of the day, when IQ is considered, it's hard to beat the king.

Not exactly the same, but removing wires is a lot like removing a fence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuNDnKlH3UI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBCj8Kg9lZg

A lot of the members of PPA have lots of good things to say about White House Custom Color

https://www.whcc.com/

Exactly my point - It is not a great landscape camera - which is what the OP was asking about. On the other hand, for stuff that is closer, it's pretty good - I do love the camera, despite its limitations - which I have decided I can live with and work around.

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Depth of field, as well as sharpness is perceptual and hard to quantify, and viewing distance plays a big part, as does the viewer's eyesight. At a greater distance, the perception of DoF is greater than at close distances - since human eyes cannot see flaws like image softness and lack of detail at greater distances compared to lesser distances. Resolution requirements, expressed in ppi (pixels per inch) are greater for images that are 5x7 or 8x10 because these are usually viewed at distances shorter than 16". That in part is the reason why a billboard, viewed at 50 ft, looks crisp and sharp, despite the actual resolution being somewhere around 30 ppi.

This is all I am going to say, since I really don't want to engage in an argument with Scotty - because it will go on and on, and will accomplish little. . .

Are you on a dial up or DSL connection? It shouldn't take 9 or 4 hours to download. One a 500 mbps connection it took me 3 mins to download the 3.7gb trial. At a d/l speed of 62mbps, it still shouldn't take more than 30 mins. There is something in serious need of upgrading in your home network. For comparison purposes, a dialup connection is .056 mbps, or .007 megabytes per second, which is really slow. DSL can be considerably faster, but it costs a lot more.

It's only by subscription, with the least expensive option being $9.99/month. You can prepay a year, so it "feel" less like a subscription and more like an annual purchase of upgrades. You may not "need" or think you need Photoshop at first, but it does a lot of "stuff" that is beyond Lightroom's capabilities. If you pay monthly, a fee applies if you cancel after 2 weeks, if you prepay the 12 months, the payment is non-refundable.

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html

Small lightweight cameras with small sensors - 1" or less - are not great for landscapes. The reason is that fine detail in foliage becomes "mashed together" so it looks clumpy under close inspection. To get decent results, at least a 1.5X crop sensor camera or better yet, a full frame camera is a better choice for that kind of subject. I own all three - a highly regarded bridge camera - Sony RX10M4 - and a couple of Nikon full frame and one crop camera.

Here is a sample of what I am talking about from the Sony.

If you don't need a zoom, then either the Ricoh GRII or the Fuji X100F would be a good choice.

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I favor good lenses regardless of what brand they are. Just because a lens isn't branded Nikon, Canon, etc doesn't mean they should be dismissed. In certain cases, third party lens mfgrs fill in the blanks left out by the OEMs.

Case in point - Sigma had a very excellent 100-300 F4. Unfortunately it is no longer made, but it was an excellent lens. I had a 10-20 F4-F5.6 crop lens that was considerably sharper than anything coming out of Nikon. I often rented a Sigma 300-800 F5.6 for which there is no Nikon equivalent - yet it has been the first choice for wildlife photographers for years. Tamron, Sigma and Tokina macro lenses are all excellent - equivalent to Nikon and Canon offerings.

If you have been reading what I post - for years I had a 600mmF4, and in 2016 I considered trading it in, but wasn't quite sure about replacing it. I settled on a Sigma 150-600 Sport. I shot with both for a while, one on a D800 the other on a D810. A year later I was satisfied that there was not a relevant difference in image quality, and I did not shoot much in marginal lighting, and I really enjoyed the freedom of shooting hand held, so I happily sold the 600F4. I considered Nikon's own 200-500 F5.6 - borrowing from Nikon's NPS stable on two occasions and borrowing a friend's copy once. It was a good lens, but not in the same category as the Sigma.

Sigma also currently has its Art and Sport lines - both of which are either equal to or better than the comparable OEM lenses.

If you have never tried them, I think you should and you are likely to be pleasantly surprised. Being dismissive like this makes you sound uninformed. I've got 2 doz lenses, 8 are non-Nikons. But I can tell you without hesitation they are every bit as good as their Nikon counterparts.

There are ways to achieve wider views without going the ultra-wide route with all of its challenges. I do it all the time. I often find myself with a situation where my initial instinct is to wish that I had packed the 14-24mm F2.8 in my bag. But being a little more resourceful I have adopted a solution that not only solves my need for wider angle of view - but it results in higher resolution images. Panorama stitching has saved my bacon a number of times, especially when I travel light.

These two images were shot with a 45mm lens, not by choice - it was all I had. So the first - Copper Pot Stills at the Jameson Distillery in Dublin, Ireland, was a two panel pano with camera in portrait orientation. The resulting resolution of the stitched pano is 7045x6972px or 49.1 mp.

The second is the open topped Mash Tun, where malt and grist combine and ferment. Same lens, three shots, combined it is 11864x7018 px, or 83.2 mp.

Keep in mind that the max resolution on a D800 is 7360x4910px, or 36.1 mp.

By using pano to go wider, I got more pixels, more detail, and a wider view. The Mash Tun shot is probably as wide or possibly a little wider than a 14mm lens would have provided, plus I didn't have to deal with the inherent distortions.

A 14mm lens on a full frame is very wide and highly specialized. The Rokinon is a good lens, but not sure why you would want to replace a lens that is useful in a variety of settings - from landscapes to short tele work, with a lens that is more about forced perspectives and odd-looking landscapes where a foreground element, like a dandelion, takes up half the picture area, and the mountains in the background look like they're in the next state.

If you are set on getting a 14mm lens, that's what you are going to do. But I suspect that once you use it a few times you will better understand it's characteristics and limitations, and buyer's regret will have you selling it and possibly replacing it with another 70-300. I'd keep the 70-300 and rent a 14mm F2.8.

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Sorry, I don't follow your thought and decision process. The question you are posing is a lot like I have an older F250 long bed pickup truck, and the dealer is offering me a deal on a Mini Cooper S in excellent condition - but it will cost me $2000 out of pocket. Which is the better vehicle?

Without knowing more about how you currently use the 70-300 and how you would plan to use the 14mm, or if you have any other lenses that have similar focal lengths, what camera body you are using or plan to be using it on, etc - it is absolutely impossible to guess what you are actually thinking about on this one. Both lenses are capable of producing excellent images as long as you are using them within their limitations - and all lenses have limitations - starting with focal length.

The kneejerk reaction is to go to the widest lens possible "to get it all in". The problem is that while ultra wides will achieve the goal of "getting it all in" but they will record the scene with volume anamorphosis (unnatural subject elongation towards the corners and edges)and extension distortion (subjects in the foreground are recorded disproportionately larger than the same sized subjects in the background) - both of which are very undesirable for group shots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZmI94uL4Kk

A more successful result can be achieved with a more normal lens - 50-70mm - and the best aperture, usually F5.6-F8 - on a full frame camera. Everyone wants to see themselves, so this image will likely be viewed at close distances, so focus and sharpness are critical.

The most successful result will likely be shooting this as a stitched panorama, with camera in portrait mode and anywhere from 3-5 shots overlapping them about 50% "to get it all in" without the distortions. A couple of added benefits are that your resulting image will be very high resolution - much more than if you shoot it as a single shot and if you take multiple shots for each image panel, you can pick and choose the best of each before merging.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pano+for+large+group+shots&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS908US908&oq=pano+for+large+group+shots&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160.12211j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_p8tSYtiWBfCwqtsPvJi6kAM28

Lighting a very large group is challenging with small equipment. If you can't find a nice outdoor setting with steps and the shady side of a building, then maybe the hall has lighting that they can work with you on. Try to have no more than 3 rows - to help ensure everyone is in focus, front to back.

The shot below was a difficult one, and goes against my recommendations for lighting, lens, composition etc but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. It was in a small meeting room, awful ambient light, and limited places I could photograph the audience of about 30 from. I set up 3 umbrellas, all aimed high at the walls - one behind me over my right shoulder, one at the rear left above the window, and another rear right. I used a 10-20mm lens on a 12 mp cropped camera (Nikon D300) at 11mm and F6.3, and I placed myself as far away as I could from the nearest subject to minimize distortion.

When reviewing the raw files, I was unhappy with the uneven lighting, so I used some radial and linear gradients in Lightroom to achieve a slightly better balance.

I don't have any examples of larger groups using a pano, which is why I didn't post one.


Good luck! Post results!

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You are correct. But I am sure you will agree that exposing him (pun fully intended) to the concept may pique his curiosity to explore some unfamiliar stuff, especially since he is already asking for direction.