offgridguy Loc: Shasta county, California

I presently use a Nikon D500 paired with the Nikkor 200/500 mm lens for wildlife. My blind setup overlooks a little spring fed pond that gets its visitors as light is fading. I set my ISO to automatic and on manual mode I start at f11 at 1/500th or higher, adjusting as the light fades. In this situation, when the mountain lion comes out from the trees I like to think I can shoot in continuous high in bursts of 10 to 15 shots but I do not know if the D500 processor will be able to work on the "noise" if the ISO has automatically increased beyond, say, 10,000. Has anyone experience in this regard? I know the D500 processor is fast - but is it fast enough? Does a burst of 10 go into a buffer to be worked on later?

For anyone interested, here is a link to a short movie consisting of stills and video you might enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN9HgjwB5r8

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

The D500 will keep up, but your pictures may be too noisy. I would suggest reducing your f/stop to f/7 or f/8 and would test my ISO to know what max would be tolerable and set your max auto ISO in your menu setup. Check your manual or google if you are unaware how to set a max ISO. Wish we had mountain lions near me, sounds like fun.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Mountain Lion? Please post a picture.

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

Set a max ISO in the Auto ISO menu. On my D750, I can do 6400 no problem at max fps. On my D7200, I do 3200 with Max FPS no problem. I think you're best off finding a max ISO you are comfortable with and then adjust other things from there (like going down to f5.6, you get a pretty big DOF far away with 5.6).

But that is in RAW and there is no real image processing I know of (JPEG preview?). Are you asking about shooting directly to JPEG? I've heard that is faster in general from the smaller size, but I've never tested.

offgridguy Loc: Shasta county, California

I shoot at the edges of the day, exclusively in RAW. I set the max ISO at 51200. Then, depending on the light when I arrive at my blind I set shutter speed and aperture in manual mode. If I have enough light I try for a mid-range aperture of f11 and a shutter speed of 1/1000 if I can get it without getting the ISO to climb over 8000. When that happens I back off speed and aperture as needed.

When conditions are right (dry) I invest on average two hours an evening being still and waiting for something to happen. When it does you have to be ready. As the light fades I am constantly adjusting - and waiting. The D500 is a remarkable camera. When I use a very high ISO I also go to the "photo shooting menu" and pick "High ISO NR" that gives me 4 choices: High, Normal, Low, and Off. I pick "High" and have found that after taking one (1) picture the camera seems to go to work smoothing the noise. I know from experience it does a fairly good job on one shot, but the whole point of my question (clumsily presented) is: Will the camera smooth the noise if I shoot a burst in Continuous High shutter mode?

By the way, the link I put to the YouTube movie will show the mountain lion as he came out of some trees and began to drink. He stayed for 8 minutes. I was 60 yards away. While it looks like I had a lot of light, in fact I didn't. I "saved it in the soup", so to speak.

Bill_de Loc: US

Since you have the camera and lens and know the shooting location, why not test this for yourself. You don't need a mountain lion in the viewfinder to press the shutter ... film is cheap.

Enjoyed the video!!!

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jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Your buffer will slow down considerably if you use the setting for your camera to reduce noise. Canon calls this High ISO noise reduction. It takes the camera twice as long to process the image when you use this feature. I'd make sure it's off and reduce noise in post.

That being said, have you tried NOT using auto ISO and using Aperture Priority? When lighting conditions are low I always open up the Aperture wide open, and then keep an eye on my shutter speed. Just shoot and while looking through your viewfinder look at your shutter speed and if it falls below 1/250th of a sec then raise your ISO. Keep raising your ISO as you lose more and more light. Know your camera and it's buttons so that you can make changes while still looking through your viewfinder. A mountain lion doesn't walk very fast so you can probably go as low as 1/60th of a sec on the shutter and still get relatively sharp images. You may not have as many keepers but this is where you'll need to make a judgement call after you've done this for a while and see the results on your computer.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

In general, one always turns off any noise reduction settings in-camera any way, so that there just isn't any time the processor needs, to "work" on the noise!

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

He is shooting in Raw, no in camera processing is taking place.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Even if you shoot in raw, if you set your camera to noise reducition (which ever kind), it will take place, raw or not!

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

This may not apply to your unique situation but in my low light shots I've noticed the dynamic range that I am happy with from my D500 with 200-500 lens is at ISO 2500 and below. It's not just the noise, it's the dynamic range that is affected by high ISOs also. So I would opt to keep the ISO a little lower by shooting maybe f 8 and 1/250 if possible.

offgridguy Loc: Shasta county, California

I like your Aperture Priority suggestion. I'm going to try that as well as trying to keep ISO low by using slower shutter speeds. The stills in the movie were taken with my D610 at 1/250 at f6.3 using a 150/600 Tamron lens. The ISO at the time was 6400. In retrospect I could easily have gained a full stop by going to 1/125, or even lower . . . but let me tell you, when he stepped out into the open it was hard to stay focused. He was there for 8 minutes which gave my heart rate time to slow down.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Guy, first, welcome to the Hog!
Second, I have no idea what a Nikon does but will assume it’s the same as a Canon, only not quite as good!!! LoL, just kidding!!!!
Why are you setting such a small aperture, f11? Do you need a ton of DoF?
But yes, turn OFF all the Auto processes. Yes, it uses them all to produce the finished jpeg on the LCD and yes, it will affect the buffer download speed. But if you shoot in spurts such as 10 shots, wait a 1/2 second then 10 more etc., you might be able to manage the buffer that way. I do that with sports when using my high mp camera.
If it where my shot, I would not shoot on manual, especially if the light is changing. You’ll miss shots chimping for the light.
I would shoot in Shutter Priority for the min speed to get the shots and using Auto ISO but don’t set the ceiling.
The camera will first use the widest aperture it can(but least DoF) so the ISO stays the lowest it can be for the given light.
Not much point in using Auto ISO if you set the ceiling! When the camera needs more, it needs more, of something!!!
BTW..., blind, mountain lion. Blind, mountain lion. Blind, mountain lion?
Sounds like a boxed lunch to me!!! LoL
Again, welcome and good luck!!!
SS

Indylp

it wont be a problem...i just set mine on 20000 iso 10 fps for 116 shots....
noise reduction set to normal and got the same burst rate results set to high iso noise reduction
wala

Indylp

but i do agree try to use lower iso if you can...but burst rate will not be a problem at high iso settings with noise reduction using the
d-500