Great images Steve, especially the Newcastle one. I wondered if I could pick your brain on something relating to the D600, and those bottom two shots are an excellent example of where I potentially need help.
I've recently bought a D600 and although I haven't had the opportunity to take it out of the house yet, I was orienting myself to how it operates last night and was very disappointed to find that unlike my Canon 600d which I've upgraded from, when in live view there's no exposure preview like there is on the Canon. I've since learnt that you can activate it in the movie settings, which is fine, but that it apparently won't alter the image anywhere slower, and therefore brighter, than 1/30 second (or have I got the wrong end of the stick here - I've only learnt this today and don't have access to my camera right now?).
Anyway, I appreciate you don't want to rely on exposure preview too heavily and given the DR of the 600, my assumption is that if I shoot in Aperture priority and fix the ISO to 100, or even auto ISO, for that matter, the camera's metering will get me a decent enough exposure in most cases that I can make any necessary tweaks in Lightroom, in the same way as when shooting on the Canon in manual, getting the exposure meter bang in the middle of the scale would generally give me the desired result. My question is, how do you manage to focus using live view in low light? On the Canon I'd have zoomed into the live view image at the thing I wanted to focus on, cranked the shutter speed up to the point where I could "see in the dark", as it were, and then bring the exposure meter back to the middle once I'd got my focus. Landscapes account for at least 60% of what I do and rely on live view extensively as my eyesight isn't really good enough to get sharp focus on landscapes through the eyepiece. I guess using hyperfocal distance properly, rather than vaguely aiming a third of the way into the scene, would be one way to cope, but given that it relies on being able to estimate distances accurately, that might not be appropriate for me. Can't believe I managed to buy one without realising this, but I naively assumed that it exposure preview was standard on all DSLRs, given that an entry level model from early 2011 managed it easily enough.
While I'm at it, does anyone else think the AE-L/AF-L button is ridiculously placed given that it's the only realistic option for back-button focus? With my eye pressed up to the eyepiece I literally can't get my thumb onto it because my cheek obscures it completely. The directional buttons that you use to move the focus point is almost as bad - I'm finding that I'm having to hold the eyepiece slightly away from my eye in order to operate any such buttons on the right side of the rear, which is obviously not ideal. Is it possible to move the focus point using one of the wheels? Even then it's not ideal as given the number of focus points, you really need to have 4-way control over where it goes. I guess I'm going to have to see how I get on with focus and recompose.
If anyone who's been using a D600/610 for a while fancies sharing any tricks they wish they knew about when they first got it, I'd love to hear them.