Nikon Announced D800 and D800E, 36MP FX-Format

<p>Great news, as usual. I find it impressive. Check that Nikon guys seem to have been taking users` demands into account... I like the new metering improvements.<br /> At a first sight, a lot of pixels. I tend to reduce the size, 12Mp seems already fine (more tan "fine", I think). I have to check the "reduction options" with this camera.<br /> Quite different to the D4, the D3/D700 dichotomy is erradicated. I think they have taken a good route to differentiate their potential customers.</p>

<p>This camera seems to be a replacement for the D3x rather than the D700.</p>

<p>Has anyone found any good images comparing the AA and non-AA versions? I followed a link elsewhere and it didn't work. I would love to see the actual images it takes.</p>

<p>They don't make it easier.... The D700 remains a great camera and I'd still love to have one. But the 100% viewfinder and the vastly more useful DX crop (given I have DX lenses) make me lean to saving up for a D800....I guess I end up continue to dream and enjoy the D300.</p>

<p>Impressive specs, though, and a serious upgrade. Can't say Nikon is selling old wine in new bottles here. I'm sure looking forward to see full reviews of this camera.</p>

<p>While I don't need 36mp, I'd consider it, as its priced very reasonably, with HD video and dual SD and CF memory cards; which was one drawback to the old D700. <br />Maybe Nikons idea is to make this a replacement of the D300S and D700 in the same body. As a 15mp DX camera it will certainly outperform my D300S, so I can see this having 3 roles FX, DX and HD video. I'm going to have to spend big money upgrading lenses to match the FX high resolution. The only drawback is the 6fps DX frame rate; which will upset sport and wildlife photographers.30mb NEF files.<br>

I'll buy one once the availability improves.</p>

 

<p>I find the <a href="http://chsvimg.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d800/img/sample01/img_04_l.jpg">sample image</a> taken with the 24-70 @ 70mm quite impressive. Taken with the plain D800, I think.<br /> I`d also like how the AA "supressor" version manage the woman`s dress textures.<br>

-<br>

The D4 seem to me a pro sports camera. The D800/D800E seem to me a more versatile thing for a wider group, including rich amateurs, landscape photographers, video enthusiasts...</p>

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<p>Has anyone found any good images comparing the AA and non-AA versions? I followed a link elsewhere and it didn't work. I would love to see the actual images it takes.</p>

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<p>Here is one - can't seem to get the ones one NikonUSA's website to show:<br /> http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d800/features01.htm#a12</p>

 

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<p>Maybe Nikons idea is to make this a replacement of the D300S and D700 in the same body.</p>

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<p>I certainly hope not - not willing to pay twice the price of a D300S! Also hope that the D7000 will not be the top-of-the-line DX body! There certainly seems to be space between the D7000 and D800 for another body - or even two: a DX D300S-successor and a 16MP FX body. </p>

<p><em>This camera seems to be a replacement for the D3x rather than the D700</em></p>

<p>Yes and no. The D800 has a pop-up flash the housing of which is likely make 24 PC-E operation clumsy and slow (when shooting architecture). With the D3X, if I have the camera on tripod and want to switch from horizontal to vertical orientation, I can just tilt the camera and rotate the lens 90 degrees (without touching the shift). With the D700, I have to reset the shift before rotating 270 degrees and then reapply shift. I suspect this to be the case also with the D800. If not, then I will be very happy.</p>

<p>Another curious issue is lack of WT-5 support (why would they first make a nice compact wireless transmitter/receiver unit for the D4 and then after that, introduce a new camera which uses the older, much larger WT-4 which has its own battery and uses a cable to connect to the camera?) For studio shooting viewing on an external computer is very useful as it can provide a much higher quality view of the results for fine tuning lights, also so that the results can be discussed with the subject. Having a cable from camera to laptop works, sort of, but the USB cable very easily drops out from the camera in vertical use ... also it is a tripping hazard. The D4 isn't really a studio camera (in that it's 16MP and I doubt the IQ at ISO 100 can match that of the D3X or D800) but it does support a much more compact wireless unit so what is Nikon trying to say? </p>

<p>It is good to read that live view power consumption has been reduced though 60 min is not all that long (especially if it is reduced in the cold).</p>

<p>As for replacing the D700, I think so, as the price is similar. The D800 is slower but that may be Nikon's message for the next four years: want high speed and sensitivity in FX? Buy a D4.</p>

<p>At least the D800 price is right. ;-) </p>

<p>"but is more prone to morie" when talking about AA filter<br>

What does "morie" mean? I have never heard about this word, being a non-english native person.</p>

<p>Moirèe (a typo, I guess).</p>

<p>Moire is an aliasing artifact. If you are digitizing a signal and your sampling frequency is not at least twice the maximum frequency of the signal, that signal gets mirrored back into low frequencies which you see as a pattern which didn't exist in the subject. </p>

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<p>I'm much more enthralled by the mirrorless camera segment...</p>

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<p>I am, too - for professional use as well as personal.</p>

<p>The NEX-7 has 24Mpx - that means that the D800 has 20% more resolution (4,000 lines vs. 4,912). That's not heaps but it is significant. That's only one criterea, but it is something that I personally would keep in mind (a bigger sensor means little unless high ISO is cleaner, which I think it will be). And that means that the NEX cameras will cannibalize Sony's own DSLRs, too. Those are not prescriptions, just observations and musings.</p>

<p>Either way there is no way that the D800 will be out of back-order for quite some time. It's affordable for me but will I buy one in the end? I have some testing to do with my newly acquired mirrorless kit... :-)</p>

<p>Erik.<br>

You can find an explanation here.<br>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern</a></p>

<p>I'm excited that the D800 is finally out. It will may potentially be my first entry in to FX. Though pricey, I'm happy it's not the 4K USD as some of the rumors indicated. I'm liking the specs on paper, and some of the sample images and promotion videos around. Should be a very interesting camera indeed even for many who want to venture into HD SLR video. I for one, I'm interested in those capabilities. The D800E is really an interesting offering. While Moire may be annoying, if it does offer much higher resolution than the D800, it may be worth considering since it's only $300 USD more... What do you guys think? Is it worth the extra pain of removing the moire in post processing for the extra sharpness? I'm currently shooting a D200, so going to FX and D800 would already be a huge jump in resolution.</p>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3742851">Apurva Madia</a> said: "Will somebody please explain why ordinary Nikon lenses are not good enough for 36 MP sensor when they are good enough for film? After all, as far as I know film has the highest resolution till date!"</p>

<p>Because film does not have the highest resolution to date, though I suppose there might be some very slow fined grained black and white emulsions out there that equal or best a D3x. Basically even a D3x knocks 35mm colour slide film for six.</p>

 

<p>Thanks to all who responded to my question on moirée</p>

<p>the pixel jump is quite significant. i wonder what would happen to the D700 prices and would some people be hesitant to get a D700 now.</p>

<p>i know pixels isn't everything but the trend is newer cameras nevertheless would have more pixels. and on paper 12 to 36 is a massive jump. reminds me of the D2h going to D200 or D300.</p>

<p> </p>

I would not buy a $2700 new d700. If the used price goes down significantly, I may.

<p><em>Will somebody please explain why ordinary Nikon lenses are not good enough for 36 MP sensor when they are good enough for film? After all, as far as I know film has the highest resolution till date!</em></p>

<p>Film has high resolution (especially slow black and white film) but it also has a lot of grain. Digital resolves detail more cleanly. Resolution in the sense of the highest spatial frequency that leads to (just) perceptible detail in the images is not a really useful image quality criterion by itself. What's more important is the MTF.</p>

<p>In practice 12 MP FX is easily better than 35mm color film in image quality; 24MP FX is <em>much</em> better than 35mm color film. Black and white film can be sort of competitive with digital ... but I'm not much of a chemist so I haven't taken advantage of that in some time. <em> </em></p>

<p>When it comes to lenses, digital sensors are different from film in how they react to light that doesn't arrive perpendicularly to the sensor surface. You can get corner quality issues with digital with some wide angles that look just fine on 35mm film. There can also be reflections from the sensor surface that cause hot spots in the image (I haven't personally run into this problem.) But apart from those issues, I think the majority of older lenses work just fine on modern digital sensors, delivering better quality than they ever did with film.</p>

<p>I do a lot of studio and fashion work and this is definitely on my list...especially at $3000. The $4000+ on the rumor mill made it a little out of reach, but this price is better. I've been wanting to upgrade to FX for sometime now. This doesn't have the low-light capability of the D3s or D4, but hopefully it's as good as a D7000. This camera new is still cheaper than a used D3s, and I don't think that will change very soon, but maybe we will start seeing sub-$2000 used D700 units.</p>

<p>Canon folks have been complaining for years that the high-res Nikon option (D3x) was just too pricey. We may see a lot of people jumping ship now and coming home to the black and yellow!</p>

<p><em>Canon folks have been complaining for years that the high-res Nikon option (D3x) was just too pricey.</em></p>

<p>Many people have been waiting for a more affordable high res FX option, that's true, but honestly if the tradeoff is that in the future there will be no affordable, high ISO optimized, high speed FX camera then I don't see how everyone would be happy. 36MP NEF files are huge. For event photography I can shoot about 1200 files in a day. That's about 93 GB of data. Two backups and we're at 280GB. How am I supposed to cope with that?! I do prefer to have the full information of the RAW files for the events are often in mixed lighting and sometimes exposure errors can occur when shooting quickly (though less and less). Thankfully I still have my D700, but will not work forever and it would be nice to see AF improvements (the D800 / D4 provide one more stop of sensitivity for the AF sensor). A D4 on the other hand would be great for events, but is expensive. How many portrait and event photographers really can afford it?</p>

<p>For landscape photographers I would think the D800(E) is ideal.</p>

<p>I found a couple more interesting hands on previews of the D800:</p>

<ul>

<li>I am sure that a lot of us remember Ellis Vener: <a href="http://blog.ellisvener.com/2012/02/06/nikon-d800-a-quick-hands-on-report/">http://blog.ellisvener.com/2012/02/06/nikon-d800-a-quick-hands-on-report/</a></li>

<li>Rob Galbraith: <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-11674-12304">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-11674-12304</a></li>

</ul>

<p>In particular, Galbraith has this diagram showing how the low-pass filters differ between the D800 and D800E: <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/data/1/rec_imgs/5563_d800_olpf_graphic.jpg">http://www.robgalbraith.com/data/1/rec_imgs/5563_d800_olpf_graphic.jpg</a></p>

<p>Very interesting development! Really aggressive pricing too!</p>

<p>I wonder if the added USB 3.0 will make Camera Control Pro work faster? Doing fine JPEGs + big NEFs takes a while to transfer for my laptop. I guess it might be the mid-range laptop or maybe slow transfer protocol? Mind you, not many USB 3.0 enabled laptops yet! Definitely the bottleneck in my tethered workflow.</p>

<ul>

<li>36.3MP, 7360×4912 Nikon FX sensor</li>

<li>ISO range from 100 to 6400</li>

</ul>

<p>Doesn't sound to me like Nikon has the noise reduction worked out at that pixel density.</p>

<p>This will sell, but it won't be the promised land for low light and high megapixels. It will be great for daytime landscapes, though.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>And say goodbye to the d3x</p>

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<p>No, no. The D3X has a very tough, durable professional grade body. It will be around for awhile--although how many more Nikon will produce is a good question.</p>

<p>Look for new lenses, too, although I personally believe that Nikon's best lenses will out resolve even a 36-megapixel sensor.</p>

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<p>Goodbye fim</p>

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<p>Most of the hard-core holdouts will have to retreat to medium format film, I guess, but how many will want to bother?</p>

<p>I came to digital just about exactly ten years ago with the purchase of the Olympus E-20, followed by the Kodak 14n, which used Nikon lenses--and could give very good results in good light with the NR turned down. I am glad that I have lived to see this moment: the D800 and the D700, one for the best full-frame resolution, the other for the best low-light performance.</p>

<p>If only I could afford either at this point. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>