Nikon Announced D800 and D800E, 36MP FX-Format

<p>After thinking about it for a day now, for me it comes down to how well the D800 does at ISO 3200. I'm a night shooter, outdoors, and mostly shoot at ISO 800 with the D300. If I can shoot two stops higher ISO with the same quality I get now, that would be huge. I could sell large expensive strobes and use smaller ones. I could get by with an f4 lens instead of the bigger & more expensive f2.8, and I would no longer need ANY f1.4 lenses. A D800 that can only shoot clean at ISO 800 would give me more resolution, but net cost would be $4,300 to me with lens change ups. That would not be worth it for me. So, I sit and wait until I can see actual images made at high ISO by "everyday" photographers. I'm also waiting to see what else Nikon releases this spring. I'd hate to spend that kind of money without first knowing all my options.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

<p>I initially thought the 36.3 MP was a bit excessive, but, on a FF body, it has no more density than my ancient D60 and D80 cropped-body DSLR's with 10.2 MP. Still, the files of any quality will be very large....Oh well.</p>

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<p>The boxy shape ... is more appealing to me</p>

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<p>Now there's something I don't hear too often :-P (Just joking around, please don't take it harshly).</p>

<p>I'm seriously looking at both. They just seem worlds apart. The D800 is awesome for video and top tier photo work (and would curb my desire for MF and LF, I think), while the EM-5 looks to be great for out-and-about things.</p>

<p>And those on the weight issue, I have to say, carrying smaller gear can be a plessing when I'm hiking from one end of the Mountain to the next between events. It just, plain, gets heavy and tiring carrying all that stuff. And, if I'm skiing, it can be very obtrusive, or down right dangerous. So yeah, lighter gear can be a blessing.</p>

<p>$3000 without a lens. I just don't get it.</p>

<p>I understand the D700 came out at about $2700 new without lens...</p>

<p>$3000 for a camera body like the D800 is an amazing deal considering that, when the D3X spec came out I really wanted one untill I saw the $6000+ price tag.<br /> The D2X cost more than $3600 in 2007 and if go back even further, my old Fuji S2 Pro cost 2000 UKP or $3500 USD in 2003.<br>

I do need clarification on the price of the Power Grip. If it is $600 as been mentioned earlier (which I cant beleive) thats 2x what I'd expect.</p>

 

<p>I spoke to sales rep today - he did not know exactly, but said that the price of the power grip with the same battery as in d4 (EN-EL18) plus charger would be somewhere around 550eur. obviously with EN-EL15 it would be cheaper. but that's pricing for Europe.</p>

<p>I'm glad I have 16 GB of RAM and 24 TB of RAID 5 drives.<br>

I think the issue is which FX lenses will provide the function to take advantage of the large sensor?</p>

<p>Hmmm...</p>

<p>I wonder which Nikkors will be done-in by the 36 megapixel sensor?</p>

<p>Dan - the 24-70, from the looks of the sample images...<br />

<br />

Kent - the sample image of the young lady with the veil, at ISO 640, is certainly not completely noiseless compared with the images at base ISO - although it's well within processing limits. I've not been able to follow the link that Ilkka posted to a higher ISO image in another thread, but I'd not be surprised if the behaviour was similar to the D7000 - not noiseless in the shadows, but holding together reasonably at high ISO in the brighter regions. Of course (as with my comment about the 24-70) I'm pixel-peeping, and a print at a sensible size would, I'm sure, look pretty good. If/when I get one, I don't see myself ditching my D700 though - unless someone offers me a cheap D3s as a bundle. As for the price, it's something I'd have to save up for, but it's not something I can immediately dismiss like the D3s or D3x. Except for those hoping for a cheaper D700 variant, I think Nikon are probably aiming it right (depending on what the 5D3 can do, obviously).</p>

<p>HD video shot with D800, has high production value, but still, the video is pretty damn fine:</p>

<p>http://vimeo.com/36305675</p>

<p>Nikon now has an SRP of $616 for the grip on their site (presumably the street price will be lower). One UK shop is advertising it at 380 GBP, but that includes 20% VAT, so the price in USD would be just over $500 - I suspect you'll get it for less than this.</p>

Shun - Does the Live View work the same way as other Nikon models or has it been improved?

 

Tim Holte - As a fan of your work, I would gladly lend you a D800 (or E) for a while if and when I can get my hands on

one. I would love to see what you do with it.

 

Like Tim, I'm also curious to see how Canon will respond. I have fallen in love with Canon lenses over the last few years.

I'm not sure what Nikon lenses I would end up coupling with a D800. Maybe a PC-E 24 or 45 for that LF look.

<p>Without an actual D800 in my hands, I can only assume that live view on the D800 works the same way as it is on the D7000: the mirror is up in the live view mode, and when you press on the shutter release, the mirror no longer needs to come down first and then go up again so that the camera can capture the image. The way it was done between the D3/D300 (2007) to before the D7000 (2010) was kind of stupid.</p>

<p>Pricing for the MB-D12 is Canadian $429.95 in Canada. US$616 does not seem to make any sense.</p>

 

Thanks, Shun. I hope that that's the case.

<p>One info I am looking for and could not find. Does anyone know or found anywhere how many shots does it take in Raw before the buffer fills up, please.</p>

<p>Simon - I suspect/hope (because of my recent feature requests) that the BIOS is still under development, but if it helps:</p>

 

<blockquote>In a quick test with a preproduction D800 body set to ISO 100, we were able to rattle off 20 NEF (14-bit, lossless), 37 full-resolution JPEG Fine and 15 NEF+JPEG continuous frames, at 4fps with a fast CompactFlash card loaded</blockquote>

 

<p>From <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-11674-12304">Rob Galbraith's web site</a>.</p>

<p>A quick query: One of the rumour sites claims that Nikon's site asserts face-detect autofocus only in live view. I'm struggling to match this with the high resolution meter that's supposed to do face detection - but maybe that's about getting the metering right for faces as opposed to hitting focus. Or maybe the rumour site is confused. Can anyone clarify?</p>

<p>Thanks Andrew.</p>

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<p>A quick query: One of the rumour sites claims that Nikon's site asserts face-detect autofocus only in live view. I'm struggling to match this with the high resolution meter that's supposed to do face detection - but maybe that's about getting the metering right for faces as opposed to hitting focus. Or maybe the rumour site is confused. Can anyone clarify?</p>

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<p>Andrew, I would much rather not discuss any topic originated from rumor sites. There is plenty of wrong information on those sites. Sometimes they even deliberately post incorrect information to create controversy in order to increate their traffic.</p>

<p>Face detection AF has been available on Nikon's Multi-CAM 3500 AF module from the beginning, i.e. the D3 and D300 introduced in 2007. The Multi-CAM 3500 uses phase-detect AF. Face detection is available in the auto-area AF mode, but on the D3/D300, it was quite primitive.</p>

<p>In live view, the Multi-CAM 3500 is not used. Instead, the DSLRs use contrast-detect AF. On the recent mirrorless J1, face-detect AF works quite well as long as the camera can see the front side of faces. Once the person turns sideways, the J1 would lose track of it. I can only assme that Nikon is applying such technology on the D4 and D800 as well.</p>

<p>Thanks, Shun - in this case the rumour site seemed to think it was reporting information visible on Nikon's web site, but I was sufficiently confused that I failed to find which bit of Nikon's site they thought they were referring to, otherwise I'd not have mentioned my source at all. (For the reasons you suggest, I thought it best not to mention which one.)<br />

<br />

I think this is the first I heard of anyone but Mr Rockwell claiming that the D3/D300 auto-area AF tries to do face detection (as opposed to some combination of aiming at the nearest object and applying some heuristics) - I'd assumed that he was imagining it, but I'm happy to believe that it works. I rarely leave my D700 in that mode unless I'm not looking through the viewfinder (either I'm shooting from the hip/from a pole or I've handed it to someone else), so I've never really been in a position to vouch for its efficacy, or whether any hits were more based on luck than the algorithm. I could certainly believe that increasing the meter resolution might help target the phase detection; I guess we'll see how clever it is - and whether things like choosing between focus on a face and focus on an eye (for a larger face) work equally well. It'd be nice to know exactly what the camera is doing so I know when to trust it, but that may be asking a lot of the Nikon engineers.<br />

<br />

Since the J1 is phase-detect and contrast-detect in combination, I'm not sure how well the techniques will play with the D800's relatively-conventional (as far as I know) live view - but I'm sure there are a few years of compact camera advances that can be applied. I'd take improvements to the live view display over the quality of the autofocus, but that's an opinion that I may reconsider once I've spent a while trying to apply AF correction to all my lenses for accurate 36MP shooting. :-)<br />

<br />

Thanks for the feedback.</p>

<p>Personally I don't think that 36 Megapixels is too many. It's about right for the sensor size IMHO, and could be a medium format killer. In fact a comparison with MFD cameras shows that lenses are quite widely available that can cope with this kind of pixel density and still shine, since until recently so-called medium format sensors were only slightly larger than 24 by 36mm and with a not much greater pixel count.</p>

<p>I'm a bit disappointed to see that Nikon have stuck with a 14 bit A/D converter though, rather than 16 bit, and that they've bothered at all to include an AA filter. A slightly defocused lens will automatically act as a low-pass spatial filter, and when you get down to under a 5 micron circle-of-confusion there's not much of any 3 dimensional subject that's fully in focus at that level. There's also probably almost no detail in the average subject of a size and contrast to cause moire interference. Furthermore, diffraction theory says that you'd need to work at an aperture greater than f/5 with a near-perfect lens to see noticeable interference problems. Still, we obviously all have to suffer for the sake of the few people who'll be using this camera to copy flat sheets of silk with high-aperture diffraction limited lenses!</p>

<p>Having said that, I'm very tempted by the D800. If only we poor (literally) Europeans could buy the camera at the equivalent of the advertised US price instead of the inflated non-dollar figure being asked by our local suppliers. Oh for a crystal ball to see which way prices will move when, or if, the camera becomes readily available.</p>

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<p>I think this is the first I heard of anyone but Mr Rockwell claiming that the D3/D300 auto-area AF tries to do face detection</p>

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<p>If you have the manual for the D3 or D300 (available as PDF files), check out the AF-area mode section. E.g. page 76 in the D3 manual. It describes face detection with a diagram showing the AF points covering a human face are highlighted.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Anything else have that? Don't have my manual handy, but curious if the D7000 does...</p>

<p>Shun wrote:</p>

 

<blockquote>If you have the manual for the D3 or D300 (available as PDF files), check out the AF-area mode section. E.g. page 76 in the D3 manual. It describes face detection with a diagram showing the AF points covering a human face are highlighted.</blockquote>

 

<p>So it does (p.74 of the D700 manual). Given how often I've read the thing, I'm not sure how I imagined that it didn't. Maybe I was just thinking that it couldn't pick out the (nearest) eye, or maybe I'd just blocked it out completely. As someone who claims to have RTFM, I'll go and hang my head in shame. Thanks. :-)<br />

<br />

To save Zach a download, the D7000 does make the same claim (p.95).</p>