Nikon Announced D800 and D800E, 36MP FX-Format

<p>D800 and the idea of cropping to 300mm <br>

Is there some reason why one could not put a 70-200mm vrII lens on a D800 and crop it down to 12MP and achieve a 600mm equivalent which would then match my D700? What do you lose?</p>

<p>Pixel Count may be a factor 3, but FX/DX crop factor is only x1.5 NOT x3. <br /> So it's only to the equivalent FOV of a 300mm....</p>

<p>Do you mean your D700<strong>0</strong>? Otherwise it makes no sense!</p>

<p>I'm not thinking of the FX to DX path, but simply cropping the image in a D800 to about 12MP from the FX of 36MP. If one has a 200mm lens on, does not the cropping allow for what a 600mm lens would do on a 12MP camera? </p>

<p>Sorry Steven, I get you now! You mean just selecting the middle 12mp! I'll just go get my calculator....</p>

<p>What one loses when cropping a D800 to 12MP compared with a D700 is the same as any small sensor - crop the middle half of the frame out of a shot with a 300mm f/2.8 frame and you get a view as though you had shot with a 600mm f/5.6 lens (just as if you did the "crop" with a 2x teleconverter). Specifically, you're still using an f/2.8 aperture, but the depth of field would match that of an f/5.6 lens. You're enlarging a quarter of the sensor, which has received a quarter of the light that the full frame receives, so you could expect the noise to be similar to shooting two ISO stops higher with the imaginary 600mm f/5.6 lens (which is why everything balances out).</p>

<p>Oops - also, cropping a <i>200mm</i> lens image to get the field of view of a 600mm lens requires a 3x crop, which means you've got 1/9th of the original pixels, not a third. So the output of performing this crop on a D800 would be a 4MP image, not a 12MP one. Sorry, digital zoom is no substitute for big glass.</p>

<p>Help! Where am I going wrong here guys? My maths head is kinda fuzzy today!</p>

<p>In using the middle 12MP and clipping the outer ones off, it's almost identical to doing a DX crop.</p>

<p>OK, so 36MP covers an area of 36 x 24mm = 864mm sq, you want to use the middle 12MP, so 288mm sq. So your new 'chip' is ~20.8mm x 13.9mm. Format diagonals 36MP = 43.2mm, and for your 'chip', is 25mm. Proportion seems to be ~1.7. Doesn't that make your 200mm end up about 340mm?</p>

<p>I'm not seeing how you get to 600mm.</p>

<p>Andrew, crossed in the post, took me too long to do the maths and make sure, before posting!!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>yep... both of you are right.. my fuzzy morning thinking....now thinking of sticking my 70-200 on a V1 for a 540mm lens equivalent..... boy would that look weird....</p>

<p>How about a 400mm 2.8 VR on a V1?... now that's what I call a 'bright' working plan!</p>

<p>If Nikon would bring out my hoped for 400mm f4 AF-S VR, it might even be <em><strong>affordable</strong></em> one day..:-)</p>

No, Shun, your terminology regarding PC lenses doesn't confuse me. Thanks for the detailed responses. I guess the

only question that remains is, when you rotate the lens to accommodate the built in speed light, does operation become

more cumbersome and counterintuitive? I assume that you have to switch hands for some operations such as setting the

rise level and the tilt angle.

I agree with John E. Sensor technology will continue to advance in new and unexpected ways. Five or six years ago,

who could have imagined the High ISO revolution that was soon to be ushered in courtesy of the Nikon D3? New

breakthroughs will come along and photographers will take advantage of them in creative ways. Storage capacity

continues to expand and become more cost effective, so who cares about the size of the cata files involved! In 1995, a 9

GB Seagate hard drive was revolutionary. Now we can buy 64GB of random access storage on a memory card the size

of a postage stamp. We're nowhere near hitting the limits of Moore's Law, so expect that trend to continue.

 

Do we need technological advances? For thousands of years we didn't need the Internet, but now that it's here we are

finding plenty of uses for it. Paradigms shift and times change. We can continue to use antiquated technology creatively,

but it becomes more impractical and less economical as the world moves forward. Try driving a covered wagon down the

highway, or try renting a DVD from a video store. :-)

<p>I'd like to check with those of whom have pre ordered the D800 from Amazon or any other online stores like Adorama or BHPhoto. Have you received any notification as to when the camera may be delivered? I just got an email from Amazon stating that my pre order made on Feb 7, 2012 has an estimated date of Jan 7/8th 2013!<br>

I sure hope that's a mistake. I don't have any experiences with pre orders but this could be a sign that these cameras are indeed in really high demand. What are your thoughts?</p>

<p>Juan, apparently a bunch of people who pre-ordered D800 from Amazon received similar e-mails: <a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=40612177">http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1021&thread=40612177</a></p>

<p>It doesn't sound like Amazon is very accurate. For example, even after I had confirmed with Nikon USA that the D4 would be delayed by a month to mid March (a delay announced by none other than Nikon's CEO), there are reports that Amazon still sent out e-mail a few days later that they would start shipping the D4 in mid February: <a href="00ZynM">http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00ZynM</a></p>

<p>You should be able to walk into camera stores and buy a D800 off the shelf by the middle of this year. Back in 2008, two months after its introduction, I bought my D700 from a camera store and got a small discount.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>when you rotate the lens to accommodate the built in speed light, does operation become more cumbersome and counterintuitive?</em></p>

<p>If you have shifted the lens up, and want to switch to another orientation, for example, going from horizontal composition to vertical, yes, on the D700 you have to first zero the shift (if it was near the limit), rotate the lens, and then apply the desired shift in the new orientation (which is reversed if you want to stay up and have rotated 90 degrees.) You have to pay attention to the prism so that you don't scratch it while rotating (mine shows some marks) and also avoid turning the larger knob towards the viewfinder side simply because it won't fit there. With the D3 family all you need to do is rotate the lens the minimum number of degrees, and your shift can stay where it was irrespective of how extreme it was. You don't have to watch out for damaging the camera or getting your fingers peeled by the small shift lock because you don't have to use it as often, and there is also more space for the fingers to work in.</p>

<p>However, I do not yet know <strike>if this is the D700 is similar to the D700 or not.</strike> if the D800 is similar to the D700 in this respect. The inconvenience may have been fixed by altering the geometry of the camera. It's certainly possible and would be very welcome.</p>

<p><em>if this is the D700 is similar to the D700 or not</em></p>

<p>Ups, meant "if the D800 is similar to the D700 in this respect". I guess I could e-mail to the guy who did some of the D800 architectural shots for Nikon and ask them.</p>

Well, if you hear anything, Ilkka, please let us know. Thanks!

<p>"a particular sensor will now show the limits of the lenses we already have and vice versa -"<br /><br />I've been reading these threads about the D800 and its high resolution and just wanted to correct this misconception that a high res sensor somehow requires supreme lenses in order to extract its resolution.<br>

The way that the optics of it works isn't that a lens need to complement the sensor, but rather the more accurate description is both are filters against an ideal.<br>

Thus, what matters is much closer you get to that ideal for given $ difference (a higher res sensor OR lens will provide higher res independently), and not "matching" one to another.<br /><br />"Five or six years ago, who could have imagined the High ISO revolution that was soon to be ushered in courtesy of the Nikon D3"<br /><br />Sensor tech is nearing its tail of diminishing returns, not unless lens for decades. There's only so much packetized light a given area can capture. You can mitigate this slightly with finer binning like the d800, but photon noise and diffraction are a matter of reality unless you don't believe in physics.</p>

<p>Thanks Shun. Looks like that definitely I wasn't the only one who received an email from Amazon with a shopping date of 2013! If that were the case, then it would be very scary and I'd cancel my preorder right away and try to get it locally instead. I'm very eager to see more review and sample videos/photos in low light situations of the beast.</p>

<p>Hey Agent Hex, what you are saying is that little sensors, like the ones found in today's 16 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras are basically doing the impossible. Imagine how much resolution the D800 would have, if it had pixel densities at the level of today's point-and-shoot cameras? It would be well over 100 megapixels, and it could be using pixel-binning like crazy, and it would still produce a much better image than it can with just 36 megapixels of photo-sites. No . . . we are a LONG way from the maximum. The megapixel race will go on for years. This is indeed a huge step though. I am surprised to see it. I thought the D4x would be just 32 megapixels, and now we have a 36 megapixel D800! Very cool. Still, I wonder if it produces smooth, noise-free images with detail as good as the Sigma SD1. I guess we will see . . . in the future. For now, I have my plan to get an SD1, and I think I'll stick with it.</p>

<p>Why should I choose a Nikon D800 over a Canon 5d Mark 2?</p>

<p>Because it's a one generation newer camera which is incrementally better in every way. The question is really between a D800 and likely soon to be announced 5d MkIII, but neither camera is actually purchasable at the moment.</p>

<p>Get the Nikon if you shoot Nikon or the Canon if you shoot Canon...</p>

<p>"Hey Agent Hex, what you are saying is that little sensors, like the ones found in today's 16 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras are basically doing the impossible"</p>

<p>No, they're not doing the impossible, only what is natural via moore's law. I never said there won't be more pixels, only that current sensors are already near the limit of quantum efficiency. Future cameras will produce less noise by having more pixels (no you did not read that wrong), this will also be a matter of diminishing returns. There's a significant difference between those two statements.</p>

<p>"megapixel race will go on for years. This is indeed a huge step though. I am surprised to see it. I thought the D4x would be just 32 megapixels, and now we have a 36 megapixel D800! Very cool. Still, I wonder if it produces smooth, noise-free images with detail as good as the Sigma SD1. I guess we will see . . . in the future. For now, I have my plan to get an SD1, and I think I'll stick with it."</p>

<p>The nikon already produces better images than the SD1 as long as you're not looking at the individual pixels. By virtue of having more of them, and the magic (ie math) of resizing.</p>

<p>I'm considering purchasing a D800and have read Shun's review and have have some questions:<br>

1. Ever since the announcement of the D800 and D800E all I hear about is anti-aliasing. It seems to me that what is being implied is that before the D800E Nikon cameras did not produce sharp images due to the anti-aliasing feature. Is this anti-aliasing discussion is being blown out of proportion?</p>

<p>2. I currently have a AF-S Nikkor 18-200 1:3.5-5.6 G ED lens. Will this work on the D800?</p>

<p>I shoot nautical and landscapes. I do not have the technical level that Shun and others have regarding Nikon cameras and want to make the right decision on which camera is best for my shooting needs.</p>

<p>The D800E is reallly muddying the waters as far as the D800 is concerned. Some people reading this are beginning to get the impression that the D800 is somewhat inferior. I am sure that this is not the case.<br>

The D800 is camera designed for the highest quality; its cost is not expensive considering what it offers. This means it is going to be sold to wealthy amateurs who have no need for it other than the bragging value of saying that I have a 36mp Camera. It is not going to make these misguided posers take any better photos.<br>

I wonder how many of these people buy the D800 and never produce anything bigger than an A3 print. Any 6mp camera can do this with resampling. I have good prints of up to 1 metre wide taken with a 6mp Fuji S2 Pro which was a plastic bodied DX SLR which cost significantly more in 2003 than the D800 does now. When I tell some of my clients this they are amazed.<br>

The 18-200 is a consumer lens, its not even a particularity good DX Lens. I have one but in my opinion its good for casual use but I never use it for anything important.<br>

Asking about using a DX 18-200 lens with D800 shows that you have not any need for this camera at all. A D800 demands the best lenses. You must spend considerably more than than the cost of the camera on high end glass to justify buying it. Yes the 18-200 will work; but even a 12mp D300s shows its limitations.<br>

Don't waste your money; buy a better lenses or if you really need to upgrade; a D7000 or wait for the D300s replacement which must come soon.<br>

Or better still invest in a photo course; this will get you better results than any camera upgrade!</p>

<p> </p>