Has Anybody Received their D850?

> Iin prepping for a shoot, I just tried it in both A and S modes and it worked fine. It did however made odd but fairly quiet noises in S mode, perhaps the aperture was it.

That would make sense. Cool, thank you!

There are a few things missing from the D850 that I'd have liked (yes, I'll do a list sometime soon), but there are enough advances in there that I've got to say I'm very likely to upgrade. Not that the D810 is in any way a bad camera (as I hope I might be going to prove in Yellowstone in a couple of weeks). I'm also confident that Dieter is better at using his than I am! (I know a better camera doesn't make you a better photographer, but every little helps...)

are not at all toys but tools for me

You apparently make a living with photography and may need the advantages to stay competitive. I do this for fun. I do not, however, consider my cameras "toys"; they are tools for me too; tools that help me to do what I want to do. The advantages you list make very little to no difference for what I use the D810 for. I have the live view AF fine tune on my D500 but nonetheless did my fine tuning manually (with the correct methodology it actually doesn't take all that much longer than the automatic one; the main time sink is to actually set things up properly (which doesn't differ between manual and automatic fine tuning).

In my case, I skipped the D810 since I didn't see sufficient improvements over the D800. (Thanks to the Nikon loaners, I got to test both the D800 and D810 very thoroughly, and I still have a D800E myself.) However, at least on paper, the advantages of the D850 over the D800/D810 are very clear. IMO just the Multi-CAM 20000 AF system, which a lot of us have used on the D5 and D500, is worth the upgrade. The D850 would allow me to stop using CF cards altogether. The new location of the ISO button (consistent with the D5 and D500) and the swivel LCD are minor bonuses. I also like the idea of using the entire width of the sensor to capture 4K video, although I am not crazy about file sizes from 4K videos.

However, I don't care about 45MP vs. 36MP or even 24MP. I doubt that there are all that many actual photo situation that one can even see the difference between 36 vs. 45MP. A lot of lenses are not up to it, and a lot of scenes don't have sufficient details. Any bit of vibration will also wipe out enough resolution to make the comparison moot.

I doubt that there are all that many actual photo situation that one can even see the difference between 36 vs. 45MP. A lot of lenses are not up to it, and a lot of scenes don't have sufficient details. Any bit of vibration will also wipe out enough resolution to make the comparison moot.

You might find this kind of interesting then. I just got back from hours of shooting some B&W imagery for a client who wants local mountainscapes to illustrate a new hotel going in. It was stormy out today and I did fairly well at getting lots of mood.

But the really cool thing was when I used my D850 with my 200-500E. I figured out I could use the electronic shutter during a longer exposure and use the self timer to trigger it. That means that if I have no wind, I can use a settle time of about 5 seconds and get flawlessly sharp images. I have simply never even thought of doing this because it was not previously possible.

So I shot this and many scenes at 500mm, F/9, 1/10th of a second at a tonally plentiful ISO 64, no remote, just 5 second self timer with live view and the electronic shutter. This new camera is simply in another league for me. The full frame and then a 100% crop...

So I shot this and many scenes at 500mm, F/9, 1/10th of a second at a tonally plentiful ISO 64, no remote, just 5 second self timer with live view and the electronic shutter. This new camera is simply in another league for me. The full frame and then a 100% crop...

DB, thanks for the sample.

It would be interesting to use a D800E for an A/B comparison. I have never used a D850 yet, but my experience with the D800E is that you begin to see the effect of diffraction at f8, and the degradation becomes fairly obvious at f11. The problem can only get worse with the smaller pixels on the 45MP D850. To take full advantage of the D850, I would stick with f5.6 or a bit wider, but then you will be using that 200-500mm/f5.6 wide open, which is not optimal.

1/10 sec is another source of vibration that can easily wipe out any difference between 45, 36, and 24MP.

I had a lot of problems getting sharp pics with the 80-400 AF-S and D800 at slow-ish shutter speeds which are necessary for landscape photography with a long lens in the winter quite often in my country. I could only get reliably sharp results when using a tripod at 1/200s or faster, and that meant I could basically only shoot when the sun was out if I wanted the best tonality (i.e. base ISO). I sold the lens out of frustration. With the D810's electronic front curtain shutter feature this problem seemed to be gone and I had much better luck with winter landscape photography using the D810 and 200-500/5.6. However, at 500mm there was still some slight blur in vertical shots which I attributed to the rear curtain of the shutter causing some shake at the last moments of exposure. Now the D850 offers fully electronic shutter which should be vibration free (there may still be the diaphragm closing but I doubt that to cause much shake). There can still be wind but at least the lack of shutter and mirror induced vibration means there is a chance to get perfectly sharp results at these easily affected shutter speeds (1/2s to 1/100s, in particular). Dpreview.com staff had experienced problems with shutter shake ruining shots hand held at certain shutter speeds even with VR (they had an article some years ago about this) with the D810 and now they reported that these problems were absent when using the D850 with these same lenses. (300 PF in particular, comes into mind although not specifically mentioned in the new article). The D850 has a counterbalanced shutter mechanism which is more complicated than the one in the D810 and it may be what solved the problem. The mirror in the D800 was lifte with a spring which caused a lot of shock; with the D810 it is motor driven and the movement is slowed down before it hits the top. The D850 seems to have (according to these reports) alleviated the shutter effects and offers the fully electronic shutter option in live view as well. I think this will change supertelephoto landscape photography quite a bit. I found the D810's EFCS helped sharpness a lot with the 70-200/4 at 200mm, as well as with a 120mm macro lens on bellows. I'm glad to read Daniel's positive reports using the electronic shutter with the 200-500mm.

If you need the depth of field and don't want to deal with the risks of artifacts from focus stacking, I don't see any problem with stopping down to f/11. Even sharpness across the image rather than high peak sharpness and then less sharp other areas may be the photographer's preference. In fact I often use f/11 together with tilt in my tilt/shift lenses to ensure a good evenness of sharpness in landscape shots. I can see that often in the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, photographers have used small apertures to gain depth of field. Here are some 2017 finalists with details

Finalist Shots of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017

The elephant close-up by David Lloyd was at 400mm, f/13 on a D800E. Justin Hofman's sea horse and a cotton swab was at f/16 with the 42-megapixel A7R II. Jack Dykin's cactus shot was at f/20, 14-24mm, D810. A higher resolution camera may make diffraction easire to notice but the absolute sharpness should still increase slightly when increasing the pixel count at apertures around f/11. At f/22 probably the improvement is not noticeable. Often people know that the intended application of an image is at certain display size and they can play with the aperture to obtain sufficient sharpness for that display size and then within those limits they can optimize depth of field. Often large prints are viewed at some distance and they may not require that much more detail ... depending on the subject. Interestingly the NHM competition is judged at 1920 pixels longest dimension so that may in part explain why people are not afraid to stop down in images intended for that competition. In fact quite a lot of image viewing these days takes place on monitors and so I would be surprised if people didn't keep that in mind when shooting. I mostly shoot to print but realize that most viewer interactions are with screens and that means criteria for peak sharpness that I might consider insufficient may look fine on the media used. Higher resolution screens are becoming more common of course but in a way I think mobile viewing slows down the move towards higher resolution - a tiny screen won't show the best of a high resolution image. Even in print I can't really say I could see much difference between 36MP and 24MP images at A2 print size at normal viewing distances, so in a way increased resolution is becoming academic. These considerations do not seem to slow down its popularity though.

Personally my interest in the D850 is because I need a second camera that will support Nikon's radio flash system (to rely on it I need my backup camera to also support it) and also would prefer to phase out Multi-CAM 3500. I am also interested in seeing how much the improved shutter mechanism can benefit results from hand held use of telephoto lenses at intermediate shutter speeds. I normally use fast shutter speeds (1/800s to 1/1250s often for 300mm) but sometimes there is need to make a compromise and if results at 1/250s or 1/320s are improved I will be happy about it, and it will be useful e.g. for some concert shots. The extra pixels are going to be a bit of a pain for me but not quite as much as 36MP was in 2012. I will also want to see how digitizing negatives and slides with the D850 compares with using a dedicated scanner. Having a high dynamic range camera with Multi-CAM 20k is very appealing as sometimes I want to shoot at f/2 or f/1.4 in bright sun. It should be nice to get all shots in focus and not have to shoot extra frames. I did some checking of old directories and was shocked to find that the majority of my D800 shots at f/2 or f/1.4 were out of focus even in outdoor daylight. In similar conditions, about 70% of f/1.4 shots are in focus with the D810 and somewhere around 95-100% with the D5. With f/2.8 aperture lenses there is not so much difference between the different cameras; almost everything is in focus. I think Nikon have done a tremendous achievement with the Multi-CAM 20k but in my experience the difference in wide aperture focus accuracy between the D810 and the D800 is also considerable (obviously there are differences between individual cameras but this was not something that AF adjustment in repair would sort out, at least not without bringing all lenses in at the same time, which was more than I was willing to do. I have read of some users who submitted their D800 multiple times to repair and got things finally working well also with difficult lenses). In the D5 what I've found is that it can also handle longer distances with the f/1.4 lenses which I could never really nail down with the Multi-CAM 3500 series cameras. It is so nice not to have to give second thought to focusing. The improvements in the D810 were reduced color sensitivity of focus, reduced distance dependency of focus error, and reported compensation of spherical aberration (look-up table by lens?). I don't know if all of these accuracy improvements were made to the D850 as well but so far I've only seen one complaint that the focus shift due to spherical aberration for a particular lens was done in the D810 but not in the D850, other than that every comment I've seen on the D850 AF has been very positive. That's better than I would have expected. I assumed the 45MP would reveal a lot of difficulties but these have not been reported. These reports make me very much look forward to first contact with the new camera but it seems the queues are long and I won't have it any time soon.

DB, thanks for the sample.

 

It would be interesting to use a D800E for an A/B comparison. I have never used a D850 yet, but my experience with the D800E is that you begin to see the effect of diffraction at f8, and the degradation becomes fairly obvious at f11. The problem can only get worse with the smaller pixels on the 45MP D850. To take full advantage of the D850, I would stick with f5.6 or a bit wider, but then you will be using that 200-500mm/f5.6 wide open, which is not optimal.

 

1/10 sec is another source of vibration that can easily wipe out any difference between 45, 36, and 24MP.

With an electronic shutter, regardless of what speed is selected, the shutter is no longer a source of vibration. As long as everything else is taken care of, stable tripod, no wind, no ground vibrations and ample settling time using the self timer instead of a wired release, there will be zero vibration when the exposure is made.

As far as diffraction, with a 5.6 lens, diffraction is likely not starting until at least F16 or so. This is why a 4x5 format lens like my Schneider 350mm F11 is showing stellar sharpness even at F32. I prefer slower glass for landscapes and macro for this reason, moving the diffraction limit down 1-2 stops so that greater depth of field can be taken advantage of.

I prefer slower glass for landscapes and macro for this reason, moving the diffraction limit down 1-2 stops

Absolute size of the aperture opening is the main parameter for diffraction; whether the lens is fast or slow has no influence.

with the D800E is that you begin to see the effect of diffraction at f8, and the degradation becomes fairly obvious at f11. The problem can only get worse with the smaller pixels on the 45MP D850. To take full advantage of the D850, I would stick with f5.6 or a bit wider,

While the effects of diffraction can be seen, in many cases an image taken with "too small an aperture" will still be sharper/better resolved than one taken with most lenses wide open.

Absolute size of the aperture opening is the main parameter for diffraction; whether the lens is fast or slow has no influence.

Either you fully misunderstood what I meant or this is totally false. Most 1.4 lenses will start hitting their diffraction limits at F8-9.5 while a Schneider Fine Art XXL 1100mm F22 for 20x24 format won't hit it until a bit after F64.

At one time I had both a Hasselblad 120mm F4 Makro Planar that went to F22 and a Hasselblad 120mm 5.6 Makro Planar that went to F32. When I tested both, the 120mm 5.6 at F22 was sharper than the 120mm F4 was at F22.

Either you fully misunderstood what I meant or this is totally false.

Probably both. I only gave one parameter, the absolute size of the aperture opening. Another is the size of the medium (only indirectly responsible though). And for digital, the number of pixels. So when you write that a f/1.4 lens has a diffraction limit at f/8-f/9.5 then this is partially insufficient and partially misleading. First, you are talking about FX and whether the lens has a maximum aperture of f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8 or whatever, the opening at which diffraction takes over is the same. Second, when you state f/8-f/9.5 you are talking 24MP at most; for 36MP, it's more like f/5.6-f/8. If you move to a larger format, the aperture limits change but not the absolute size of the aperture at which diffraction starts. For the sake of argument, your 20x24 format is about 17 times the size of FX, so your 1100mm lens is the equivalent of 64mm on FX. f/8 on 64mm is an opening of 8mm. On your 1100mm lens, you can stop down to f/138 before you hit that same absolute opening size. Here is a relatively decent write-up: What Is Lens Diffraction?.

I recall reading a very good demonstration on diffraction and how much can be overcome by appropriate sharpening of images that were taken at "too small an aperture". From imatest-based lens tests, one can see that diffraction gradually reduces resolution and that the resolution-vs-aperture curve shows generally a very broad maximum with resolution beyond the maximum often still higher than the resolution of the lens wide open or even close to it. Slow lenses on smaller formats (like m 4/3 or 1") often don't show that maximum, diffraction already sets in at their maximum aperture and the resolution goes down from there if one chooses to stop down for more DOF.

At one time I had both a Hasselblad 120mm F4 Makro Planar that went to F22 and a Hasselblad 120mm 5.6 Makro Planar that went to F32. When I tested both, the 120mm 5.6 at F22 was sharper than the 120mm F4 was at F22.

I'd say that the differences of quality of the two lenses was showing; this observation can hardly be used to demonstrate a difference in diffraction when both lenses set to f/22 are equally affected.

How about weight and bulk? I love how my D750 is lighter and smaller than my D700 which is why I passed up the 810. But the 850's specs are exceptional and very tempting. How does it feel in your hands compared to the older bodies? I shoot primes, mainly the 20/1.8,35/1.8,50/1.4G, 85/1.8, and 180/2.8, I don't like lugging around heavy zooms (not to mention getting better images). If it were the same weight and size of the 750 I would have one already.

Opinions?

Here is the weight comparison:

• D750: 750 grams
  
• D800: 900 g
  
• D810: 880 g
  
• D850: 915 g
  

In other words, the D850 is the heaviest among them. Essentially the D850 is roughly similar in size and weight as the D800 and D810, but the shape of the bottom is different so that it needs a new NB-D18 vertical grip.

The D750 can be smaller because it uses two SD memory cards. The CF and XQD cards are bigger and thicker, and the D800 series cameras have stronger specs, e.g. their shutters are rated to 200K actuations vs. 150K for the D750, the D750 has 1/200 sec flash sync and the top shutter speed is 1/4000 sec (vs. 1/250 and 1/8000 on the "pro" models).

If the size and weight between the D750 vs. D800/D810 makes a difference to you, most likely you won't prefer the D850 also.

Checking other forums, it looks like there is some D850 shortage initially, and there are a lot of complaints. It reminds me the fiasco five years ago when there was a major shortage for the D800 that took 4, 5 months to clear, and people pre-ordered from multiple mail-order stores. I recall waiting 2 months to get my D800E. However, I don't think the D850 shortage will be that bad; even though it is a clear improvement, it is not like so much better than the D800 and D810. I would imagine that the D850 will be in stock some time in October.

FWIW, the D700 is 995g without a battery. If found the D800 and D810 were appreciably lighter (at least until I stuck an L-plate on the camera). The D750 and Df are lighter still, of course. The weight difference between the D850 and D810 is much smaller than the difference between the D850 and D700. I suspect the weight increase is mostly the tilt screen mechanism (made up for a little by the lack of flash).

Thom Hogan was reporting that another batch of D850's had reached the US, if it helps. He's also just reported that the small and medium NEF formats seem to be different from just applying a compression algorithm to the D810's small raw scheme (which I reported here a while back), with mixed results.

BTW, I notice that a lot of XQD memory cards are currently out of stock at B&H, both Lexar and Sony. Most 64G, 128G and Sony's 256G varieties are not available, only the 32G ones (and some old, slower Sony ones) are in stock. Not sure whether a lot of new D850 owners are snapping up XQD cards. With 45MP, a D850 can chew up card space pretty quickly.

While I am glad that the Lexar brand will continue, I still hope that SanDisk will get into the XQD market. We need more competition for prices to come down.

Back in 2006, Micron acquired Lexar, but earlier this year, Micron announced that they would shut down the Lexar brand. However, earlier this month, we got news that the Chinese company Longsys will take over the Lexar brand: Micron Killed Lexar, But Brand Set to Live On

I too have been extremely happy with XQD. The casing is solid like CF but without the vulnerable pins, and it is bigger than SD so that it is not easy to lose and also not as easy to damage. I am very glad that the D850 has at least one XQD slot.

Thanks for doing the reasearch for me, so it appears my D700 is heavier than the D850, I can live with that. I'm not considering it an upgrade, unless I'm working on a project that might require a mural sized print my D750 will be my main camera.

I don't understand the fuss about shutter noise, I'm sure in some situations it might matter but the differences are trivial. You guys are probably too young and never shot a wedding with a Bronica S2A, that shutter and wind was loud enough to stop the ceremony and wake the dead. But in the end noise or not I got my images.

I'll be buying a D850 regardless of any complaints and like I've done in the past say it will be my last camera. Until the next one comes along. I was hoping Nikon was putting this sensor in a Df2.

Regards,

Rick

The weight difference between the D850 and D810 is much smaller than the difference between the D850 and D700. I suspect the weight increase is mostly the tilt screen mechanism (made up for a little by the lack of flash).

The D810 has a composite material mirror box so the bayonet mounts with screws into the composite. This has caused some issues when there is severe impact the bayonet can come off. The D850 has a metal front around the mirror box which probably makes it a bit heavier.

Not sure whether a lot of new D850 owners are snapping up XQD cards.

It could be D850 users, or other XQD users who are concerned about Lexar being discontinued. I bought two 64 GB cards recently in anticipation of increased storage needs when I finally get the D850. But I also bought them to show support of XQD since I like that card format.

While I am glad that the Lexar brand will continue, I still hope that SanDisk will get into the XQD market. We need more competition for prices to come down.

Sandisk make UHS-II cards and CFast 2.0 both of which are more expensive than XQD of comparable speed even though there are multiple suppliers of UHS-II cards (and currently only one for XQD). Because their existing cards are quite expensive, I am not sure Sandisk's possible future presence in the XQD market to necessarily reduce prices ... but it is always better to have multiple suppliers. Given the popularity of the D500 and D850, I would think that Sandisk would want a piece of the XQD card business. In many European stores XQD cards are in fact much more expensive (2.5x !) compared to US prices for the same products, which makes me wonder what is going on. Now that I have enough XQD cards, I would hope that SD UHS-II cards come down in price, so I could get a backup card which doesn't slow down the D850 too much, in the absence of a dual XQD variant of the D850.

It could be D850 users, or other XQD users who are concerned about Lexar being discontinued. I bought two 64 GB cards recently in anticipation of increased storage needs when I finally get the D850. But I also bought them to show support of XQD since I like that card format.

Micron announced that they were dropping Lexar back in June (2017). Actually I decided to buy a couple more XQD cards after hearing that news. As a result, I now have 8 XQD cards, 4 of them 128G. B&H being out of stock is more a recent situation. In any case, since Lexar now has new ownership, there shouldn't be any concern that Sony being the only supplier of XQD.

One issue about Sony vs. Lexar XQD cards is that while both work well on Nikon cameras, Lexar cards have compatibility with Sony camcorders that use XQD. Therefore, perhaps Sony is the safer choice.

Additionally, the Compact Flash Association has already announced that the next generation of cards will be the CFexpress, which has the same form factor as XQD cards and is therefore incompatible with CFast used by Canon and some high-end camcorders. Therefore, it looks like CFast is a dead end, and XQD is the better choice until we switch over to CFexpress, probably for 8K video. :)

CFexpress - Wikipedia

Actually I decided to buy a couple more XQD cards after hearing that news.

Was toying with the same idea but didn't act on it as I figured I have a sufficient number. Might live to regret that decision :(

> The D810 has a composite material mirror box so the bayonet mounts with screws into the composite. This has caused some issues when there is severe impact the bayonet can come off. The D850 has a metal front around the mirror box which probably makes it a bit heavier.

True - although I'm not sure I'd heard of the bayonet coming off. I guess it can happen. I gather there were issues with some D800's cracking. The D850 likely has a slightly bigger prism, too - and prisms are heavy.

> I'll be buying a D850 regardless of any complaints and like I've done in the past say it will be my last camera. Until the next one comes along. I was hoping Nikon was putting this sensor in a Df2.

The recent interview (badly translated) with a probably-not-as-senior-as-reported Nikon person suggested that Nikon were hoping for better sales from the Df (maybe if they hadn't designed it on the back of an envelope...) and there might not be a Df2. Also that they didn't think it was an appropriate body for a high-resolution sensor (due to old lens limitations), and the D5 sensor was, if anything, more likely. I wouldn't take that as authoritative, but I'd not get your hopes too high either.

B&H being out of stock is more a recent situation

Right, but I imagine we are now seeing a cumulative effect of increased concern about XQD availability (Lexar) and increased demand (D850) depleting local stocks. I guess they're waiting for Sony to ship more cards.

probably-not-as-senior-as-reported Nikon person

Goto's lab designed the Df so there is probably no one more authoritative about the Df. I would imagine he did this interview because he would like Nikon to make the next version of the camera but the first version didn't sell well enough to get the approval to make a successor. I would personally very much like to see a Df 2. I just love the controls and viewfinder, but don't like a few other things: choice of battery (not too serious an issue), choice of AF module (a very serious issue but so many cameras use the EN-EL15(a) that it would have been nice to have it on the Df as well) and lack of vertical grip (disappointing but not crucial).

I defer to your knowledge of the Nikon hierarchy, Ilkka. Thom Hogan reported that he was now an "advisor" rather than actually in charge of a team, as some translations reported. I don't know how authoritative the statements were, but I'm sure they're informed.

I'd be quite interested (I won't necessarily commit to buying, but...) in a Df "done properly" - the Df was very compromised compared with what I'd have liked given the goals of dedicated dials and compatibility. The chance of that may have been lost by it being done as a pet project, apparently without much design iteration, and souring the waters. But who knows? I'm old and grouchy and would like to redesign about half of the objects I use in my life. If we're talking "things done wrongly stopping it being done right", I'm way more cross about Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films - which are perfectly good films, just not, IMO, Lord of the Rings. Bring back the Scouring of the Shire, and the ability to do stop-down metering.

I don't know anything about the current Nikon hierarchy, but when the Df was in development Goto had his own lab. Some of the interview links no longer work but here is a video interview with Mr. Goto regarding the Df

Exclusive: Tetsuro Goto, Creator Of The Nikon Df, Talks About The Camera - Better Photography

In any case I don't believe it is a "pet" project but rather something that was requested by many customers. I think the main problem is that when making something that combines the new and old, drawing the line where to go with the old and where to go with the is difficult. I like the Df user interface a lot actually. I think Andrew's main complaint is that it's not designed for hand held use with large telephoto lenses. That kind of application is mostly a new phenomena (high ISO and lenses with VR permit this). I don't think a dial-based camera would work for that simply because on the right side there isn't enough space for dials. And at least I like to use both hands to access controls when working with lenses of moderate to small size.

Some customers simply felt it was too much plastic to compare with cameras such as the F3 or FM2. Perhaps now that Nikon have gone back to using more metal with the D850 a Df 2 would also be made with a more substantial feel and build. (Personally I've never had a problem with the composite mirror box but I've seen multiple pics of ripped off mounts when the camera was dropped with a larger lens mounted, so for some users there was a problem.)