10 Years after ..

Allow me a short celebration of the last F-mount -camera I probably bought!:)

10 Years ago in 2012 I bought the D800 new.. after a sabbatical year in Africa with D200 and D300, where I just missed out on finding a good D700 before departure. And I have been happy ever since!

 

Yes, my modest smartphone has become my 'compact camera' in these 10 years. But every time I pick up the D800 I am amazed with how faithful it has been serving me with good quality photo's, and that it is so greatly complementary to that 'compact camera'. And yes: I still have a number of AI/S lenses, extension rings, the works.. ..and work with Nikon CaptureNX2 software..

 

But since abovementioned D200/300 are effectively catching dust, there obviously remained the wish for a second camera, or backup. A few weeks ago I found a second D800 low-clicks-fine-condition for less than 1/6 the price I paid in 2012.

 

Is that a choice that you would make?

Getting a second camera of the same year so much later .. for the simple fact that the model serves your/my purposes?

The D800 is good. The D810 was a minor upgrade.......

 

The D850 is a MAJOR upgrade.

 

It will probably be Nikon's last DSLR, but undeniably it's greatest one!

 

I'm aiming for a Z9 in my near future, but have no current intension of retiring my D850.

 

Z6ii for walkabout and some video, D850 for studio and paid work. D500 for paid equine sport.

...And yes: I probably missed/miss out on that greatest-one: the D850!

Or I should just buy it.. ..in 10 years time?

But then something similar might happen as with the F5 (and F6).. I never snatched one when they were massively dumped around, say, 2006... And now these are rare too.

It's now 10 years old? How time flies. I remember Nikon gave my D800 a complete makeover. It was a recall - I can't remember the reason. A friend bought it from me later and she is still using it along with her D850.

 

Now DSLR is past history for me, though I do have DSLR equipment that I need to sell when I have the time to do so.

Or I should just buy it.. ..in 10 years time?

Can't give you a satisfactory answer because I would rather not keep old equipment unless there is a real practical reason, such as the 200mm f/4 micro lens because it seems to produce some special quality which is a combination or sharpness and unsharpness. Hard to explain because now you see it now you don't - I don't have enough data to support it. ;)

I suspect nice, clean D850s will keep their price for years....many, many years.....;)

I bought my last F-mount products three and half years ago, in January 2019: D850 and 500mm PF lens. I wouldn’t buy another DSLR now, as I cannot use Z mount lenses in them.

 

The main issue for the D800 was the left AF problem. That affected about 1/3 of the early D800/D800E. I never experienced that myself in the two cameras I used back then.

 

Some EN-EL15 batteries were recalled around April/May 2012, but that is not a D800 issue per se.

At a lower level. My D610 was replaced by a Z5 and I don’t think I would want to go back the DSLR form again. The clarity and smoothness of the files surpass the D610. Add In tilt screen and the ability to use near any lens makes the old guard seem a bit antiquated. The Z5 is not a perfect camera but at the sale price of $999 it was a bargain for sure.

Someday, I'll probably buy a F100, but for now, my Nikkormat EL, F, F2, and F80 serve me well - if only C41 processing were still available locally:(

It was a recall - I can't remember the reason.

My D800 had no issue but I had used it for a while and there were visible wear and tear - after dropping it into mud and snow, etc. (LOL). Looking back from Gmail history (July 2015), here is a screen print of Nikon email, offering a "free maintenance service initiative". So my D800 had a completely free makeover, looking like a new camera; hwvr, I am not sure if the internals were replaced as well (maybe not).

That was good service, Mary Doo!

And in general I need to add, that although I take my photography (sometimes not too/) seriously, and at a few times over a long period earned a little money from it, I am definitely not a working professional now.

 

Which obviously allows me to nostalgically cling to good-things-that-work (D800, 400/3.5, 105/2.8 AIS etc ..), and not pushes me on a pursuit for the best-and-brightest. Good thing for brand-loyalty, for the Earth in general .. and for demonstrating in this case that 'digital photography' has grown up* and reached a point where second-hand camera's can be attractive tools. ...Now let's wait until the second hand car market for electric- and hydrogen-vehicles reaches that point!

 

* ...at which point the trusted mirror-and-prism started to get replaced by mirrorles.. :eek:

The D800 is good. The D810 was a minor upgrade.......

The D850 is a MAJOR upgrade.

The D810 was a MAJOR upgrade; the D850 is an entirely different beast altogether and plays in a a higher league:D

The D810 was a MAJOR upgrade; the D850 is an entirely different beast altogether and plays in a a higher league:D

Mileage may vary, and all that.

I found the upgrade from D800E to D810 so minor that i continued using the D800Es and kept the D810s in reserve, as spares. Still use the D800E as happily as the D810.

The D850 is another thing indeed.

I also didn’t find the D810 a big enough upgrade and never bought one. The D850 arrived too late; I also bought mine late, a year after introduction. By then I started using mirrorless more and more.

(snip)

 

But since abovementioned D200/300 are effectively catching dust, there obviously remained the wish for a second camera, or backup. A few weeks ago I found a second D800 low-clicks-fine-condition for less than 1/6 the price I paid in 2012.

 

Is that a choice that you would make?

Getting a second camera of the same year so much later .. for the simple fact that the model serves your/my purposes?

 

Last year I bought a used D1X for $40.

 

Originally they were $5350, down by a factor of over 100.

 

Even though I have a D700, lately I use the D200 more.

 

You could use the D300 more, which probably still works fine. Or buy a used D700.

 

I like the idea of having different cameras for different situations, unless it is for (paid) professional use.

I was shooting a good bit of sports in the mix when the D810 came out, a good deal on a refirb D810 let me replace D800 & 600 I had. One of the subtle improvements on my D810 vs my D800 was more consistent AF accuracy. AF fine tune requirements were much less with the D810 than the D800 I had and sold.

 

I bought a high mileage D800 cheap for a project last fall. This one has a surprisingly consistent AF system. I actually like the auto WB results with this D800 better than the D850 I have, so I tweaked the cameras I am using to mimic the old beater. That D810 was sold, great chassis but, maybe it's just me, I always felt that the SOOC color rendition was not quite to my liking. I never could find a picture controls combination that worked for me as well as some of the other cameras.

 

I am mostly using Z cameras now, but that cheap D800 is ready to go.

Purchasing another D800 makes sense to me. The camera still does everything it did 10 years ago.

Purchasing another D800 makes sense to me

Depends on whether the D850 is disproportionately more expensive than the D800 or D810.... considering it's a much better camera all around.

I had a D700 and loved it. Then I bought a D850 and was over the moon. Then I bought a Df and found that I liked the pics from the Df better than the D850. I spent weeks and weeks trying to figure out why, digging through old D700 pics, pondering some of the glorious Df pictures and not finding out why I liked them better than the D850 pics. Just the other week, I had a discussion with someone who knows about 100 times as much as I do about Nikon and he said that the D4, D4s and Df have the same sensor in them, designed by Nikon and produced by .. (forgot). The D850 sensor is designed by Nikon as well but is a Sony build. The D700 and Df/D4/D4s lineage of sensors were all Nikon and the rest were from other manufacturers. The Df pics look to me like improvements to the D700 pics and the D850 pics look like over-processed, too harsh or whatever you want to call it. Great for detail but lousy for other things. YMMV....

Since the D850 does not have an anti-aliasing filter, that might make a difference in the look.

but lousy for other things.

In the same way that RAW converters have film emulation 'filters', I guess it's possible to determine what those 'other things' are, and process a D850 file/image to an alternative look.

 

If you can see it, I'm pretty sure a bit of decent computer analysis can determine what you're actually seeing, whether it be differences in localized/micro-contrast or DR or colour gradation etc.

 

For all it's oddities, I quite like DxO's graphs of quantifiable info... AKA measurments. You can pit a D850 against a Df like this...

 

Seeing that DR difference, do you notice that base ISO images are less similar than high ISO shots? Or high contrast scenes are a bit flatter on the Df?

Thanks both for your responses. I'll play a bit with the DxO graphs and I have played extensively with the film emulators. I'm captive at home this week so may do another deep dive.

I suspect it's not just the dynamic range. The filters used in the Bayer array will also greatly affect the colour rendering.

 

Some years ago I pointed my collection of digital cameras into a simple slit spectrometer aimed at the Sun. Had the cameras been capable of capturing pure spectral colours, their output would have looked continuous like the top, simulated spectrum. However.....

The discontinuous patches of red, green and blue with little overlap are what resulted. The near 'brick wall' filters used are great for colour saturation, not so great for colour accuracy.

 

Note that spectral yellow, cyan and violet frequencies are greatly attenuated or completely missing. And that don't seem like a good thing to me.

 

The differences in rendering can be seen first hand by selecting different cameras in Imaging Resource.com's 'Camera Comparometer'.

I recommend the still-life selection of samples, where the different rendering of fabric colours and wax crayons between cameras is quite instructive.

Edited August 4, 2022 by rodeo_joe|1

Note that spectral yellow, cyan and violet frequencies

Kinda makes you wonder how they got them there colours with R G B filters on a monochrome film camera now don't it?

 

I recommend the still-life selection of samples, where the different rendering of fabric colours and wax crayons between cameras is quite instructive.

I see what you mean. The Df crayons are a lot smoother and more satisfying. Also, there is a roughness in the D850 sample where the crayons meet the gray background, like a bad halo effect. Also notice the dark and gray backgrounds.... the line where they meet is a lot smoother on the Df than the D850.

I see what you mean

Hummm, Df 8.7MB v D850 27.9MB Df 16MP v D850 46MP.

 

I suspect it's down to the AA filter and fewer pixels that make the Df shots that way.

 

If I've got a mo', I'll see how downsizing and a bit of mild Gaussian blurring a D850 shot looks.