D810 moire is it an issue?

<p>I am considering a getting a D810 and would value some advice from those who are using it as to whether Moire is an issue that causes you problems on a regular basis.<br>

My usage would be landscapes/architecture with some portraiture work, little or no sports although fast moving pets do also feature in my work. Currently using a D7100 and probably would have bought a D800 when there was a choice of AA or no AA filter.<br>

Simon</p>

<p>I have had no trouble with it. I shoot portraits, still lifes and subjects with small patterns. I have even shot window screens without a problem. Hope this helps.</p>

<p>-O</p>

<p>When in doubt, take a few extra shots, slightly changing your focal length, angle, and position. The tiniest changes in relationship between the size and alignment of the worrisome texture and the grid of sensor sites in the camera can make it show up or go away on those rare occasions it's an issue.</p>

<p>Are you going to get moire occasionally? Absolutely. You will with any DSLR, not merely the D810 or D800E. The worst moire I have gotten was from using a D2X. However, I have had a D800E for two and half years, and moire is rarely an issue. Initially, I set out trying to get moire on purpose and even so, it was difficult to get it.</p>

<p>As Matt said, if you are capturing subjects that are prone to moire, capture a few more samples for insurance. A slight change of angle and sharpness will eliminate it at the time of capture. Afterwards, it will become difficult to fix in post processing.</p>

<p>I've seen only a couple of instances of moiré on my D800E in the last couple of years. It's possible to find some if you shoot architecture with repeated patterns on railings or windows at high frequency and you're using decent technique in good light with a very good lens, but it's usually only tiny bits of the scene. If you get the wrong frequency with a very sharp shot of some clothing, it's probably possible to see something. Photoshop's raw conversion utility is reasonably capable at removing it. If I spent my entire time doing architecture or fashion shoots, I might worry. For wildlife, candids, sports, landscapes... it's not even remotely a problem. The D800's AA filter was quite weak, so it didn't entirely remove the effect. I'd not hesitate on the D810. (Well, I am in fact hesitating on a D810, but only because I'm waiting for the price to drop and for my savings to inflate.)</p>

<p>Stopping down past f/11 ought to "ruin" any lens's resolution by diffraction, sufficiently that Moiré interference isn't an issue.</p>

<p>As Shun says, you can get Moiré with almost any camera and lens if you try hard enough. Mostly, though, it's not anything to worry about. It usually only affects tiny patches of the image, and these can be fixed in an image editor by using the blur tool or desaturating the affected area.</p>

<p>FWIW, the interference patterns you see on a computer screen are generally far more obvious and problematic than anything you'll get in a paper print.</p>

<p>As Andrew points out, my experience with the D800E and D7100, both without the anti-aliasing filter, in the occasions that I do get moire, usually only a tiny area inside the frame is affected. I think that is why in a lot of occasions, I simply overlook any issue because you need to pixel peep very carefully to find them.</p>

<p>See the D7100 examples on this thread: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00bVRS</p>

I am seeing far less than with the D800 or D800E, but even with those cameras I had to work to cause it to happen. As

Shun pointed out, you can get moire with any digital camera.

 

What I use to prevent it is a set of filters fom the golden days of Hollywood: the Harrison and Harrison Black Dot Texture

Screens. These are optical glass filters that embed a random pattern of black carbon flakes and come in strengths

ranging from 1 to 5. They were only sold in sets, were always expensive, and haven't been made in some time.

Occasionally they show up on eBay, but good luck finding them.The #2 and # 3 work best for both elimin moire and their

original purpose: smoothing out skin tones without compromising resolution.

<p>Hi there, thanks for the quick and very helpful comments, I will keep saving for the 810.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Ellis - you say "the golden days of Hollywood" - a lot of shows I watch on TV have weird blobs in the bokeh that I have been assuming were because a very similar filter is still in use. A quick look suggests B&H still sell Tiffen "glimmerglass" and Formatt "soft white mist", although I'm not quite clear on whether they're the same thing. Tiffen seem to have a whole site section on diffusion filters. Is this the same thing? Or you can just smear vaseline on the lens or stretch hosiery across the front, of course.<br />

<br />

Simon: Me too, with the saving!</p>

No idea what "glimmer glass" is but ""soft white most" filters are very, very different from the Harrison and Harrison Black

Dot Texture Screen filters: "mist filters" create broad flare like diffusion by spreading light, effectively , lowering resolution

of fine details - in effect they are very weak fog filters.

 

Black Dot filters are also different from black msy and black net filters as the flakes in a black dot texture screen are

randomly distributed and the black mist are a regular pattern and black net filters have a very regular patterns.

 

The stochastic randomness of the flakes in Harrison and Harrison Black Dot texture screen filters very effectively break up regular patterns which is why they are effective at preventing moire.

<p>If the magic anti-moiré filter is just a collection of randomly placed specks of opaque material, then a bit of Ilford Delta 3200 film lightly fogged and developed in Rodinal ought to do the trick!</p>

<p>I believe the D800E has an anti-aliasing filter to reduce moire, but attempts to reverse its effects using a second low pass filter (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d800-d800e/3). The D810 does it the right way - no filter, period.</p>

<p>Whether you get objectionable moire patterns depends on the subject (duh). Let me explain. Fabric has repetitive patterns which are subject to moire with a non-AA camera. With a Leica M9, which has half the resolution of the D810, the resolution is so high that moire patterns in fabric tend to be very small, distorted and barely noticeable. Where it bites you is in a large object with parallel lines, occupying a substantial area in the image, like a corrugated grain elevator. You can see an example of that from my gallery page (shot in that case with a digital Hasselblad).</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/10191815-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="302" /></p>

<p>Ellis: Okay, interesting. I need to learn more about these things!<br />

<br />

Edward: That's true about the D800e (by way of making the production process more similar to the D800). The D810 does, indeed, do this with no filter at all, but, though I believe Nikon may have claimed otherwise, the reviews I've seen indicate no effective difference. It's not like they could have reduced the depth of the filter stack, for example, because this would have <a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/06/sensor-stack-thickness-when-does-it-matter">made lenses misbehave</a>. With the possible exception of ISO 64, I'm actually expecting the D810 image quality to be (negligibly) worse than the D800e's, but the handling benefits still make me want to upgrade. But good image example (including showing that it <i>is</i> usually a subtle effect only contributing to part of the image).</p>

What makes you think the D810 may be worse Andrew? There is a whole boatload of

different opinions out there to confuse the potential buyers.

<p>The D800E is less prone to cause moire because the design smooths then sharpens the image using filters. Since the smoothing effect is different than with conventional AA filters, the results are superior to using USM sharpening in post processing, but the basic principle is the same.</p>

<p>Omitting the AA filter has a dramatic effect on sharpness. However, you may not see much difference unless your lenses are up to the task. As with most processes, the weakest link determines the results. Allowing for the aspect ratio, my Hasselblad 16 MP back, with no AA filter, has a useable resolution of 13 MP when cropped to 3:2 proportions. It is almost half again as sharp as my 12 MP D3 using lenses in the "normal" range. Nikon lenses have a better MTF curve than Hasselblad, but the format size offsets the difference. A Leica M9, with 18 MP with no AA and using Leica or Zeiss lenses, outperforms both by a wide margin.</p>

<p>If someone has a Sony A7r, 36 MP with no AA, which can use Nikon, Hasselblad and Leica lenses with various adaptors, it would be interesting to compare the results.</p>

The D800E and D800 have two filters the first of which shifts light in one direction according to its polarization. In the D800 the second filter shifts light along the orthogonal direction, achieving blur which evens out the amount of light across the different color filters in the Bayer color matrix. This reduces errors in the colour rendering in the D800. In the D800E the light shifted by the first filter is returned to its original path. The effect should be the same as having a non-birefringent layer which has the same index of refracrion that the birefringent material has for the polarization that is not shifted. It is not a blurring and sharpening operation as in such a case information would be lost. DXO basically has shown using a large array of lenses that the self cancelling filter in the D800E works as intended ie. no difference in sharpness between D800E and D810.

In practical applications I find the D810 does have more accurate AF with f/1.4 primes than my D800 was; less fine tuning needed and reduced sensitivity to the colour of the light in the PDAF. Also with medium long lenses at 1/8s to 1/60s EFCS eliminates shutter vibration. However it depends on the lenses and camera support used, how much improvement there is. Lightweight teles seem to benefit the most. I think Nikon has done a great job with this iteration; clearly they take this camera very seriously.

<p>Oops - got distracted from this thread. Ian, if you check back: most of the sensor reviews of the D810 that I've seen have suggested that the dynamic range is very slightly worse than the D800(e) in the mid range - see DxO, for example. I don't expect it to be significant, and the ISO 64 setting makes up for it somewhat (well, completely, in terms of image quality, <i>if</i> there's enough light). Being more likely to nail focus and having the EFCS makes it balance out, to some extent. I do like having dynamic range available around ISO 100, though, so the D810's supposed slight drop is unfortunate.</p>