Nikon D800 vs. the D800E

<p>I'm sorry, this might not be the place to ask, but I am interested to know your thoughts on the Nikon D800 vs. the D800E. It is a conundrum not so much as for the price difference, which is not a big deal, but I don't want to make the wrong choice.<br>

I am leaning towards the D800E. I mainly used to do landscapes w/ 4x5 and my current D200 just doesn’t measure up . Regardless of the print size I want to have the sharpest file.<br>

What do you think?<br>

Thanks,<br>

GS</p>

<p>E</p>

<p>Geoff,<br>

I have had the same thoughts. Landscapes are what I have in mind for a 36mp camera. Been using a D700 for 3 1/2 years & this will be reserved for portraits, weddings. people.<br>

An <strong>800E</strong> is what I ordered in February.</p>

<p>Do you worry if any about the alleged moiré/false color problem?</p>

LR4 now has a noise and moire tool.

 

I don't have any files of moire to test, but I'm sure you can find some. I suspect that it will easily simulate the AA filtering

effects of normal DSLRs, and locally only where the pattern is.

 

I will be getting the E version. 10% more to get a much sharper image seems a good

deal to me.

<p>I have similar feelings. Thanks for your thoughts.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I will be getting the E version. 10% more to get a much sharper image seems a good deal to me.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Isn't it always that you have to pay more to get something not included?</p>

That started in the 70s with Unleaded gasoline.

 

I would say also 70s French bottled water, but that came with benzene.

<p>Moire should not be a problem in landscapes, or photos without the "hand of man". Moire occurs when you have repeated patterns in the subject near the pixel size when projected on the image plane. I've had trouble with bricks, picket fences, tiles and corrugated metal (see my albums on photo.net). Fabrics are not a problem if draped rather than stretched fairly flat.</p>

<p>The anti-aliasing filter reduces the resolution by nearly half, and can only be partly restored by sharpening. If you have a situation where Moire occurs, however, the AA filter is more effective than any post-processing effect.</p>

<p>Are there photo links for samples of both cameras showing the pluses and minuses?</p>

<p>Not really. Marketing isn't releasing D800E samples with bad moire and it's not available yet, so really it's people comparing high res shots from cameras with AA filters to cameras without. The patterns show up in fabrics, storm grates, tile roofs, anything with fine detail that repeats. Software isn't very good at removing all the problems - this isn't like warping to correct a barrel distortion, it's an unpredictable artifact burned into the image.</p>

<p>If you want to shoot landscape, and that's it, the E should be fine. If you want to shoot in cities, get the regular D800.</p>

<p>B&H's web site has some info. The images and graphics used on that page are originally from Nikon: <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/hands-reviews/discerning-differences-between-nikon-d800-and-d800e">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/hands-reviews/discerning-differences-between-nikon-d800-and-d800e</a></p>

<p>Nikon is actually very up front about potential moire issues with the D800E.</p>

<p>Nikon USA's web site has some comparisons between the D800 and D800E. As I pointed out earlier, B&H's article uses images originally from Nikon; therefore, you'll see some of the same image examples: <a href="http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/Digital-SLR-Cameras/25480/D800.html">http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/Digital-SLR-Cameras/25480/D800.html</a><br /> <br />And there is a second page further on moire issues: <a href="http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Nikon-Camera-Technology/gy43mjgu/1/Moire-and-False-Color.html">http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Nikon-Camera-Technology/gy43mjgu/1/Moire-and-False-Color.html</a></p>

<p>Also keep in mind that moire can be an issue on natural subjects as well as human-made ones. The most serious moire problem I have encountered happens to be on macaw (feather) images I took on a trip to Brazil a few years ago. I captured the images below with a D2X, which was the top-of-the-line Nikon DSLR back then.</p><div></div>

<p>I stand corrected. That Nikon page shows an example of a pretty bad moire.</p>

<p>Well, either my old eyes are going, or there's virtually no difference in sharpness between Nikon's example crops from the two cameras. I suspect that an extra touch of USM could easily make any of those pairs of images match almost exactly.</p>

<p>@Edward. I think you're taking Nikon's simplistic little diagrams far too literally in concluding that the resolution is halved by the AA plates. Light is not "split into four" by a low-pass spatial filter as Nikon asserts - that's just some marketing idiot talking through their nether regions. The idea of a low pass filter is to cut out spatial frequencies that fall <em>above</em> the resolution of the sensor, not to halve its resolution. Frequencies higher than those of the photosite spacing can cause phase inversion effects, and this is what gives rise to moire and false colour. An ideal AA filter would brick-wall frequencies at exactly the photosite spacing, but this is a practical impossibility, so the AA filter starts to cut in a bit below the ideal frequency, but certainly not at half of that frequency. In any case, the effect of lens diffraction will do almost the same job as an AA filter at moderately small apertures.</p>