Nikon D4 and D800 part 2

Hello again all.

Thanks for all your comments on my hands on preview of the d4 I posted yesterday, clearly these cameras are causing a lot of interest.

This second post I will be concentrating on the D800. This camera has a broader appeal to most since it comes in at a much cheaper £2399 (the D4 weighs in at £4700) and boasts 36 megapixels.

First impressions: D800

In the hand it feels great. Some forum goats have whined how this camera is not actually aimed at professionals. It is. Very sturdy and substantial in the hand, yet compact enough to not be huge like the D4 (there is no built in portrait grip on the body). All the controls were responsive, yet rigid. Everything clicked and rotated well giving the impression they are easy to change quickly, but hard accidentally knock. Many queues have been taken from the D4 body, the new AF point selection modes are altered via the button and wheel combo as mentioned in the D4 preview and seemed to be a good decision (real field use will tell).

The viewfinder was large and bright, D3 and 700 users will feel at home and the camera molded to my large(ish) hands well.

Image Quality

Now as with the D4, I was unable to take away samples from the camera. These are pre-production models so not finalized yet. We do however have a large high res screen on the back and I was able to study the shots in some detail. I was very, very impressed with what I saw. The limitations of screen viewings means I can’t draw comparisons with the D800, D4 and D3 in a meaningful way, but I am used to judging the quality on the back of the camera from my endless use of the D3 since 2007. Of course at low ISO’s the quality and detail is outstanding. Nikon have put up sample images here and the detail I saw when in at 1:1 reflected this. Anyone who prints big or wants/needs to crop will be very very happy indeed. Per pixel sharpness looked right on the money (the 24-70 was attached at the time). Of course at 36 megapixels everyone is wondering what the iso performance is looking like. I whacked it up to iso 6400 and took some test shots. It was dimly lit in the room so what I saw was representative of a low light scene. There was noise, but not that much of it and most if not all of the detail was still there! Ok, not quite as pin sharp, but sharp none the less and I would see no problems in selling images made at this ISO. Also, let’s not forget that if you were to down-sample at 36 megapixel image to say 16 (matching the D4) you would additional remove unwanted noise.

I was super pleased with what I saw and made me instantly consider this camera very strongly. In fact the only thing holding me putting my NPS priority order in is that Rob at Nikon mentioned I may be able to have a sample camera or two thrown my way for testing when the production one’s come in. When and if I get them I will be doing a very thorough review and comparison to the D3.

So, fact time again! I have bullet pointed some information below for you that was stated directly from Nikon…

• The d800 performs as well at video as the D4, perhaps slightly less in super high ISO, but “not an issue for most shooting conditions” (I agree btw).
• One caveat is that you do not have the 1:1 pixel mapping to HD video mode from the sensor on the D800, as the area would be very small (as a fraction of the 36 megapixels).
• 76.5 megabyte uncompressed raw files, you still can choose lossless or lossy raw compressed (no file sizes for these though).
• Yes you may need a faster machine or more cards, but if you want the quality what do you expect? Nikon make no excuses here and I agree, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
• 12 or 14 bit raw still available.
• No buffering figures were available.
• The grip is actually priced the same as the D700’s was at release time, they full expect the price to creep down as it did before after a few months
• Official battery quote for the D800 (non grip) is 900 shots, however Rob (from Nikon) shot a timelapse with it totaling 1200 shots and the battery indicator still showed two thirds full (it was noted outside in the cold too). Rob estimates (himself) that the standard D800 battery should give you 2000 shots if you don’t chimp, 5000 if you have the D4 battery in the optional grip.
• Medium format competitors may want the E version. The main example seemed to show crisper edge definition. (I personally am not interested in the E version as the improvements seem minimal but I will investigate properly when I can -Rich)
• 22nd March availability estimate for the regular version and 12th April for the E version. The grip will be available on the 22nd March as well.
• The D800 does not replace the D700, it is a different beast
• The D700 is not discontinued.

We were then showed several of the sample videos on the large screen and they looked great. I saw no artifacts, and it all looked professionally useable in the extreme.

This camera really got me excited when I saw the higher iso test (on the LCD remember though) and I am very keen to try it out as it will offer unparallelled detail for my in the field shooting as well as significant cropping options and the same auto-focus that can handle teleconvertors very well. Stay tuned for more info and my full review when I get my greasy paws on them for a week or two!

Thanks to Nikon and to you for stopping by!

Rich.