My D800 Review

[briansquibb]

Videoing on the 1D4 gives good results

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Videoing on the 1D4 gives good results

I haven't tried it but for a few seconds on my 1D MK IV, I'm not really into heavy duty video, I only tried it on the d800 at a rehearsal of a musical play that had some pretty fantastic sound and costumes, and only then  because it supposedly will autofocus while doing video, but that is questionable.  Singers and dancers moving about the stage fairly rapidly is not for HDDSLR video unless you get way back and do everything at a hyperfocal distance.  Then, it will be boring. 
 
I'd post some short video clips, but I was asked to not post them buy the director, and I'll respect his wishes.

[briansquibb]

There are plenty of 5DII videos around but I haven't seen one from a 1D4. The AF button works very quickly (but not smoothly).

I have some potential places where a video would be good (for animals) and the 1D4 does 720p at 60fps so slomo would be smooth. I am looking for 1D4 video settings too (like shutter speeds) as I am a noob at video.

It would be interesting to see the potential of the 1D4 for video, certainly compared with the 5DIII. I was going to shoot with the 200/f2 hooked on.

[Kernuak]

The other thing, is that it makes Nikons lesser lenses look like rubbish, and their best ones look none too good.

I was seeing that in the sample images, even with the well regarded 14-24 and it was my biggest concern with a 36+ MP camera. It was why I am happy that Canon kept the 5D MkIII to 22 MP. I'm sure that recent and future lenses will cope fine, but I don't want to think about how my 24-105 and 17-40 would cope with a high resolution sensor, especially in the corners.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I saw a bird at our feeder today, it was tame and I grabbed the D800 with my 80-200mm f/2.8D lens.  I stopped it down a bit to f/4, but even then I only got one keeper out of almost a dozen, and even then, my 7D and 100-400mm L would have been better.
 
This is a only slightly cropped image, it should have been better.  Its just that the camera demands the best glass, and the 10 year old lens doesn't measure up.  Even a old Canon lens like the 100-400mmL is much better.
 

[Tammy]

consider renting some top end Nikkor glass for a weekend/week?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

consider renting some top end Nikkor glass for a weekend/week?

Like what?  Isn't the 24-70mm f/2.8G glass I own top end?  Its certainly priced like it.  I'm not going to try a 200mm f/2, because I couldn't afford it, and the focal lenght is not one I use. 
 
Nikon's top lenses are very sharp, but no different from Canon when it comes to AF variabiliity.  And, many of the top ones, like the 24-70 f/2.8G  have excessive CA's. 
 
Then, they have nothing comparable to my Canon 100-400mm L, or my 135mm L.!
 

[V8Beast]

consider renting some top end Nikkor glass for a weekend/week?

Like what?  Isn't the 24-70mm f/2.8G glass I own top end?  Its certainly priced like it.  I'm not going to try a 200mm f/2, because I couldn't afford it, and the focal lenght is not one I use. 
 
Nikon's top lenses are very sharp, but no different from Canon when it comes to AF variabiliity.  And, many of the top ones, like the 24-70 f/2.8G  have excessive CA's. 
 
Then, they have nothing comparable to my Canon 100-400mm L, or my 135mm L.!

Yeah, but check out that dynamic range

[Tammy]

yes, the 24-70 G is a great lens. their 35mm F/1.4 is sharper across the entire frame etc. the 105mm F/2.8 macro is also some great glass. but the D800 will still magnify the CA on any of them.

[dilbert]

Over at Luminous Landscape, they went with the Tamron 70-300 VC and the Sigma 120-300/2.8.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/nikon_d800__e_initial_impressions.shtml

[Albi86]

Thank you for the amazing review, Mr Spotkane. I loved every word of it.

[psolberg]

The other thing, is that it makes Nikons lesser lenses look like rubbish, and their best ones look none too good.

I was seeing that in the sample images, even with the well regarded 14-24 and it was my biggest concern with a 36+ MP camera. It was why I am happy that Canon kept the 5D MkIII to 22 MP. I'm sure that recent and future lenses will cope fine, but I don't want to think about how my 24-105 and 17-40 would cope with a high resolution sensor, especially in the corners.

36MP is just 16MP equivalent on APSC. so if you shoot with a rebel at 18MP, you're already outresolving the D800 and pushing your lenses much harder. Say nothing of the D3200 with it's 24MP APSC sensor which would be nearly a 60MP sensor if it was full frame. In conclusion, the D800 doesn't really push lenses all that hard. That's a web myth. It is just that until now, nothing pushed the edges and center in a way that would reveal the difference. Yet you're still resolving more even if the center still outresolves the D800 and the edges just keep up. Ultimately ask yourself two questions:

1) You can only capture a better quality version of the image projected by the lens, but never worse as you can always chose a level of detail confortable to you. So why fear MP? It's just flexibility IMO.
2) if you invested big money in glass, why are you not pushing that glass to the max? It's like Keeping a 5DmkI just because of fear the 5DmkII may reveal flaws in some glass while missing out on all the rest.

From my experience, all the f2.8 and f1.4 glass from nikon I've tested has been really good on the D800. 14-24,24-70,70-200 all hold up. Fast primes wide open, as expected need to be stopped down for a truly superb image, yet even wide open, they hold up well and the shallow DOF makes edge detail somewhat irrelevant since it is often out of focus with the subject isolated near the middle. There is more detail to squeeze out of these lenses. I guess the D4X may do it?

And no I would not trade down resolution because I'm getting a few things out of it which regardless of the lens used benefit me thanks to the high sample rate.
1) color graduations. the more pixels the smoother the graduations. particularly evident in landscapes.
2) reduction in demosaic/AA induced softness. more pixels minimizes the degradation due to the bayer pattern as perceived in very fine detail.
3) less aliasing stair casing effect on fine detail. Even with AA filters, I'm finding that just like with AA in video games, downsampling yields slightly better looking images.

I think we're going to see 30-40MP become the new baseline for any competitive full frame DSLR with the boundaries being pushed much further since there are benefits beyond just detail when you ovesample an image
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2012/20120524_1-Nikon-D3200.html

You guys worry now but I'm sure once canon has done the inevitable jump to 30-40 MP, EVERYBODY is going to be saying the same thing: It was silly to fear the pixels.  This was the same fear we had when the 20MP canon DSLRs came out and nobody even thinks twice to question that move today.

[JR]

I've been busy using the D800 and 1D MK IV, so I do not yet have much of a a update.  One think I can say, is that it takes a lot more time to edit, due to lengthy processing time for a large number of files, but it is not so much that spending $3K on a new computer wouldn't fix
 
The other thing, is that it makes Nikons lesser lenses look like rubbish, and their best ones look none too good.  Without extreme care, images are no better than the 5D MK III and the kit lens. There are a few other quirks that bother me, and some features that really shine.
 
So far, I'm not in any hurry to dump my Canon stuff and switch to Nikon.  I tried video the other night, but was not impressed with the autofocus.  However, it will autofocus slowly while taking a video, but it loses focus and ends up with fuzzy video. (Even though the Green focus indicator shows its in focus)
 
To be fair, I've only used it for a few thousand shots over a 1 week period, but I can now operate it in the dark, even changing most settings, so I've become pretty proficient with it.
 
I do not have a equivalent of the 35mmL or 135mmL to use with it, in fact, I have stopped using all lenses but the 24-70mm G, its very good, but not up to the 35mmL or 135mm L.

I found a lot of your comments really interesting Mt. Spokane.  I currently shoot with both system as well, however while I tried the D800 I actually have a D4 while I await for my 1DX.  On the video AF I noticed the same as you which is the D800 is a bit slow.  On the D4 however the AF in video is really fast to the point we can actually use it because it does not search for ever and make the video useless!

Now where I was most interested as well was around your comment about your keep rate using the D800, which shares the same AF system as the D4.  Using the latest Nikon glass from their 1.4G series or even the 70-200 2.8 VR II zoom, I too found my keep rate to be low.  I even compared some session I did with a 5D mkIII with my dauther playing and running.  With the 5D mkIII new AF my keep rate even at f2.8 was over 90%.  Doing the same type of shooting with the D4 stopped down at f4 gives me a 50% keep at best.

Am sure there are some user error on part in there, but I just found it interesting that you noted your keep rate as well.  WHile you are using an older Nikkor lens on your side, I get the same conclusion with the latest Nikon glass!

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I found a lot of your comments really interesting Mt. Spokane.  I currently shoot with both system as well, however while I tried the D800 I actually have a D4 while I await for my 1DX.  On the video AF I noticed the same as you which is the D800 is a bit slow.  On the D4 however the AF in video is really fast to the point we can actually use it because it does not search for ever and make the video useless!

Now where I was most interested as well was around your comment about your keep rate using the D800, which shares the same AF system as the D4.  Using the latest Nikon glass from their 1.4G series or even the 70-200 2.8 VR II zoom, I too found my keep rate to be low.  I even compared some session I did with a 5D mkIII with my dauther playing and running.  With the 5D mkIII new AF my keep rate even at f2.8 was over 90%.  Doing the same type of shooting with the D4 stopped down at f4 gives me a 50% keep at best.

Am sure there are some user error on part in there, but I just found it interesting that you noted your keep rate as well.  WHile you are using an older Nikkor lens on your side, I get the same conclusion with the latest Nikon glass!

I never did figure out the keep rate, but even in bright light, when I was trying to do a AFMA, no matter which lens, a lot of them were mis focused.  I think it is a lens issue, and its just that the Nikon lenses I was adjusting had a lot of accuracy variation in the focus.
 
It wasn't horrible, about 80%.  The 5D MK III focusing in very low light is extremely accurate, but a bit slow in very low light.  If only I could see the selected AF point in difficult lighting conditions.

[Jettatore]

consider renting some top end Nikkor glass for a weekend/week?

Like what?  Isn't the 24-70mm f/2.8G glass I own top end?  Its certainly priced like it.  I'm not going to try a 200mm f/2, because I couldn't afford it, and the focal lenght is not one I use. 
 
Nikon's top lenses are very sharp, but no different from Canon when it comes to AF variabiliity.  And, many of the top ones, like the 24-70 f/2.8G  have excessive CA's. 
 
Then, they have nothing comparable to my Canon 100-400mm L, or my 135mm L.!

Why not rent the 14-24mm?  You said you were interested in even purchasing that if you end up keeping the D800.  While you have the thing, it would seem to be worth the small investment to rent at least that lens, if not also some of the highest end primes available from Nikon, even if you feel the Canon equivalents are simply better.  You could even try adapting a Canon lens to the system for some Manual Focus sensor comparisons.