Why can't I use the optical viewfinder with Video?

[Marsu42]

Btw here's some information on this from our favorite reviewer http://kenrockwell.com/nikon/d800/vs-d800e.htm

Of course, what he basically said was the 800E is for pixel counting nut and the 800 for working pro

As KR usually labels everything beyond midrange amateur level as utterly useless, this is high praise indeed, and he goes on writing...

"The D800E is for tweaks who care more about pixels than pictures, but that's most of my readers! Yes, I'm sure the D800E will be much sharper at 100% on-screen when shot by an expert under controlled conditions"

... which means if it's most of his readers, it's 99% of the readers around here

 

[Zv]

Hang on a minute - doesn't the AA filter actually serve a purpose other than just smudge our images? Doesn't it reduce moire and aliasing?

Indeed, that's why aa filter is spelled "anti-aliasing"

Without it you would have to deal with that in post.

Probably yes, but the point is: only if required and only in that particular area! And moiré effects on full res stills should be very far in between, maybe 1% of shots in 10% of the image?, that means that for the others you're getting sub-optimal stills because the moiré effect in video is much more ubiquitous.

With your argument Canon could also force the camera to apply all other image "enhancements" to raw like lens profiles, de-vignetting, CA correction, nice poppy colors, ... but also all at the cost that if you don't want these in post you cannot get rid of them. If you shoot raw it should be as raw as possible, postprocessing software is always better at doing the job, even if more time and work consuming.

It was a rhetorical question. I know what the AA filter does. As someone who shoots buildings I'd much rather not have to deal with removing moire, which Neuro has kindly demonstrated as being rather difficult.

Also I don't know about you but removing moire from several hundred wedding photos of a brides dress might drive me insane.

 

[Orangutan]

"The D800E is for tweaks who care more about pixels than pictures, but that's most of my readers! Yes, I'm sure the D800E will be much sharper at 100% on-screen when shot by an expert under controlled conditions"

... which means if it's most of his readers, it's 99% of the readers around here

I think this may be the key sub-quote here:

when shot by an expert under controlled conditions

This means studio or landscape using tripod, where you can anticipate and avoid moiré at capture, rather than (fail to) correct it in post. The numbers in this market segment will be very small. A camera without AA filter will also incur a substantial support cost since all the newbs who don't understand what they're buying will return their new purchases as defective (my buddy's iPhone doesn't do this!) On the plus side, that means more available from the refurb store!

My guess is that camera vendors could only get away with such a specialty product if it's so expensive that the clueless newb buyer would be embarrassed to admit he (probably a he) made a mistake in buying it.

 

[Marsu42]

It was a rhetorical question. I know what the AA filter does.

Sorry, I missed that (it's harder in writing, esp. in a foreign language).

As someone who shoots buildings I'd much rather not have to deal with removing moire, which Neuro has kindly demonstrated as being rather difficult. Also I don't know about you but removing moire from several hundred wedding photos of a brides dress might drive me insane.

Fair enough - I freely admit I don't (and cannot) know how severe the effect of a weaker or missing aa filter is, and I can only read about it in the reviews of the d800e. Btw here's also an interesting part from the dpreview review of the d7100 regarding the removal:

"In short, even if you were willing to put the best glass available on the D7100 and shoot at a wide aperture, you're not likely, even with a lot of effort, to leverage visible benefits of the OLPF removal. While this may be a bit of a disappointment for some, the very good news is that to date we've seen no practical downside to the filter's removal for still photography. It is essentially neutral with regard to image quality."

There are also some interesting sample shots in this link: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d7100/18