D800 successor - any info, tips, rumors?

Sports

The Buffers utilize chips that are more like RAM than USB drives - very, very different speeds between the two.

Exactly.
USB drives and USB sticks and SD cards and CompactFlash etc. all use "flash" memory which is much slower than RAM - and much less expensive.
But even RAM is cheap these days. Sony A77-II (1200$) has 4Gb RAM.

sevencrossing

But even RAM is cheap these days. Sony A77-II (1200$) has 4Gb RAM.

I think the d800 has about 1 GB,
so room for improvement

proudgeek

I have only one moan about my D800 out fit; it is big and heavy

I found a way to make my D800 smaller and lighter. I bought an MB-D12, attached it the camera, and carried it around for a few weeks. Then yesterday I took it off. My D800 never felt lighter in my hands.

haroldp

So are any improvement Nikon could make to the D800 to make anyone rush out and buy one?

Adding sensor based VR so that all of my non-VR lenses would acquire it would get me to buy in a second.

Cameras like Olympus that use sensor based VR turn it off in favor of lens based VR when such a lens is mounted.

Sony uses sensor based VR and Nikon uses Sony sensors, so this is probably quite feasible.

As I said in a previous post, the proposed 810 improvements to AF and more buffer are enough for me to take the plunge because of the type of shooting I do.

When driving for hours, or worse, flying (and hotels), to get to a shooting location, anything that improves my chances is worth doing, and camera bodies are cheap compared to the real cost of travel.

... H

Photobug

I found a way to make my D800 smaller and lighter. I bought an MB-D12, attached it the camera, and carried it around for a few weeks. Then yesterday I took it off. My D800 never felt lighter in my hands.

What a great idea. I remember when on vacation using the battery grip on my D300 and then returning from vacation removing it and yes...loved the weight reduction. Great recommendation.

WestEndBoy

Yes, I lug around my D800 with the MB-D12 and RRS L quick release. When I take those off, it feels like my Coolpix A.

So I never fret the weight. It is all relative. Just remember that going on a diet for two weeks will likely have a bigger effect.

kanuck

I just played with a pro shooter's Sony A7 last night at a banquet and man was it ever fun. He had the external view finder and hand-grip as well. It felt lighter than my Leica M9 and almost toy like. Definitely a go to camera for hiking or extended travel. I hear this new Nikon D810 that will be announced this Thursday will be lighter by about 150 grams, which I think is a considerable unexpected bonus I think...

TaoTeJared

So are any improvement Nikon could make to the D800 to make anyone rush out and buy one?

For me I look at what the Dynamic Range drop is, noise "smudgery", resolution (one of the lowest items), AF performance, frame rate, etc. needs to be 50% better for me to take a serious look. That would mean a DR and noise of the D4s, keep the resolution, and all of the "Etc.s" need to add up big time on improvements. There just is very little it can't handle and does at such a high level. The one exception is very low light (shooting above 3200 constantly) with a very high quality and large DR with saturated colors, sports FPS and the Connectivity built in web server thing.

I do think if Nikon re-did their menu layout, customization, custom buttons, better saved custom banks, improved auto iso controls, (basically look at what Canon does) and things along those lines, that is what improvement really is. Wifi or the D4/s connectivity built in web server thing would be very nice. Nikon is just plain moronic when it comes to the lack of wifi - I just don't get it. I want an "export to phone" type of editing function that really drops the size to a small image that a iphone can handle. There are times I really want to share images immediately without a computer. The D800 files (even small jpeg) are too big for a phone to really handle.

TaoTeJared

But even RAM is cheap these days. Sony A77-II (1200$) has 4Gb RAM.

I think the d800 has about 1 GB,
so room for improvement

actually I believe it is about 256mb. I can get about 9-10 shots in raw when my buffer is filled.

I had not seen 4gb on Sony's A77 II. That seems awful high. That would equal 166 raw shots before the camera came to a halt. I'm wondering if it is a video thing or a "internal memory" where the buffer dumps to a flash memory bank. I'm guessing that is more what it is, rather than actual buffer memory.

donaldejose

TTJ: "needs to be 50% better for me to take a serious look" Good rule of thumb.

scoobysmak

Since I did not get a D800/E I will probably get the D810. If I had a D800 I wouldn't see me taking the plunge. I I just want to see the true release and find out the true specs. I guess waiting for the D400 my speculation meter got pegged.

If the DF had the D800/D4 focusing I probably would have gotten one but it didn't. I understand why it wasn't included, a D4 for half the price who wouldn't get one if you were looking in that direction. I did get a D7100 and will probably give it to my wife if a D400 comes about and I like it. I have used it a lot more than I thought I would but still get cramped hands after using it for more than an hour.

My only question will be some of the subtle features not mentioned or really brought up might be worth an upgrade, like better moire suppression.

Ade

I think the d800 has about 1 GB,
so room for improvement

actually I believe it is about 256mb. I can get about 9-10 shots in raw when my buffer is filled.

It has to be more than that. Nikon quotes 17 frames for 14-bit lossless NEF (at 41.3 MB) so that is more than 700 MB worth of image data. They tested with an 80MB/s card, which suggests a buffer size of at least 512 MB.

Writing to an internal flash bank would make no sense at all. I suspect the 4GB Sony figure if correct refers to total RAM, not the buffer size which would be some fraction of total RAM. The D600 in comparison only has 1GB total RAM.

RAM is fairly cheap these days... the cost difference between 1GB parts and 4GB parts is probably $30-$40 in BOM. Above 4GB the computing architecture becomes an issue since the EXPEED is a 32-bit processor.

Ironheart

The real "cost" of DRAM in a camera is battery life, keeping high-speed RAM refreshed uses power. More RAM more power.

Vipmediastar_JZ

If the DF had the D800/D4 focusing I probably would have gotten one but it didn't. I understand why it wasn't included, a D4 for half the price who wouldn't get one if you were looking in that direction.

I agree 100% that the DF should Have received the focusing of either those two cameras.
However Now that I have a Nikkor 55 2.8 Macro Ais with the focsing it "doesn't Matter".
If it is used how Nikon envisioned it, with manual lenses then adding the higher end focusing would be mute but they should have included it anyways.

PB_PM

I just played with a pro shooter's Sony A7 last night at a banquet and man was it ever fun. He had the external view finder and hand-grip as well. It felt lighter than my Leica M9 and almost toy like. Definitely a go to camera for hiking or extended travel. I hear this new Nikon D810 that will be announced this Thursday will be lighter by about 150 grams, which I think is a considerable unexpected bonus I think...

Just remember to bring a boat load of batteries (and a solar charger), because the battery life of mirrorless cameras is terrible compared to the D800.

Ade

Ok I just looked at some D800 mainboard pictures and it looks to me that the D800 has 1.5 GB total RAM. So Nikon could definitely bump the buffer size significantly if they wanted to.

@Ironheart All else equal, the main factor for RAM power consumption is the number of modules, not the size of the RAM. E.g., the D800 seems to use 4 modules (2x 256MB and 2x 512MB). They could easily use 4x 512MB or even 4x 1GB with only a minimal (< 10%) increase of RAM power consumption, and even a smaller increase in total power consumption.

Anyway, for me the size of the D800's buffer is more than adequate. What I'm hoping for is improved ISO performance.

The D4S supposedly has improved ISO over the D4 but it's not clear to me if that improvement is for only for JPEGs or for RAW files as well. I only shoot RAW so it will be interesting to see if the D810's RAW ISO performance is improved or not.

ErikssonRobin

I hope they include the same video functionality like the one of D4s (no external recording issues together with highest quality and having to remove your memory cards, auto-ISO during video shooting, 60 fps and higher bit-rates).

Otherwise I'm really excited about this new model. There may not be any major reasons for current D800 owners to upgrade but the "second-hand" sites are getting flooded by D800 every week now in Sweden.
Personally I will preorder one as soon it becomes available. I remember when the D800 was released and it was almost impossible for non NPS/NPU members to get one in the first months up here at least.

kanuck

Just remember to bring a boat load of batteries (and a solar charger), because the battery life of mirrorless cameras is terrible compared to the D800.


Yes and is it just me or are Sony accessories really pricey? You would need 3 batteries in order to complete a shoot compared to 1 or maybe 1 1/2 for the D800....

Msmoto

Thread continues here:

http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/3006/d810-all-discussions-questions#Item_1