D810, All Discussions, Questions

Rx4Photo

@JonMcGuffin,
You make very good points. A very big part of my decision stems from the pure fact that I don't want to spend the extra money. I forget which well known professional photographer said this but I recall reading that he always upgrades his cameras to the latest models for similar reasons. That being, whenever he goes to sell his "old" camera it's still modern enough for someone to still want to buy it and he won't lose so much money in the process. I've thought about that over and over again. We'll just have to see. I have been known to ckick "buy" and plead temporary insanity... )

Symphotic

... I have been known to click "buy" and plead temporary insanity... )

In my case it's permanent.

JonMcGuffin

Think about how in a month or so, Adobe will most likely get their D810 support completely accurate and current. How B&H will start to offer that 4% rebate ($120), and the flood of used D800's we see now in the marketplace will have been swooped up which means (maybe) the best time to pull the trigger on a D800 to D810 upgrade might be yet to come..

You can thank me for spending other people's money!

Jon

JonMcGuffin

@PitchBlack - I don't disagree with any of your reasoning and my commentary was more speculative than anything. Obviously the used market is going to vary and certain factors will drive up and down the price of the market. I haven't done any serious market research as to what a used D800 fetches now but Rx4Photo had said he thought the cost to upgrade was going to be $1,100 to $1,400 so I took that for granted to be essentially true (at least for him).

I, of course, agree nobody can eyeball a shot and tell the difference between the two. Sometimes upgrades are done for reasons other than what might make practical sense as well. What somebody wants isn't always in line with what they really need. This seems particularly true in the hobby/enthusiast world. Life is short, and sometimes splurging for the sake of doing so is part of the fun. Just as having a conversation about "to upgrade or not upgrade" is. If I had a D800 I wouldn't upgrade or sell; that's just me. But to each their own.

henrik1963

I think it is a bit funny if a former D800 owner tries to spread the cost of owning the D810 over 4 to 5 years I´ll bet that the same argument was put forward two years ago when he/she got the D800/e :-)

I will bet that a good deal of us suffer more from gear lust than real need - I have been known to suffer from that too :-)

The only real pro I know who makes good money taking pictures have said: "As long as my camera does not prevent me from taking the pictures I want I am not upgrading". To him a camera is just a tool. He is a Canon shooter - maybe that is why he can stay so calm about new releases :-)

Golf007sd

I think Nikon got a lot of good feedback from its D800/D800e owners...pro & photo enthusiasts and the like; and incorporated into D810, which does provide a good foundation to consider an upgrade. Hence, larger buffer (huge bonus), better shutter and sound (great for those that shoot in venues that needed it i.e wedding photographers), faster processor (a no brainer), more FPS (due to the faster CPU & buffer, and D800/e accessories (ie batteries and battery grip), keeps the MP, as well as the price the (D800e).

Symphotic

)

.... There ain't nobody on this planet who could eyeball a shot and say "yup, that's an 810, not an 800.'

Upgrading from a D800 is just plain unwise and stems from a psychological need to have the latest gear. The benefits are illusory. This camera will not make your pictures better noticeably better 99% of the time. ...

I took a look at resolution (how much I can crop for printing--the practical application for me) and there is no difference between a D800 and a D810. Sharpness seems the same, and the higher ISO settings are questionable: they are there, but you can get the same settings with a Df, and settings don't translate to IQ.

I don't speak as a full-time pro--my day job is imaging hardware--but after shooting a few hundred shots through a D810 on the job yesterday and some time exploring the camera today I have concluded that unless you need the quieter shutter, faster continuous high mode speed, bigger buffer, or have a marketing reason, there is nothing that makes the D810 an essential upgrade from a D800. I'm not going to bother posting side-by-side images: they are so similar it wouldn't be worth the effort. Maybe better photographers can eke out better IQ from a D810 than the D800, so I'll leave it to them to post comparison photos.

I've bought the D810 for marketing reasons that may be unique to me. It isn't so much a need to have the latest gear because of some illusory improvement in my photography from better gear. I used an F2 for 25 years, never bothering with the F3, F4, F5 or F6. But starting in 2011 we began putting still camera systems in the hands of military and law enforcement customers, so I need to know the latest hardware.

As for spending your money on glass, good glass remains anyone's second best investment. Photography school is probably the best. I was surprised to see how little today's cell-phone camera crowd knows about photography when I started training law enforcement personnel. LEOs require the potential performance pro-level gear (a fuzzy photo in court will not help get a conviction), but very few of them are willing to take the time to learn the basics.

Rx4Photo

As I have said MANY times... the quality of your glass will affect overall sharpness and image quality WAY more than some piddling sum you get from the upgrade.
Spend your money on glass or on a nice plane trip to some place where you can get really pretty pictures.

... and this was factored into my reasoning. Although this discussion isn't about glass, I've been fortunate enough to spring for, and be gifted very good glass one of which includes the Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar. Honestly, did I "need" it? No. I wanted one Zeiss lens and that's the one I bought. When I nail focus all I can say is "Damn!!" I just can't make myself believe a D810 can give me much more in terms of image quality.

Symphotic

)

As for spending your money on glass, good glass remains anyone's second best investment. Photography school is probably the best.

I've never been to photography school... but then again, few people have fathers who had a darkroom and would take them out shooting and talking about composition and all the mechanics involved in taking photos. i think I developed my first photo when i was in kindergarten.

Some, like you, had fathers to teach them; others have talent. Then there are people like me who need lessons to know which way to point the darn things...

haroldp

Even mediocre glass can be quite good under good conditions. Nikons 'kit' lenses are excellent at F8 at normal or wide focal lengths.

What you are paying for with 'pro' glass is being excellent at wider f-stops and all focal lengths.

... H

PB_PM

Even mediocre glass can be quite good under good conditions. Nikons 'kit' lenses are excellent at F8 at normal or wide focal lengths.

What you are paying for with 'pro' glass is being excellent at wider f-stops and all focal lengths.

... H

You are also paying for superior control of chromatic aberrations (f1.4 primes aside), flare resistance, contrast, colour rendition, build quality and handling. Of course most of these things will only be obvious to the knowledgable user, and picky clients.

None the less, why buy a camera with a high resolution sensor and then put a lens in front of it that cannot even take advantage of it? Most of that consumer glass can hardly give enough resolution to handle the detail that the Nikon Df can produce, let alone the D800/D800E/D810.

haroldp

Even mediocre glass can be quite good under good conditions. Nikons 'kit' lenses are excellent at F8 at normal or wide focal lengths.

What you are paying for with 'pro' glass is being excellent at wider f-stops and all focal lengths.

... H

This has not been my experience. Sharpness may be the simiar, but color is almost always very different. Cheap lenses are much more likely to give you washed-out looking colors. There are also large differences in distortion. We're just going to have to disagree strongly on this point.

We do not disagree that strongly, I was talking about sharpness, I have tested, but do not use any 'cheap' lenses in my photographs, and have not compared color, so I have no basis to dispute you on this point.

You are absolutely correct about distortion, I am so used to correcting this (and CR) digitally, even with 'pro' glass (I have lens correction as a default in my workflow), that I tend to discount it's importance, but I can understand why others take it more seriously.

After any kind of distortion correction, whether for optical or perspective reasons I have found it beneficial to re-size the image (I usually take the large dimension up by 8 pixels), which forces a re-sampling, otherwise , rendering can become strange in some processors.

Regards .... H

Rx4Photo

@Vipmediastar_JZ, just to clarify my statement, I didn't intend to mean that the images are too sharp. Trust me, the sharper the better. It's just that I've noticed while thumbing through some high fashion magazines that some of the photos are either shot or processed to be slightly out of focus. Depends on what the particular ad is for. Most are extremely sharp, especially those that are likely shot in studio, probably with medium format gear. Many of those that are shot on location often look no sharper than what the D800 can produce.

JonMcGuffin

i don't think that the photos in magazines are slightly out of focus, i think it's a matter of print resolution. if you look at Vogue Magazine for the iPad, for instance, I think you'll find the photos much sharper.

I've often wondered a same thing in regards to so many photos I see in print that are just painfully soft. I too think it's mostly the printing process but I do see sharp images too so it's unclear. Makeup ads always appear sharp. Maybe the "higher" end guys don't focus on sharpness as much as they do style and lighting!

Vipmediastar_JZ

Maybe they use macro lens for the makeup shots and good lighting too?

My wife is into the Makeup business and everytime she goes to Sephora I study the photos while I'm there.

Sorry about my previous comment. I was in a hotel with bad wifi and bad cell reception and a crying baby that I couldn't compose or re-edit my comment so I asked for it to be deleted.

Photobug

Once in a great while I go to KR's web site to see what has been posted. Look what he says about the D810. This is a 180 degree flip for Ken. He has always called the Canon 5D Mk III as the best DSLR.

World's Best DSLR?

The Canon 5D Mk III has held the title since March 2012, but having used my D810 for the past several days, I think the D810 may soon take the crown.

This is because the D810 does many things extremely well, and adds facial-recognition Auto AF-Area select that actually works. The 5D Mk III has none of this. The real trade off between the two for working pros, as opposed to home-bound spec readers, is that the 5D Mk III has three full-camera preset memories (as opposed to the D810's crummy menu banks), while the D810 focuses itself (the 5D Mk III has poor Auto AF-Area select; I always have to select manually).

The D810 is super smooth, fast and quiet, while the D800 and D800E were clunky, noisy and slow. The old D800 and D800E had lots of pixels, but that was about it, while the D810 is a complete package of excellence.
===========================================
Lots of time I don't agree with his perspective but this one I like. Don't want to start a "bash" KR stream of messages, just wanted to bring to everyone attention his reversal.

PB_PM

Wait you missed part of his review... "Until the 5D MKIV comes out."

haroldp

KR seems to believe that everyones priorities line up with his, and that thy shift in lock step with his priorities.

Sites like Thom Hogan, describe the properties and let the reader determine which matter to them

... H

Golf007sd

JonMcGuffin

Looks likes a fairly substantial all around win for the D810. Seems Canon could probably easily incorporate some better tech to keep up in most areas but until they redevelop a new sensor, it seems pretty clear the Nikon sensor tech is just wiping the floor with Canon right now.

JJ_SO

His reversal is stupid. Can I just say that the reasons that KR chooses for one being better than the other are reasons that a moron would choose? Because bless his heart, image quality is completely irrelevant.

@PitchBlack, don't waste your time with commenting on morons Rent a D810 instead. I'd be not very surprised if you'd start thinking about exchanging your D800s. AF is so much more snappier, IQ slightly better and dynamics also increased. No worries about buffer, +40 RAW+JPG in DX mode at 7fps with AF-C. So far nothing is worse but some things are definitely improved! LR's new version is now supporting D810 files, sorry, no more excuses not to try it. I liked it very much.

8->

framer

This is me playing, testing, pushing the d810 in my backyard. I felt like Elmer Fudd hunting that Bug's bunny.

This was an 800mm setup, D810 400mm f2.8 AFSII w/TC20EIII set on a RRS 34L with a King Cobra head from Kirk.
Exposer was 1/1250 f5.,6 wide open, ISO 1600 and I'm using the camera shutter release, no special MLU or shutter release cord. was used. I used the new NX-D to process the RAW to jpeg.

Full frame image for reference.

100% crop of eye.

I was just seeing where my starting point is using that TC20EIII with this new body.

This was a typical shot picked at random from the 95% that I took.

framer

SquamishPhoto

$3300 also buys you a used 200mm f2 VR1. Food for thought.

sandi_ece

Sorry for asking a question which is little off-topic.
Did anyone happen to know the status of pre-orders to D810 in B&H?
It was "In Stock" a few days ago in B&H. Not it is back to "pre-orders".
Is anyone of you waiting in this pre-order queue at B&H? How long?

Symphotic

Quoting the video review above:

"For any sort of commercial work you end up shooting to crop...you end up shooting wider than you really want to, and that means you need lots of megapixels."

I'm happy to hear it's not just me. Also, I'm happy to hear that somebody else thinks ISO 64 is useful.

The reviewers missed the point of on-camera flash. First, it is actually quite useful to have it for when you want it, but also it acts as a commander for CLS, which I use all the time. They also didn't comment on the eyepiece shutter on the back of the D810, not present on the MkIII.

Another quote, maybe more important:

"The gear does make a difference, but it makes...5, 10 percent of the difference."