D800 & D800E RAW files for download and comparison

Started Mar 16, 2012 | Discussions thread
RicksAstro
RicksAstro Veteran Member • Posts: 3,879
Color aliasing 200% crop

I took these NEF files and processed them through CS5 everything at defaults except no sharpening nor noise reduction of any kind. I did bring up the D800's exposure a little to equalize since it metered a little low.

In the image below, the left pane is a 200% crop straight from the D800E...amazing sharpness, but loads of color artifacts due to the lack of AA filter I assume.

The right-most pane is the straight out D800. Definitely less sharp, but very few (still still a few) color artifacts.

The center pane is the D800's image with a 46% 0.8 pixel sharpening to try to make it look as sharp as the D800E's. Looks pretty good and no color artifacts.

The trade-off in my mind for these cameras is noise vs. artifacts. I think you can sharpen the D800's output and emulate the sharpness that you get from the D800E for all intents and purposes. But then you make the noise more apparent by doing so. But the odds of getting aliasing and moire artifacts are greatly reduced.

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