Please help a noob with D800 question...

digitalman4242 · Nov 23, 2012

I have read a few reviews on the D800. Biggest complaint I see is the 4fps shooting speed. But from what I am understanding. This only effects burst mode. This doesn't have anything to do with shooting in low light right? as far as focus speed in low light. I'm debating on upgrading my D7000 in a few months because the biggest two drawbacks I have is it sometimes hunts in low light and some weddings I shot lately had extremely poor lighting and I had to shoot at ISO 3200 and I wasn't happy with the results. Im leaning toward the D800. I was going to get a D700 but can't justify $1600 on a used camera with no warranty.

ianbramham · Nov 23, 2012

The 4 fps rate has nothing at all to do with the low light performance of the D800 which is really excellent and you should find that it is much better than your current D7000 in that regard.

Ian
Fine Art Photography Website: http://ianbramham.com/

Pradipta Dutta · Nov 23, 2012

digitalman4242 said:
digitalman4242 wrote:

I have read a few reviews on the D800. Biggest complaint I see is the 4fps shooting speed. But from what I am understanding. This only effects burst mode. This doesn't have anything to do with shooting in low light right? as far as focus speed in low light.

That is correct. 4 fps only refers to the number of frames shot in one second in a burst mode. This has nothing to do with focus acquisition or tracking speed.

digitalman4242 said:
I'm debating on upgrading my D7000 in a few months because the biggest two drawbacks I have is it sometimes hunts in low light and some weddings I shot lately had extremely poor lighting and I had to shoot at ISO 3200 and I wasn't happy with the results. Im leaning toward the D800.

The focus module of D800 (Multi-CAM 3500 FX) is a notch above the one in D7000 and comparable to the one in D4. Technically, they should be exactly the same but it is often reported that D4's focus module is slightly better. However, it is clearly better than those in any other Nikon camera in the market today.

digitalman4242 said:
I was going to get a D700 but can't justify $1600 on a used camera with no warranty.

Used D700 with fairly low shutter actuations (about 10K) should be selling lower than $1,600 based on what I have seen at Craig's List. Based on what I have seen, they are selling at about $1,400.

ahiggins333 · Nov 23, 2012

digitalman4242 said:
digitalman4242 wrote:

I was going to get a D700 but can't justify $1600 on a used camera with no warranty.

Just a suggestion, you may want to re-look at the economics. You can find used D700's with reasonable actuations for $1400 to $1500. Compared to a new D800 with 1 year warranty you're looking at 1/2 to just under 1/2 the cost. The D700 is rated for 150,000 actuations and even if you ended up having to replace the shutter within the first year for $300-$400 you come out significantly ahead. I'd suggest checking out the FredMiranda photo gear buy / sell forum. That's the route I went and very happy compared to the D7000.

Not trying to persuade you away from a D800, just trying to help. The economics worked for me.

Biological_Viewfinder · Nov 23, 2012

The lenses that you own can also cause poor AF aquisition in low-light.
The D800 files are ENORMOUS!!! And no matter what equipment fiends here will say, your computer will probably have to be upgraded to be able to manage them at the same speed as you are used to. They are discernably slower in every regard to my previous camera and my computer is still quite nice. It has some minor issues, but it's probably a typical machine. I have an i7, 12Gig RAM, a 580 vid card, and a good MOBO and Power supply. ANYONE that sees me working older files and D800 files can easily see that the D800 is beginning to slow down, sometimes a lot (applying a filter in photoshop brings up a time-to-completion-bar).
You will want the best lenses if you don't already have them.
Total cost: 3,000 + 1,000 + 6,000 = $10,000

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Believe me, the camera body is only the first step when it comes to the D800.

Doublehelix · Nov 23, 2012

Biological_Viewfinder said:
Biological_Viewfinder wrote:-
Believe me, the camera body is only the first step when it comes to the D800.

Absolutely! My old Quad core, 8 GB PC barely chugs along with the D800 files. I knew I was going to have to upgrade my storage capacity, that was a given, but I didn't really think about the load it was going to put on the processing power.

rinsephotographic · Nov 23, 2012

Doublehelix said:
Doublehelix wrote:

Doublehelix said:

Biological_Viewfinder wrote:-
Believe me, the camera body is only the first step when it comes to the D800.

Click to expand...

Absolutely! My old Quad core, 8 GB PC barely chugs along with the D800 files. I knew I was going to have to upgrade my storage capacity, that was a given, but I didn't really think about the load it was going to put on the processing power.

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Please help a noob with D800 question...

digitalman4242

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ianbramham

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Pradipta Dutta

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ahiggins333

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Biological_Viewfinder

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Doublehelix

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rinsephotographic

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