My D800E has just arrived

wombat779 said:

wombat779 wrote:

wombat779 said:

yray wrote:

There has been a number of posts about needing different lens fine tune adjustments on a D800 in artificial and natural light. This might be your issue with FoCal.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. I was very careful to exactly duplicate my lighting conditions between sessions, and still got wildly different results. The issue at the time seemed to be that FoCal's contrast detection algorithm was not good (e.g., I could clearly see with my own eyes that an image was badly out of focus, but FoCal was giving a high sharpness score to that image). In particular, red/purple axial CA seemed to make FoCal think images were sharp. The inability to do mirror lockup was also a big problem, since it meant that some lenses NEVER produced sharp enough images with my setup for FoCal to use. I'll also note that in the 2 or 3 days of using it, I probably experienced 10 or 15 crashes in the software (often requiring several attempts to get a test to complete), which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. This was a few weeks ago, so maybe things are somehow improved now.

As to your point, though, I generally agree that the variables involved in AF (light, distance, zoom, subject etc.) probably make fine-tuning in advance a bit of a waste of time unless gross errors are obvious. To me, AF doesn't seem so precise that there is a single "magic" fine tune value for each lens that will always work. I think the better approach is just to go out shooting, see if you have a repeated issue with your common subjects (e.g., focus is regularly on the nose instead of the eye, etc), then make small corrections as needed. That way you arrive at a value that works the best for your shooting as a whole, rather than a fine-tuning session that optimizes sharpness for one particular scenario that doesn't reflect your real usage. Just my thoughts anyhow.

Click to expand...

With each update of FoCal Pro, I have decidedly not like using this program. I cannot get repeatable results. It is not stable on my MacBook Pro 10.8.2.

Horshack's DotTune method is easy and the results makes sense to me.

Regards,

Rather than open a new thread, I hope the OP doesn't mind mine posting my little initial experience. Got my D800e ser# 3008xxx on Friday, did a 2hrs shot in Central Park, NY today, with a new 24-120/4 lens. It was a sunny day. These are my personal experiences. Please don't generalize to other Nikon products, and definitely not to other D800/e, in particular. A few of my observations.


1. Very good resolution.

2. Very good DR.

3. Love the focus movement wheel at the back, as I almost move the single focus point for every shot.

4. "Weak" body built.

5. Looks extremely "fragile" socket slots for plug-ins. I will by-pass using any until I am forced to.

6. Greenish-tint when pictures display on back LCD.


The following snaps (not photos!) were shot NEF(RAW), convert directly using CS6 ACR. Besides recovering some highlights/shadows and resized for web posting, no other pp.

1.


The front small building is backing the sun, good DR.

2.


As I walked, I rotated the lens hood many times by accident. Soon, I will lose it. Now, is that vignetting, or in-properly mounted lens hood? I don't have a clue.




3. I took three pictures, focusing on the window hang-outs, on the left, middle, and right, at 120mm f4. This picture is focused on the left. Then I compare the three at 100%. Don't see "distinguishable" differences in focus. Rather than doing cropping, and posting, I will reserve my judgement after getting my 50/1.4g, and do some f/1.4 shooting, and compare.



AF Performance?

To me, what is most important is: is this a tool "I can use"? No, I am NOT looking for a perfect camera without weaknesses. So far, I warn myself be careful with the camera and lens construction quality. And this is not a camera to use in challenging weather conditions. Otherwise, a nice tool. AF Performance? Will try to do further field shootings to comfort myself.

Thank you for viewing.

Steven

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

4. "Weak" body built.

5. Looks extremely "fragile" socket slots for plug-ins. I will by-pass using any until I am forced to.

Click to expand...

Congrats on your new camera! That said, I can't help but wonder if you are letting internet chatter cloud your judgment. For example, I am not sure how the socket can "look" fragile. At least on mine, the socket doesn't move or anything and seems as solid as I can possibly imagine. Similarly, what about the body build appears "weak" or not for "use in challenging weather conditions?" The thing is made of essentially solid magnesium alloy. I haven't heard of any common failures due to the body breaking (except for the battery door falling off). I also haven't heard any common reports of failures due to weather conditions. Other than the full fledged pro cams (D4, 1DX, etc.), I am not aware of any other cameras with appreciably better weather sealing. In short, my suggestion is just to make sure you are giving the camera a fair shake and not pre-judging. In any event, enjoy your camera!

wombat779 said:

wombat779 wrote:

wombat779 said:

Steven-T wrote:

4. "Weak" body built.

5. Looks extremely "fragile" socket slots for plug-ins. I will by-pass using any until I am forced to.

Click to expand...

Congrats on your new camera! That said, I can't help but wonder if you are letting internet chatter cloud your judgment. For example, I am not sure how the socket can "look" fragile. At least on mine, the socket doesn't move or anything and seems as solid as I can possibly imagine. Similarly, what about the body build appears "weak" or not for "use in challenging weather conditions?" The thing is made of essentially solid magnesium alloy. I haven't heard of any common failures due to the body breaking (except for the battery door falling off). I also haven't heard any common reports of failures due to weather conditions. Other than the full fledged pro cams (D4, 1DX, etc.), I am not aware of any other cameras with appreciably better weather sealing. In short, my suggestion is just to make sure you are giving the camera a fair shake and not pre-judging. In any event, enjoy your camera!

Click to expand...

IF you have a D800/e, check the battery compartment door, and other gaps, between moving parts, for "weather resistance capabilities". I would say the D800e "weather resistant" is no better the 5D2. (Oh, no, not another debate.)


As to the socket slots, open the cover, and e.g. look at the USB socket. Then you know what I refer to. I waited until now to get the D800e. Now, as long as the AF performance is "good enough" (so far it seems), I am fine.


Enough said. Best.

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

Steven-T said:

IF you have a D800/e, check the battery compartment door, and other gaps, between moving parts, for "weather resistance capabilities". I would say the D800e "weather resistant" is no better the 5D2. (Oh, no, not another debate.)

Click to expand...

As to the socket slots, open the cover, and e.g. look at the USB socket. Then you know what I refer to. I waited until now to get the D800e. Now, as long as the AF performance is "good enough" (so far it seems), I am fine.

Click to expand...

I have a D800E and used to have a 5D2. To me, the D800E seems better built by some margin. Also, my battery compartment door has a rubber gasket around the rim. Seems unlikely water would get in there. I also have seen plenty of reports of 5D2s being killed by a light misting, whereas quite a few have reported drenched D800s with no ill effects (though still not recommended). My USB socket seems just fine and solid, and no different than any other micro-USB socket I have ever seen. In any event, no problem that we disagree and again, the key is that you enjoy your new beast!

wombat779 said:

wombat779 wrote:

wombat779 said:

Steven-T wrote:

wombat779 said:

IF you have a D800/e, check the battery compartment door, and other gaps, between moving parts, for "weather resistance capabilities". I would say the D800e "weather resistant" is no better the 5D2. (Oh, no, not another debate.)

Click to expand...

As to the socket slots, open the cover, and e.g. look at the USB socket. Then you know what I refer to. I waited until now to get the D800e. Now, as long as the AF performance is "good enough" (so far it seems), I am fine.

Click to expand...

I have a D800E and used to have a 5D2. To me, the D800E seems better built by some margin. Also, my battery compartment door has a rubber gasket around the rim. Seems unlikely water would get in there. I also have seen plenty of reports of 5D2s being killed by a light misting, whereas quite a few have reported drenched D800s with no ill effects (though still not recommended). My USB socket seems just fine and solid, and no different than any other micro-USB socket I have ever seen. In any event, no problem that we disagree and again, the key is that you enjoy your new beast!

Click to expand...

It seems your D800e has a (much?) better built quality than mine. As I state explicitly earlier, please don't generalize my experiences to other D800/e.

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

Rather than open a new thread, I hope the OP doesn't mind mine posting my little initial experience. Got my D800e ser# 3008xxx on Friday, did a 2hrs shot in Central Park, NY today, with a new 24-120/4 lens. It was a sunny day. These are my personal experiences. Please don't generalize to other Nikon products, and definitely not to other D800/e, in particular. A few of my observations.

1. Very good resolution.

2. Very good DR.

3. Love the focus movement wheel at the back, as I almost move the single focus point for every shot.

4. "Weak" body built.

5. Looks extremely "fragile" socket slots for plug-ins. I will by-pass using any until I am forced to.

6. Greenish-tint when pictures display on back LCD.

The following snaps (not photos!) were shot NEF(RAW), convert directly using CS6 ACR. Besides recovering some highlights/shadows and resized for web posting, no other pp.

1.


The front small building is backing the sun, good DR.

2.


As I walked, I rotated the lens hood many times by accident. Soon, I will lose it. Now, is that vignetting, or in-properly mounted lens hood? I don't have a clue.

3. I took three pictures, focusing on the window hang-outs, on the left, middle, and right, at 120mm f4. This picture is focused on the left. Then I compare the three at 100%. Don't see "distinguishable" differences in focus. Rather than doing cropping, and posting, I will reserve my judgement after getting my 50/1.4g, and do some f/1.4 shooting, and compare.


AF Performance?

To me, what is most important is: is this a tool "I can use"? No, I am NOT looking for a perfect camera without weaknesses. So far, I warn myself be careful with the camera and lens construction quality. And this is not a camera to use in challenging weather conditions. Otherwise, a nice tool. AF Performance? Will try to do further field shootings to comfort myself.

Click to expand...

Hope you enjoy your camera, but those snap shots above could have been taken with any point and shoots. The tool is as important as what can you do with it.

lanefAU said:

lanefAU wrote:

lanefAU said:

Steven-T wrote:
The following snaps (not photos!) were shot NEF(RAW), convert directly using CS6 ACR. Besides recovering some highlights/shadows and resized for web posting, no other pp.
1.


The front small building is backing the sun, good DR.
Hope you enjoy your camera, but those snap shots above could have been taken with any point and shoots. The tool is as important as what can you do with it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Obviously you have much better skills in using p&s than me. My humble opinion is that skill is more important the tool, as long as we have a "suitable" tool at hand.

I think I wasted too much time on unproductive gear talk. Time to hide.

I got mine a couple weeks ago from Amazon. Serial number = 3010xxx. I think they just sell a lot fewer of the D800E vs. D800.

wombat779 said:

wombat779 wrote:

wombat779 said:

Tatito´s wrote:

I have to do more tests. I was runnung FoCal in my old Imac with 4Mega of RAM and received a message "out of memory ". But the finetune was -10 in the center, -18 in the left and -17 in the right side.

Click to expand...

FYI, I have had TERRIBLE results with FoCal, and pretty much treat it as a waste of $70. I spent a whole evening "fine tuning" all my lenses, and it recommended various adjustment values and gave them an "excellent" confidence level. I was surprised, because up until that point I had been shooting with 0 adjustment and getting great results. Well, as soon as I went out in the field, I found that EVERY lens with an adjustment was seriously out of focus. After an hour of dealing with it, I returned my lenses all back to 0 adjustment and everything was fine again.

I spent the next evening trying again to see what was going wrong. To my surprise, Focal generated completely different suggested values than the first time, again with an "excellent" confidence level. To try and figure out what was going on, I had it dump the raw images so I could inspect them, and I have no idea what its algorithm is doing. It seemed to thing blurry images with massive axial chromatic aberration (like what the 85mm 1.8g produces when out of focus) as being the sharpest. This made it impossible to calibrate either my 50mm 1.8g or 85mm 1.8g even after attempting for several hours. I also found that mirror lockup doesn't work on Nikon cameras, so trying to get useful values out of telephoto lenses was an exercise in frustration (basically, Focal was trying to extrapolate results from completely blurry shots, while not giving any indication that anything was wrong).

In the end, I just left everything at 0 and decided to apply adjustment if/when I noticed repeated issues in actual photos I was taking. After a few weeks, I found one of my six lenses that needed +2 adjustment. All the rest are sharpest at 0 adjustment.

In short, I wouldn't treat Focal, at least on Nikon cameras at this time, as a reliable judge of much of anything.

Click to expand...

Exactly what I have done, the trouble is I bought the $120 pro version a double waste of time. I have Fine Tune turned off now on my D600 and D700 and I don't try looking for faults anymore. FoCal just drove me crazy and when I recently updated to the new version v 1.8 it gave me a completely different bunch of adjustments for my lenses.

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

Steven-T said:

lanefAU wrote:

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:
The following snaps (not photos!) were shot NEF(RAW), convert directly using CS6 ACR. Besides recovering some highlights/shadows and resized for web posting, no other pp.
1.


The front small building is backing the sun, good DR.
Hope you enjoy your camera, but those snap shots above could have been taken with any point and shoots. The tool is as important as what can you do with it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Obviously you have much better skills in using p&s than me. My humble opinion is that skill is more important the tool, as long as we have a "suitable" tool at hand.

I think I wasted too much time on unproductive gear talk. Time to hide.

Click to expand...

Sorry if my 'Franc-Parler" may have offended you. My apology

wombat779 said:

wombat779 wrote:

wombat779 said:

yray wrote:

There has been a number of posts about needing different lens fine tune adjustments on a D800 in artificial and natural light. This might be your issue with FoCal.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately not. I was very careful to exactly duplicate my lighting conditions between sessions, and still got wildly different results. The issue at the time seemed to be that FoCal's contrast detection algorithm was not good (e.g., I could clearly see with my own eyes that an image was badly out of focus, but FoCal was giving a high sharpness score to that image). In particular, red/purple axial CA seemed to make FoCal think images were sharp. The inability to do mirror lockup was also a big problem, since it meant that some lenses NEVER produced sharp enough images with my setup for FoCal to use. I'll also note that in the 2 or 3 days of using it, I probably experienced 10 or 15 crashes in the software (often requiring several attempts to get a test to complete), which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. This was a few weeks ago, so maybe things are somehow improved now.

Click to expand...

I think you guys rely on the technology of a computer too much. Use LensAlign or a yardstick or a newspaper and your own eyes. Zero in on the the focus point with fine tune. Done.

Of course use a tripod, correct distance, etc.

regards, David

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

Steven-T said:

wombat779 wrote:

Steven-T said:

Steven-T wrote:

Steven-T said:

IF you have a D800/e, check the battery compartment door, and other gaps, between moving parts, for "weather resistance capabilities". I would say the D800e "weather resistant" is no better the 5D2. (Oh, no, not another debate.)

Click to expand...

As to the socket slots, open the cover, and e.g. look at the USB socket. Then you know what I refer to. I waited until now to get the D800e. Now, as long as the AF performance is "good enough" (so far it seems), I am fine.

Click to expand...

I have a D800E and used to have a 5D2. To me, the D800E seems better built by some margin. Also, my battery compartment door has a rubber gasket around the rim. Seems unlikely water would get in there. I also have seen plenty of reports of 5D2s being killed by a light misting, whereas quite a few have reported drenched D800s with no ill effects (though still not recommended). My USB socket seems just fine and solid, and no different than any other micro-USB socket I have ever seen. In any event, no problem that we disagree and again, the key is that you enjoy your new beast!

Click to expand...

It seems your D800e has a (much?) better built quality than mine. As I state explicitly earlier, please don't generalize my experiences to other D800/e.

Click to expand...

When you criticize two areas; which 1) has a rubber gasket for sealing and 2) the USB socket follows standards that are dictated not by Nikon. I have trouble accepting your generalization.

Regards,

Craig

--

Craig Bennett

I feel exactly the same. Great DR, Great sharpness, Great Hi ISO, but I think my D300 body is better, more solid, I don't know how to speak, but I can feel in my hands, it's more robust.

I've made some tests this weekend and I think I have a problem with left focus. I have only one lens for fullframe, a 50mm 1.8D, and in my tests there's something strange. I hope you understand me because I don't write very well in english, but I'll try.

Well, I made lots of tests, exactly like Thon Hogan said in his site. My conclusion:

1) In my test, the central autofocus doesn't need finetune, "BUT" even when I make some changes in finetune, the sharpness of the lens is the same in the range 0 to -15. When I change to -20 there's a very little loss of sharpness. I can confirm this, because after this test I made a Horshack's tuning method and the autofocus green dot was always lit between +2 and -20. Strange, because the range is too big.

2) When I made the same test with the left AF point, the sharpness was terrible with 0, -5 and -10. It's got better with -15 and good with -20. I thing the best finetune for the left AF should be nearly -25, but it's out of scale. This time I was angry and I decided to take photos rather than make tests and the pictures show me the same. Between 0 and -15 the central Af is great, the right AF point follow more less the central, and the left AF point start to be good at -15 or -20.

Tomorrow I'll post some photos of the test, but I don't know what to do. I live in Brazil, and if you Americans don't know how to fix the camera, what can I expect from Nikon in my country ??I think it might be worse.

Well, here goes one I took today, with a soft focus filter

Ops, here it goes....





D800E with Pentax 67 90mm 2.8 lens

Tatito´s said:

Tatito´s wrote:



When I made the same test with the left AF point, the sharpness was terrible with 0, -5 and -10. It's got better with -15 and good with -20.

Click to expand...

Do you get a sharp image when using liveview contrast AF with the left focus point?

yes, I do.

Tatito´s said:

Tatito´s wrote:

yes, I do.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Still, pics would be helpful. A difference of 5 in AF fine tune is almost invisible, so the fact that your central point works with 15 while your left looks ok at 20 doesn't seem unreasonable. What value is your right best at? My understanding of those with the left AF issue is that was a pretty extreme sharpness difference that couldn't be corrected by fine tune. Here is a relevant quote from Thom Hogan (http://www.bythom.com/D800autofocus.htm):

"Note: Some people report that an AF Fine Tune corrects the problem. No, it doesn't. This is a tricky area, and one reason why I suggested avoiding AF Fine Tune in the first place. It is not uncommon for a "good" camera and lens to have somewhat different AF Fine Tune values for left, center, and right sensors. A -10, 0, -5 wouldn't be surprising to me, and doesn't indicate the problem we're looking for. Generally, a misprogrammed left sensor response can't be brought back by AF Fine Tune. In other words, we're not looking for a modest difference in focus performance; we're looking for a gross and obvious difference in focus performance."


Another thing is, if you are at the end of your adjustment range, try adjusting the "Default" fine tune value instead of the lens specific one. My understanding is that the "Default" value has an adjustment increment 2.5 times greater than the lens specific one. Thus, a default adjustment of 10 would be equal to a lens specific adjustment of 25.

I didn't catch it. Can I add "Saved Value" with "Default" ??

Maybe this will resolve my problem, because my left Af is out of scale

Tatito´s said:

Tatito´s wrote:

I didn't catch it. Can I add "Saved Value" with "Default" ??

Maybe this will resolve my problem, because my left Af is out of scale

Click to expand...

Yes, as far as I know, the "Saved Value" and "Default" are added together to form the total adjustment value. "Default" is used with all lenses, while "Saved Value" is applied to just the current lens. "Default" should have about 2.5 times more effect than the "Saved Value." Note that this is all based on my reading on this forum (from Marianne, a very reliable source), but I personally have not needed to mess with it so I can't confirm.