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A very different D800 review
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- nikon d800
pluton
Veteran Member
A very "personal style" review, as advertised. I currently posses both the camera and the lens used in the review. I found many of his observations valid, but imprecisely or dully expressed. Perhaps he is not a native English writer. You can get way more useful info out of a Thom Hogan review.
L Copps
Senior Member
I am researching systems and very much enjoyed your insightful review. It is the only review I have read that really highlights how this camera can leverage prime lenses like no other. I have also thought it peculiar how Nikon uses its 51 AF sensors on the center of the frame.
bikinchris
Veteran Member
I always find these comments curious. Which camera company has wider spread focus sensosr compared to Nikon?
Wait, I'll answer that. No one.
As far as anyone can tell it is not possible to spread the sensors out wider. It would not produce an accurate focus.
The sensors on DX cameras are the same distance apart. On DX cameras, the edges are closer.
romfordbluenose
Veteran Member
Good article but if he thinks the D800 sensors are bad what would he make of the D600?
On my D300, where the focus sensors cover more of the frame, I find them far more useful than those on an FX camera where they are more in the center of the frame.
I think the other poster was referring to frame coverage not actual separation of the AF sensors.
I think the other poster was referring to frame coverage not actual separation of the AF sensors.
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bikinchris
Veteran Member
The focus sensors on the D300 have the SAME spacing as those on the D3. The only difference is that the D3 has more sensor around those focus sensors. Nikon, Canon and Sony apparently cannot spread the sensors out wider than they currently are. Apparently this is because they wouldn't work well.
The fact that so many people complan about it confuses me. It seems that it cannot be changed.
You are missing a lot
slow, poorly designed U I and bugs.
Perhaps i am doing it a disservice as i have not used it in a while, but last time i tried it it was awfull!!! i use aperture and find it gives excellent results
M
MRM4350
Guest
You probably are, but I just wanted to point out that "aperture" is an apple product, and not everyone uses macs.
These kinds of statements about products are personal opinion only and should toned down, as not everyone finds them to be true. You didn't like Capture NX, and that is all you should have said.
i Believe Lightroom is also very good.
why should it be?? Firstly there is nothing wrong with personal opinion, by that score any review is just personal opinion. any review uses select facts submersed and quantified with opinion. In my case the basis for disliking it was that despite a good trial of the software (i wanted to like it) i found it hard to use - that is bad design, as software should be intuitive and designed to help the user, it required needless steps to do tasks, and was incredibly slow comparatively. This is quantifiable.
primeshooter
Veteran Member
Clearly another looking at thing's too close on a monitor. The noise in the D800 is the same as the D700 or D3s if you compare at the same resolution. Grinds my gears, you'll probably find he's amazed by the D700 and D3s noise performance. Also lacks the understanding of why AF points further out than we already have is a technical design limitation and no manufacturer has AF coverage to the frame edge on FX.
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SuvoMitra
Leading Member
Agree with your assessment. Besides, how many focus points does the Leica M9 have in the frame periphery? If a frame-central rangefinder using in focus-and-recompose mode with f/1.4 summilux lenses gets the job done, the Nikon AF point array is downright luxurious, I would've thought.
I was also puzzled by the choice of photos to illustrate characteristics of the D800.
I was also puzzled by the choice of photos to illustrate characteristics of the D800.
primeshooter
Veteran Member
Quite a good article, but some of his comments are a little puzzling to me as well.
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chlamchowder
Senior Member
It always annoys me a bit when people make a claim like "ISO 6400 is for shooting black cats at night" or "ISOs above 1600 are for shooting in caves" or something similarly ridiculous.
High ISOs are not for shooting in the dark, IMO. If I wanted to photograph a cave, I'd set ISO 100, f/8, and bulb mode...and then keep the shutter open for as long as I need to get a properly exposed image. The cave isn't going to run away, so I don't care if the exposure takes 30 minutes.
I think that high ISOs are really for getting very fast shutter speeds in non-ideal lighting conditions. For example, when shooting basketball in a gym that's not so well lit, good ISO 6400 performance is awesome. Or, on a dance floor with the lights dimmed, the ISO range pretty much starts at ISO 6400 if you want sharp pictures and don't want to get in everyone's faces with a f/1.4 lens (because f/1.4 lenses aren't long enough).
I guess my standards are different, but I really disagree with his assessment. I have a D600, which has noise performance that's pretty much identical to the D800 (when the D800's images are downsized to match the D600's resolution). I believe anyone who thinks ISO 800 borders on unusable has pretty ridiculous expectations. It's not going to be as clean as ISO 100, but really...how is that tiny pinch of noise going to affect anything? ISO 3200 or 6400 produces decent enough results for most purposes. Even ISO 12800 is usable with a bit of care.
Long story short - I think people get so afraid of tiny bits of noise that they avoid high ISOs and lose a lot of opportunity. When I used the Sony a580 (a 16 MP APS-C cam), I didn't hesitate to hit ISO 6400, or even 12800 if the situation called for it. A bit of noise is better than no picture at all.
High ISOs are not for shooting in the dark, IMO. If I wanted to photograph a cave, I'd set ISO 100, f/8, and bulb mode...and then keep the shutter open for as long as I need to get a properly exposed image. The cave isn't going to run away, so I don't care if the exposure takes 30 minutes.
I think that high ISOs are really for getting very fast shutter speeds in non-ideal lighting conditions. For example, when shooting basketball in a gym that's not so well lit, good ISO 6400 performance is awesome. Or, on a dance floor with the lights dimmed, the ISO range pretty much starts at ISO 6400 if you want sharp pictures and don't want to get in everyone's faces with a f/1.4 lens (because f/1.4 lenses aren't long enough).
I guess my standards are different, but I really disagree with his assessment. I have a D600, which has noise performance that's pretty much identical to the D800 (when the D800's images are downsized to match the D600's resolution). I believe anyone who thinks ISO 800 borders on unusable has pretty ridiculous expectations. It's not going to be as clean as ISO 100, but really...how is that tiny pinch of noise going to affect anything? ISO 3200 or 6400 produces decent enough results for most purposes. Even ISO 12800 is usable with a bit of care.
Long story short - I think people get so afraid of tiny bits of noise that they avoid high ISOs and lose a lot of opportunity. When I used the Sony a580 (a 16 MP APS-C cam), I didn't hesitate to hit ISO 6400, or even 12800 if the situation called for it. A bit of noise is better than no picture at all.
Couldn't agree more, I shoot birds and I often get up to ISO6400 even in reasonable light when I am shooting with my 500f4 VR + 1.4x TCII in order to get decent shutter speeds.
Grevture
Veteran Member
In short, better high iso capabilities is about not having ones creative options limited just because the light is limited. It is about being able to choose more freely the appropriate aperture, shutter speed or focal length in a lot more different light situations then before.
Agree!
And I often deliver images to news papers, with the resolution and colors of their print, iso 25600 is not only useable, but does not even require much post processing. Now I shoot D3s, but its about the same with D4, D800, D600 too. The main difference between those newer cameras and my D3s is they have higher or much higher useable resolution on low iso.
This is how I see it: You increase iso to get the shot you want also in less light. The less light you have, the lower resolution your end result (the final image) will have. Since 2009 when the D3s appeared the high iso performance, the useable resulting resolution, has been fairly constant while the end result resolutions at lower iso has steadily increased.
A collegue remarked some years ago that some photographers seem to suffer from "obsessive noise disorder", he might be on to something
Grevture
Veteran Member
The total useable area of the AF sensors are limited by
a) the size of the submirrror, which in terms is restricted by available space in the mirrorbox, particularily when it comes to the height of the submirror (which restrict the vertical spread of the AF sensors)
b) the angle of incoming light, a phase detect sensor can only be so far towards the image edge. This is for example why only the central focus points work well when your lens have a maximum aperture of f8.
How about APS-C cameras then?
Since the overall mirrorbox design of most APS-C cameras has its size restricted by the same geometry as FF cameras (the same registration distance) the a) limitation above stays the same.
And since we (as in Nikon, Canon, Sony or Pentax DSLR users) use the same registration distance for APS-C cameras as for the FF cameras, the light geometry from the lenses stay the same so also factor b) above stays the same for APS-C cameras.
This is why the APS-C cameras get a better frame coverage,
Humans always spend a lot of energy complaining about things we cannot change, the prime example being weather
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