Nikon D780 initial sample gallery

ISO's are kind of at that stage where the seemingly-impossible is becoming probable. My smart phone is an improvement over what I'm shooting with right now. Thanks for pointing out the d5, however, I'm just a working class hobbyist, and cannot even afford a used one. Whatever I get, it's my main and only camera, and I can't wait! As for video AF, I want birds on the wing, and it would sure be nicer if the focus were locked. The d5's just can't be justified for my needs. And the 2.25x crop on the d500 makes me pause. Stills are secondary (gasp, I know...), but their quality is still important for what I'm doing.I know any given camera can give any given photographer keepers in any given situation: technique, dedication and luck reap their rewards. But my semi-functional d70s just doesn't make that likely anymore.

They look ok to me but a little flat. Maybe the settings of the camera in the sun?

Thanks Mister AndersOn, I wondered if they had been processed at all. In the past I have attempted rgb calibrations using dongles and different software. It's funny how red can seem not the right red based on different settings or profiles. I suppose, given the variations between my laptop screen, the camera's native RAW output, the conversion to a jpg and the receiving monitor are all subject to subjective observations. I'm so glad I don't do this professionally, though I do wish I could afford all the gear necessary to "accurately" observe the color as it was. That said, I suppose every person sees colors and light ever so slightly different from one another. I now own only a monochrome printer, to print electronics schema or manuals. I wasted too much ink trying to have perfect reds. Oh, the horror! But I thoroughly appreciate the need to see things in different profiles and renderings, within different editing platforms. Son of Waldo, why be an asshat?

Simple concept, thatmanisaboy. If someone is going to back up repetitive, ignorant (yes, ignorant, look up the definition) whining about what camera manufacturers do (or don't do) with (standard) camera profiles, perhaps they should demonstrate that they can actually have a hand in doing something about it?

All digital cameras have 'picture control' profiles, all raw converters have conversion profiles, printers have profiles, and the monitors we display images on require profiles.

I'm on my 6th Nikon DSLR and all of this talk about what Nikon has (drastically) done this with this or that color reproduction are hugely overblown and for my use cases, INSIGNIFICANT.

Camera manufacturers have to choose some sort of 'standard color profiling', I happen to believe that Nikon's are consistently practical, useful and very good, from the D50 through the latest camera I've tried, the D7500.

Good look with LR, cheap printers and the wasting of "ink", by the way.

sigh. you're a mean, petty human being. good luck with you, but you don't need it, seeing as you're never wrong, and never had to learn a thing since you're a genius from the minute you were born. you're the kind of choad with no friends, because you're just mean all the time. you make people feel unwelcome. you make me feel unwelcome. all you're doing is shoving your opinion down peoples throats and saying they're irrefutable facts. you're like that loud bald POS on youtube who doesn't inform, just belittles. you're a belittling person. boo.

The truth hurts, perhaps? Perhaps you will learn more about that as you enter manhood, just like one of those small, timid believe-everything-you-read-on-the-Internet youngsters. Not saying that you are like this, of course (never!). A waste of my time would be more accurate.

@Thisman
I'm a convert. I used the Adobe (reverse engineered) Nikon ones for a long time, and whenever I tried out other RAW converters, I thought they all looked off, even Capture One, which is touted as having nice colors. Then I realized it was the Nikon colors that were off. Adobe Standard is technically more accurate than the new Adobe Color, but Adobe Color is a better starting point for me. I finally have reds that are red, instead of Nikon orange/red.

A profile is all about choices Anders▫n, apparently it is you that continues to struggle with this basic concept.

The link that you provided is obviously at the level where the user would then make a choice. Good? Good enough? Not good enough? Good for some scenarios? Balanced? Are they capable of doing anything about it? If not, should they bail out and post repetitive tripe about it on the Internet?

Sure, it's all personal preference. Truly "accurate" colors probably don't exist, but I do like my photos to somewhat match what I see in reality, and then I can adjust from there. Take a picture of a red Cardinal with a Nikon camera, and see if it looks red (hint: it won't). I got sick of playing with the hue sliders in post, and I just started using a profile that had better color to start with. Works for me, but you are all free to do what you like.

Personal as much as personal preference.

Very few problems here with "accurate" color (or reds) on my Nikon cameras and as M Lammerse pointed out (and I agree with), there have been gradual changes (and improvements) with the Nikon JPEGs and IMO, since and including the D750 era. The JPEG color looks surprisingly strong on my recent D7500 as an example, oh, and here it comes. personally speaking. Appealing to a wide audience in a near infinite number of lighting possibilities has some expensive engineering and testing going into it, far beyond what you or I are capable of.

We'll see what the TEAM at DPreview has to say about the D780 JPEGs.

Nikon allows you to customise the colour rendering in camera, without having to resort to Lightroom profiling. It's really quite easy.

And yes, out of the box, Nikon does lean to yellow and green. Canon leant to pink through the 5DS R. 5DIV and beyond, Canon colours are more green and grey sadly.

As long as the camera properly reproduces the blood dripping from the players many injuries, what more can you ask?

Ah, yes, many an American footballer's career has been left shattered on/by astro-turf!

Is that a rugby thing? Ouch, that's BS, for sure. I think in the 1960's-1970's some American football players were known for such tactics. It's pretty heavily watched and penalized these days. Gulp. I hope!

X

That's because they are pushing the NR, so they can claim "better high ISO performance." It's all just marketing. For sports, I bet the D500 would do a better job.

garters then?

I'm so happy you didn't assume its gender. It's 2020, after all.

No it bugs me as well ,Not a rant a reasoned observation :-)

Mister. That’s such a cop out. You’re basically saying this camera is so high end that the JPGs stink. That doesn’t make any sense. Especially when the competitors do noise reduction so much better that pro sports photographers shooting Canon or Sony prefer to use JPG because the noise performance out of camera is better than what they can get from Lightroom or Capture One.

No, I'm not saying it's high end, I'm saying I don't like NR. I rarely use it, except for very high ISO images, and even then, sparingly. I don't care what pro sports photogs do. It's not even art, IMO. If you like the look of overly processed jpegs with too much NR, than great. Shoot jpeg. Sports and news people shoot jpeg because it's quick and easy, not because the quality is better.

Colour is easily changed and accuracy is dubious on any of them . Pleasing is an entirely different thing but accuracy nope . Imaging resource does a colour accuracy test though given their lack of controls in other tests maybe not 100% reliable. They pretty much all deviate , the only difference is in how they do so.

couple of current samples:
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-z6/nikon-z6A5.HTM
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/canon-eos-r/canon-eos-rA5.HTM

@steveanderson
C1 makes adjusting skin color quick and easy. It's a 2min job if you don't need to be super accurate

3pgrey, When is the last time you did it though? Canon and Nikon together.

White girl in a yellow bikini. Good luck.

You think if I could push a button and voila! my Nikon looks like a Canon I would have sold 2 cameras that are better than Canon cameras?

I spent months in the Nikon forums, ultimately you go on quite a journey which turns out to be a circle.

If you want accurate and pleasing skin real easy, you buy a Canon and shoot jpg. Or RAW in DPP.
You can get a Nikon and Canon semi close in ACR also, but youve downgraded the Canon while upgrading the Nikon.

If you already mess around in PP for every photo, by all means spend all that time making it look how you want.

We have to do this conversation somewhere else though. I dont want to talk about Nikon colour in a Nikon article. I just agreed with the OP, and that its possibly the Sony sensor that causes the 'hit and miss'.

The newer Adobe Color profile in LR looks pretty good to me. It's definitely more accurate than Nikon's colors.

@Steve
Canon has pleasing skin colors. They're not accurate. Theres a lot of work that goes into interpreting 1s and 0s into something most people like. Canon color magic doesn't work on all skin tones. It's got nothing to do with sensors

Canon is most and quite accurate with yellowish skin as I said.

They are the most accurate by deltaE. Most models.

Not perfectly accurate obviously.

And pleasing. As you say.

There is a lot of reading and understanding to do before either of us claim its nothing to do with the sensor or CFA or any 0s and 1s running around between.

@Steve
You'll need to explain what you mean by delta e I'm missing something. It's not a reference point

Hi 3pgrey, deltaE is the measurement of how close to perfect the hue is.

0.00 is perfect.
2.00 is where good eyes can start to notice its off

7Dm2 is 3.45dE which is about the best you will find out of the last 100 cameras.

Nikon averages close to 6.00 which is way out there. Very pleasing but way off.

But its not that simple. Its which hues by how much in which direction. As well as CFA strength and demosaicing and whatever other black magic is going on.

Most people dont notice I guess but ive always been hyper sensitive to colour and image quality in general. Displays became an obsession naturally because they are so terrible in so many ways.

@steve
It's the 'perfect' part I'm missing information about. Delta e is a measure of the distance between color, but i dont understand where that measurement comes from

3pgrey, Are you asking who or what decides where 0.00 starts and ends?

Or is just a hardware calibrator similar for our monitors which reads light, tells us how far off it is in dE and then adjusts the LUT to correct it.

And we trust that it knows what its doing.

Im just thinking out loud here:

Primary colours have a numerical coordinate correct? Therefore you could calculate how far away and what number you would give to any other hue.
Knowing that you could measure the distance as you say from what should be 0.00 at that point.

dE = x.xx far away from where it should have been

@Steve
Where 0.00 starts. I assume it's the middle between a set of points, but how they decided on those points is beyond me. As far as I know some part of color science is subjective, because of natural bias in how we see color

Sorry I have been editing quite a bit above.

I think mathematically it is simple to place hues on a chart and measure how far away it is from where one is supposed to be.

As you say we humans vary wildly in our perception of hues. Not just mathematically the differences of hue our eyes see but the cause and effect psychologically in our preference or reaction to certain hues.

I shouldnt say we vary wildly. But enough that we cant all agree what hue we are seeing at all times.

I can say for certain that I have done head to head tests with a 5Dm2, 7Dm2, D750, D7200, 6D, a6300, a7III.

Out on my deck: Same model, same settings, calibrated 27" monitor right inside patio door.

Unlike those very questionable blind tests we see on youtube, It was very apparent which camera was putting the most accurate skin hues to the monitor.
7Dm2.
Im looking at the model at the same time on the monitor of the photo i just took.
It is not a WB issue. Correcting WB on all doesnt change the outcome.
What I did notice though is that Sony is attempting to copy Canon while copying Nikon blues.
I mean copy in a nice way. a7 to a7III is quite apparent when you see which and where the hues are moving.

@Steve
Can't be that simple, otherwise every camera would use the same colors. There's nothing to say something should be that color. Think of product photography, where the colors matter. Those colors, say the red on a bottle of coke, can be matched to a color checker, and reproduced faithfully through software with it as a reference. But it doesn't mean that red is the best red for a bottle of coke

sorry for it, he has 2 card slots.

unfortunately Nikon finished to give us two line of cameras - Pro camera like D5 or D4 and semi-pro camera with same sensor, like he did with D3 and D700 (and also the APS-C analog of D700). D3s never had small analog, D4 and D5 too. They did D500, but not D7xx series with D4 or D5 sensor (Df is not example here).

@georgiahiker I'm hoping for a bluetooth grip too but I think it has to be first party since it will probably need camera firmware support

One can select “vivid” for instance, rather than “normal” and then increase saturation on top of that.

I can only imagine those livid faces with boosted saturation - looking an angry zombie maybe?

bobogdan78
One may use one combination of settings for one kind of subject and different combination of settings for a different kind of subject. That’s what I heard anyway. Landscape, still life, architectural, portrait all can have their own combination of settings. Have fun! Experiment and experience are related words.

I think the colours look really nice. No idea what you're talking about to be honest. Far better than most raw-images which 9 times out of 10 are over-processed.

The only thing that justifies the price is that Nikon is hurting bad, financially, and so they must try and cash in as much as possible. I bet this thing will be hugely discounted soon, just like the Z bodies.

The camera market is still tanking, and the camera makers still seem surprised.

I doubt you know what you are talking about...Do you really own D4s? Shadow recovery at above 6400 ISO?? Mmmhhh

Buy the Z6, go on, you know you want to.

Here is nothing same with D4s, D780 can't beat it, what about some say here? And its a far worse then D3s in terms of image quality at high noises, if this washed files calls "quality", I don't know how to call the files from D4 or D5!

Anderson: Have you ever tried a Df? I have.

D780 seems like the perfect update for wedding photographers currently using the D750. The video features alone should draw some in. My biggest complaint with my Nikon DSLR is the video autofocus when I want to make a quick grab. It's absolutely terrible. The D780 with AF-P glass would be miles better in this regard.

Sharpness comes primarily from the lens.