I wanted to share my thoughts about the new Nikon D800 camera body. You can find it here at Adorama, BH or Amazon. All places I highly recommend buying photography equipment from. However because Nikon has had issues fulfilling their pre-orders and current orders of this camera, I decided to use a local camera store to purchase mine. In fact, I added my name to several waiting lists and after 3-4 weeks I was contacted by all 3 saying I had a D800 with my name on it. With that said, if you are STILL waiting for your D800, seek out a local store and get on their waiting list. I live in Sacramento, but I was on several B&M stores from around the country including one in Kentucky.
I will be comparing my observations of the D800, to my previous D700 camera body. This post will only cover the still images. A separate post on the video will come soon once I get to experiment with that more.
When I pulled the D800 out of the box, I noticed right away that it was lighter than the D700. I liked that about it since many times I do one handed shooting while I hold my reflector in my other hand. It looks nearly the same as my previous camera but some of the buttons are backwards which has so far thrown me for a loop at sessions. For example, the zoom buttons are backwards and the light meter inside the view finder is also reversed.
On the D700, the + was on the left, and – on the right. Now with the D800 having it opposite I find myself being a little clumsy mixing up the buttons, but it wont be long before I get used to the new camera.
One of my favorite features on the d800 is the joystick on the back. Its the big round circle button that you use to navigate and move any of the 51 focal points. It is MUCH more fluid and smooth than the d700. It felt like with the previous camera that I was clicking hard to get the points to move. When reviewing images or data I’d have my finger a hair over too far and it would make something else on the screen that I didn’t want. It seemed like I didn’t have as much control before. Nikon has definitely corrected it, and its oh so nice!
Other than these small observations, this camera isn’t much different physically than the d700. The D800 does have a live view option which means you can see the image on the back of the camera screen like you would a point and shoot. I kind of find this useless for the kinds of stills I shoot. It might come in handy for weddings or as a sports photographer though.
Lets talk about file sizes and computer speed. I ordered a 32gig Sandisk CF card from Amazon for my D800, but because it didn’t get here right away I had to use my 8gig card for the test shoot. I was only able to get 100 raw images with an 8 gig card. I did decide to shoot this session raw + jpeg so I could compare images. My raw files are all between 40-43MB each. With the D700 I was never worried about file sizes so I would take pictures on Continuous Low to get the fast frames per second. During this test shoot, I wanted to shoot in the Single Mode so that I wasn’t wasting shots and overshooting (and taking up card space). I think that in any session, if you take your time and are careful you don’t have to overshoot anything.
I haven’t had a chance to “batch process” yet but my photoshop has been fine and not slowed down. I have 8gig ram and a 2TB hard drive. Since I don’t shoot weddings anymore I don’t have a large need for batch post-processing anyway. I do batch edit my raws, but that isn’t in photoshop so there is no delay.
Now for a few sample images that I’ve put together…
The sample image below was taken at f/1.8. I have noticed that my images are a bit sharper shooting wide open than the D700. I did try to grab a few f/1.6 and 1.4 images and I still feel that the lens is a tad soft wide open, and therefore wasn’t blown away by anything that wide open. Overall, my images did seem sharper for the range I was shooting in (f/1.8-f/2.2).
The images posted below are also unedited and unsharpened. They are SOOC (Straight out of camera) and no white balance, exposures, colors or anything has been adjusted so you can better see the comparisons. (Except the last was edited).
For the image above, I overlapped the sooc jpeg and sooc raw image, and then spliced in half so you could see the difference mainly in the skin tones. This is why I prefer raw images over the jpegs. I feel like the skin tones are creamier and have less “gray” in them. Also, her shirt color seemed to “pop” a little more.
I’d say its pretty good for f/1.8. If I were shooting at a smaller f-stop such as f/5.6 then her eye would be even sharper.
The image above is a finished image that was edited by me. I wanted to show the end result.
Here is another from the session that I love!
Conclusion:
I am glad I upgraded, I think there is a lot of potential in the D800. Especially with being able to crop so much- its something clients ask for frequently. Also the video feature is insane. I have only used it once and the clarity is so amazing.
I love the dual card slot, it can be a life saver.
The D800′s image quality is lovely, but so is the D700′s. If you are thinking about either upgrading or purchasing a lens, I’d consider the lens since lenses can improve image quality and the D700 is STILL an amazing camera.
I think you will see more of a difference upgrading from a D300s or lower.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope that my personal thoughts on this camera have helped! Excuse any typos or grammer…I’m not a writer!
+ - 5 comments
Jaymi - Great tutorial!! I shoot with a Nikon D90, but dream of upgrading to a full frame camera!!!
Susan - I’ve heard the opposite about raw vs jpg photos, that the raw is flat, dull, and not as bright as the jpg. I went from a canon rebel to the 7D and I especially found this to be true. I hate the raw image. It is so ugly. I have to use noiseware on each photo regardless of the noise. I’m not 100% sure my camera is not a dud. I have had it repaired twice with the second repair replacing the sensor on my brand new ( 2 mo old) camera. I’ve just excepted the fact that the raw images stink and I take jpgs now.
admin - Susan- the reason why raw files are generally that way is because the camera does not make any adjustments to it. They are just that, RAW. But jpegs go through a compression IN CAMERA, where they are sharpened, contrast/color added to it. Thats why there are color profiles you can apply to your jpegs (Ie: neutral, standard, vivid) but you cant apply it to a raw file b/c the camera doesn’t touch a raw file. As you can see with your own two eyes, there isn’t a huge difference between the two images except for the creaminess of the skin tones. Jpegs tend to look a little more gray.
I love to edit raw images because I get to choose what I want to do with the image, and prefer not to have the camera decide for me. It doesnt generally take me any longer to edit a raw vs jpeg, and I can get them to look the same with tweaking if I wanted to. The benefit to RAW is that you have a wider range for white balance accuracy, and if you were to ever blow anything out (over expose) you could save the image. With a jpeg, because its compressed, you don’t have much of a chance with bad lighting issues. I guess if you aren’t post-processing too much and prefer the camera to help give you that head start then definitely jpeg is the way to go! JMO!
julianne blanch - Hi Jessica!
Thanks for doing this. I truly value what you have to say about it. I, of course, have had no prior experience with Nikon, so this camera is very new to me. I kind of freaked out because I wasn’t immediately getting excellent pictures, like I thought I would. Obviously, I have a lot to learn about the camera.
So, I have a couple questions . . . at what size do you evaluate the sharpness of your picture in Lightroom? At 100%? Many pictures look softer than I was expecting. Maybe my lenses need to be calibrated . . . or my technique needs to improve or maybe I’m being too critical. At 1:2 things look sharp.
Another question, did you have any thoughts on the noise ability compared to the D700?
Yes, the video is awesome! I love that it’s not manual focus (which is what I was coming from). Thanks again!
admin - Hi
Yes, with all cameras there is a learning curve. I am sure you will be fine, just keep practicing.
The way I learned years ago is that you evaluate sharpness at 100%. I think I actually learned it from Scott Kelby? Anyhow, I zoom in using Adobe Camera Raw. I think one person’s idea of sharp is different than another’s. In the sample image I posted with the eye zoomed in, it was okay but I prefer my images to be even sharper. I have friends that shoot canon and have given me their raw files to look at. There were many that were very soft, but that they considered ‘sharp enough’ to use or give to a client. I am picky when it comes to sharp images straight out of camera. Also, the smaller your aperture the sharper your images will be because there is more room to be IN focus, and all lenses have a sweet spot or are really sharp at a specific f/stop. If you are shooting everything at f/1.2, you hardly have enough depth of field going on to get things in focus 100% of the time. Plus lenses are said to be softer when you shoot them wide open as opposed to f/4. Its obviously easier with one subject, and depends on how close you are, but I personally wouldn’t recommend shooting at f/1.2 for every picture. I know you didn’t ask how sharp is good enough but I felt that I needed to throw that in there because I see too often people posting soft pictures and it sort of bugs me. (Personal opinion!)
I haven’t noticed a difference with the noise yet. I’ve read the D700 is slightly better still but that is based on the difference between the resolutions and MP. I don’t worry much about noise because it doesnt affect me until I get up into the 3200+ range.