Nikon full frame

[Mark von Kanel]

Well id scheduled to go full frame this year but nikon have somewhat disappointed me. I could wait and save another 2K for a D4, but its hard to justify that to the wife..... the D600 lacks the low light focusing and is the same price as the 800 so a no brainer to go for the D800 but 36mp leaves me cold.... How are people getting on with the 800? and those huge files....

I take mainly portraits and landscapes so again the D800 seems to be the choice but why give it such an absurdly slow frame rate even in DX mode?

maybe i should wait another 2 years or 4...6...?

[dubaiphil]

I take mainly portraits and landscapes so again the D800 seems to be the choice but why give it such an absurdly slow frame rate even in DX mode?

Well if you're shooting mainly landscapes and portraits you don't need major FPS, do you?

Or low light focusing ability

Why not just get a lowly 12Mp D700 and save yourself some $$$. Works plenty good enough for me, even for sports with a lowly 5FPS

[Manfred M]

I've had the D800 since early May and am continue to be astounded by how good it is. Frankly the 36MB sensor is a bonus, not a negative. It has actually created a situation where my photography is not limited by sensor quality, but rather lens quality. As for storage; have you looked at how far hard disk prices have fallen?

If the slow frame rate is an issue (and it is not for me) there are other options. like the D4. I still shoot like I did with film; I compose each and every frame and only switch over to burst mode on the rare occasions where I am trying to capture as sequence of events. The slow frame rate is purely related to the amount of data that has to be processed and buffered, which is what the D4 is so much faster; it has to push 1/2 the pixels through the pipeline. If you are primarily a landscape or portrait photographer, this should not be a consideration. Low light performance is excellent.

Most of my photography tends to be landscape and cityscape work; the dynamic range and IQ at 100 ISO are sublime. I haven't done any serious portraiture yet, but hope to later on this year. I suspect that the camera is going to perform extremely well for that as well.

I hope that this helps...

[Polar01]

Just got back from some time up north, shooting the colours with the new D600, I had very little trouble focusing after sunset in the time known as the Blue Hour about 45 or so minutes after the sun has gone down. I was shooting until it became difficult to see to walk out of the woods without a flash light and nothing will focus when it is that dark. Now here in Canada the price difference between the D800 and D600 is about $1000.00 CDN or 630.00 GBP, so I would check on that no brainer. About the only difference between Manfred's D800 and my D600 is 1/3 less pixels and I can access custom setting with out going into the menu but by turning a dial.

Cheers:

Allan

[Manfred M]

The one thing to remember is that the current generation of Nikon cameras (not just the full frame ones) share many of the same electronic components, like the Expeed3 image processor, so the image quality should be very consistent. I would expect that the same sensor design team had a hand in creating the sensors. My guess is that the "bells and whistles" will distinguish the D4 / D800 / D800E / D600, but the image quaility should be very close.

I hate to be a cynic, but I do expect that some of the features that are missing in the D600 are more likely because Nikon chose to disable / cripple them to ensure the sales of the higher end cameras. For instance I would have thought that the maximum frame rate should be higher, as the image processor only has to deal with a 24MP image, rather than a 36MP image. etc. The custom setting implementation in the D600 is far more elegant than on the D800, to Alan's point.

[Mark von Kanel]

The price difference between the d600 & 800 in the uk is currently £150 so the 600 isnt appealing at the moment though i suppose that will change in time. the d700 will soon be out of date service wise i think. so it looks like the 800 is going to be it. yes i realise why the frame rate is so slow in full frame but if shooting sports in DX which i do now and then, as well as nature why limit the frame rate with the reduced file size? a marketing trick it think. Lets wait and see i predict a fast DX soon!

I have a server with a storage of 45 Tb so that isnt a problem but what i am concerned about is my workflow time, Manfred what are the files like for handling in PP my windows machine runs an i5 quad core with 8gb of ram, will this cope? i also have and apple running a i7 quad with 8gb of ram but i cant expand that. i mainly use light room 3 at the moment, is 4 worth upgrading to i also have cs5 but dont use it much yet. It is my intention to spend my spare time aiming towards a more professional output, i currently work 10 weeks on and 10 weeks off and i want to improve my photography in those spare 10 weeks.

Although money is not an issue i dont want to waste it. ive bought all my studio stuff (elinchrom thanks to advice from here) but ive still got to build a studio!! picking the right full frame is something that i will be doing next and so any pertinent advice is welcome

[kdoc856]

Hi, Mark

I upgraded to LR4 from LR3 and think it well worth it. The basic control panel has been revised, is simpler to use, has better highlight recovery, better clarity enhancement and... (worth the price of the upgrade in itself) a much more capable adjustment brush that even allows local adustment of white balance- quite helpful for multiple temp light source images. And the noise reduction has been improved to the point that I often dont have to resort to my NR plug-in. Hope this was helpful

Kevin

[Manfred M]

Mark - I moved from the 12MP D90 to the 36MP D800. I have an i7 machine that is several years old right now, 16GB of RAM running CS6 and a second one running with 8GB of RAM running CS5. Most of my work is full frame Photoshop / ACR and I do use View NX2 from time to time, as I am a heavy layer user in PP and do everything in a non-destructive way, so the psd files get quite large. Lightroom 4 or one machine and Lightroom 3 on the other. I haven't used the smaller CS5 machine with my D800, so I don't know if CS5 / LR3 can open D800 RAW.

Do I notice a difference? Load and save take slightly longer and some of the effects like filters do take longer, but I would say this amounts a few seconds of time over the workflow window, nothing really consequential, much of the other editing there is no discernable time difference. Five seconds on a file that takes some 5 or 10 minutes of work is really a rounding error. Let's face it 36MP file is rather like loading and having three 12MP files open at the same time, really no big deal. I was working on some 50MP files from a Hasselblad a while ago, and frankly, same comments there. The 36MP file size noise really makes no sense at all. The place I notice it most is that my memory cards fill up faster when I am shooting and the data transfer to download from memory card to machine is slower (I do use a USB 3 port). I use a networked NAS storage for my backup, so transfer there does take longer versus my local working hard disk.

Again, as I said, the 36MP noise was all from people who never used the D800. The medium format shooters have been using files as large as and much larger than what the D800 puts out for years and I've never heard anyone complain about workflow issues in PP.

I'm not a great fan of LR and use it mainly to grade and catalogue. My workflow is via Bridge /PS most of the time.

Frame rate in continuous shooting; that is likely at least partially related to image processing and partially to steer sports shooters to the D4. The image processor has to handle twice as much data when shooting with the D800 versus the D4, so that would certainly be a legitimate reason for the lower throughput speed. Both cameras share the same electronics from that standpoint.

[thequacksoflife]

The price difference between the d600 & 800 in the uk is currently £150 so the 600 isnt appealing at the moment though i suppose that will change in time.

quick look around (Park, WEX, Grays) show a difference (body only) of approx £315. D600 - £1735, D800 - £2049. The D800E has held it's price well. Oh and Amazon is showing a wider range. D600 - 1665

I agree with you about the fast DX. D400 please

[NikonFL]

Well id scheduled to go full frame this year but nikon have somewhat disappointed me. I could wait and save another 2K for a D4, but its hard to justify that to the wife..... the D600 lacks the low light focusing and is the same price as the 800 so a no brainer to go for the D800 but 36mp leaves me cold.... How are people getting on with the 800? and those huge files....

I take mainly portraits and landscapes so again the D800 seems to be the choice but why give it such an absurdly slow frame rate even in DX mode?

maybe i should wait another 2 years or 4...6...?

Mark, Some day I guess I'll have to shoot with a full frame digital camera. I once owned the $2,500, Nikon F5 film camera which Nikon claimed was "Imported From the Future." As an amateur, I refused to go to the early model $5,000 Nikon Digital cameras.

After going to the digital Nikon D100, I never looked back at my full frame Nikon F5. It became useless and I sold it, along with a $500 Speed Light for under $400.

Now the great Ken Rockwell says if you go to full frame, you'll never go back to DX. I came from full frame film to DX and I'm in no hurry to shoot full frame FX. I like my Nikon D7000 and my Nikkor 18-300, both DX. As a casual amateur, I am not Nikon's full frame market; at least not today.

I also will wait another 2, 4, 6 years for lower priced FX...

Gil

[GrahamS]

Sometimes full-frame (FX) is not about the resolution but about the viewfinder, DOF and the heritage lenses.

[Brocken]

Now the great Ken Rockwell says if you go to full frame, you'll never go back to DX. I came from full frame film to DX and I'm in no hurry to shoot full frame FX. I like my Nikon D7000 and my Nikkor 18-300, both DX. As a casual amateur, I am not Nikon's full frame market; at least not today.

Gil

If someone can't make interesting images with the D7000, they won't be able to make interesting images with any other sort of camera either. How easily we all get sucked into the marketing propaganda of the camera corporations!

[Mark von Kanel]

The depth of field is what i really want, and so the D800 i will probably buy but i will look at the 600 as well, thanks for comments and input, ill keep you all posted on how i get on with it. Has the D600 dropped to £1800 already? it was listed at £2100 on launch.....

Alan Thats great to know and as i use a D7k at the moment which has the same focus system i wasnt expecting any huge issues with focusing but with going full frame the effective use of my 50-500 zoom is reduced and i was considering a teleconverter which takes it to F8 and then the focus might struggle.

[thequacksoflife]

The depth of field is what i really want, and so the D800 i will probably buy but i will look at the 600 as well, thanks for comments and input, ill keep you all posted on how i get on with it. Has the D600 dropped to £1800 already? it was listed at £2100 on launch.....

Alan Thats great to know and as i use a D7k at the moment which has the same focus system i wasnt expecting any huge issues with focusing but with going full frame the effective use of my 50-500 zoom is reduced and i was considering a teleconverter which takes it to F8 and then the focus might struggle.

amazon have the D600 at £1665.59

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-D600-D...9280181&sr=8-1

Grays have it at £1,735 as do Park and WEX. The Amazon price fluctuates!

[oleleclos]

Now the great Ken Rockwell says if you go to full frame, you'll never go back to DX. I came from full frame film to DX and I'm in no hurry to shoot full frame FX. I like my Nikon D7000 and my Nikkor 18-300, both DX. As a casual amateur, I am not Nikon's full frame market; at least not today.

If someone can't make interesting images with the D7000, they won't be able to make interesting images with any other sort of camera either. How easily we all get sucked into the marketing propaganda of the camera corporations!

I agree wtih all that. You don't need 36 MP if you don't do large prints any more than you need 10 FPS unless you do some sort of action photography.

Even so, I'm really glad that Nikon came out with 36 MP. I would have settled for the 24 MP "D700X" that never was, but 36 MP means that I can dump film for good and sell analogue cameras to more than cover my D800 investment including lenses.

How do I get on with the big files? Well, first of all it depends on what you compare with. Raw files are smaller than TIFF files of similar quality. I regularly worked with 50-100 MB film scans in Photoshop; now I work with 25-30 MB raw files, and I work in Lightroom so I don't have to make multiple copies as in PS.

Secondly, it's a bit like getting on with thousands of music tracks or whatever we keep on our computers. Hardware and software grow with the job (or vice versa), so it's not a problem.

As this comparison of a 5x4" film scan (left) to a D800 file (not the same tree, but both at 100%, unsharpened and at similar image scales), the D800 at least matches 5x4 film.

[Glenn NK]

In regard to Nikon FF, I'm going to chime in even though I have all Canon gear.

I also frequent the Luminous Landscape forum, and there is a very interesting post made by Ray on the Camera, Lenses and Shooting Gear subforum. The results he found (by accident) kind of blew me away and others too.

After you read it, you will likely go out a get the D800E.

Yes, and Ole is right - many very knowledgeable photogs compare the D800E's resolution to that of MF. These are people that know what they are talking about and don't blow smoke rings.

Glenn

[Mark von Kanel]

Glenn, thats teasing! you could of either posted a link or a synopsis!

[oleleclos]

...many very knowledgeable photogs compare the D800E's resolution to that of MF

Yes, and that's comparing digital with digital. My comparisons are digital with film, because that's where I came from, and there I find the D800 much more than matching medium format. Perhaps not a relevant comparison today, but it is for me as I was very happy with my Hasselblads until I saw what came out of the D800.

Here's a comparison. Same granite wall to the same scale: an Imacon film scan (left) and a D800 file, both at 100%.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Ole,

While I did try MF decades ago, this query is purely out of interest in the image above.

To my eyes, the angle of the sun to the texture of the wall looks different - if indeed there is any sun on the left?

This would put the film shot at an unfair disadvantage.

If there is (any sun on the left/film shot at a similar angle), that seems to indicate not only a lower resolution, but also a smaller dynamic range - is that what you see?

We're speaking subjectively, of course.

BTW I don't recall seeing anyone else at CiC from the Channel Islands

Cheers,

[oleleclos]

...why give it such an absurdly slow frame rate even in DX mode?

For several reasons I think: First of all, at 36 MP th D800 has to push through 2.25 times as much data as the 16 MP D4, so at 4 FPS the D800 is actually doing about the same work as the D4 at 10 FPS. At 5 FPS with the extra battery in a vertical handgrip, it's doing a little bit more.

Secondly, the D800 is aimed at a different kind of photographer than the D4. Action photography does not typically end up as murals. Besides, to get sharpness at pixel level on the D800 you really need to put it on a sturdy tripod. Not typical when shooting 10 FPS action.

Finally, I can understand Nikon wanting to give people something tangible for double the money

What I find harder to understand is that someone who shoots mainly portraits and landscapes thinks that 4 FPS is absurdly slow. I'd call it absurdly (or at least unnecessarily) fast for that purpose.