Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I noticed that too imagine what mk3 will do
you feel like coming back?

Yea i guessed it before....
I am happy with my camera for now....It doesn't really matter what brand I carry .....
cheers

It seemed to matter to you when you were Nikon shopping

Anyway, DPreview has some real world results and first impressions now. Apparently "you may be surprised by the outcome."

D800 Gets Top mark at DX0. Besting D4.... So, again, why pay almost double for a D4? Just speed?

Speed - up to 11fps vs up to 5fps
Ethernet connectivity
Battery life (about 3x)
pretty sure I've read it's tested to a longer shutter life
have read at least one person who got his hands on both who said the focus was faster

My impression is that the D4 is designed as a high-use sports photojournalism camera for people who need to beat the competition.

I knew exactly what i was getting into......
I dont think those subtle difference bothers my clients ... just me:) for the the price I am okay with what i got ....
Y

Yeah, noted but all listed is not worth the extra price and other than a very very small group of photographers there aren't many who are willing to pay more for lower image quality.

Smaller image, for sure. But web, mobile, and most print uses don't need the pixels. Are there other ways the image quality is lower? I've not seen anything yet that suggests so. Not getting either, personally - happy with my D700 - but I assume there must be some reason that people have bought the D4 over the D800. Preorder-talk leans to more D800 sales, by a mile, but that doesn't mean it's the tool everyone needs, and for some of those people, cost can't possibly override the need for fps, the advantage of an ethernet connection, etc.

I don't see it as a sports camera. I see it as a camera designed for photojournalists AND sports photographers.

Photographers who will buy the D4 are photographers who are not going to necessarily baby their cameras. Job one is to get the photo and editors don't care if it means standing in the pouring rain and snow or getting shoved around and pushed to the ground.

I don't see the D800 as being as durable as the D4 and for photographers who feel likewise, the price difference, while big, is the small price to pay.

Screw this Sh@t, I'm selling my D700 and almost never used 70-200 VRII and getting this camera.

Hey guys, was reading your posts .. so .. what's ur take .. better a used D3S or a new D800 .. mostly landscapes and photojournalism pics.
thanks

One of my teachers just got his (a non-e version) and is blown away by the comparison between it and his D700 and Hasselblad H3D 39. The files are rediculously detailed and even though it is only 14 bit raw (vs hassy's 16bit) the files are still detail rich and tonality wise they are amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on one but first I am getting a D4 (once i can afford it that is....)

DigitalRev(Kai) likes it but doesn't see a huge leap over the D700 in a few ways.

I skimmed this -- will have to watch in full later tonight. The D700 and D800 basically have the same ISO range.... but the advantage is in resolution. He is right about hard-drives weeping I am going to have to buy another 2TB drive to keep up once I get mine.

DigitalRev always makes fun videos, but they're fairly general in terms of their reviews, it's like the top gear of camera blogs. Either way, from what I'm seeing so far, he's fairly spot on. You're getting a D700 with 3x the pixels, video and a few bells and whistles. If you don't print any of your photos, don't shoot video, you don't really need this camera. Unless you're a crappy photographer and want to be able to crop two thirds of it away if you need to .

I'm wondering how wedding photographers will take to this camera. It's a bit slower, but probably not too slow for weddings. You burn through memory cards and HD space like crazy and you don't need the resolution for weddings. BUT, you have a ton of crop space in case someone gets in the way. You can switch to DX and get some more reach while still getting high resolution shots; And you can do video.

When I wake up in the morning, first thing I do is check digitalrev and nikonrumors.

interesting thread.. IMO the money one can save getting the D800 has to be used to getting a better computer and more storage. In the end, you'd still spend around $6,000, unless the person already has the fastest computer for editing, and 160TB of HDD space.

Glad its out of my league right now

DigitalRev likes the D800 slightly more than the 5DIII...sort of.

guys, the whole thing about having to get a better computer is a myth..... ya, having a recent computer helps, but my year old quad core is more than enough machinery to process D800 files. I do not need to run out tomorrow and get a souped up i7 with 32 mb of RAM.

A whole 32MB of RAM?! I get your point though and I agree. That said, raw files already fill up my drives fast enough, this won't help. The price of drives needs to come down to make this camera more viable.

+1, If my computer didn't break down the other month and I didn't already have a new one, this camera wouldn't even be an option for me. David, you're right about that, but not everyone bought a computer last year. Mine was about 5 years old when it broke down, and I plan on using the one I built the other month for another 5 years.

I've been looking at threads, reviews and comparisons until my eyes bleed over here. From what I'm seeing, the D800 and 5DIII are pretty even. Each one has its strengths. The fact that Canon finally fixed their AF, is the absolute biggest thing. Being a Nikon guy through and through, If I had $5k burning a hole in my pocket and had absolutely no money invested in either system, I'd probably pick the 5DIII over the D800. The Canon has the very slightest of advantages in that it's a extremely friendly to the all around photographer, where the D800 is a bit more directed towards one particular type of photographer (me!).

Agreed. For the most part we can fall into arguments trenched in the fallacy of minor differences between these two cameras. And, for me, as a Canon guy through and through, I vastly prefer Canon's usability, but that's besides the point (and responders, please don't discredit my ability to assess the usability of a system by saying that I'm "just not used to it"). I agree, the 5DIII has a high usability, or let's say versatility, to it that the Nikon doesn't quite have(not that it's anywhere near bad). I make that statement based on the reviews that say the 5DIII is very 7D like. The 7D is a kickass camera and was a leap ahead that made Nikon react, in a good way, with the cameras that followed it. Anyway, the point is if the 5DIII is an enhanced 7D with a 22MP sensor that is an amazing versatile camera. That said, if I weren't attached to a system, the D800 is well worth coveting. I was worried about noise and dynamic range, both worries appear to be unfounded. The sensor kicks ass. I also have a very practical reason for considering Nikon in that there could be resource sharing. If I were in the scenario of having $5k and not invested in a system it'd be a very difficult decision. Fortunately for those in this position there's no wrong choice.

I worry about the idea that the Canon is for an "average" photographer, so the Nikon is for the expert? That can be read either way.

Yes.. as you can see my post, I edited it out . I meant it more in an "all around" type photographer kind of way.

Precisely.
I bought my laptop in 2006 and have no real plans of updating it.
My D70 files processed wonderfully on it.
It CHUGS on a raw file from my D7000 (16mp) and will not even open a D800 raw file.
The 2GB of ram it is maxed out with honestly won't do it.
And the fact of the matter is this: a huge majority of the public consumer have computers like this that do exactly what they needed too. That said though, how many of them really are going to buy an 800?
Any proper computer built in the last two years should handle these files just fine.


Unfortunately due to Tsunami's, flooding and a plethora of other disasters, our "first world need" for hard drives can not bring down the price of the lost lives and time at these manufacturing plants.
It's the same reason why Nikon cannot produce all 8 billion cameras that people have pre-ordered, and why even Apple has struggled to get iPads out of their respective factories.

Well said Alex ....

I'm not into the whole body scene, as I consider them accessories for my lenses. I've made my bed with Canon F/1.2 lenses, so I don't have much of a choice and will be getting the 5D3.

The D800 is a fantastic DSLR. One thing to keep in mind, is that it can only shoot at 36MP RAW (if I'm not mistaken). This is Alex's concern, I think. Not a deal breaker, but a lot of Pros sometimes like to shoot in compressed RAW at times (for capacity purposes for long term storage or being stuck with smaller CF cards etc). Just feeding info. Cheers.

Correct.... RAW files are always full res, but crop modes are recorded as jpeg.

Not true David, if set your camera to shot raw and shoot in "dx mode" you won't get a full res NEF file, it will be cropped, so less resolution and smaller file sizes. If you still have your D700, give it a try.

Sam - you are right .... the information I read was wrong.

So the correct answer is: Yes, The D800 will create a RAW file in the different crop modes. But if the Medium or Small file size is selected, then it will create a jpeg file only. Otherwise, all of the RAW files in the various modes will be created as an L size RAW file.

Sorry for my miss-reading and understanding.

If it is like the D700, D300, D200.... then you can turn lossless RAW compression on which cuts your file size in half. That will soften the blow somewhat to HD space. Maybe I'm just not very picky, but I can't tell the difference between having it on or off.

At 36mp I think people will need to start upgrading to 16gb ram otherwise your work flow could get bogged down. When I went from a D40 to D7000 my 2gb of ram just couldn't handle the files so I upgraded to 16 just to play it safe