OMG, how noisy are they! My D700 files are much cleaner than that. If this is definitive of the D800 at high ISO - which I doubt, as they will be cleaner in LR4, its a definite no no for me as I need a high ISO camera, and replacing my D700 with the same or worse is not gonna happen.
I do expect to see much cleaner images once the D800 is out in the wilds and people have played with it more
pr4photos wrote:
OMG, how noisy are they! My D700 files are much cleaner than that. If this is definitive of the D800 at high ISO - which I doubt, as they will be cleaner in LR4, its a definite no no for me as I need a high ISO camera, and replacing my D700 with the same or worse is not gonna happen.
I do expect to see much cleaner images once the D800 is out in the wilds and people have played with it more
Noisier when you zoom in to 100% in browser?
They should be, they're 36MP files. If they looked as clean as a D700 at 100%, this would be the best low light camera ever produced .
Looking at similarly lit 700 images at similar magnifications, I can't help being pleased.
pr4photos wrote:
OMG, how noisy are they! My D700 files are much cleaner than that. If this is definitive of the D800 at high ISO - which I doubt, as they will be cleaner in LR4, its a definite no no for me as I need a high ISO camera, and replacing my D700 with the same or worse is not gonna happen.
I do expect to see much cleaner images once the D800 is out in the wilds and people have played with it more
Grab one and make a PRINT from it (you choose the size!). Then decide how much noise there is that still bothers you.
pr4photos wrote:
OMG, how noisy are they! My D700 files are much cleaner than that. If this is definitive of the D800 at high ISO - which I doubt, as they will be cleaner in LR4, its a definite no no for me as I need a high ISO camera, and replacing my D700 with the same or worse is not gonna happen.
I do expect to see much cleaner images once the D800 is out in the wilds and people have played with it more
What did you expect - noise free images at 12800! As Dave said, if you printed a D700 & D800 image at the same size, visible noise is going to be very similar at the same ISO. The ISO6400 image looks pretty close to the D7000 @ 100%. If you down sized the D800 image to 16mp, visually it would look maybe a stop cleaner which would certainly put it in D700 territory.
SOOC, don't expect to see dramatic improvements over these samples.
When I say noisy, I meant I downloaded the images, downsized them to a size that I would be sending to clients, and compared it to existing images from the D700 that I have sent to clients. Thats my real world test. I know they will be good as prints, but I have to compare at sizes that my client will receive. And at that size they are noisier than the D700.
Im betting the D800 will be slightly better than the D7000 @3200 and for some, usuable at 6400. When you look back at noise (D2H, D2X), much has improved for a high res high dynamic image maker.
Nothing great neither in noise nor in detail department... but of course they are early samples and we know nothing about D800 jpeg algorithm, let alone settings and nr applied.
Let me just say that I don't want to start a flame wars or anything here However as a D90 owner I was patiently waiting for the D800 announcement before making any decision regarding an update and I the more I look at this camera I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed by it.
Yes it's sure one hell of a monster at 36mp, but that's about it isn't it? I don't really care about the video feature. I mean the D700 ISO seems to be quite a bit better and the D700 is also faster. Even my older D90 is 4.5fps... This is two specs I was mostly looking for, High ISO & Speed.
I bought my D90 back when it came out along with the Battery Grip for it and I can't think of not using one on a D800. But at ~650$ for it along with a new battery the price of the Combo is getting close to 4000$ here in Canada.
So what I'm left with? D4? That'd be nice! It'll be faster, better high ISO, lighter than the D800 + Battery Grip. Yea much better camera all around that's for sure. But 6000$ I'd like to have a Jack-of-all-trade camera... 24mp, ~7-8fps, ISO 6400 as good as the D700. around 2000-2500$ Maybe the next D400? Am I dreaming? But in the other hand I really wanted to switch to Full Frame...
D700 + Battery Grip might still be a good deal. However I'll still be stuck with 12mp... I don't know...
I'd like to have you guys opinion on this... Maybe I'm expecting too much.
I'm actually pretty impressed with the noise at 3200 and 6400. The noise characteristics looks more like film grain. The 6400 and 3200 would be just fine printed. These samples however they were processed are as clean if not cleaner then a d3x would be. If these were RAW files they would clean up and sharpen up nicely. This is about what i expected from a 36mp camera. Who knows how it will be until the final product is released.
EXIF reveals that these are with High ISO NR disabled. I applied chrominance+luminance NR to the ISO 6400 and resized to 12MP and the image looked very similar to a D700 image wrt to noise but with much more detail.
Yes but chroma is trivial to remove in post. I'm downloading the chandelier shot and am going to play with it in CS5.
Edit - so I downloaded the ISO 6400 chandelier shot (I was thinking it was ISO 1600!), applied a tiny bit of chroma NR and very very light luma NR in LR 3 then exported to 1440 px tall to fit my 27" monitor - looks outstanding, no real hint of noise.
I then took the same file and exported to a height of 2500 px then viewed at 100%, and slight hints of luma NR, but definitely good looking and natural, not plastic. Very very nice.
iso6400 looks great for a 36mp cam. After downsampling the image to what size i would use it for, its the same if not a little better than my d700. I grabbed the 100% crop from what i consider the hardest area for a camera sensor to render. the shadow with some highlights.
.
However as a D90 owner I was patiently waiting for the D800 announcement before making any decision regarding an update and I the more I look at this camera I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed by it. 
I'd like to have a Jack-of-all-trade camera... 24mp, ~7-8fps, ISO 6400 as good as the D700. around 2000-2500$ Maybe the next D400? Am I dreaming? But in the other hand I really wanted to switch to Full Frame... 
