I am a landscape shooter, and have been shooting a Nikon F5 and F6 since 2009. No digital of any kind, just Velvia 50 film. I have been waiting for buy a full frame Nikon since back in 2004 when I owned a D2h. Anyways, I have an old 512MB Lexar CF card, as well as a 1GB Lexar CF card from back then and am assuming that these cards will not cut it with a 36.3 MP camera. What size would be a minimum for around 100-150 shots? I think I read that the D800 files are 74MB each! I'm hoping that the build quality of this camera is nice and solid like the F6, I hate plastic feeling camera's. So looking forward to trying out live view composing with electronic loupe to check focus. I've never had any of this modern gadgetry before
Uncompressed raw might be 74MB, lossless compressed raw are around 45MB. Varies by data. I'd agree, around 200. With raw you never know until you get there.
128 or 64GB cards only.
1 CF and 1 SD either in 128 or 64 and you can shoot all day without having to switch out cards or worry about carrying extra cards etc.
Thats what works for me, it may not for you.
The D800 has a slot for a CF or an SD. Personally I can't see any reason to buy a $400 compact flash when you can get a couple 32GB class 10 SD cards for a fraction of that.
Being a landscape shooter the 90/mbs SD's vs/150 mbs CF's will probably not be noticeable.
Throw in the fact that my Macbook has an SD card slot reader built in and I really can't see buying a CF. SD card readers are also available for every other computer as well.
Just my opinion as a fellow landscape shooter. Good fast SD's have enever let me down.
"I am sorry to tell you the D800 is exactly that!"
Plastic feeling? I thought it was a full magnesium body? I've never handled any of the newer Nikon DSLR's, so pardon my ignorance. I wanted a D3, but that camera lacked a few features that I wanted, along with having only 12MP.
I shoot landscapes at 12-bit NEF, lossless compressed. Each NEF is about 30-35 MB, and goes down to 27-29 MB after conversion to DNG. The D800 file sizes aren't as bad as I initially thought.
Congrats! I use 16gig hoodman RAW steel cards and get 201 shots per SD card. I have the sandisk extreme pro CF card and that gets me 199 per card. So far the RAW steel by hoodman (high quality card made in USA) gets me the most shots. Enjoy your camera, I love mine! By the way, I shoot uncompressed 14 bit RAW in adobe color format and my files are 75mb each...
