Steve Spencer wrote:
I am giving this camera serious consideration, but one big question I have is the availability of something like the S matte viewfinder screens on Canon cameras for manual focussing. I find these very useful and it seems that swapping out the viewfinder screen is not an option on the Nikon cameras. Anyone who share their experience with a D3X or D700 and how they handle manual focussing would be much appreciated.
I asked just about the exact same question on page 7 of this thread and some of the responses might answer your question.
Feb 16, 2012 at 10:49 AM
Steve Spencer Online • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
To quote: "We can remove the AA filter and replace with an optical window with the same refractive index (so that focusing and aperture settings don't change)."
I would think it would also help from a cleaning perspective.
A quote from the opening sentence from the "The Explanation" in the said article, which BTW, was last modified on 25th November 2011:
Quote: "All digital SLR cameras contain a piece of glass called the Anti-Aliasing (AA) or Blur filter to prevent Moiré patterns."
Epic fail!...The Leica S2 came out in 2008 and it does'nt have an AA filter. The Leica M9 came out in 2009 and it does'nt have an AA filter either, and neither do any of the Sigma DSLR's, which first came out in 2002...Whoever wrote that article is WAY behind the times! I did'nt think it would be reading on any further as a result!
Alf, at least the M9 is not an SLR But on the other hand, any number of medium format systems with digital backs *are* SLRs, and the Mamiya ZD (camera, not back) is a very early DSLR with no AA filter (although wasn't it optional?).
Tariq Gibran wrote:
Of course, this D800 is using a Sony sensor. The rumor for Sony FF cameras though is that the next one which comes to market will be 24MP and will show up at the end of the year. After that, the 36MP Sony FF (likely with this same sensor) will come in 2013. That's a long wait! Given the very competitive price of the D800E - same price I paid for the Sony A900 three years ago - it's also a wait that makes no sense if you are not heavily invested in Sony specific glass AND, more importantly, you want a real optical finder (the future Sony will likely not have one). This D800 plus Zeiss ZF glass will be an image machine. ...Show more →
Yes, but its an image machine that might have IQ issues...Making the photosites so small has noticably reduced the D800's dynamic range and made the sensor much noisier...The standard ISO range is certainly lower than with most lower resolution FF cameras...And indeed most of the samples shown so far do seem to show some noise issues in shadow areas, even at relatively low ISO's.
Its also possible that because of the inherrantly higher noise, some hidden away in-camera noise reduction is employed, especially on the in-camera jpegs, to reduce noise but having a negative effect of reducing image resolution, as most of the jpeg samples posted so far seems to be nowhere near as sharp as I would expect them to be, given its high pixel count.
It will be very interesting to compare it with the upcoming 5D MkIII, which is rumoured to have a FF sensor of around 45mp.
Alf Beharie wrote:
Yes, but its an image machine with severe IQ issues...Making the photosites so small has noticably reduced the D800's dynamic range and made the sensor much noisier...The standard ISO range is certainly lower than with lower resolution FF cameras...And indeed most of the samples shown so far do seem to show some noise issues in shadow areas, even at relatively low ISO's.
Its also possible that because of the inherrantly higher noise, some hidden away in-camera noise reduction is employed, especially on the in-camera jpegs, to reduce it with the negative effect of reducing image resolution, as most of the jpeg samples posted so far seems to be nowhere near as sharp as I would expect them to be, given its high pixel count.
It will be very interesting to compare it with the upcoming 5D MkIII, which is rumoured to have a FF sensor of around 45mp. ...Show more →
So, you have tested the D800? The few 100% crops I have seen look just as good (actually a bit better) as what I was getting from my Sony A900 with regard to noise and the DR did not jump out at me as being an issue. The pixel size is about the same as that used in Sony's 16MP APS sensor and I believe that sensor has pretty decent noise and DR charecteristics. Given what I have seen thus far, I think the IQ from the D800 will be very high and not hampered by really poor DR and high shadow noise at base ISO's. I even expect the higher ISO's up to at least 1600 to be pretty good, much better than what I'm used to with the A900.
We have received new release date information related to the order you placed on February 07, 2012 (Order# 105-1838572-9099443). The item(s) listed below will actually ship sooner than we originally expected based on the new release date:
"Nikon D800E 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)"
Previous estimated arrival date: January 03, 2013
New estimated arrival date: March 18, 2012
So it will be here in a month...
Lotusm50 wrote:
Just got an anticipated delivery date for the D800E from Amazon.com. They said,
"Nikon D800E 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)"
Estimated arrival date: January 03, 2013
Maybe I should have order the D800 instead of the D800E. Let's see what Adorama tells me about my pre-order with them for the D800E.
Wasn't the original delivery estimate sometime in mid-April?
We have received new release date information related to the order you placed on February 07, 2012 (Order# 105-1838572-9099443). The item(s) listed below will actually ship sooner than we originally expected based on the new release date:
"Nikon D800E 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)"
Previous estimated arrival date: January 03, 2013
New estimated arrival date: March 18, 2012
So it will be here in a month...
Of course, that's probably not accurate either since the D800E will not be released until April sometime. At least their estimates are getting closer.
Edit: By the way, I changed my shipping time a few days ago and the estimate changed to March 21, 2012 for both the D800 and D800E.
Today I received an order update for the D800E saying that "We're still trying to obtain the following item you ordered on February 07, 2012" and the order page on Amazon now shows this for the estimated date of the D800E:
"We'll notify you via e-mail when we have an estimated delivery date for this item. It will ship separately. You can cancel at any time."
Tariq Gibran wrote:
So, you have tested the D800? The few 100% crops I have seen look just as good (actually a bit better) as what I was getting from my Sony A900 with regard to noise and the DR did not jump out at me as being an issue. The pixel size is about the same as that used in Sony's 16MP APS sensor and I believe that sensor has pretty decent noise and DR charecteristics. Given what I have seen thus far, I think the IQ from the D800 will be very high and not hampered by really poor DR and high shadow noise at base ISO's. I even expect the higher ISO's up to at least 1600 to be pretty good, much better than what I'm used to with the A900....Show more →
100% crops wont tell you much...I've been comparing D800 crops vs SD1 crops, both at 400%!
FlyPenFly wrote:
When cameras went from 4mpx -> 8mpx -> 12mpx -> 16mpx -> 21mpx -> 24mpx - 36mpx, the same old arguments keep resurfacing.
I feel like I'm in that movie Groundhog day.
For very good reason...You cant beat the laws of physics!
It maybe true that great strides have been made down at the pixel level to make smaller photosites more sensitive (going from 2T to 3T per photosite for instance) but a great deal more work has been done on perfecting in-camera and out-of-camera anti noise software...And that is the MAIN reason why maximum ISO settings are generally higher today than with most past models.
The maximum ISO of the 36mp FF sensor D800 is 6400 (ISO 12800 with "boost") but the maximum ISO of the 16mp FF sensor D4 is 12800 (ISO 24800 with "boost")...The one stop difference may not sound much but it can be seen as direct proof that smaller photosites are inherrantly more noisy than larger ones.
The same rules apply no matter who makes the camera or sensor.
Here is a slightly more dramatic example to nail the point home...The maximum ISO of the 18mp APSc Canon 600D is 6400, (ISO 12800 with "boost") but the maximum ISO of the 18mp FF Canon 1Dx is ISO 51200 (ISO 204800 with "boost")...Thats at a whopping three stops difference between their highest standard ISO settings and a massive 5 stops difference with "boost"!!!
Alf Beharie wrote:
For very good reason...You cant beat the laws of physics!
It maybe true that great strides have been made down at the pixel level to make smaller photosites more sensitive (going from 2T to 3T per photosite for instance) but a great deal more work has been done on perfecting in-camera and out-of-camera anti noise software...And that is the MAIN reason why maximum ISO settings are generally higher today than with most past models.
The maximum ISO of the 36mp FF sensor D800 is 6400 (ISO 12800 with "boost") but the maximum ISO of the 16mp FF sensor D4 is 12800 (ISO 24800 with "boost")...The one stop difference may not sound much but it can be seen as direct proof that smaller photosites are inherrantly more noisy than larger ones.
The same rules apply no matter who makes the camera or sensor.
Here is a slightly more dramatic example to nail the point home...The maximum ISO of the 18mp APSc Canon 600D is 6400, (ISO 12800 with "boost") but the maximum ISO of the 18mp FF Canon 1Dx is ISO 51200 (ISO 204800 with "boost")...Thats at a whopping three stops difference between their highest standard ISO settings and a massive 5 stops difference with "boost"!!! ...Show more →
We all know that larger photosites are less noisy than smaller ones, that't the Groundhog argument. Luckily, with every camera generation we get more pixels AND less noise, so why keep complaining.
Wonger wrote:
I've been scanning through the M9 forums and haven't found many complaints about the moire effect from them, I also found John Wrights work to be the best of the early examples and he stated this on this blog when asked about his moire concerns.
"A: Personally I’ll be buying the D800E. Moire has been a fact of life using medium format for years. It’s something you deal with IF it appears. I’d prefer to have the extra res." http://www.johnwrightphoto.com/
Im mainly doing travel and street photography and the M9 crowd who do plenty of street work are rarely complaining about moire as an issue. Then theres John Wright who is working with fabrics all day is okay with no AA filter I'd say that's a reasonable argument to take that route. All that plus it's supposed to be a landscapers dream I dont too bad about preordering the 800E.
Am I wrong in thinking that a D800E with much higher resolution than an M9 would have less issues with moire than the M9 or would it just occur at a different frequency? ...Show more →
I've been wondering about that, too. Yes, Leica folks don't complain much about moire, but they also shoot different subjects than DSLR folks. We all know that moire can happen in fabric, but what about subjects that are rarely shot with rangefinder cameras, like macros (insect eyes), wildlife (bird feather detail) etc. I hope these won't make for a bad surprise for D800E owners, but who knows.
Also, as a side note, I think the images from the D800E will, for all practical purposes (i.e. prints, web postings etc) look like D800 images and not like Leica images.
'Thats at a whopping three stops difference between their highest standard ISO settings and a massive 5 stops difference with "boost"!!!'
That's a lot of arm-waving. Won't matter much for the intended audience for these cameras, people who understand the limits of high ISO performance, an detrimental effects on IQ. They shoot at low-mid ISO of course.
400% is rather unhelpful, even for noise nazis...isn't higher than 100% extrapolated?
Thorsten wrote:
I've been wondering about that, too. Yes, Leica folks don't complain much about moire, but they also shoot different subjects than DSLR folks. We all know that moire can happen in fabric, but what about subjects that are rarely shot with rangefinder cameras, like macros (insect eyes), wildlife (bird feather detail) etc. I hope these won't make for a bad surprise for D800E owners, but who knows.
Also, as a side note, I think the images from the D800E will, for all practical purposes (i.e. prints, web postings etc) look like D800 images and not like Leica images.
Bird feathers are definitely potential moire disasters waiting to happen.
After looking at the D800E v D800 samples, I'm starting to lean towards getting the regular D800. I'm sure there will be plenty more tests to see between these two before either ship - so plenty of time to go back and forth decision wise.
But on the other hand, any number of medium format systems with digital backs *are* SLRs, and the Mamiya ZD (camera, not back) is a very early DSLR with no AA filter (although wasn't it optional?).
