Given all the discussions in the last months around the "increased" requirements some posters would like to attribute to the 36MP Sensor of the D800, I thought about sharing only one picture from yesterday.
Taken with all the "bad" things which had been discussed at length:
1) a zoom: AFS 70-200mm/2.8 VR II - "Only primes will deliver"
2) aperture: This one is shot wide open @f2.8 - usually the weakest aperture setting
3) soft at the long end: Zooms tend to be softer at the long end. 180mm
4) Handheld: 36MP require an absolutely a sturdy tripod. Not used here
5) shutter speed: Should be higher than the classic reciprocal value. It was 1/125sec here with a 180mm focal length
One group of people on the internet tend to agree that the combination of all those factors above would limit the benefits of the D800's high resolution sensor. I wouldn't be so sure about the practical implications.
So here we go. This image has been taken with all the settings mentioned above. It was not postprocessed in CNX2, only converted from RAW to JPEG.
Terrible portrait camera, no one will buy it without post processing because it shows to much detail.
This is going to be great for Landscapes though.
Where is my D800, it was supposed to be here on the 15th?
Clearly there is no flash being used here as there are no catchlights. Appears to be a single possibly tungsten light on camera right, and above the model.
After using my D800 for a full day. I found I could ignore all the misinformation that has been going around for some time online.
I haven’t changed any thing going from a D3 to the D800 and the quality of the photos has just blown me away. The details, colors, shooting a back lit subject is just amazing, and I don’t do much cropping but I played with a few of my photos and even throwing away 2/3 of the photo it came very close to matching my D3.
There is nothing to say except the D800 is one amazing camera. Thank you Nikon.
Dennis
Andy, thank you for this lovely photo, I have been waiting for a large file size portrait to view. It confirms what I feared about the D800, there is almost too much detail for general portrait photos. Not for the special glamour shots, where a lot of post processing will be involved anyway, but for general portrait use I think I will keep my dream team of the D700, 85/1.4D, 70-200VR f/2.8 and the smaller file size. For everything else, I anxiously await my D800.
SpecFoto wrote:
Andy, thank you for this lovely photo, I have been waiting for a large file size portrait to view. It confirms what I feared about the D800, there is almost too much detail for general portrait photos. Not for the special glamour shots, where a lot of post processing will be involved anyway, but for general portrait use I think I will keep my dream team of the D700, 85/1.4D, 70-200VR f/2.8 and the smaller file size. For everything else, I anxiously await my D800.
James
nothing bad with staying with D700, but you can never have too much details. it is easier to apply dumb selective blurring on face (to equal 12Mpix) and keep clothes sharp then trying to paint details where they are not. Losing details if you have too many is simple. Getting them after shot is done is hard .
Also keep in mind that you can also take it so, that you can have half body worth of D700 details from full body shot now, and you don't limit your self to full body shots with D700 to lose details, do you :-)
for example capture one can apply color adjustment (including intensity, sharpness, details, etc) on skin color, as a batch process. you can fully automate it. Weaken contrast and details in skin color, keep everywhere else :-). Skin editor is awesome feature for wedding overdelivererer as my self.
SpecFoto wrote:
Andy, thank you for this lovely photo, I have been waiting for a large file size portrait to view. It confirms what I feared about the D800, there is almost too much detail for general portrait photos. Not for the special glamour shots, where a lot of post processing will be involved anyway, but for general portrait use I think I will keep my dream team of the D700, 85/1.4D, 70-200VR f/2.8 and the smaller file size. For everything else, I anxiously await my D800.
James
You are welcome James.
Getting down from a high resolution source material is normally easier than the other way around. What I like about this image is the tonality it produces. Here is a downsampled version with 1920x1280 resolution.
For the too much detail crowd. Really? No ones perfect, get over it. So there's enough detail to see that. So what? Maybe this camera will start a revolution for reality in imaging. Maybe it will let people see that no one is "picture perfect" and THAT'S ok.
Kittyk wrote:
for example capture one can apply color adjustment (including intensity, sharpness, details, etc) on skin color, as a batch process. you can fully automate it. Weaken contrast and details in skin color, keep everywhere else :-). Skin editor is awesome feature for wedding overdelivererer as my self.
this could be a really dumb question, kittyk, but if it is, let's pretend it's because i am working at 5 in the morning
what is this skin editor your are referring to? i really never batch process much stuff, since i do not shoot a ton of weddings and since i am mainly a portrait photographer, i really only work on individual shots in photoshop, but i am always curious of things that have the potential to save me time
to the OP, thank you for posting a portrait...and one under "less than optimal conditions"
