I just had the time of my life testing out two incredible new cameras, the Canon 5D Mark III and the Nikon D800. I took them to Yosemite and Mono Lake for a little over a week and would like to share with you my personal review.
Hope you enjoy it!
Great review Fred. Regarding the D800's Live View, the poor acuity for focusing and grainy image in low light are the result of the same underlying implementation issue/decision - Nikon is skipping sensor lines for its Live View feed and this results both in poor edge sharpness for certain subjects and a higher gain necessary to offset the loss of light-gathering ability from skipping lines. I posted an updated video a few days ago about the D800 LV focusing issue and some tips on using picture controls to offset the problem. You can watch it here:
Would have like to see an equal number of images from each camera to compare, rather than a high number of Canon images and written description of how Nikon performs.
thanks for the write up, but seems a little biased towards the canon with the majority of pics were with the 5d3. given that the d800 is touted as the landscapers dream camera, why were you reluctant to post more d800 photos?
Thanks for the review, Fred. You made some gorgeous shots and it looks like you had a lot of fun! Out of curiosity, what is your method for sharpening and resizing for the web?
bachisking wrote:
thanks for the write up, but seems a little biased towards the canon with the majority of pics were with the 5d3. given that the d800 is touted as the landscapers dream camera, why were you reluctant to post more d800 photos?
How you can accuse him of being bias is beyond me, if any thing he had made case for landscape shooters to get D800. If I'm a landscape shooter and confused on which camera to get after reading his review I will head straight to Nikon D800.
okafoja wrote: bachisking wrotethanks for the write up, but seems a little biased towards the canon with the majority of pics were with the 5d3. given that the d800 is touted as the landscapers dream camera, why were you reluctant to post more d800 photos?How you can accuse him of being bias is beyond me, if any thing he had make case for landscape shooters to get D800. If I'm a landscape shooter and confused on which camera to get after reading his review I will head straight to Nikon D800.
seemed to me like he doesn't really know how to maximize the use of the d800 - understandably he's mostly a canon user after all and it would be easier for him to get used to the 5d3 coming from a 5d2. also having that live view issue should not prevent him from taking more shots with the d800 no?
bachisking wrote:
thanks for the write up, but seems a little biased towards the canon with the majority of pics were with the 5d3. given that the d800 is touted as the landscapers dream camera, why were you reluctant to post more d800 photos?
I'd say Fred was pretty clear on it. He likes T/S lenses and the Nikon 24 doesn't have independently adjustable axes and also suffered from CA so he didn't use it as much. It didn't really feel biased at all what with the raving praise for the D800 sensor.
Fred also uses live view for critical focus as he uses manual focus, the d800 is lacking in that area. Personally I would only use live view to compose a shot so the resolution of live view has little impact to me. Now if I can only my shipping notification so I can retire my tired D80, and enjoy the results of the D800
Hopefully Nikon can improve LV via a firmware update, though I suspect it's a hardware limitation at it's heart.
But oh that low ISO DR of the D800 seems amazing! Would be nice if there was a direct comparison to the D700. I bring up shadows all the time so this matters to me quite a lot.
Thanks for the detailed writeup Fred. It was great to see all the images, and read about how the cameras compared. I found your comparison of shadow recovery especially enlightening. Now if only Nikon made a lens like the 17mm TS-E and 24mm TS-E....
I think the analysis bears out what a lot of us had been thinking: the d800 sensor is superior, but it's too bad they don't make better TSE lenses. Lens lineup is just a little better on Canon side.
Also will say that for landscape shooting I don't know of any better way to achieve critical focus than to go to live-view and then zoom in. Absolutely beats viewfinder. Surprised Nikon didn't perform like Canon there.
All that said... Nikon does have the best wide angle zoom in the 14-24... the combination of that and the d800 would be hard to beat for most of my shooting.
jhinkey wrote:
Hopefully Nikon can improve LV via a firmware update, though I suspect it's a hardware limitation at it's heart.
The two previous Exmor sensor generations have selective readout modes which can be used to generate clean 100% magnified views, which is what the D7000 uses (and presumably what Canon uses for all of their sensors). This mode is necessary because the Nikon Expeed/Canon Digic processors aren't fast enough to read the entire sensor at 30fps. I haven't seen a datasheet for the 36MP Exmor but I assume it supports selective read-out as well. I think Nikon chose not to use it so that they could reuse the video logic for the Live View feed. From a technical POV I think Nikon could change this and use selective readout but it's probably a significant firmware change so I think it's unlikely.
Don't like Nikon's Live View on the D800? Politely write them a letter or e-mail -- that is what I am doing. Personally I think poor LiveView performance will hamper the D800. I didn't think too highly of LV but after using it on a 5D.2 for a few years, I think it's very very valuable, I won't buy another dSLR without it.
We are the customers, and we have a voice. Use it rather than speculate.