Cutting to the chase: all things considered, the Nikon D800E and Nikkor AF-S 35mm ƒ/1.4G lens is the best overall photographic device of any description I have used thus far in my life.
The Internet is full of opinions without any doubt. To save time and form your own, all you need to do is to safely ignore those and to use the equipment yourselves.
mshi wrote:
The Internet is full of opinions without any doubt. To save time and form your own, all you need to do is to safely ignore those and to use the equipment yourselves.
Some opinions are more important than others. Mike Johnston's is one of important ones.
You know it is all fine and good that you cut to the chase, so to speak, but pulling things out of context is one of the things that is most disappointing about people putting up posts on the internet. I happen to love your work but if your going to quote someone then please do it properly. If care to publish the paragraph immediately following that sentence it takes quite a bit of the punch out of it don't you think. He finishes up by saying:
"That said, I'm not entirely certain that it's the best camera out there now, or even that it's actually appreciably better than the Olympus OM-D E-M5 for image quality in the small to medium-sized prints I make. My intuition—and that's all it is—is that digital technology has recently rounded another curve in its ongoing technological development, in that the engineers at the camera manufacturers are actively responding to the photographic community's concerns about dynamic range. This is leading to a new class of sensor and new emphases of implementation—and a new, higher level of image quality that is exciting and gratifying. These new FF Nikons; the D7000 and the Pentax K-5II; the newest rangefinder-style Fujis, starting with the X100 and definitely including the great X-Pro1; the current best Micro 4/3 camera, the OM-D; the NEX-7 and even the supersweet little Sony RX100 all seem to belong to this movement. There may be more. The Canon 5D Mark III, for one, might also belong in this group, though I don't know a lot about that one."
davenfl wrote:
You know it is all fine and good that you cut to the chase, so to speak, but pulling things out of context is one of the things that is most disappointing about people putting up posts on the internet. I happen to love your work but if your going to quote someone then please do it properly. If care to publish the paragraph immediately following that sentence it takes quite a bit of the punch out of it don't you think. He finishes up by saying:
"That said, I'm not entirely certain that it's the best camera out there now, or even that it's actually appreciably better than the Olympus OM-D E-M5 for image quality in the small to medium-sized prints I make. My intuition—and that's all it is—is that digital technology has recently rounded another curve in its ongoing technological development, in that the engineers at the camera manufacturers are actively responding to the photographic community's concerns about dynamic range. This is leading to a new class of sensor and new emphases of implementation—and a new, higher level of image quality that is exciting and gratifying. These new FF Nikons; the D7000 and the Pentax K-5II; the newest rangefinder-style Fujis, starting with the X100 and definitely including the great X-Pro1; the current best Micro 4/3 camera, the OM-D; the NEX-7 and even the supersweet little Sony RX100 all seem to belong to this movement. There may be more. The Canon 5D Mark III, for one, might also belong in this group, though I don't know a lot about that one."
No offence Dave... but if you do not want to pull things out of context you need to include more:
Now then...people ask. But I don't usually see why it should be interesting to others what I actually do. As a photographer, I'm just another photography-phile, just like almost all of you. I don't see why my decisions amount to a bigger hill of beans than anyone else's.
But here's what I did. I dropped the rental camera off at UPS, and turned right around and drove to Mike Crivello's Cameras, my local camera store, and bought a D800.
I opted for the plain-jane version as opposed to the hot-rodded "E." For one thing, they had it in stock.
and
I really will have to sell most of my other cameras—along with the lens I bought, this is a very expensive camera. I've decided to keep just two digital cameras (one DSLR and one mirrorless) and one film camera**. For the DSLR, the D600 would have been a more sensible choice. Twenty-four megapixels is enough, and the D600's lighter build quality suits my usage level: I'm not hard on my cameras these days. But for some reason I just wanted the higher level model this time.
As for the D800, Nikon just seems to do this every once in a while: they hit a balance that seems clearly to exceed the sum of the specs. The image quality of this camera is truly exciting even for a jaded old photo-dawg like me. It sees in the dark, it's got oceans of pixels, and the highlight rendering seems to me like a long-simmering problem solved. And I find the camera itself marvelously comfortable and transparent to use, a highly refined design that falls to hand just right. ...Show more →
To me this is very impressive... While he is recognizing that in the market there are great options like OM-D, D700, NEX, X100 etc he really "worship" D800: "It sees in the dark, it's got oceans of pixels, and the highlight rendering seems to me like a long-simmering problem solved."
Mishu01 wrote:
No offence Dave... but if you do not want to pull things out of context you need to include more:
and
To me this is very impressive... While he is recognizing that in the market there are great options like OM-D, D700, NEX, X100 etc he really "worship" D800: "It sees in the dark, it's got oceans of pixels, and the highlight rendering seems to me like a long-simmering problem solved."
Exactly. Mike Johnston is a legend in the photography world BTW.
