p.1 #1 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Will be looking to rebuild my kit in the coming months and was wondering if the MP count of the D800 is really a drawback or negative aspect of the camera? Aside from taking up more space on discs and cards, is it that bad? Are there an limitations I should consider? Work arounds to saving raw files long term? Editing complications in Lightroom?
I'm looking at the d800 because I'd like to have a current camera body for once. Something that isn't 4-5 years old. IQ, dynamic range, and low light performance is most important to me. I shoot portraits. Have used D700's in the past.
p.1 #2 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Well, 36Mp has been a fantastic thing as far as I am concerned. Love the resolution, the high ISO ability, the overall IQ and the croppability for my birding an wildlife photography. The file size is large, but it's no big deal as memory is cheap and we will need to upgrade our memory one day anyway due to the ever increasing memory hungriness of all new programs.
p.1 #3 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
hard drives are cheap, memory is cheap, fast cpu are pretty cheap...building a large storage is semi cheap...so no...no concerns. Just go out and shoot
p.1 #4 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Lance B wrote:
Well, 36Mp has been a fantastic thing as far as I am concerned. Love the resolution, the high ISO abilility, the overall IQ and the croppability for my birding an wildlife photography. The file size is large, but it's no big deal as memory is cheap and we will need to upgrade our memory one day anyway due to the ever increasing memory hungriness of all new programs.
I plan to move my Lightroom catalog to an external drive anyway. And it seems like storage is getting cheaper too.
I'm maxed on my 2009 MacBook Pro at 8 gigs of ram on a 2.66 core2duo processor. Works fine for now. But will be upgraded down the road.
p.1 #5 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Sunny Sra wrote:
hard drives are cheap, memory is cheap, fast cpu are pretty cheap...building a large storage is semi cheap...so no...no concerns. Just go out and shoot
p.1 #6 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
derek.fulmer wrote:
I plan to move my Lightroom catalog to an external drive anyway. And it seems like storage is getting cheaper too.
I'm maxed on my 2009 MacBook Pro at 8 gigs of ram on a 2.66 core2duo processor. Works fine for now. But will be upgraded down the road.
D800 files are great but huge. Get the tastes cards you can afford (I use 32 Gb CF/SD Sandisk Extreme Pro)
The D800 is not forgivable (D700 is). Every small mistake will be enlarged. Use at least one stop faster shutter then what you're used to.
I wouldn't move the LR catalog to an external drive, you should put in on the fastest drive possible (SSD's) and your previews as well. LR is slow in processing D800 files. I have the new (and fastest) iMac with 3.4Ghz i7 quad-core processor, 16Gb memory and fusion drive and still find it not very fast. With these files IO is the bottleneck.
p.1 #7 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
I just got the D800e and I love it. The file detail is intoxicating. But you will burn through storage. A gigabyte for every 25 shots, in RAW. But storage is cheap, and will only get cheaper.
Lightroom handle these files well if you have a half-decent system. If you're a high-volume pro shooter, then you might want to update to something speedy, but my 3 year old Thinkpad churns through those files ok. I find an SSD helps speed things along.
Download some of the sample D800 NEF files on the net and play around with them. That'll show you what to expect.
p.1 #8 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Only drawback is framerate and buffer penalty, which I say don't really count because the D800/e is the model you buy for resolution first, everything else second.
If you take your time with your portraits you will love it. If you machine gun and throw away 95% so you can catch micro expressions, maybe not
p.1 #9 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Well if you have used 12MP just multiply storage, time and card size by 3. Having to move from 8Gb to 32Gb cards hurt the wallet a bit though.
Unless you are very causal photographer or shoot sports/events the file size 'problem' is overstated. The biggest complainers usually have their workflow to blame: they keep every shot they take leading to huge storage required instead of keeping the best. They import everyting directly into lightroom which needs to render previews rather than doing a cull with faststone or photomechanic which displays the embeded jpg in the RAW with almost instant previews.
We have had 10-12MP cameras for ages and ages, computers have not stood still plus it will probably be 4 years before we get another camera update.
p.1 #11 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
^dollar for dollar definitely. What you get with Apple is their aesthetic, ease of use, ease of setup and interoperability with all the various devices.
If someone sends me a message, I get it on my iphone, ipad, and mac desktop. I can reply on any.
If I'm looking at a web page on my phone and want a bigger screen, I can just open it right up on any of them as well.
Or throw photos and videos up onto the big TV from my mobile devices.
You can do it all on non Apple I suspect but you have to be significantly more geeky for now.
p.1 #12 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
The main benefit of the D800 to me is the crop-ability. Crops retain amazing detail. I cannot make the $$$ leap into 400mm class lenses, but with smaller glass and cropping I can move up on wildlife like no other affordable camera body.
p.1 #13 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
File size hasn't been a drawback for me. I do edit quite a bit of my shots, and go through many of my older ones and decide what I don't need fairly frequently, but all the other devices to deal with it are getting cheaper as we speak. It'll be an afterthought in no time.
p.1 #14 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Seancho wrote:
Download some of the sample D800 NEF files on the net and play around with them. That'll show you what to expect.
Can you post a link for some sample NEF files? Are D800 NEF files capable of being read by LR4 natively without any conversion required, like CR2 Canon files?
I am a 7D owner, looking seriously at the D800 and I want to see how my i5 3500K SSD system will fare with D800 files.
p.1 #15 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
36MP is my only real beef with the D800 - personally I could do with 1/2 that amount, but it is what it is. The many other great attributes besides MP count are what I bought the D800 for over keeping my D700.
My 1TB of RAID 1 disk space was quickly eaten up when I got the D800 and now I've got to double that to 2TB which should do me well for the next year or so.
p.1 #16 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
workerdrone wrote:
^dollar for dollar definitely. What you get with Apple is their aesthetic, ease of use, ease of setup and interoperability with all the various devices.
If someone sends me a message, I get it on my iphone, ipad, and mac desktop. I can reply on any.
If I'm looking at a web page on my phone and want a bigger screen, I can just open it right up on any of them as well.
Or throw photos and videos up onto the big TV from my mobile devices.
You can do it all on non Apple I suspect but you have to be significantly more geeky for now....Show more →
Built a "Hackintosh" with 3.5GHz (quad core i-3770K), 32GB 1600 RAM, 480SSD plus 1TB Velociraptor 10K hard drive for under $1500. It is awesome and crunches files like there is no tomorrow.
p.1 #18 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
I have a D800 and LOVE it! Crazy detail. And yes, the files sizes are just as crazy, but well worth it!
I have a 2011 Mac with a I7, 512 SSD and 16GB of ram. It is adequate
My workflow it LR to CS6 to Silver EFEX and back. IT's not uncommon for me to have a 200MB file. I did a nine shot pano a few weeks ago. CS6 merged the files. I hit the save button and Photoshop yelped saying it could not save the file because I hit the 2GB limit. Rather than save in "large format mode" I flattened the layers and the file size dropped to 360MB
So, go with a D800. I don't think you will regret it!
p.1 #19 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Biggest drawback with D800 files is learning to cull out bad shots. I just keep loading onto my hard drives. 2TB internal & external drives are always hovering around 75% full. I need to do some maintenance... get rid of the crap. But that's years of shots with a progression of Nikon cameras. Depending on how much you shoot I'd go for a 2TB to 3TB hard drive. That should last a few years.
p.1 #20 · D800 megapixels: is it really a drawback?
Back in 2006, 12mp was considered huge. Today that 12mp seems so measly. Today the 36mp d800 seems monstrous for most people. But in a few year's time, it might be considered "meh".
