p.5 #5 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
molson wrote:
Not really... it's more amusing than anything.
Agreed. The OP saying change my mind in the title, then the discussion going on for 5 pages - arguing about 'mine's bigger' AF microadjustments and dynamic range at ISO50. Most amusing.
p.5 #7 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
I still shoot my D4, D5, D810 and D850 for event work depending on resolution needs. What's to stress out over? lifef8 wrote:
Does this thread stress anybody else out?
lifef8 wrote:
Agreed. The OP saying change my mind in the title, then the discussion going on for 5 pages - arguing about 'mine's bigger' AF microadjustments and dynamic range at ISO50. Most amusing.
You too will complain about micro adjustments if a lens you used for like 4 months straight on a DSLR worked flawlessly and then the moment you put it on a DSLR 10 minutes before a studio shoot for work and it's given you soft images and you have to AF fine tune the thing mid shoot.
p.5 #9 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
With all due respect, I can't believe this is even set up as a debate. Sure the D850 (and my old D750) takes great images. But:
1. The mirrorless experience is better (e.g. you can actually put a focus point to the perimeter, shutter speed range of the Z8/9, no more fine tuning, what you see is what you get, etc). In some cases (not all), this will lead to better images and less lost opportunities.
2. With mirrorless, you can use the new lenses and the older lenses. In many cases, the newer lenses provide nicer images (depending on your perspective).
None of this is to say that a D850 can't produce great images of course. Most of the time people will not see the difference. A D850 focuses better than many Nikon mirrorless options. If you're getting better images with a D850, that's the right tool for you. But if you're comparing apples to apples (e.g. D850 vs Z8), it's a no-brainer if you have to pick the best tool out of two great options. The world has shifted to mirrorless and that's not without reason.
p.5 #11 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
"I'm going to be blunt: if you don't see the difference between in the F-mount and the Z-mount, then you haven't progressed as a photographer to the level that current equipment is capable of. I see this a lot these days. Some waste pixels with poor handling and poor lenses. Some waste dynamic range with poor exposure. Some just were never trained to see aberrations, or they just ignore them."
p.5 #13 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
Kasper6188 wrote:
So, after using the z9 since release and retiring my D850 to the storage bin I decided to take it out a few weeks back and start shooting with the ole girl again. Obviously the z8/9 has many advantages over the d850 with all the mirrorless tech and all, but ultimate image quality doesn't seem to be one of them, to me at least. Specifically the color and fine detail retained in the shadows.
My scientifically un-scientific test, both shot on 70-200FL, raw, imported into LR, and exported as full quality jpg, no other changes.
Pic 1: z8, iso500 (supposedly where dual gain kicks in and things get better?)
Pic 2: d850 iso800
Pixel peep the shadow area by her collar tag, for being shot at higher iso, sure seems cleaner to me. Am I crazy? (don't answer that) Could it be LR and how it's handling the Z files?
There isn't much to say one of these is better than the other, except that one of them is exposed more than the other and also some slight color difference. Neither of these shots requires a D850 or Z8/Z9 and can be taken by tens of cameras.
p.5 #14 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
Folk coming late to this thread would do well to read earlier posts. Especially those by ilkka_nissila, arbitrage and philip_pj where it is made clear that high speed stacked sensors incur a DR penalty as do AF toppings on ML cameras. This is well known and should not be contentious. QE of CMOS sensors plateaued by 2016 and from an IQ perspective, the d850 was peak CMOS. Of course stacked sensors and ML cameras confer benefits which are, to many, greater than the slight IQ penalty they incur.
We await the arrival of the first global shutter sensor which incurs further IQ penalty. For a great number of applications the benefits will also outweigh the penalty.
p.5 #15 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
Too bad the D850 is so noisy that it frightens more wildlife than any mirrorless camera.
Four photographers shooting with silent shutter and getting good shots of an owl eating its prey, until the guy with his D850 and its machine gun clatter immediately scares the owl away, to the chagrin of the other four photographers.
p.5 #19 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
Alistair1 wrote:
Folk coming late to this thread would do well to read earlier posts. Especially those by ilkka_nissila, arbitrage and philip_pj where it is made clear that high speed stacked sensors incur a DR penalty as do AF toppings on ML cameras. This is well known and should not be contentious. QE of CMOS sensors plateaued by 2016 and from an IQ perspective, the d850 was peak CMOS. Of course stacked sensors and ML cameras confer benefits which are, to many, greater than the slight IQ penalty they incur.
We await the arrival of the first global shutter sensor which incurs further IQ penalty. For a great number of applications the benefits will also outweigh the penalty....Show more →
Yes I am well aware of the DR differences between these sensors. However those small differences will impact the quality only in cases where you are pushing these sensors quite a bit. The example pair of images that started this thread don't come close to that realm where those differences matter. The OP is just looking at slightly different look to the image due to exposure and color differences etc and using that to conclude that one camera has better quality than other. I repeat that those images can be taken by any modern camera without any image quality issues. Certainly at the image sizes that OP posted any differences can't be attributed to that small DR difference which would not be apparent unless you look at pixel level and push shadows.
p.5 #20 · D850 still takes a better picture than z8/9, change my mind.
"no denying this"? now thats an interesting piece of speculation. i know that if you say something enough there will some that will believe. you see you need to have the identical shooting situation to bring the variables in line with each other. blanket statements just don't cut it.
