nikon D800 at 16 megapixels

There doesn't seem to be any option to shoot the D800 in a reduced RAW format as Canon shooters can do with the 5DII in sRaw.

Down-Sampling in post will give a similar benefit to an small raw but that wont help with the hard drive space. Buy more hard drives!!

As for matching D4 noise levels after down sizing- i doubt it but it may be better than youd imagine. The few samples that are out there are showing close to D700 noise levels which is pretty amazing but the d700 is two generations from the D4 sensor.

Of course its all conjecture until they hit the shelves.

The D800 can be set to shoot in DX crop mode which is almost 16 megapixels.

Silly question does your viewfinder show a mask or something when you drop into DX mode.

In my D700, there is a rectangle bracketing the cropped view (similar to the viewfinder brackets in the Leica M's) which is selectable from the Shooting Menu. I added that menu choice to My Menu for ease of access. I imagine that the D800 will function along those lines. Oh, and the NEF generated in this mode is smaller automatically, so no sRAW mode is needed.

Guy Mancuso said:

Silly question does your viewfinder show a mask or something when you drop into DX mode.

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Guy, if I'm correct (which is probably less that 5% of the time ) one gets a dark masked area in the viewfinder when the D800 is in DX mode. Since viewfinder magnification is not terribly high to begin with in full frame mode, use of Dx mode "routeinly" isn't something I would do on a regular basis.

Dave (D&A)

I concur Dave is right less than 5% of the time... ;-0

Hi Dave, it's been awhile.

Thanks folks so it cuts the viewfinder frame it sounds like. Be nice if it magnified it to size. Oh wait we told Leica that too. Lol

aboudd said:

I concur Dave is right less than 5% of the time... ;-0

Hi Dave, it's been awhile.

Click to expand...

Aboud, well at least you could have been a little more generous and made 10% of the time

Guy, I too wish they had magnified the the view by filling the entire frame in the viewfinder when the camera is in Dx mode. A bi-prooduct of this would have been easier focusing with manual focus lenses like the Zeiss. I realize they might have opted to keep costs down with the D800, but originally I thought top of the line pro cameras like the D3x, would have implimented that feature.

Dave (D&A)

Dave and Guy,
what you propose for cropped shooting will be accommodated most likely by Sony with the A99 and it's EVF. It would be way too cumbersome to do that with an OVF (which would require a movable magnifying lens element added to tho viewfinder) or maybe if someone clever made a clip on magnifier like the ones for the Leica M's.