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What Lenses for the D800?

Mr.Gale

Member
Maybe it is premature to speculate but which Nikkor lenses would you expect to be a good match to the D800?

Mr.Gale
 

Paratom

Well-known member
My guess and just a guess.
24/1.4,35/1.4G, 50/1.4G/ 50/1.8G, 85/1.4G, 200/2.0, maybe 70200VRII
14-24/2.8
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

If you go for the ultimate optical performance optimized for a high resolution digital sensor based body I believe Tom's above guess is very good and precise.
But personally I couldn't afford all those expensive high-end lenses, so I (need to) take another approach.

I intend to keep on enjoying the rendering of most of my lenses for good and for bad, including a lot of old manual focus AI-S type lenses from the film days.
Most of them will probably be far from perfect on a high resolution 36Mp 'full frame' 24x36mm digital sensor, but I assume most of them will still have a lot of character and personality.


And after all photography is still about content and character in the rendering.

Like Godfrey recently put it in another thread:
"Expressive photography isn't constrained by technical analysis of lens defects.
Sometimes the defects add to the aesthetic appeal of the image."


(Well spoken, Godfrey)

Or like Thom Hogan put it in his comment on the 12th of February 2012:
"Lenses.
Everyone seems to want a list of "D800-approved" lenses. There will never be such a thing.
Absolutely nothing has changed from my Rationalizing Lenses article just because someone sprinkled in a few more megapixels.
A good lens is still a good lens. A poor lens is still a poor lens."



... which so far is (has to be) good enough for me,
I guess we will just have to wait and see how it turns out when the D800 finally is here,
if the new camera is a bad match for my lenses I'll probably keep the lenses, not the camera.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Steen, Good summary.:)

However, I wonder why bother with the D800 at all?
 

Paratom

Well-known member
By the way - If I was going to get a D800 and would wait and just see which lenses work how good and then decide.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
It might be worth a quick read of Ctein's article in Mike Johnston's "The Online Photographer" blog. The article is titled "Myths About Megapixels (and does the D800 have too many?)".

He makes a more technical case and I've pasted the pertinent info here:

"....A 36-megapixel sensor will resolve around 75 lp/mm. Even mediocre 35mm lenses will hit 75 lp/mm at some aperture over some portion of their field of view. This is true of both fixed focal length and zoom lenses.

Decent (not at all exceptional) 35mm-format lenses can hit 75 lp/mm at just about all apertures and will do so over most of the field of view for at least one aperture. They'll show peak resolutions more like twice that. Really good lenses (not necessarily expensive ones) will be able to exceed 75 line pair per millimeter without even trying hard over most/all of the field of view and will have peak resolutions three or more times that."

Best,
Tim
 

Paratom

Well-known member
It might be worth a quick read of Ctein's article in Mike Johnston's "The Online Photographer" blog. The article is titled "Myths About Megapixels (and does the D800 have too many?)".

He makes a more technical case and I've pasted the pertinent info here:

"....A 36-megapixel sensor will resolve around 75 lp/mm. Even mediocre 35mm lenses will hit 75 lp/mm at some aperture over some portion of their field of view. This is true of both fixed focal length and zoom lenses.

Decent (not at all exceptional) 35mm-format lenses can hit 75 lp/mm at just about all apertures and will do so over most of the field of view for at least one aperture. They'll show peak resolutions more like twice that. Really good lenses (not necessarily expensive ones) will be able to exceed 75 line pair per millimeter without even trying hard over most/all of the field of view and will have peak resolutions three or more times that."

Best,
Tim
I find this very technical and theoretical. Sounds lice all medicore and better lenses would outresolve a 36MP sensor.
So how does it come that we see big resolution differences between medicore and exceptional lenses allready on a 12MP sensor?

However I am sure Nikon would not use a sensor/filter/microlens-combination if it would work ok with their lens line-up.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I agree that the article ran counter to what I thought I knew. Nevertheless, there's enough "truth" in it to soften the idea that only the very best glass will stand up to all those pixels.

Tweaking ever-finer slivers of quality in digital images by using better lenses is nothing new. I'll wager that once people have a chance to use the D800 for awhile, a list of great matching lenses will emerge.

But if it were me about to buy a D800, I'd simply get the body and try my existing lineup of lenses before spending big on new ones.

Best,
Tim
 

pophoto

New member
A lot of the samples were taken with their reference lenses, I think this is an indicator of how acceptable to Nikon their trinity zooms are. On top of that we their f/1.4 primes, all are much newer than their zooms and together with less expensive f/1.8 primes being released as we chat here.
Macro lenses tend to have good resolving power as well, and their 105mm VR should be nice too.

We also have offerings from Zeiss ZF.2 lenses, all of which are manual lenses and highly regarded. The D800 is catalyst to sell more expensive lenses for sure, but even if you go with their f1.8 primes, I think they will be good for the costs, and not necessarily inferior in IQ, but of course we are all speculating at this point. If not, there's the Ebay!
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

Steen, Good summary.:)

However, I wonder why bother with the D800 at all?

Now that's what I would call a 'bad' question, because I have no good answers :D

What I really want is the D4 sensor in the D800 body and if I believed we would see that in 2013 I would wait for it.

But I'm not so sure it will come at all, and now I have been waiting for upgrading to the good old full 24x36mm format for about two years.

So my options are D4 or D800E or D700 - or as an alternative just stay with my present APS-C D300 that has worked so well for me for a period of more than four years now (in itself a very satisfying fact).


Among those options the D800E is the most tempting option because I get:

the new sensor technology with the latest sensitivity improvements, DR etc. in the small form factor body and at a somewhat affordable price

a full frame 24x36mm sensor and, even more important, a wonderfully big and bright old-fashioned FF optical viewfinder (which means a lot to me)

a rare sensor with cancelled Anti-Aliasing filtration (a very tempting feature, at least in theory)


But I do admit that the 36 Mp resolution is in some way overkill for my needs though you could say it is the perfect match for 16x24" (A2) print at 300 dpi without any need for upsizing.

Still, I have actually done decent 50x75cm (about ~ 20x30") print with just 6 Mp in the past ... :eek:
 

etrigan63

Active member
The answer to this question (for me) is simple:

Nikkor 24-70 AF-S f/2.8
Nikkor 70-200 AF-S f/2.8

These will be the best lenses for the D800E for because they are the one's I own. If I were to add one to this mix it would be one of the following:

Carl Zeiss 100mm F/2 Makro Planar ZF.2
Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 (the new one)
Cosina Voigtlander 75mm Classic Heliar f/1.8 SL-II (I'd have to test that one)

I had the opportunity to shoot with the Zeiss and I am in love with the way it renders. Sending it back to CZ was like giving up a kidney. Unfortunately, keeping it would have meant actually selling a kidney. I am keen to see how the CV lens performs. If it is similar to the M-mount version (they supposedly have the same lens formulation) then it will be a stellar performer on the D800E.
 

Lars

Active member
Looking back at my D2X images with slightly lower pixel pitch, certainly older Nikon teles hold up more than well. 180/2.8D and 300/4 AF are razor sharp wide open. Likewise a 1980s Series E 50/1.8 resolves enough in the center wide open (but with a crappy bokeh). I would worry about older zooms wide open though.
 

FredBGG

Not Available
I don't think lenses are going to be the problem with this camera.

The sample images posted by Nikon are not impressive.

While some do show a lot of geometric resolution, I don't see the shadow detail and punch of the D3x.... While claims of MF quality have been made... I don't see it.
 

FredBGG

Not Available
I don't think lenses are going to be the problem with this camera.

The sample images posted by Nikon are not impressive.

While some do show a lot of geometric resolution, I don't see the shadow detail and punch of the D3x.... While claims of MF quality have been made... I don't see it.

36MP in a FF 35mm DSLR sensor...... the problem will be diffraction not lenses.
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I don't think lenses are going to be the problem with this camera.

The sample images posted by Nikon are not impressive.

While some do show a lot of geometric resolution, I don't see the shadow detail and punch of the D3x.... While claims of MF quality have been made... I don't see it.

36MP in a FF 35mm DSLR sensor...... the problem will be diffraction not lenses.
Not sure what your experience is with MF quality, but I would say the samples from the D800E look pretty impressive. Definitely not worse than comparable MF stuff.

Ah yes - diffraction - well a very often discussed issue - almost discussed to death - albeit the real impact on IQ is not as huge as all these discussion try to make it. I for myself could not care less!
 

pophoto

New member
Not sure what your experience is with MF quality, but I would say the samples from the D800E look pretty impressive. Definitely not worse than comparable MF stuff.

Ah yes - diffraction - well a very often discussed issue - almost discussed to death - albeit the real impact on IQ is not as huge as all these discussion try to make it. I for myself could not care less!
Despite having the D800E on order, my opinion of the samples are that I disagree with you. I don't find them of MF quality and they don't look impressive to me, but good enough. So why do I have it on order, you might add? Well, I'm not sure, while being close to production quality I reserve to see what samples are like at hand. I would say this has been true for previous Nikon releases too, despite never having reached such high 36MP. I think MF has always shown it can deliver this almost 'too real' tangible crispness in image detail, while 35mm has even to this point just 'beautiful' renderings of the real world, this can be due to image resolution too.
Both of which can definitely serve its intended purpose.

Whether or not this is due to the sensor size or resolving power of the Nikon lenses, I am not sure. While it's true, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my eyes do tell me they are not of MF quality. It's definitely a bridging gap at this point... When more samples come, I might change my mind, it's not something I can speculate. However, I truly welcome Nikon bringing us here in 2012, where ever it is. :)
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Despite having the D800E on order, my opinion of the samples are that I disagree with you. I don't find them of MF quality and they don't look impressive to me, but good enough. So why do I have it on order, you might add? Well, I'm not sure, while being close to production quality I reserve to see what samples are like at hand. I would say this has been true for previous Nikon releases too, despite never having reached such high 36MP. I think MF has always shown it can deliver this almost 'too real' tangible crispness in image detail, while 35mm has even to this point just 'beautiful' renderings of the real world, this can be due to image resolution too.
Both of which can definitely serve its intended purpose.

Whether or not this is due to the sensor size or resolving power of the Nikon lenses, I am not sure. While it's true, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my eyes do tell me they are not of MF quality. It's definitely a bridging gap at this point... When more samples come, I might change my mind, it's not something I can speculate. However, I truly welcome Nikon bringing us here in 2012, where ever it is. :)
Maybe the pre production samples are not "quite" as good - but how far away?

And the D800E samples look very promising to me. Although I assume they are either OOC JPEGs or JPEGs produced with Nikon Capture. I assume that once LR4 and C1Pro are supporting the NEF files of the D800E, that IQ will significantly be above what you see in the samples posted today.

I am very sure that the biggest gap will be closed by the effectively non existing AA filter of the D800E. Have seen with the E5 which had only 12MP and very weak high ISO, but IQ at low ISO was simply stunning and IMHO outperforming even D3X. So I have huge expectations for the D800E.

What will be the advantage of the D800E plus lenses compared to any MFD set? We all know:

1) size and weight (important if you have lots of flights with your gear, as my MFD stays almost always at home :(
2) speed
3) better high ISO
4) much more lens choices and all more lightweight compared to MFD

All this together makes me not doubt a second that the D800E in combination with some selected Nikkor lenses will be a perfect replacement for me WRT travel, landscape and people photography.

Plus - if I really want to carry weight, I can add a tripod to that and turn off VR in the Nikkor glass. Maybe this will have more effect on the final edge of IQ than MFD.

Finally - I am talking about MFD below 40MP, sure more than 40MP will remain the domain of MFD. But I never needed more than 40MP, so again that is not an argument for me.
 

pophoto

New member
ptomsu: I agree with you that the D800E is very exciting at the prospects it brings to us, while I certainly feel that I am not buying it because it is bringing a MF camera, it is largely improved, and I most certainly care about that. Again, I look forward to the real world images.
 
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