Nikon D800 First Blush

[paulraphael]

It looks as if the shift axis is not vertical. I've seen similar pictures on an earlier Nikon body, and there was no body strike in the vertical shift position, only slightly diagonal. As you can see, the tilt knob is not vertical in this picture.

--Matt

Good catch! That makes complete sense.

 

[Landscapelover]

Pramote - brilliant images! Question - how's the diffraction at f22 with the D800? i've been hearing some interesting things about the D800, and thinking of matching them up with the PC-E lenses for portraits, architecture, and landscapes

Thanks ghoonk for your kind.
I don't know how much the diffraction at f/22 is. I will test this week.
Although PC-E lens may solve the diffraction problem, it's surprisingly not in Nikon lenses' recommendation. Will it cause non-fixable color cast?
Too bad, I only have canon TS lenses.
Pramote

 

[Antonio Chagin]

Here's a d800 with the 24mm PC lens. Minor collision in that last millimeter ...

Should be quite useable, but kind of annoying, considering how many people are going to want to match the two.

Nikon should not have put a flash on such a camera.

 

[Vivek]

Here's a d800 with the 24mm PC lens. Minor collision in that last millimeter ...

Should be quite useable, but kind of annoying, considering how many people are going to want to match the two.

Looks easy to file off that offending millimeter.

 

[innerimager]

Question- Is there a hand grip available for the D800? txs....Peter

 

[routlaw]

You are welcome, Rob

In the 'roof tiles' shot I think the colors were actually a bit too warm in my RAW conversion or maybe with too much red tint, but I just left it at Lightroom's Daylight WB without further manual tweaking since I was in a hurry.

Btw. it suits the church interior shot well with the added brightness in your conversion.

Interesting I also used LR to convert the raw file on these, but had the choice of "as shot" WB which was 5050/+8 and used this instead of a canned WB, then went on to make adjustments in CS5.

I am also attaching the following file from your piano in white room shot. Of all the files you have been so generous to share this one is by far the most demanding and which begs many questions regarding the ratings for this camera. Suffice it to say I found this image to be less than stellar, not because of the photography but the way the camera's dynamic range failed here. Understand please this is not a disparaging remark about your photograph, but rather about the camera's inability to hold highlights and shadows in the piano. Worse still was the excessive noise throughout all 3 color channels of the piano, not just one or two. One would think a camera that has a purported 14.4 EVS dynamic range would have handled this scene significantly better. Having owned the D3 for a few years now I feel confident in stating it most likely would have.

Hopefully this question can start an informed and intelligent dialogue regarding DxO's testing methods. Their scores certainly don't seem to jive with this image. I do want to point out before making the conversion in ACR I zeroed out all adjustments, used camera neutral, added no USM. Effectively I started out with as flat of an image as possible yet still the white wall was excessively clipped and the black piano blocked up and showing significant noise at base ISO. The histogram was already at its limits on both ends, so reducing the exposure would have served little purpose and the highlight recovery tool did not entirely retrieve the clipped highlights.

Anyway here is my rendition:

 

[ustein]

What version of LR and process version did you use?

Also I would be a bit careful judging a camera by one raw converter conversion. There are too many parameters in play. If the image looks great then this is what the camera can do. If not there can be other reasons than the camera.

 

[routlaw]

Now on color Nikon has improved a lot as things look much more neutral. I see some magenta in our picture and my wife is fair skinned and usually comes up slightly magenta but in the past this was horrible both from Canon and Nikon. Much closer to my IQ 160. This is encouraging. Honestly from what I have been seeing the last couple days this is damn good.

Guy I agree comparing the D4 with my previous Nikons the red channel is not so overdriven, the yellows not too warm/red and just as importantly the blacks and shadows are not polluted with off color, usually being blue to magenta. In fact thus far the blacks have been very neutral with my D4. That said one way to improve out of the box color is to utilize the pre-set WB feature which allows you to create and save 4 different WB settings for different light & lens situations, ie daylight, studio flash etc.

In order to implement this you will need a very accurate and fairly large gray card, Robin Myers Imaging gray card is my favorite and inexpensive too. The manual will walk you through this but briefly, choose a pre-set of 1 through 4 and hold that preset button down for a couple of seconds until it starts to blink, place your gray card directly in front of the lens, very close to it so that it fills the entire frame, pull the trigger. The back display will tell you whether its good or not. If it is you're good to go and you can also go into the menus to type what that particular preset should be called, ie 14-24 lens-daylight, or what ever tickles your fancy. I rarely ever use any of the WB settings in Nikon menus preferring instead the pre-sets, far more accurate, reliable and effective. But will add thus far the auto wb with the D4 has been remarkably accurate regardless of the lighting situation. Here Nikon has really gone all out.

Hope this helps.

Rob

 

[routlaw]

What version of LR and process version did you use?

Also I would be a bit careful judging a camera by one raw converter conversion. There are too many parameters in play. If the image looks great then this is what the camera can do. If not there can be other reasons than the camera.

You can only use LR 4, and ACR 6.7 to open D4 and D800 files. To the best of my knowledge no other converters work with these two cameras except Capture NX2 which I gave up on years ago.

But it is worth pointing out, I am also comparing the performance here with other known entities, ie D3/D3s and probably my new D4 as doing much better in this type of situation with same conversion engine. I don't disagree that different converters will render different results, but when the results are this bad I am inclined to believe DxO's testing methods are just not appropriate let alone accurate to real world photography. As well in the first image Steen provided with blue sky over the steeple, broad daylight, base ISO, a significant amount of red channel noise was present. Reminded me of the D2x days. Again I don't see this with the D3, or D4 for that matter.

To the best of my recollection not a single high res image downloaded from Nikons website and no doubt using NX2 also had problems with noise on just about every image I looked at. Effectively I don't think this is about converters so much as how the camera is rated.

Rob

 

[ustein]

>and the highlight recovery tool did not entirely retrieve the clipped highlights.

I got confused about this because there is no Highlight recovery tool in Process 2012. Highlight recovery is done with Exposure(negative), Highlights and Whites. If you tune down the exposure you have to counter it with Shadows and maybe blacks.

Please post a larger crop that shows the noise you are talking about so that I may better understand.

 

[D&A]

Guy,

Regarding that lovely shot of you and your wife....if ever there was a moire inducing test pattern, you're wearing it!! LOL! How do I know? I have the exact same shirt and it often wrecks havoc with AA filterless cameras. Just like a portable color checker, always handy when you need it....don't forget to wear that shirt and have a pic taken of you wearing it, if you decide to go for the D800E. Would be a perfect test for the effectiveness of Nikon's NX2 moire tool. From what I see in that posted image (of you and your wife), the regular D800 handled it well. If yours is in the laundry, I can loan you mine ...just keep it clean, LOL!

Dave (D&A)

 

[MGrayson]

Interesting I also used LR to convert the raw file on these, but had the choice of "as shot" WB which was 5050/+8 and used this instead of a canned WB, then went on to make adjustments in CS5.

I am also attaching the following file from your piano in white room shot. Of all the files you have been so generous to share this one is by far the most demanding and which begs many questions regarding the ratings for this camera. Suffice it to say I found this image to be less than stellar, not because of the photography but the way the camera's dynamic range failed here. Understand please this is not a disparaging remark about your photograph, but rather about the camera's inability to hold highlights and shadows in the piano. Worse still was the excessive noise throughout all 3 color channels of the piano, not just one or two. One would think a camera that has a purported 14.4 EVS dynamic range would have handled this scene significantly better. Having owned the D3 for a few years now I feel confident in stating it most likely would have.

Hopefully this question can start an informed and intelligent dialogue regarding DxO's testing methods. Their scores certainly don't seem to jive with this image. I do want to point out before making the conversion in ACR I zeroed out all adjustments, used camera neutral, added no USM. Effectively I started out with as flat of an image as possible yet still the white wall was excessively clipped and the black piano blocked up and showing significant noise at base ISO. The histogram was already at its limits on both ends, so reducing the exposure would have served little purpose and the highlight recovery tool did not entirely retrieve the clipped highlights.

Anyway here is my rendition:

DxO's definition of the noise floor is 1:1 S/N ratio. That's not really useful for shadow noise. If the noise level were constant, we could just adjust the DR for the desired shadow smoothness, but I do not know if that is the case.

I'm as confused as anyone about the meaning of DxO scores.

--Matt

 

[ustein]

>I'm as confused as anyone about the meaning of DxO scores.

>DxO's definition of the noise floor is 1:1 S/N ratio. That's not really useful for shadow noise.

True but good to measure

Here is how I take them:

1. Just think of them relative between cameras
2. Don't think of them in real f-stops (that would be phantasie)

 

[viablex1]

well routlaw you went and jumped in LOL!!!!!

 

[D&A]

Guy I agree comparing the D4 with my previous Nikons the red channel is not so overdriven, the yellows not too warm/red and just as importantly the blacks and shadows are not polluted with off color, usually being blue to magenta. In fact thus far the blacks have been very neutral with my D4. That said one way to improve out of the box color is to utilize the pre-set WB feature which allows you to create and save 4 different WB settings for different light & lens situations, ie daylight, studio flash etc.

Rob

Excellent observation! I noticed pretty much the same thing while working with a D4 on loan, late last week. Nikon really did their homework with color balance with this one (D4) and blacks for the most part have remained neutral, even as the ISO is upped. From what I am hearing and seeing, the D800 has followed a good deal of this.

Dave (D&A)

 

[ustein]

well routlaw you went and jumped in LOL!!!!!

Not sure what you mean. I find this a very useful discussion. Would only like to understand the issues at hand.

 

[viablex1]

Hey stein you would have to know him, I totally agree this is a very useful discussion by people that know a hell of alot more than me, not trying to mess with you. Routlaw is kind of my idol.

here is a 100 percent crop


crop by gungyduo, on Flickr

 

[routlaw]

>and the highlight recovery tool did not entirely retrieve the clipped highlights.

I got confused about this because there is no Highlight recovery tool in Process 2012. Highlight recovery is done with Exposure(negative), Highlights and Whites. If you tune down the exposure you have to counter it with Shadows and maybe blacks.

Please post a larger crop that shows the noise you are talking about so that I may better understand.

You don't have to use the 2012 process in ACR or LR 4.0, you can revert back to the 2010 process which then provides all of the tools, and attributes we are used to and this is what I did on this image. But regardless of whether you use 2012 or 2010 process the noise is there. Also the user interface in ACR 6.7 is different than LR 4.0 and the controls you mention above for the 2012 process are not in the Beta release of ACR 6.7.

Rather than me post a crop I would encourage you to also download the same raw file Steen has so graciously provided for us and examine it yourself. Its further up in the thread.

Hope this helps.

Rob

 

[routlaw]

Excellent observation! I noticed pretty much the same thing while working with a D4 on loan, late last week. Nikon really did their homework with color balance with this one (D4) and blacks for the most part have remained neutral, even as the ISO is upped. From what I am hearing and seeing, the D800 has followed a good deal of this.

Dave (D&A)

Yes Dave I would agree based upon the files I have seen the D800 has the same level of color accuracy of the D4 assuming correct WB and so forth.

Rob

 

[routlaw]

Here is how I take them:

1. Just think of them relative between cameras
2. Don't think of them in real f-stops (that would be phantasie)

Uwe, I'm not sure this is correct. The definition of DR as I understand it is the ability of a device in this case a camera or its sensor to differentiate between highlight and black without clipping or blocking. Granted this is an over simplification of the situation but it does hold true. So considering real f-stops is absolutely relevant in this case. DR should not have relevance from one camera to the next, its simply a case of how many f-stops of latitude one device can capture from a pure white to the 1:1 SNR ratio in black. Understand too there are engineers in the field who do not think this to be an appropriate measure of black either.

Anecdotally my experience with a litany of different cameras shows them all to perform better than the image I brought up in this discussion with its limited ability to capture highlight (or white) to black and shadow detail without being swamped with noise as this image is.

Rob