D800 price are falling, what to do...

[pixmedic]

I think it's one of those timey wimey things

 

[photoguy99]

I can't really think of a better way to say it then I already did.

In DX crop mode the D800 becomes a 15mp camera, more or less. The 3300 (and higher end friends) is a 24 mp crop sensor camera.

The D800 had a lot going for it. But for some of the use cases wildlife people see, and generally people interested in maximizing reach, the modern crop sensor may deliver more usable performance than the D800. I dare say coastal is all aware of this, I bring it up because I am a pedant.

 

[ruifo]

It'd need a 54MPix FF sensor to be equivalent to a DX 24MPix sensor.
It'll get there, eventually, despite all the complains.

 

[astroNikon]

I can't really think of a better way to say it then I already did.

In DX crop mode the D800 becomes a 15mp camera, more or less. The 3300 (and higher end friends) is a 24 mp crop sensor camera.

The D800 had a lot going for it. But for some of the use cases wildlife people see, and generally people interested in maximizing reach, the modern crop sensor may deliver more usable performance than the D800. I dare say coastal is all aware of this, I bring it up because I am a pedant.

Yup. I misread it .. because I have a 24mp FF and you were talking about a 24mp crop.
I also have a 16mp crop

 

[Vince.1551]

Get a D800e or D810. Skip the D800.

 

[Tailgunner]

I've been toying with the idea of going FF for a while now. D800 prices seem to be falling well below 2k in the used market and I am teetering on grabbing one. The wait for the unicorn d400 seems to be non existent. The one thing I can't quite get through my head is how noise compares in DX mode to the D7100. I know FF is 1 stop better more DR etc, but when I was shooting with the D600 the noise seemed about the same as the D7100 when the same shot was cropped to the same size. I know most comparisons are done with "equivelent FOV in the other direction framing the same shot. I also see that the Tamron does even better on a FF supposedly. What are the thoughts of my TPF faithful? Even if the D400 is announced at photokina, other than speed will it really be better than the proven IQ of the D800?

Still no signs of a D400 I see.

Anyhow, I switched from a D7100 to a D800 and noticed improved performance as far as noise goes. Especially in low light conditions. Example was shooting our son's basketball games last year. I made the switch from the D7100 to D800 during the middle of the season. Anyways, I found that I would shoot most of my shots using the D800 @3200 ISO where I had to bump the D7100 up to 6400 ISO. I saw quite a bit of noise on the D7100 6400 ISO shots compared to the D800's 3200 ISO shots. Speed wise, the D800 isn't a sports body but it did a really good job shooting his basketball games. I'm just not sure how well that will carry over to wide life photography. The D800 is in my opinion an awesome body but I mainly shoot landscapes and architecture.

 

[coastalconn]

Hey hey, if I were you, I'd just go for the D810 instead. Why? You mentioned that you wanted a D400 instead. Well, the D810 now shoots RAW in smaller formats too, which means you can shoot in crop mode in RAW. Plus many other small but somewhat significant perks, I think it's a more logical choice than simply going for the D800.
My friend bought a D800 a few months ago and he now hates himself.

Small raw doesn't do much for me, and I can give about 3300 reasons why, lol. I'm looking at the 1700-1800 range...

Go full frame and you'll need a longer lens!

I am thinking about upgrading the ol' D7000 too. The used market isn't all that good up here away from the bigger cities so a new D810 may be my best option. Saving a third of the price and getting a D800(E) sounds like the smart choice though.

Well that would only leave the Nikon 800 F5.6 or the sigmonster, lol...

Are you sure the bigger sensor is what you want? The 24 megapixel crop sensors have substantially smaller pixel pitch that the D800. If you're cropping significantly, all the big sensor does is allow your aim to be worse. Which might be worth it right there, to be sure.
That 36Mp sensor sounds so good until you do the arithmetic. For maximum reach the 24 crops can be better.

I've been overstuffing those 24 MP lately between the Osprey and "george" I guess my question is if the quality of those 15.3MP are better at higher ISO than the 24 MP.

Get a D800e or D810. Skip the D800.

Price

I've been toying with the idea of going FF for a while now. D800 prices seem to be falling well below 2k in the used market and I am teetering on grabbing one. The wait for the unicorn d400 seems to be non existent. The one thing I can't quite get through my head is how noise compares in DX mode to the D7100. I know FF is 1 stop better more DR etc, but when I was shooting with the D600 the noise seemed about the same as the D7100 when the same shot was cropped to the same size. I know most comparisons are done with "equivelent FOV in the other direction framing the same shot. I also see that the Tamron does even better on a FF supposedly. What are the thoughts of my TPF faithful? Even if the D400 is announced at photokina, other than speed will it really be better than the proven IQ of the D800?

Still no signs of a D400 I see.

Anyhow, I switched from a D7100 to a D800 and noticed improved performance as far as noise goes. Especially in low light conditions. Example was shooting our son's basketball games last year. I made the switch from the D7100 to D800 during the middle of the season. Anyways, I found that I would shoot most of my shots using the D800 @3200 ISO where I had to bump the D7100 up to 6400 ISO. I saw quite a bit of noise on the D7100 6400 ISO shots compared to the D800's 3200 ISO shots. Speed wise, the D800 isn't a sports body but it did a really good job shooting his basketball games. I'm just not sure how well that will carry over to wide life photography. The D800 is in my opinion an awesome body but I mainly shoot landscapes and architecture.

Hey, TG, how is the buffer in 1.2x crop mode in 12 bit compressed? I would probably add a grip so I could still get my 6 FPS in crop mode. when I shot with the D600 crop mode didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Did you notice an improvement in noise when cropping to D7100 size?

 

[Tailgunner]

Hey hey, if I were you, I'd just go for the D810 instead. Why? You mentioned that you wanted a D400 instead. Well, the D810 now shoots RAW in smaller formats too, which means you can shoot in crop mode in RAW. Plus many other small but somewhat significant perks, I think it's a more logical choice than simply going for the D800.
My friend bought a D800 a few months ago and he now hates himself.

Small raw doesn't do much for me, and I can give about 3300 reasons why, lol. I'm looking at the 1700-1800 range...

Go full frame and you'll need a longer lens!

I am thinking about upgrading the ol' D7000 too. The used market isn't all that good up here away from the bigger cities so a new D810 may be my best option. Saving a third of the price and getting a D800(E) sounds like the smart choice though.

Well that would only leave the Nikon 800 F5.6 or the sigmonster, lol...


I've been overstuffing those 24 MP lately between the Osprey and "george" I guess my question is if the quality of those 15.3MP are better at higher ISO than the 24 MP.

Price

I've been toying with the idea of going FF for a while now. D800 prices seem to be falling well below 2k in the used market and I am teetering on grabbing one. The wait for the unicorn d400 seems to be non existent. The one thing I can't quite get through my head is how noise compares in DX mode to the D7100. I know FF is 1 stop better more DR etc, but when I was shooting with the D600 the noise seemed about the same as the D7100 when the same shot was cropped to the same size. I know most comparisons are done with "equivelent FOV in the other direction framing the same shot. I also see that the Tamron does even better on a FF supposedly. What are the thoughts of my TPF faithful? Even if the D400 is announced at photokina, other than speed will it really be better than the proven IQ of the D800?

Still no signs of a D400 I see.

Anyhow, I switched from a D7100 to a D800 and noticed improved performance as far as noise goes. Especially in low light conditions. Example was shooting our son's basketball games last year. I made the switch from the D7100 to D800 during the middle of the season. Anyways, I found that I would shoot most of my shots using the D800 @3200 ISO where I had to bump the D7100 up to 6400 ISO. I saw quite a bit of noise on the D7100 6400 ISO shots compared to the D800's 3200 ISO shots. Speed wise, the D800 isn't a sports body but it did a really good job shooting his basketball games. I'm just not sure how well that will carry over to wide life photography. The D800 is in my opinion an awesome body but I mainly shoot landscapes and architecture.

Hey, TG, how is the buffer in 1.2x crop mode in 12 bit compressed? I would probably add a grip so I could still get my 6 FPS in crop mode. when I shot with the D600 crop mode didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Did you notice an improvement in noise when cropping to D7100 size?

I wished I could help dude but I really don't shoot in Crop mode and I shoot in 14 bit. If it helps, I'm able to fire off a 3 round burst pretty easy. I usually only do this when i'm hanging to free hand it in places that aren't very tripod friendly. As for cropping down to D7100 size, I do see some occasional noise but it's usually light and manageable.

 

[Aloicious]

I've never had buffer issues with either of my d800's I've had even running FX 14 bit, EXCEPT when using slower cards, I've noticed a difference using slower 30MB/s and 35MB/s are the worst, 45MB/s is better but still lags, where as above 80MB/s things go much much better (and there isn't much difference with high speed cards above that, which makes me think the bottle neck for writing is with the cards below 80MB/s, and the camera itself for cards above 80MB/s) I've got 80MB/s, 90MB/s, 95MB/s, and 160MB/s between SD and CF cards (all sandisk, even the slower ones).

but I almost never shoot more than 5-7 shots per burst (usually 3-5) when I'm shooting in burst, so I'm usually never around the buffer limit.

as far as the camera itself, these are the buffer specs I can find, which seem to be correct from my use (though slow cards will limit these further):

14-bit uncompressed RAW, 74.4MB
camera buffer memory 16 frames

12-bit lossless compressed RAW, 32.4MB
camera buffer memory 21 frames

14-bit uncompressed RAW in DX, 32.5MB
camera buffer memory 25 frames

12-bit lossless compressed RAW in DX, 14.9MB
camera buffer memory 38 frames

JPG at highest resolution, 16.3MB
camera buffer memory 56 frames

JPG at highest resoultion in DX, 8.0MB
camera buffer memory 100 frames

and from these numbers, a rough estimation for 1.2x mode in 14bit uncompressed RAW would be somewhere around a ~20-21 frames, 12 bit lossless compressed would be close to ~30 frames

As far as ISO, given the exact same environment and processing, etc, the 800 should have a noise advantage over the 7100 when viewed at 100%....though I've never used a d7100 to compare.

 

[hamlet]

If you aren't going to buy a d4 then stick the d7100. I mean as a birdster, you are giving up your crop advantage that give you that extra bit of reach.

 

[Tailgunner]

I guess I should mention my cards:

32 GB 1000X Lexar CF
32 GB Extreme Pro 95mb SD

 

[Mike_E]

If you're going to get one, get one quick.

The price drop is because there will always be some that have to have the latest and greatest which is bumping up the supply.

Once they have disposed of their cameras to fund the next in line it's doubtful that you'll see very many extra D/800/e on the market. Beyond the usual turnover that is.

The next step up for the vast majority of photographers really is Medium Format. Any further increase in pixel density is useless to most. Dynamic range is effectively as good as there ever was (If Nikon can get this above 16 stops I may actually have to rethink my position).

Beyond really minor refinements there really isn't much more you could ask if a 35mm camera.

I guess you can tell I'll be keeping mine until the shutter explodes and maybe longer.

 

[coastalconn]

As I was teaching someone how to use their D3S this morning (sigh) and Osprey were diving in the drizzle, I kept thinking about the D800.. So let me re-ask my question in a different way... This shot is taken at ISO 4500 on my D7100. The cropped image size was 4175x2193. A quick calculation results in 3340x1754 on a D800, so would the D800 have looked better at ISO 4500 on this shot? Let's hypothetically say I wanted to print it 10x20. On the D7100 I would have around 200 DPI on the D800 I would have around 175 DPI.. which would look better? I had to use a ton of noise reduction, btw...
Osprey with fish 7_27 by krisinct- Thanks for 2! Million + views!, on Flickr

 

[D-B-J]

As I was teaching someone how to use their D3S this morning (sigh) and Osprey were diving in the drizzle, I kept thinking about the D800.. So let me re-ask my question in a different way... This shot is taken at ISO 4500 on my D7100. The cropped image size was 4175x2193. A quick calculation results in 3340x1754 on a D800, so would the D800 have looked better at ISO 4500 on this shot? Let's hypothetically say I wanted to print it 10x20. On the D7100 I would have around 200 DPI on the D800 I would have around 175 DPI.. which would look better? I had to use a ton of noise reduction, btw...
Osprey with fish 7_27 by krisinct- Thanks for 2! Million + views!, on Flickr

Everything I've read shows that the D800 is SIGNIFICANTLY better with higher ISO's when compared to the D7000. When mine comes in this week I'll post some high iso comparison shots.

Jake

 

[Tailgunner]

As I was teaching someone how to use their D3S this morning (sigh) and Osprey were diving in the drizzle, I kept thinking about the D800.. So let me re-ask my question in a different way... This shot is taken at ISO 4500 on my D7100. The cropped image size was 4175x2193. A quick calculation results in 3340x1754 on a D800, so would the D800 have looked better at ISO 4500 on this shot? Let's hypothetically say I wanted to print it 10x20. On the D7100 I would have around 200 DPI on the D800 I would have around 175 DPI.. which would look better? I had to use a ton of noise reduction, btw...

It just seems to me like you could have shot this at a lower ISO using the D800. I really want to say it would have still turned out better using the same ISO settings on the D800 due to it's better ISO performance.

Honestly dude, I would rent a D800 for the day and see what you think first hand.