D800 still worth it in 2019?

[earthmanbuck]

I was browsing local camera shops for something totally unrelated and stumbled onto a used Nikon D800 body for $500 (CAD—about $382 USD).

I don't shoot a ton of digital, but I use a Pentax K-50 when I do, which I think I paid about the same for when I bought it new ~5 years ago. I considered upgrading to a full-frame DSLR a couple years ago and was actually looking into the D800 specifically, but then mirrorless cameras seemed to be coming into their own and I decided to hold off to see where that went. But for $500...

So my question is, is the D800 still a decent choice in 2019, or has it been far surpassed? If I go for it, I'll be selling the K-50 to eat some of the cost, and probably just using my old manual F-mount lenses, at least for now.

I have a sales guy calling me back with the shutter count shortly, he was too tied up to check when I called a minute ago.

 

[snowbear]

Decent photos don't require the latest; I used a D40 for ten years before updating to a D750. In fact, I recently got son #2's D40 and will eventually convert it to IR.

 

[Derrel]

The Nikon D800 Is Still quite a good camera. The low price of 500 Canadian dollars it is, I think, quite good and I expect that it might reflect a shutter count somewhere north of 100,000 clicks.

The camera's 36 million pixels sensor makes really good images which can be cropped pretty heavily if need be.

 

[earthmanbuck]

Decent photos don't require the latest; I used a D40 for ten years before updating to a D750. In fact, I recently got son #2's D40 and will eventually convert it to IR.

Fair point. I didn't mean to come off as though I need the latest and greatest—I shoot mostly on 35mm cameras from the 70s and 80s—but I'm more so wondering if there are any technical issues that tend to pop up with these once they get a bit longer in the tooth.

The sales guy just called, by the way—he said they don't check the shutter count because it's not very common for them to actually wear out and need replacing, and it would be far more likely a dozen other things would wear down first. But he said I was free to check it out if I was concerned. As for the price, he said it was mostly because it is fairly worn cosmetically.

 

[snowbear]

No problem; I think the price is good.

 

[Dao]

Ask the seller to take a jpeg photo with the D800 and email you the photo without stripping the EXIF. Then go to this site ShutterCounter.com | Online check DSLR shutter count and EXIF info | 查快門數及EXIF資訊 | シャッター回数を確認する and upload the photo there. It will tell you the shutter count of the camera.

Of course, if you have a software to read the full EXIF of the photo, you can use that too.

 

[tirediron]

Absolutely NOTHING wrong with a D800. I still both a D800 and D700 routinely in paid work. Like any piece of equipment, it has limitations, but it provides excellent image quality, a great feature-set and has very good build quality.

 

[earthmanbuck]

Thanks folks. I ended up buying it—because if you know me at all, of course I did.

They also told me at the store that this was a renter model for a long time, and that it was pretty well cared for because all their renters are store regulars. It's in good shape, besides some scuffs on the bottom, but that's no biggie. After taking a handful of test shots at home, shutter actuations are at 119,421. If the lifespan of these is indeed 200,000, I should be all set—I also ran my K-50 and I had just over 3,000 in the 4 years I've owned it.

Time to sell the K-50 and get shooting! Thanks again.

 

[Derrel]

I think you will be amazed and how much of a good D800 image you can crop away and still have a relatively good remaining photo. For example I shot a set a couple of years ago with a 1990s plastic Mount 28 -80 mm D series Zoom which I bought refurbished for around $35 in the early 2000s. When shot at F 7.1 with Studio Flash, I was able to make incredibly deep crops, and still have plenty of resolution for portraiture.

 

[Derrel]

Here is a portrait crop from a half body shot, made with a cheap 25 year old film era kit lens . The raw photo was converted to make a black and white jpeg in Lightroom, but otherwise unretouched

For some reason this roughly 700 K image will not upload on my data plan. Perhaps later tonight when I am on a Wi-Fi network I will try to upload it again. Let me say that I shot Nikon 24 megapixel full-frame from 2012 2017 and was astounded by the increase in resolution between 24 and 36 million pixels.

 

[Derrel]

Here is that crop that I tried to upload about 10 months ago. This was originally shot as a seated full body and this shot was made with a cheap Nikon 28 to 80 mm afd lens which I paid $35 for. The lens has a plastic mount and is a wobbly lightweight 10 oz lens. This is a 200 ISO shot.

 

[Derrel]

Here is the original full frame, shot in raw at ISO 200 and processed in Lightroom 3.6.