Nikon D800 Announced Today

Well, here it is, straight from Nikon's website. Something else in the world which I cannot afford. It looks a beautiful piece of equipment.

Digital SLR camera D800/D800E

Priced around US$3000 for the body only.

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I think this camera could be worth upgrading to in a couple of years. The next step up from the D300 (my camera) is the full frame D700 but for the extra money, one did not necessarily get a lot of extra features for the extra cost. The major benefit was the ability to shoot in low light due to the larger sensor size.

The D800 for not a lot more money than the D700 has many extra benefits - dual memory-card slots, more comprehensive metering (91,000 pixels vs 1005 segments), more frames per second, plus it is slighter lighter and smaller.

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The D90 is a great camera. A friend of mine wanted to purchase a DSLR after seeing my D300 and this was the camera I recommended, along with the 16-85 Nikon lens. She is very happy with D90, and I was so impressed with the 16-85 lens that I bought one as well!

FYI, the D90 is heavier than the D800 (by more than 30%), but lighter than the D700. Reply to this

I've taken the steps from FTn, FM, FM2, F90, D700 and since this summer the D800. I must say, its a great tool, but as it is more a pro camera, it does take a bit of work to get to know it. It is very Nikon in every way, and I love it for that. So far I 've had around 10.000 exposures and as my wife and I are travelling these days, the exposures keeps building up ;-)
To anyone looking to buy a new camera, I have no problems giving the D800 both thumbs up, but do think before you buy, its first of all the person behind the camera, then the lenses and finally the camera body that makes a great picture. To use a camera like the D800 or the 5D on the canon side you do have to work it, and some times that might result in losing the great picture. Unfortunately the expression "Kodak moment" is getting more and more distant, but it is still as true as it was in the days of film and slides. Be ready and be quick, so know your camera and have fun with it!
Øyvind
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Sadieandoyvind/ Reply to this

I work as a cinematographer and not a photographer, but I have never needed more speed then the speed I get on the D800. I have never tried to do sports, but as I now use high res jpeg and RAW when we are travelling I do notice that it takes a little bit of extra time if Im shooting several exposures at high speed. Still, no problem when shooting people moving fast by, cars, motorcycles and boats moving quite close and at a decent speed. It does depend on what kind of cards you use in the camera but as long as you are willing to spend some money also there. In my opinion, its not a problem unless you want to do nothing but high speed series of high speed action sports.

I have as I mentioned also the D700 so if I had to do something like that, I still have that option, but as we tried to travel light, it is left back home.

When it comes to the low light conditions, I still think Nikon is way superior to pretty much any other camera in its range. This is also something I have seen tested (independently) and something I have experienced myself when working with 5D and 7D in low light.
No doubt, none of the cameras we are talking about are point-and-shoot cameras, and as youre saying - it is well worth the effort of learning your tool before really taking it out there, and it does absolutely pay of in the end.

When it comes to lenses, we do travel light, so I have brought 3 lenses, one old 50mm f/1,4, one of the first digital lens series Nikon released, one 28-105mm f/3,5-4,5D and one 70-300mm f/4,5-5,6G These lenses cover what I need, i get to shoot in very low light with the 50mm, the wide zoom covers anything from small rooms and locations to portraits and macro while the tele zoom does anything at a reasonable distance. Also, of course, when shooting with the D800, its no problem enlarging some of the photos, even if Im not really getting close enough in frame.
These lenses covers what we have been up to so far and still gives me enough to play around with. Finally, when using the slightly older lenses, i feel like Im getting a much nicer color to pretty mush all of the shots, and as I am of the old school, used to shooting film and using Fuji Velvia, it makes the world to me ;-)

Øyvind Reply to this