The D800 is here

[ravi~nigam]

me 2 eagerly waiting to see many D700 in Buy and Sell section [just like D7K and 7D ...].
God bless me

[VikramF]

me 2 eagerly waiting to see many D700 in Buy and Sell section [just like D7K and 7D ...].
God bless me

Wait a teeny, tiny bit longer for the D400 launch in March (rumoured launch date). Depending on what gets launched finally you might see a whole lot of movement in the antiques market 

[Sachn]

The feature set at the price tag set makes this cam a winner.

If this were a game of chess then Nikon just 'checked' Canon...

Your move canon....

[ISO]

36.3-million pixels

Is Moore's law or similar applicable to mega pixels of camera?

[aniltulsi]

Surprised to see such high MegaPixels in D800. Clearly, the focus is the Studio and Nature shooters, and not useful for Sports or News people, as it is quite slow. The Video is also focused towards Film makers. Will be interesting to see the Image quality at 36MP, in terms of Dynamic range, ISO etc. Nikon seem to observe the degradation in Image quality, so has decided to remove the Filter (OLPF) used for Anti-Aliasing to remove Moire (the strange patterns seen if the objects have fine lines etc.) in the 800E model. This job of removing Moire will be done now by the Capture NX software outside the camera, so more work for the professionals. But this will produce better picture quality even at 36MP (theoretically).

Good to see the Auto-ISO now also considers the Flocal length of the lens, as done by Canon and D4.

It will be interesting to see which lens will be able to resolve these 36 Mega Pixels...

I am waiting for a 6 MP FF camera with todays sensor technology, that will give me the amezing picture quality, without the extra pixels, that I never need... D800 is not for me, even if I had money (which I don't ... )

[Brendon]

It doesn't really matter if a lens is able to resolve all 36 MPs or not. A 36 MP sensor is about as dense as a 16 MP APS-C sensor only.

So if a cheap kit lens is attached to the 36 MP sensor it will still outresolve a 21 or 24 MP camera outfitted with the sharpest lens available.

The only consideration IMO is the file sizes which for a pro will be a bit too much considering they click thousands of photos in a day. Managing so much data is going to be expensive.

If given a choice I would choose a lower MP FF camera but I can see how this will be attractive to a lot of pros and even amateurs.

[g2]

Congratulations! Nikon folks.
Wow 36mp, that's huge. Any samples out yet? Great pricing at $3000 too. Studio/Landscape guys will surely be happy.
You guys talking about HDDs, What about processing power required for those files? Should give a new computer bundled with it.

Now that Nikon has adopted Canon's strategy of high mp can we expect Canon to adopt Nikon's strategy of more feature rich bodies? I sincerely hope :-)

g2

[ISO]

So if a cheap kit lens is attached to the 36 MP sensor it will still outresolve a 21 or 24 MP camera outfitted with the sharpest lens available.

How Brendon?

[Image]

Since Sony (or is that Videocon) makes chips for Nikon, next week we might see an announcement on Alpha Infinity 

[aces170]

The DX "switch" is interesting, would you get 15.6 MP RAW files?

[VikramF]

The DX "switch" is interesting, would you get 15.6 MP RAW files?

15.4 MP according to their press release.

Just think of it as a built in 1.5 TC with no effect on IQ and a more sensible file size 

Tempted aren't you?? Especially at the price? I was seriously expecting it to come out at the $4k mark.

[Proton]

Uh... mmmmm what do I have now?... uh 15 + 18=33 Mpx.. Wondering what is all that?
50D + 550D ... hehe.. 33Mpx..

But this camera will be overrunning the medium formats.. doesn't it... its almost near to the MF and the pricing is less by 6 times.... wow...

[Hellwrath]

Two major features that I like in D800 are:
(i) Option of choosing a body without AA filter
(ii) Uncompressed video.

This makes it a very tempting combo for a lot of indie film makers.

[Brendon]

Since Sony (or is that Videocon) makes chips for Nikon, next week we might see an announcement on Alpha Infinity 

Nope ! It seems Nikon has bargained with Sony about making the 36MP sensor exclusive to Nikon for some time at least. So it seems this year Sony might launch only one FF camera of 24 MP for about $2000 at Photonika. The price will be lower since they won't use an expensive pentaprism viewfinder but rather an EVF which is far cheaper to make.

They might launch the 36 MP FF camera only next year IF at all. Which is fine since Sony has very few lenses than can resolve 36 MPs.

@ISO - Consider the following two tests - One is a mediocre lens (Samyang 85mm f1.4) tested on a 21 MP FF sensor.

http://www.photozone.de/canon_eos_ff/483-samyang_85_14_5d?start=1

If you notice wide open its quite soft and cannot resolve more than 2800 LPH in the center. It goes up maximum to 3296 LPH at f5.6. This is far from the maximum resolution the 21 MP sensor is capable of which is 3700 LPH. So its safe to say that the Samyang cannot resolve the 36 MP sensor fully.

Now consider the Canon 85mm f1.2 L which is a very sharp lens on a 15 MP APS-C sensor.

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/501-canon85f12mk2apsc?start=1

This lens is very sharp and at f5.6 its practically outresolving the 15 MP sensor and resolve around 2600 LPH. However even wide open the Samyang gives a sharper output when used on the higher MP sensor.

So you see that even though the Samyang is not a very sharp lens, when used on a higher MP body it can still outresolve a very sharp lens on a lower MP body.

So even though quite a few lenses won't resolve 36 MPs, you can bet they will still be able to resolve more than sharpest lenses attached to a 21 MP sensor.

Here is another example for similar lenses on APS-C sensors -

Canon 18-55mm IS on 15 MP body -

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/404-canon_1855_3556is_50d?start=1

Canon 17-55mm IS on 8 MP body -

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/178-canon-ef-s-17-55mm-f28-usm-is-test-report--review?start=1

[Proton]

Brendon, do you mean that Nikon will have to bring new breed of lenses for the new gen cameras? Now that 36 is released, within no time you may get 50 too! no? And much of the lenses which work quite sharp at 16/20mpx may not be that sharp there.... 

[Brendon]

Well its all theoretical as I really dunno how the current breed will perform on a 36 MP sensor. But for sure those old film zoom lenses which worked fine on the D700 will run out of juice much faster when used on a 36 MP sensor. However Nikon's current breed to top quality lenses - 24-70mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8, 200mm f2 VR, 35mm f1.4, 24mm f1.4 will all probably be able to resolve the 36 MP by around f5.6 at least if not sooner.

However that all theory on my part so we will have to wait and see.

[Proton]

That's a disheartening news, if its true, for Museum owners (like Neo  ) with every glass piece in the cupboard!

[Image]

Well its all theoretical as I really dunno how the current breed will perform on a 36 MP sensor. But for sure those old film lenses which worked fine on the D700 will run out of juice much faster when used on a 36 MP sensor. However Nikon's current breed to top quality lenses - 24-70mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8, 200mm f2 VR, 35mm f1.4, 24mm f1.4 will all probably be able to resolve the 36 MP by around f5.6 at least if not sooner.

However that all theory on my part so we will have to wait and see.

Interesting discussions. I'll see some real life photos to judge  - we will have a lot of pixel peeping analysis in the days to come.

[aniltulsi]

Good explanation Brandon... but the Canon 85mm link is wrong...

[Brendon]

Well its all theoretical as I really dunno how the current breed will perform on a 36 MP sensor. But for sure those old film lenses which worked fine on the D700 will run out of juice much faster when used on a 36 MP sensor. However Nikon's current breed to top quality lenses - 24-70mm f2.8, 70-200mm f2.8, 200mm f2 VR, 35mm f1.4, 24mm f1.4 will all probably be able to resolve the 36 MP by around f5.6 at least if not sooner.

However that all theory on my part so we will have to wait and see.

Interesting discussions. I'll see some real life photos to judge  - we will have a lot of pixel peeping analysis in the days to come.

Well as I said its all theoretical.

However I believe I am right.

One example is my Minolta 50mm f1.7. Its a sharp lens for film and for those 6 MP Konica Minolta DSLRs launched years ago. However I recently saw some samples on a Sony A900 and compared it with a more modern Sigma 50mm f1.4. There was just no comparison and the Minolta was noticeably softer than the Sigma at all aperture values. I believe the same comparison tried on a 12 MP sensor would see the Minolta coming on par with the Sigma at around f5.6 since I have testing the Minolta on my 12 MP Sony A700 and at f5.6 its about as sharp as all of my lenses.

In any case I am changing my statement to old film 'zoom' lenses as I had the Tamron 19-35mm lens in mind when I wrote that.