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Had a play with a D800 last night

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Posted by Robert: Wed Sep 26th, 2018 06:55

1^st Post

Had a call from my buddy Ness yesterday, he has a couple of D800's and he thought I might like to try one .

It was chunkier and heavier than I was expecting. Showing signs of heavy use despite only about 78,000 shutter clicks. The missing paint doesn't bother me, more concerned about the image quality from long exposures.

I forgot to take my PB4 bellows with me because I think it will be a perfect camera to duplicate my negatives and slides at last. I can't mount the D3 on the PB4 without an extension tube, which makes the focus too close to copy slides with any lens I have. I will go back for that.

We set the camera up outside on a tripod with a Nikkor 24mm AIS f/2.8 and a sigma 50mm f1.4, we tried some 30second exposures at 3,200 and 1,600 ISO. Long exposure noise reduction turned off. The results were quite remarkable, there was some noise and a couple of hot pixels but otherwise the images were very good.

The light gathering capability of the 36Mp sensor is quite remarkable. We captured the images as NEF's.

This is with the Sigma, ISO 3,200 @ f11 processed in Lightroom Classic WB and exposure adjustments only (auto AI), no sharpening or noise reduction

This is an 'as shot' 24mm ISO 1,600 @ f/9.0 unprocessed.

After basic WB and exposure adjustments in Lr (auto AI), no sharpening.

Above image cropped to 1:1, 100%, screen pixel to image pixel.

The TV aerials were barely visible to the naked eye. The hot pixels can just be seen towards the right side of the roof, I haven't been searching with magnifying glass but I did spot about 6, there may be more, I don't call that excessive.

I see the D800 (or newer) as a way of photographing the night sky with more dynamic range, better resolution and less noise than the D3 can achieve. I don't see it as a replacement for the D3, far from it.

I need to see it fit a PB4 bellows and make at least 40 repeated night sky 30 second exposures without image degradation. On paper the D810 is better spec, and obviously the D850 is bees knees but I have to consider if the D800 gets me near enough to satisfy my needs.

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Robert.

Posted by jk: Wed Sep 26th, 2018 17:48

2^nd Post

Very happy with my D800. I also have the D600 which is 24MP but the AF in low light is not as good as the D850 or D800 or D500.

I dont think that I will ever get another D4/5/6/7 camera as I find the D850 to be perfect weight for a DSLR. The Z7 hopefully will provide a lighter camera with similar IQ.

Still undecided about the Z6 as while it has similar body as the Z7 but less 24MP. 24MP is perfect for most stuff but the extra cropability of 45MP is great as is the detail rendering.
I will definitely release my D600 and D3S and D700 if I am to get the Z6.

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