[_quicksilver_]

Stunning shots, Jay! It´s incredible how detailed those crops are!

That D800 is truly amazing camera, wow!

[noons]

Awesome shots Jay. I am constantly amazed at the resolving power the D800 has. The cropability is astonishing! Gives you so much flexibility.
I'm starting to get the itch to get one... but my wife and I are looking at buying/building a house, so I suppose it'll have to wait!

In the meantime, I suppose the D700 will have to do and I'll enjoy the contributions here.

[itshimitis]

Had another look at the third shot as quite a lot of noise in the darkest area as I'd pushed the levels up a bit. Selected the flower then inversed the selection to exclude it then reduced the exposure of the background by 4 stops to keep some colour in the left part of the shot

[Bart]

Wow. This thread moves fast.



Thanks!



Yeah - I'd be super-stoked too. You got a screaming deal!



Wow. Beautifully done. Love the first, second and seventh shots!

Thanks! Appreciated.

[dexmus]

.

As I say above, I'm still working on how to get the most out of these files, but I can say this, personally:

1) "Handheld won't cut it any more" assertion is absolutely false (as I knew it would be.) If you feel shutter-speed constrained, bump ISO and continue to handhold. The files hold up nicely to NR.

2) Good/great lenses on the D700 are still good/great on the D800, and every lens wil resolve more () - how much more depends on if it's great, or just good.

3) Working with these files isn't as painful as I feared it would be, but they do bring a slowdown to your workflow.

4) Flickr's changes suck. Perfect timing for me - start sucking when I need them the most for detail retention (Grr!)

I'll post more shots & thoughts as I get more time in with the camera. Below is the first set.


About the 4th snap I took with the camera - 50 f/1.8D wide-open, a tad softer than f/2.8, but still impressive - no AF problems that I can detect, no AF adjust needed with the three lenses I tried:


Crop:



Below is the 180 f/2.8 AF-N, wide-open, handheld, ISO 560. A lot of the portrait shots you've seen have been tripod, studio lighting, f/5.6, f/8, ISO 100, etc - I'm very, very happy with these "real world", handheld results:



Crop:




Now, below is something I have a harder time doing with the D700 - get detail at distance, at less than ideal ISO, wide-open - the detail just doesn't hold up to NR as well as this:

180mm f/2.8 ISO 1600



Larger, desat - the individual hairs at that distance, the wrinkle pattern in the clothes - tougher to do at f/2.8 with that lens from that distance at ISO 1600 on the D700.



More examples, all f/2.8

f/2.8 ISO 320

Crop:


ISO 900


ISO 1800






Below is about a 40% crop, f/2.8 ISO 1000

Larger:

fantastic shots!

[IIGQ4U]

A few recent shots:

[itshimitis]

Beautiful shots.

Thank you very much

Heading home as it's our wedding anniversary tomorrow (Thursday) and I was happy I had my camera in my hand when this steam train pulled into Oxenholme station:

Canon 5D mk III Sigma EX DG 85mm f/1.4 at f/4 1/250 ISO 50

[apisto]

Got a call from the local store - my D800 arrived. I shot a few hundred test shots and some seat-of-pants portraits this afternoon, going through them now.

Did you get yours through National Camera? How long were you on the waiting list?

A less welcome discovery - flickr's recent changes... suck. I started to notice color posterizing in my DA 15ltd sky shots a couple weeks ago that never existed before, in previous uploads. Now, some of my shots from the D800, which look great in LR, have lost a touch of detail up on flickr. This is new. I think they've downgraded their processing, so you basically need to export a copy of each image at the various sizes (800p, 1024p, 1600p, 2048p) and upload those to mitigate the problem. I think the 36MP detail has made this more apparent as well, but it's not all because of that - it's changes on flickr. Not happy with that, I may need to move to some other display provider....

I also have been less than satisfied with flickr lately. I plan on giving smugmug a test run when I get the free time.

[borno]

Great night shots IIGQ4U

[jsherman999]

Thanks all! Exciting times in photography indeed. IIGQ4U, itshimitis, you are rockin' out.

[jsherman999]

Did you get yours through National Camera? How long were you on the waiting list?

Yes! I placed a pre-order with Adorama in early March, then a few weeks ago I was in NatCam in maple Grove looking at something else and asked about the D800, put my name on the waiting list just because. Figured it was fruitless, but what the heck. Got a call yesterday

It seems the B&M stores sometimes (always?) are the best bet, if you're willing to pay sales tax.

I also have been less than satisfied with flickr lately. I plan on giving smugmug a test run when I get the free time.

That's the one I'm thinking of as well.

[jsherman999]

At this point - and this could change - if a D700 owner were to ask me, "Should I upgrade from the D700 to the D800," my answer would be "probably not." Not because the D800 isn't fantastic enough, but because the D700 is still almost faultless. If you are not bumping into resolution problems now, it's not a necessary upgrade. I've just always had a problem with necessity.

Re AF: have not trialed them side-by-side much yet, but did take a few very, very low-light shots with the D800, and the AF lock does exceed the capability of the already-great D700 - slightly.

Re DX mode: no comparison. If that's important to you, it's a worthy upgrade.

I'll post more comparison shots & thoughts as time goes on.

[jsherman999]

.

One of the D800's appealing attributes is it's ability to crop cleanly. I have a Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 HSM II that I shot all the time on my D90,
and the when I picked up a D700 I would still occasionally shoot it on that, in DX mode, because I liked that Sigmas AF speed, it size,
and it's optics, but the 5.5MP of the D700's crop mode kept those shots ideally at 8x10 or smaller prints. So, I was excited to give the
Sigma 50-150 a try on the D800, where it will deliver about 15.5MP in the frame.

While the Sigma can't quite match the 180 2.8 prime, and DX mode only gets you around D7000 territory in resolution and SNR, it's still a
quality combo, very fast-focusing, very versatile. Below are some shots, almost all wide-open, several at 150mm which is supposed to be
this lenses' weakest point (150mm wide-open) :

He really does not want to be photographed today
80mm f/2.8 ISO 125

98mm f/2.8 ISO 220

Neither does he
150mm f/2.8 ISO 220


Bug Discovery!

50mm f/2.8 ISO 900

75mm f/2.8 ISO 320


These last two are at MFD of the Sigma:

150mm f/2.8 ISO 800

ISO 720

[jsherman999]

Congrats on the D800 Jay!
That 180mm you have, is there 2 different version's of it? If so whats the difference and whats the one to get?

A random shot for the thread-

Thanks Simon!

Re the 180 - Ken Rockwell's a bit of a self-admitted hype artist, but he has a great rundown on the various 180 versions --> here.

Mine is the crinkle-finish 'late' version, or AF-N.

[bossa]

I tried a few lenses in a shop today and I think I'm in danger of buying this one:

Zeiss 21/2.8 Wide open @2.8







f/3.5



f/7.1



Unfortunately I have to go back and do it again as I took these in a crop mode. I don't even know why I'm bothering frankly.. such a klutz.