Nikon D800 professional camera: where Nikon rules?

February 7, reporters were officially presented two new professional cameras – already known to all Nikon D4, which was shown in America with a significant delay and kept secret until the last day – Nikon D800, which I want to talk about. I didn’t write about the camera right off the bat, especially since I’m not going to retell the specs in great detail. I want to tell you about my first impressions of the long expected camera.

The first slides of the presentation made all the experts in the room shudder. Full frame sensor resolution of 36 megapixels! There was no admiration on the faces of those present, but rather some dizziness. The new camera was supposed to replace the “seven hundred” and be a slightly lighter and simplified version of the Nikon D4. In the eyes of the journalists I could read the question: “How much is THIS going to cost?!?”

The not so low expected price in the range of 110-115 thousand Dollars evoked a sigh of relief.

Well-founded concerns about the record-breaking sensor have some basis. Sensitive elements packed too tightly are bound to increase noise and always result in lower effective sensitivity. However, the example of new sensors in Nikon’s latest professional cameras lets us hope that the claimed performance is in line with reality.

Full format, good for today’s highest resolution sensor, light sensitivity 50 – 25600 ISO extension , a pretty decent continuous shooting speed 4 – 6 fps , high-speed autofocus and professional standard video shooting, including the ability to record uncompressed signal to external devices, real-time stereo sound recording level adjustment.

The camera features aspect ratio changing and full focus in Live View mode. Other characteristics are high, but they have less influence on the choice of this camera for a professional photographer.

There’s also the D800e, which doesn’t have a smoothing spectrum filter on the sensor. It is a camera for monochrome photographers that gives nearly 20% more image detail. The disadvantages of this solution are spectral irregularities in color photography and the appearance of moiré in some scenes.

After information about the new camera appeared on the Nikon website, colleagues called me for hours on end. During discussions, in some cases quite heated, I came to the conclusion that the D800 made a much bigger impression than the older model, the Nikon D4. In principle, this is understandable, the price of the “four” for many is prohibitive, but the Nikon D800 when buying will allow, as one friend put it, not to be transplanted “on bread and water”.

There will still be much debate about the camera concept and its professional application, but the most important things have already been done by the developers of this camera. It is by far the most versatile camera available for professionals who do not focus on just one genre.

Advertising photography, reportage maybe except for sports , landscape, technical photography, wedding photography and professional videography. These are the kinds of jobs a camera can do with the utmost quality.

I would venture to guess that the camera will be hard to buy for a while due to very high demand. It should be available by the end of March, the first batch is likely to go like hotcakes.

In general, Nikon – “rules!