How Sharp is the D800? - this could be a Contest!! ;)

Photowyzard

Senior Member
STOP and read before you scroll:

Do not
Scroll ahead, just enjoy the images until the LAST image.

I went down to the Lake early today, to get in some of that gorgeous early morning sun and I was rewarded in many ways. I got to use my Nikon F5, bonus, and I got some amazing images. The first image is prompting this Guessing Game Contest with no winner!There are 4 image like the one below. The one BELOW is the one to look at very, very carefully.

There is something on the Egret I am going to show you. Look at it carefully until you give up guessing what it is.This image is cropped at not quite 8%. Scroll slowly if you want to pain yourself to guess first.

Egret-(f).jpg

This next image is a BiF shot I caught of the Egret, probably one of my best so far. This is such a hard bird to photograph under any circumstances, much less in flight. Feel free to comment.These images are all shot MANUAL.

Egret-BiF2.jpg

Love the reflection on the pond this morning. Beautiful blue sky, no wind ... perfect, other than the 4" of muck I was standing in.

Double-Egret.jpg

This is the LAST image of the EGRET. It is landing. What goes up, has to come down! :) Do not go below this image if you are still guessing what is on the EGRET in the first image.

Egret-Landing.jpg

STOP HERE IF YOU STILL WANT TO GUESS and go back up for a final look.As I said in the the beginning of the post, I cropped this picture to fit the black frame perfectly. It is about 7.5% -8% crop. The image was shot full frame.I used my Nikon 300mm with NO teleconverter.The egrets were in a friendly mood this morning.There were 8 of them on the pond at any one time. While I was doing PP, I noticed this dot and investigate further just out of curiosity!


:D

Check this out:

A House Fly on the Egret! This blew me away.

I am shooting with a 300mm lens, I am a good 25-30 feet away minimum and you can make out a housefly on the bird! I have another image in this series where there is also a Mosquito on it near the fly!

FLY-on-Egret.jpg

A better view:

PIXEL-PEEPING.jpg
 
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Photowyzard

Senior Member
Thanks Rick, greatly appreciate the kind words. Is there any way to post a Large image on this site? I have a 300dpi 2.25" square image I want to post of the fly, just to give you an idea.

I am currently using a TV monitor at home and can't quite gauge the quality of the image posted. These are crystal clear and to spot the fly is really something.

I am posting the 300% crop below, hopefully it turns out. If not, maybe someone can let me know how to do it. Just to see how good the D800 really is, take one of your images and enlarge it 300% and see how pixelated it become by comparison!

Look at the first picture, it is at 8%, shot in FX mode. It is exactly framed as I saw it in my viewfinder.

Then look at this enlargement of that image by 300%

300%-Crop.jpg
 

Disorderly

Senior Member
When someone snarks about all the money we spend on gear when their P&S/phonecam can do just as well, I think I'll point them here. And when they ask "why would anybody care about a bug on a bird?", I'll just shake my head sadly and quote George Mallory.
 

Photowyzard

Senior Member
Rick, it would probably be a blurry spec on 90% of most DSLR kits. You can't get this resolution anywhere else unless you drop some really serious coin on a medium format camera.

I am wondering if a 24 mp camera like a D4 could have delivered this with a 300mm lens?

Too bad this was taken on an Egret. This bird is so difficult to photograph (well, for me anyway) in bright sun. I would have loved to have seen this on something where I didn't have to struggle on WB and Exposure to get a clean, crisp shot, just to see the difference.
 

Rick M

Senior Member
When someone snarks about all the money we spend on gear when their P&S/phonecam can do just as well, I think I'll point them here. And when they ask "why would anybody care about a bug on a bird?", I'll just shake my head sadly and quote George Mallory.

I think some of us get so deep into this that we become perfectionists. We are always striving to get better results and often are not content when 99.9999% of the rest of the world is. Even when I am close to thinking I have a great shot I always find some way I could have made it better. That is why I'm pretty certain I'll move up to the D600, as I'm sure you folks went with the D800 for similar reasons, it reduces the chance of having great results constrained by equipement limitations. It's a vicious cycle :)
 

Photowyzard

Senior Member
Pretty much sums up my thinking. I have been looking to make some large gallery prints to hang on the wall. I find fault with almost every image I have taken and have yet to hand one!

I do have one that will make it to print, but that is pretty much all that is 100%.

Still searching for the perfect shot!
 

Pierro

Senior Member
I think some of us get so deep into this that we become perfectionists. We are always striving to get better results and often are not content when 99.9999% of the rest of the world is. Even when I am close to thinking I have a great shot I always find some way I could have made it better. :)


Thats because you're a photographer, and not just a happy snapper. Passion is what makes people strive.

Lovely work on those Egrets Wyz
 

Photowyzard

Senior Member
Good luck, look forward to seeing some of your test images! Have fun in Africa, you should come back with a treasure trove of wildlife images! :)
 

mkaplan

New member
Every time I see one of these 100% pics and the quality it blows me away.
Here is one I took recently of my Nephew's almost 7 month old girl...
original.jpg original.jpg
 

stmv

Senior Member
for me,, the d800 has satisfied my sharpness desires, I took a 50mm handheld shot just a few minutes ago of my starbucks cup, and then zooming in 100% to the pixel limit, could see the finest print on the cup still well defined, so, when the image has that amount of detail at such a small scale, the overall image is fine.

I was happy with the D700, I am thrilled with the D800!. The fact that you can get this much camera for 2950 is super.

besides, where can get now a brand new D700 level body, currently, D800 is it, since the D600 is reduced to a consumer grade body.

Ironically, Nikon has still a hole with a D720, that would be the D800 body, with the D600 sensor.

I would price the D600 at 1800 dollars, a D720 at 2400 dollars, and a D800 at 3000 for a really really nice lineup. perhaps unbeatbable.

3200, 7200, 600, 720, 800, D4, D4X, and maybe a D5 (50 million anyone?).
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
for me,, the d800 has satisfied my sharpness desires, I took a 50mm handheld shot just a few minutes ago of my starbucks cup, and then zooming in 100% to the pixel limit, could see the finest print on the cup still well defined, so, when the image has that amount of detail at such a small scale, the overall image is fine.

I was happy with the D700, I am thrilled with the D800!. The fact that you can get this much camera for 2950 is super.

besides, where can get now a brand new D700 level body, currently, D800 is it, since the D600 is reduced to a consumer grade body.

Ironically, Nikon has still a hole with a D720, that would be the D800 body, with the D600 sensor.

I would price the D600 at 1800 dollars, a D720 at 2400 dollars, and a D800 at 3000K for a really really nice lineup. perhaps unbeatbable.

3200, 7200, 600, 720, 800, D4, D4X, and maybe a D5 (50 million anyone?).

Well, I'm happy with a consumer grade body for one main reason: Weight and size will make it a perfect travel full frame camera. Plus, with the D7000 it shares the battery and controls.

So I might keep the D700 but I will certainly try to sell my D90 with 18-105.
 
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