This spring Nikon launched a ridiculously performant camera, the D800. According to one test with certain variables, it is the best camera in the world. However, that is of course completely irrelevant if one does not care about those particular variables. There is a good description of the camera at DPReview. This blogpost will just take up some personal notes around the camera.
The D800 by default takes photos in FX format with 36 M pixels. If one wants to take a photo for a blog or some social site, one can get away with a photo that has about 500 times fewer pixels. That means that one easily may discard 99% of the D800's pixels. However, you will store them on your memory card and your harddisk, which quickly fill up. So if one only takes pictures for blogs and social sites, the D800 is more of an inconvenience than the best camera there in the world.
One of several ways to save disk space is to shoot in DX mode. A D800 photo in DX mode is usually less than half the size of an FX photo. One can assign for example the Fn or Preview Button to quickly switch between FX and DX mode (options f4 or f5 in the camera menu). One can then use FX to get a wider angle of view, to get more detail and a more narrow depth of field, and DX to save space and speed up the number of frames per second (fps).
When one shoots DX, there is a thin black line in the viewfinder to show the image area that will be ignored on the photo. To see this even better, one can set the camera menu a5 "AF point illumination" to "Off". For some reason, this greys out the area that is removed in DX mode. Don't ask me why that menu item changes the image area display, but it does.
One of the really nifty things with the D800 is Easy ISO to change ISO directly with the command dial without having to press the ISO button. This is activated in the camera menu d7.
The d7 option does not allow you to switch between manual and automatic ISO, but one easy way to do so is to hold down the ISO button and spin the front command dial.
One of the more peculiar features is the camera option f9 - Aperture Setting. Some older lenses, like on the picture below, have a physical aperture ring to change aperture. Modern cameras usually ignore that ring and require that it be locked. If one really likes using the physical aperture ring, one can use f9 and choose "Aperture ring" instead of "Sub-command dial", and it will work exactly like it did when granddad was young. I see no benefit with this except that it is fun.
Another nice feature is the Virtual Horizon, an indication in the viewfinder if the camera is aligned perfectly horizontally. Activation can for example be assigned to the Fn or Preview Button (options f4 or f5 in the camera menu). In Live View, Virtual Horizon is activated by repeatedly pressing the Info button.
Not all of the features mentioned above are unique to the D800, but they were things that came as nice surprises to me when I started using the camera.
The D800 by default takes photos in FX format with 36 M pixels. If one wants to take a photo for a blog or some social site, one can get away with a photo that has about 500 times fewer pixels. That means that one easily may discard 99% of the D800's pixels. However, you will store them on your memory card and your harddisk, which quickly fill up. So if one only takes pictures for blogs and social sites, the D800 is more of an inconvenience than the best camera there in the world.
One of several ways to save disk space is to shoot in DX mode. A D800 photo in DX mode is usually less than half the size of an FX photo. One can assign for example the Fn or Preview Button to quickly switch between FX and DX mode (options f4 or f5 in the camera menu). One can then use FX to get a wider angle of view, to get more detail and a more narrow depth of field, and DX to save space and speed up the number of frames per second (fps).
When one shoots DX, there is a thin black line in the viewfinder to show the image area that will be ignored on the photo. To see this even better, one can set the camera menu a5 "AF point illumination" to "Off". For some reason, this greys out the area that is removed in DX mode. Don't ask me why that menu item changes the image area display, but it does.
One of the really nifty things with the D800 is Easy ISO to change ISO directly with the command dial without having to press the ISO button. This is activated in the camera menu d7.
The d7 option does not allow you to switch between manual and automatic ISO, but one easy way to do so is to hold down the ISO button and spin the front command dial.
One of the more peculiar features is the camera option f9 - Aperture Setting. Some older lenses, like on the picture below, have a physical aperture ring to change aperture. Modern cameras usually ignore that ring and require that it be locked. If one really likes using the physical aperture ring, one can use f9 and choose "Aperture ring" instead of "Sub-command dial", and it will work exactly like it did when granddad was young. I see no benefit with this except that it is fun.
Not all of the features mentioned above are unique to the D800, but they were things that came as nice surprises to me when I started using the camera.
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