The video above was created by taking 569 photos at the rate of 15 second per photo, then played back at 24 frames/second. A CHDK firmware allows the Canon Powershot S95 to run an intervalometer script to take photos at fixed time interval. The camera was set to ISO 100, f/5.6, and 1/500s shutter speed. The video itself was created from the photos using QuickTime Pro.

Just recently I also tried time lapse using Nikon D800. Nikon D800 can create the video without any external software. The problem is some brightness flickering that is said to be caused by aperture inaccuracy. The following is the video created using Nikon D800.

No related posts.

Unboxing and first impressions

Nikon D800 and Canon EOS 5D Mark III are different cameras, which is obvious from unboxing. The 5D Mark III uses the same battery and charger as its predecessor the 5D Mark II while the Nikon D800 uses different battery and charger compared to Nikon D700. The Nikon D800 has a smaller hand grip that many people may need time to get used to.

High ISO performance

In the Nikon D800 review posted on Mansurovs Photography website Nasim Mansurov, the reviewer, showed better high ISO performance with the Nikon D800 when the photos are down-sampled to the same size.

Dynamic range

Various independent measurements have shown Nikon D800 has a very high dynamic range and the comparison (Google translation) done by Dutch website DIGIFOTOPRO.NL shows it.

HD video

Cameratown did a head-to-head video comparison of the Nikon D4, D800, Canon 5D Mark III & Canon EOS 5D Mark II. The Nikon D800 didn’t score well and it was ranked at the last for ISO noise performance. It also performed poorly in moire tests. The possible reasons for the test results? Here is a video review by Philip Bloom of Canon EOS 5D Mark III saying the Canon EOS 5D Mark III produces soft video that a sharpening is needed in post editing. There aren’t many magics when dealing with aliasing and moire other than blurring the pixels. It is unclear what settings were used on the Nikon D800. It does offer wide range of options including sharpening levels during HD video shooting. I haven’t seen a comparison yet but it seems the rolling shutter effect on the Nikon D800 is well controlled.

Portrait

The following is an in-depth look at both cameras for portrait shooting. Nikon D800 has more details without compromising low-light performance. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III seems to have a snappier AF system.

Overall

DigitalRevTV has a comparison of the two cameras for various shooting scenarios. No clear winner is declared but viewers are encouraged to pick the one better suited for his/her shooting needs and style. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is probably a more balanced camera but the lack of improvement in pixel count and $1000 higher price are disappointments for some Canon users.

Related posts:

1. Canon EOS 5D Mark III: How Much HigH ISO Improvement over Canon EOS 5D Mark II?
2. Nikon D800 vs. Nikon D700 High ISO Noise Performance Comparison
3. Nikon D800: High Dynamic Range Camera
4. Nikon D800 vs. Nikon D700 High ISO Comparison
5. Canon EOS 5D Mark III Officially Announced

The Nikon D800 is a sophisticated piece of electronics. Like all other electronics products, it may be normal for a production line to be unstable at the initial production ramp and issues get ironed out. It may also be common for an issue that wasn’t identified during product development or testing to surface. Among the exciting first impressions and wonderful first shots, there are also some issues reported for the recently launched Nikon D800. Please note these reported issues may not be the case for all users and some may even be simple user errors.

• Green tint on the LCD when using Auto WB. This has been reported by Nikon Rumors as well. It seems to be the case on my D800 as well. After customizing the Auto WB in Shooting Menu the problem went away. A discussion of this issue can be found on flickr.
• Poor LiveView interpolation. It seems Nikon D800 is skipping lines in the LiveView mode and is not showing the full sensor data. This has been confirmed by multiple users and is like to affect all Nikon D800 cameras.
• Wirelss flash issues. Here is a report of unreliable wireless flash issue. I have personally tested this and found no issue.

Are you seeing any issues with your Nikon D800?

No related posts.

Nikon simply describes it as “incredible dynamic range”. Others have some actual measurements. DxOMark recently declared the Nikon D800 as the king of all cameras tested with overall score of 95. The dynamic range of Nikon D800, measured as Landscape score, is 14.4EV, the highest ever measured by DxOMark.

Another independent measurement was done by William Claff. The values cannot be directly compared with DxOMark results but the result is the same. Nikon D800 is the DSLR camera with the highest dynamic range at its base ISO of 100. You can find a chart comparing the so-called photographic dynamic range of Nikon D800, Nikon D4, and Canon EOS 5D Mark III here. The dynamic range of Nikon D800 is even higher than Nikon D4 at low ISO up to ISO 400. After that, it is just slightly lower than Nikon D4.

No related posts.

The american robin I photographed today was actually pretty close. It must have gotten used to be around people so I was able to shoot just a few feet away without scaring it away. The depth of field is quite shallow. The focus was on the bird’s head and the body appears to be slightly out of focus.

All photos were processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.

No related posts.

This has sparked a discussion on DPReview and there is no clear answer. If B&H is indeed no longer an authorized dealer, the immediate concern is Nikon’s grey market policy, which states the following.

Nikon Inc. USA cannot provide any technical support or warranty service on Gray Market items. Additionally Nikon Inc. USA cannot perform any fee-based repair work on Gray Market items. Please do not contact Nikon Inc. USA for help with any Gray Market products.

In that case the service needs to be obtained via the reseller or importer, which will be B&H in this case.

[update]: Henry Posner of B&H added a post to the DPReview discussion thread. Apparently it was some kind of mistake by Nikon.

[update 2]: The list is updated again on March 26, 2012. B&H Poto and Electronics Corp. is included.

Related posts:

1. Amazon Nikon D800 Shipping Delayed *Updated*
2. Canon Recalls Unsold EOS-1D Mark III from Dealer Shelfs
3. Things Which Nikon Never Gets Right in Its DSLR
4. Nikon Opens Online Store
5. DPReview Posts Nikon D300 Review, Finally

How good is the Nikon D800? Time will tell when detailed reviews are posted and people get to know more about it in real world usage. Here are some first impressions of the Nikon D800.

• First Impressions: Using the Nikon D800 – DPReview
• A (very detailed) first impressions review: The Nikon D800 – Ming Thein
• Nikon D800 from a D700 perspective – Nikon Glass

No related posts.

Hello,

We wanted to give you an update on your order for the “Nikon D800 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only).” Although we expected to start shipping the camera to customers on March 20, Nikon will be sending us our initial shipment of this product on March 23, 2012. This means the camera will not ship by our original estimate.

Due to the high demand for this item, we may not be able to fulfill all customer orders at the same time. Since product supplies from Nikon will be very limited, we will ship your product as soon as inventory becomes available.

We hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

*Update* – A few hours later another email from Amazon showed up in my inbox regarding Nikon D800 order.

Hello,

We’re writing about the order you placed on February 06, 2012 (Order# 002-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX). Unfortunately, we are unable to ship the item(s) as soon as we expected and need to provide you with a new estimate of when the item(s) may be delivered:

“Nikon D800 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)”
New Delivery Estimate: April 13, 2012 – April 30, 2012

If you still want us to ship the delayed items when they do become available, (though they may arrive later than expected) please visit Your Orders on Amazon.com address to approve the delay:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/css/summary/edit.html/?useCase=approve&orderID=002-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX

Please approve the delay by April 20, 2012 to avoid cancelation. If the item becomes available before that date, we will automatically ship it to you. By approving the new delivery estimate, you are letting us know that you still want the item(s).

We will make every effort to get the delayed item(s) to you as soon as possible. If there are other items in your order, they’ll be shipped according to the delivery estimates listed in the order details in Your Account (www.amazon.com/youraccount) at no additional cost.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this delay.

If you have more questions about this order, you can e-mail, phone, or chat with Customer Service using the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/contact-us

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
http://www.amazon.com

No related posts.

Screenshot of Nikon D800 User Manual (D800_EN, p277).

Most likely not. It may not even affect the jpeg output from the camera.

The following chart shows JPEG file size vs ISO for images (Imaging Resource samples) shot with different NR settings (NR0=Off, NR1=Low, NR2=Normal, NR3=High). I also included the data for JPEG files converted using Nikon Capture NX 2 from NEF raw images with default NR setting and with NR turned completely off in the Develop module.

Nikon D800 file size vs ISO (based on Imaging Resource Nikon D800 samples)

With higher ISO, the image will contain more noise. The noise makes it difficult to compress the image data therefore file size increases. If noise reduction is applied to the image data, the file size will be reduced. The more noise reduction is applied, the smaller the file will be.

The chart above shows that without noise reduction, the JPEG (exported from Capture NX 2 at 100% quality) file size increases smoothly with increased ISO. However the exported files have a sharp size reduction at ISO 1600 as shown in the green line. Even though the High ISO NR setting is turned off, Nikon Capture NX 2 still gets a hint to apply noise reduction. It is not hidden though. Under Develop->Camera Settings -> Noise Reduction, Color Noise Reduction is by default set to 3%. At the same time, the out-of-camera JPEG file does not show such a file size trend.

It appears that the manual is not very accurate. Can this be a software bug?

Related posts:

1. Another Set of Nikon D800 High ISO Samples
2. Nikon D800 ISO 6400 Sample
3. Nikon D800 vs. Nikon D700 High ISO Comparison
4. Nikon D800 High ISO Samples
5. Nikon D800 High ISO NEF Raw Sample Images

The following is the Eye-Fi icon in the information display of Nikon D800.

Nikon D800 Eye-Fi Icon

One cool feature that may be interesting is the so-called Direct Mode. It allows you to beam images directly to your smart phone or tablet (iOS and Android are supported) by turning the Eye-Fi card into a wireless hot spot. The Direct Mode also works with a computer with wireless networking capability. Here is a how-to article on how to setup the Direct Mode with an iPad. It will definitely be a good experience with the recently announced iPAD with retina display (2048×1536).

One potential issue may be the file transfer speed. The Eye-Fi Pro X2 card supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n standards. The speed of 802.11n network is quite good but the images files produced by Nikon D800 can be fairly large. Uncompressed 14-bit RAW files are about 74 MB each. Losslessly compressed NEF is nearly the half at ~ 41 MB each but is still quite big. JPEG files can be a lot smaller. Large/Fine JPEG is about 16 MB. So this option may not be ideal as a replacement for tethered shooting using RAW format but may work well for viewing JPEG files on a tablet or as a background file transfer option when transfer speed is not critical.

No related posts.

Click to download the Nikon D800 user manual

No related posts.

Nikon is pretty upfront with the Nikon D800E, warning potential buyers about the false color and moiré. The following is shown on the Nikon D800 product page on Nikon USA website. Nikon offers Capture NX 2 software with a Moire reduction function.

Moiré is not exclusive to cameras without the anti-aliasing filter. In the post Nikon D800 vs. Nikon D700 High ISO Comparison, you can clearly see the moiré pattern in the 100% crop from Nikon D700. The images below show the crops from both Nikon Capture NX 2 and Adobe Lightroom 4. Moiré patterns can be seen over the vertical strip on the left and over the horizontal zipper on the right.

Moire shown at 100%. Processed in Nikon Capture NX 2.

Moire shown at 100%. Processed in Adobe Lightroom 4.

Interestingly the default Lightroom 4 rendering of the raw file has stronger moire pattern than the image rendered by Nikon Capture NX 2. Does Nikon Capture NX 2 have a superior demosaicing algorithm? The image from Nikon Capture NX 2 also retains more highlight details.

How to remove moiré

In Nikon Capture NX 2, moiré reduction belongs to the Camera & Lens Corrections section of the Develop module. If you are not RAW shooter, this function is not available.

A setting of low seems to be all it needs to remove the moire from this particular example. There is no need to select anything. The software automatically removes the moire without user telling it where the moire is.

Lightroom 4 uses a different approach. To remove the moire, you need to first select the Adjustment Brush in the Develop module, select Moiré from the Effect menu, adjust the effect and brush sliders, then drag over the moire area to remove it. One stroke for each moire area is all it takes.

No related posts.

A Romanian wedding photographer took a spin with the Nikon D800 at a local store and came away with raw NEF images from the camera. He also shot the same scene with a Nikon D700. Even though the images were all shot handheld and the white balances also seemed different the comparison should still give you a good idea about how the two cameras compare in the high ISO shooting situations.

From the posted images, the Nikon D800 images downsized to 12 megapixel clearly show better image quality with more details, less/finer noises at high ISO settings. The true 100% crops from Nikon D800 also look very good. Noises at pixel level are about the same but the Nikon D800 images have more details than the Nikon D700 images.

All images shown on the website were said to be converted to JPEG in Lightroom 4 without noise reduction. I found that to be incorrect. There was likely no luminance noise reduction applied but the default color noise reduction setting 25 was most likely left on in Lightroom 4. With color noise reduction turned off, the images would show blotchy color noise at high ISOs (to be expected).

The RAW NEF files from both Nikon D800 and Nikon D700 are also available for download. The download links were found in the comment section of the blog post.

No related posts.

There aren’t much new there. Most are simply reiterations of what are already out there. Chuck is also skillful at answering some tricky questions. For example this one below.

AH: Canon has indicated two stops improvement in high ISO performance relative to the 5D Mark II. We understand this figure refers to in-camera JPEG files with noise reduction. Approximately how much of an improvement in high ISO performance or low ISO dynamic range is expected in RAW (CR2) files when using the latest Canon DPP software?

CW: These figures are not being disclosed, but of course they will be lower than the noise reduction achieved with in-camera JPEGs and EOS Movies.

A great portion of the interview was about the new AF module inside EOS 5D Mark III. Chuck explained the difference between the EOS 5D Mark III and EOS 1DX AF modules and described the improvements over the AF module in EOS 1D Mark IV.

You can read the entire interview here.

[via DPReview]

No related posts.

According to Nikon, the Nikon D800 and D800E are aimed at medium format users and portrait photographers, and are not replacement of Nikon D700.

The report also said the pre-orders for the Nikon D800E is also higher than anticipated but Nikon is cautious about users who may not be fully aware of the consequences of removing the anti-aliasing filter.

The popularity of Nikon D800 can be seen on Amazon. The Nikon D800 is currently the best seller on the Amazon’s DSLR best seller list. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III currently takes the second spot.

In the best selling electronics category, Nikon D800 ranks at #19 and Canon EOS 5D Mark III comes in at #73. That’s two spot below its high end compact camera, the Canon PowerShot S100.

Readers should be aware that the rankings change frequently and at the time of reading the numbers may have changed completely. The above is a snapshot as of 7AM MDT, March 12, 2012.

No related posts.

The JPEG samples posted by DPReview and Image Resources do look impressive but it is difficult to tell the real improvements in sensor high ISO noise performance due to noise reduction applied on the sensor data before JPEG output. In order to answer the question about how significant the improvement is in high ISO noise performance, we need to evaluate RAW image files with noise reduction turned off.

Canon has not released update for its official DPP software that opens CR2 raw image file produced by Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Photoshop users can open the files using Adobe Camera RAW 6.7 RC. Lightroom 4 users are still waiting for a software update. One work-around is to use the Adobe Digital Negative Converter 6.7 to convert the CR2 raw images into DNG format. After the conversion, the files can then be processed in Lightroom.

DPReview user Horshack has done an analysis using RAW image files from Imaging Resources. The analysis was done using Photoshop and Camera RAW 6.7 RC. To make it a valid comparison, the exposure and white balance of the photos were matched. After that, the noise (measured as the standard deviation of each color channel from color checker patches) level of Canon EOS 5D Mark III photo taken at ISO 12800 was compared against photos of Canon EOS 5D Mark II taken at ISO 6400 and ISO 12800.

The data showed that ISO 12800 photo taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark III has slightly higher noise level than the photo taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO 6400 but much better than the photo taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark II at ISO 12800. By estimate, the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II offers ~2/3 stops of high ISO noise performance improvement over its predecessor. This evaluation is in agreement with others I have seen on the Internet.

One problem with this analysis, as pointed out by another DPReview user here, is that the numbers are only about quantity of noise but not quality. Eliminating or significantly reducing the banding noise that was well-known for Canon EOS 5D Mark II users should be considered when discussing the high ISO performance improvement.

When Canon EOS 5D Mark III officially ships at the end of March, we will definitely see more analysis and find out what Canon’s claim of “2 stops” improvement actually means. The camera spec sheet does list two extra ISO settings (51200 and 102400) but that is not a proof of “2 stops” improvement.

No related posts.

If you pay attention starting at 1:15, you will notice the following.

The yellow sticker at the bottom of the camera is most likely the “SAMPLE” sticker Nikon put on the evaluation units they sent out. I found one example on a Taiwanese website.

That also explains why there is no user manual and warranty card inside the box. Typically we’d expect unboxing video to show a production unit, not a sample.

The Nikon D800 unboxing video is embedded below for your convenience.

No related posts.

No related posts.

No related posts.

As you can see from the following file size vs. ISO chart. The steep drop of file size at ISO 3200 is telling. It appears that images from ISO 100 to ISO 1600 are straight out of camera images while the photos from ISO 3200 to ISO 25600 were processed by “Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0 Macintosh” as indicated by the EXIF information on the files. This may simply be a change of JPEG compression levels but it may also be the result of noise reduction filtering.

It is totally acceptable to have noise reduction processing on images as long as it is a good balance between loss of details and reduction of noise. For people who are interested in evaluating true sensor high ISO noise performance, these files are not quite useful.

No related posts.

The quality of the video is amazing. You can actually go beyond 1080P and watch the “2K” version by selecting “Original” in the player setting.

Same video can also be viewed on Vimeo.

Here is the behind the scenes video.

No related posts.

I downloaded the full size photos and viewed the images in whole on my 24″ display (at resolution of ~1570×1043) and the lack of noise was astounding. There is no perceivable noise up to ISO 6400. Only slight hint of noise at ISO 12800 and obvious noise at ISO 25600 and higher. Did Canon improve the sensor ISO noise performance or did Canon improve their noise reduction algorithm in image processor?

Examining the images at 100% reveals that the fine details indeed disappear when ISO is increased. It is safe to say the camera applied significant amount of NR to reduce the appearance of the noise but the question is how much and what is the true performance of the sensor. Without RAW files, we cannot know. But there is a way we can get some idea: the file size vs. ISO.

Images that are free of noise are going to have smaller file size compared to images of the same scene but with more noise. We expect the images to contain more noise as ISO is increased so we expect the file size to increase with the ISO. If there is noise reduction applied, the file size will decrease.

The following is Nikon D800 JPEG (100% quality) file size vs. ISO with and without NR. The JPEG files were exported from Capture NX 2 once with NR turned off and a second time with default NR left untouched. The default NR settings (tagged by camera in the NEF files) are: ISO 400: 0%, ISO 800: 0%, ISO 1600: 3%, ISO 3200: 5%, ISO 6400: 10%, ISO 12800: 20%, ISO 25600: 32%. The files are the same as the ones we used here.

The following chart shows the file sizes of Canon EOS 5D Mark III images from DPReview as a function of ISO. If the file size at certain ISO isn’t larger than the previous one or doesn’t increase from the previous ISO setting more than the increase at lower ISO setting, noise reduction is likely applied.

You can clearly see a step-down in file size at ISO 800. At ISO 12800, the file size increase from ISO 6400 is small compared to the file size increase from ISO 3200 to ISO 6400. It appears the image processor in Canon EOS 5D Mark III applies different levels of noise reduction at different ISO levels.

Did the camera apply NR at ISO 100 since file size at ISO 50 is slightly larger than that of ISO 100? It is hard to imagine this is necessary. ISO 50 image appears to be brighter than the ISO 100 image. The slight increase in brightness might have brought out some additional details somewhere, causing the slight increase in file sizes.

The image engine inside Canon EOS 5D Mark III does a good job. There are definitely loss of the details when viewed at 100% but the loss mostly occurs at fine detailed area which may not be an issue depending on the output size and media. Some cameras may not have such a good noise reduction function in their image processor, but noise reduction in post processing has been greatly improved. For RAW shooters, the noise reduction function in image processor is not relevant since it is for JPEG and TIFF outputs only.

Finally, it is interesting that DPReview made it sound like the images were produced at a very challenging situation by stating the following:

At a colour temperature of about 3000K and low light intensity (approx 3 EV), these images are also neutrally white-balanced. This requires extreme amplification of the blue channel (and to a lesser extent the green) relative to the red, accentuating any noise or banding that might be introduced by the camera. This should therefore be considered close to the worst-case scenario – under many situations you’ll see less noise at high ISOs, for example when shooting indoors in daylight.

Perhaps what they claimed has some merits but at the same time they chose to shoot a scene that in general lacks fine details and consists most of uniform colors and smooth textures. It is difficult to evaluate the trade-off between noise and details. The best spot to see what NR does to the detail is the weird creature in the lower left corner. The following 100% crops show how some of the details that are visible at ISO 100 disappear at ISO 1600 and ISO 6400.

ISO 100

ISO 1600

ISO 6400

[Update - March 7, 2012]

Imaging Resource published a set of Canon EOS 5D Mark III samples. The overlay comparison of both DPReview and Imaging Resource sample photo file size vs. ISO showed very similar trend. Based on this data, the image processor applies a low level of NR between ISO 100 and ISO 400, moderate level between ISO 800 and ISO 6400, and high level at ISO 12800 and higher.

The following is the Raw image size vs. ISO. Canon CR2 raw format is a compressed format. The trend is more consistent with the expected behavior. ISO 50 file size looks a little strange.

No related posts.

Related posts:

1. Street photography tips
2. Video: Wildflower Photography
3. Free EBook: 13 Tips for Better Wildflower Photography
4. Digital Photography Links – March 20, 2009
5. 100 Photography Tips in 100 Days

• Official Canon samples – ISO 6400 samples also included. Video samples have max resolution 960×540.
• Full size ISO 25600 samples
• DPReview studio low light ISO series

No related posts.