An evaluation of Nikon's new D800 by our Neil Evely

Monday, February 20, 2012

I'm a big fan of my D700 and it has travelled everywhere with me over the last 3.5 years and it has never failed me. The performance in low light is amazing, but every so often i found my myself wanting for the ability to record video and often looked enviously at my Canon 5D holding friends.

Nikon fans have been waiting a while for their 5D II counter part, and thankfully that wait is now over with the release of the D800 (as well as the D4). Obviously the major selling point of this unit is the video capture - covering practically all the frame rates you might want at HD resolutions of 1920 and 1280 HD. Its still making H264 (I had hoped for image seq's) so when it comes to post etc you will need to stripe TC onto it. However, a bonus is the audio input and outputs for Linear PCM recording and monitoring, which might mean no more horrible syncing of audio tracks recorded on a separate digital recorder. It also provides a full HDMI port (8 bit, 4:2:2) output which can be used for external monitoring or the signal sent straight to a separate recording/capture device.

The D800 records video up to 29mins 59secs and lays claim to being able to reduce the 'rolling shutter' effect which is so prominent in many DSLR videos, due to the way its intelligent sensor reads out movie data so quickly from the (quite frankly bonkers) 36.3MP CMOS sensor (that's a stills resolution of 7360 x 4912 by the way). All of this combined with the same range of ISO from the D700 (100-6400) makes it a very tempting piece of the kit for the hi-end pro-sumer, or second body for the full pro who likely have their eye on the equally impressive D4 which is nearly twice the price.

At the end of the day though, Nikon will hope it has entered the DSLR video market with a bang rather than a whimper and with footage like the below I expect there will be many people keen to give it a whirl (me included), but with the Canon having just released the EOS C300 and the 5D Mark III surely around the corner, will Nikon find themselves back chasing the pack? Only time will tell.

For a full breakdown of the D800 v the D4 check out this link.

And the full D800 Nikon PDF is here.

comments

Thanks for the info, Any lens issues?

Cheers,

Brad

Posted by Brad on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 6:56:17 AM

Hi Brad,

As far I'm aware, the D800 is compatible with all previous Nikkor lenses and is especially happy with the new 28-300mm VR which is meant to be superb.

Thanks
NEil

Posted by NEil on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 12:01:27 PM

Me wanty, where me getty?

Posted by little ronny on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 8:09:04 PM

interesting Neil thanks. you know what frame rates it records? also have you seen anything to substantiate the claim about reduced 'rolling shutter'

aubs

Posted by aubrey on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 11:37:05 AM

Firstly, its due to be released in March of this year for around the £2500 for the body only, with a second model called the D800E due in May. The 'E' version has a low-pass filter without anti-aliasing properties to facilitate maximum sharpness levels when shooting RAW files and is also rumoured to be an extra £500.

NEil

Posted by NEil on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 12:01:44 PM

Secondly - Regarding the Rolling Shutter, Nikon claim that the intelligent image sensor reads the information that much quicker that it reduces the sideways images that occur from scanning top to bottom - the video above is probably the best example out there as yet... Would love to get my hands on a D800 and do a test.

NEil

Posted by NEil on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 12:02:16 PM