I got invited by my uncle, aunty and cousins to join them in
Hong Kong for 4 days, and then off to Thailand…
I said to myself that I shouldn’t, as I didn’t really have
the money, but last minute decision, I booked it, then at the airport I found
myself wandering the Duty Free shops killing time and I wandered into Dixons
and then saw a Demo unit for the Nikon D800.
The Nikon D800 has been getting a lot of press recently
within the Photography world as of late. Not only getting a lot of press, it
has also been getting a lot of praise, and the F-Stoppers even dubbed it as the
‘D4 Killer’… Nikon D4 is double the price of the D800 :S
I had a quick play with it as they also had a Demo 24-70mm
f2.8 lens on the shelf, which I decided to mount, and put my memory card in and
had a quick play… As soon as I picked up the camera and held it, it felt a lot
more solid than my D7000. The Viewfinder was massive compared to my D7000, and
the field of view was a lot wider as the D800 is a Full Frame Sensor after all.
I initially just wanted to get some sample RAW files to test
out at home, but then I caught the price. There has been a recent price Hike
with the D800 from £2,400 up to £2,600… I believe this was mainly due to the
DX0 Mark review scoring this sensor at 95, as opposed to the D4 at 89.
Nikon publicised it’s due to the high demand and lack of
supply, but I doubted that as it’s all money making, and they realised through
an independent test their sensor is better than even they expected, therefore
the upped the price.
Either way, I saw the price was lower than £2,400 with the
Duty Free price, I couldn’t help myself. I tried to break away from the shop,
and even walked out a whole 5min before walking back to take another look, and
then left and went back for the third time and just decided to buy it as my
flight was leaving soon.
Instagram shot taken by my cousin @JayTham
The main benefits of the D800 for me and why I couldn’t
resist is the FX Sensor, which would allow me to fully utilise my 14-24mm f/2.8
at its widest focal length. In addition, it would allow me to have the 50mm
f/1.4 at a more manageable, walk around field of view.
No idea if I will ever get a chance to visit Hong Kong
again, so if I am to get the shot from the Hong Kong Peak, I would like that
shot at its best, utilising the 36.3mp, which would enable for a clean large
print.
As soon as I bought it, it ended up just being something
extra to carry as I couldn’t exactly open it on the plane.
11hrs later, with minimal sleep, achy body from sitting too
long, we hopped into a Taxi and to the Hotel, at which point I did not hesitate
to open the box. Realising the D800 uses the same Battery as the D7000 (a fact
that did slip my mind), I wasted no time and started shooting the D800 from the
Hotel onward.
With the size of the RAW files, currently set to Lossless
Compressed RAW, they come out at 40-50Mb per shot, which is better than the
75mb per shot which I been hearing about, not sure if I will change to
uncompressed, maybe after some further testing. However due to the limitations
of space, I don’t want to shoot too much and clog up my memory cards and HDD
too quick, so I’ll leave it as compressed.
First impressions were lasting impressions. Immediately
looking through that view finder, so much larger, and with both 14-24mm and
50mm, the field of view was so much larger. I am really loving the fact that I
am seeing edge-to-edge with my lenses again as I had been shooting FX lenses on
a DX Body… Every time I shot the D7000 with any of my lenses, I just felt I was
losing aspects of the image around the edges, and where some people would say
“Just step back” but it’s really not the same.
“Zoom with your feet” is a saying well-known in the
Photography world with using your Prime lenses, but I see things differently
and the perspective of the image changes at focal distance, and lengths. So
50mm on my DX, stepping back, is not the same image as a 50mm on an FX standing
where I would like…
The Shallow Depth of Field whilst focusing on a subject,
getting ¾ of their body with a 50mm f/1.4 is now shallower than if I were to
use a Cropped Sensor. This is because in effect, I’m standing further back to
attain the same crop (changing the focal distance).
I am absolutely loving the images I am seeing.
As of now I’m only seeing them on the back of the camera,
but I’m still blown away.
Colours (could just be due to a better Preview Screen on the
camera), Bokeh, Focus, it all seems better.
Unfortunately my Laptop is not running the latest version of
Lightroom, so I cannot yet view the RAWs until I update to Lightroom v4.
I am downloading Lightroom v4 as we speak and will run as a
Trial Version until I get back home.
Final note to add, from a recorded 449 Photos with D7000, I’ve
gone down to 199 per 16Gb SD Card with it on compressed lossless RAW. I think
Memory cards will be needed :S
But this is a good thing for me, as my D7000 served perfectly as a learning camera, and lots of shots were done to test for effects and exposures, so now I have gauged what is possible, and what does what, I will be looking to pick out my shots more carefully, and with each shot, hopefully a much better result.
But this is a good thing for me, as my D7000 served perfectly as a learning camera, and lots of shots were done to test for effects and exposures, so now I have gauged what is possible, and what does what, I will be looking to pick out my shots more carefully, and with each shot, hopefully a much better result.
No comments:
Post a Comment