Questions, questions……..

I knew it would happen, in fact, to be honest, I kinda hoped you would!  The D800 has been the source of more excitement than any camera I’ve ever seen.  So since you have questions I’ll give it my best attempt to answer them, and thanks again, you came up with some good ones!

1. Is there a time that, that much resolution is a disadvantage?  Not often, it’s kinda like being too thin, too good looking, and too rich!  Now you can have a lot more resolution than you need, but truthfully that is hard to imagine as well.  Just because you have a ton of resolution it doesn’t mean you have to use it!   The only disadvantage is, will the file being that large, be a problem for you?   If you can afford some larger cards and some ram for your computer, and fixing a turkey sandwich while some files crunch, you have no problems at all!

2.  Really, how much does movement affect sharpness with this sensor?  A little more  than with other sensors, movement costs sharpness, no matter what camera, this sensor just ups the ante some.  The bad news is you can’t be sloppy, the good news is you shouldn’t be sloppy anyway!!!  So use great technique, and get great results!  Nobody ever said everything in life would be easy!

3.  I shoot mostly sports but would love that resolution, should I consider the D800?  I think the D4, D3s or D3 are far better choices for the sports shooter.  The D4 has a lot of resolution and more than enough for almost any kind of sports work.    If  you do sport portraiture or feature story sports a D800 would have a good place in your bag!   The D4 just has so much speed and agility, it just begs for action!

4.  How much difference can you see in images where their is not a lot of details or smooth gradations?   Not as much as when those things are present, however sharpness is sharpness, and everything will have more bite with the D800.  Even straight nature subjects will have more subtle details, and that is a very good thing.

5.  I’m ready to spring for  a D800 is there any reason why I shouldn’t make that my main FX sensor camera?   I just wonder if it is the best all around choice?  I understand  your concern, it is a radically different camera than we have seen before, but if resolution is important to you and speed is not as important, it is still the way to go, in my humble opinion.

6.  Is the focus as fast as in the D4?  It should be almost the same, if not identical,  it uses all the same systems for autofocus system, the Multi-Cam 3500FX module, and the same Expeed 3 processing chip.

7.   Is there anything that you like more about the D4?   Yes, battery life, build quality, speed, the feeling that only the big Pro D camera can give you.  It is close to indestructable and the files are very sweet!  The only thing it lacks is the “extreme” resolution of the D800.

8.  If you could only have two cameras to use for everything you do, which two?    In digital SLRs I need two cameras one to make the best possible image, resolution, color and control over the photographic situation; D800, and one that is still very high resolution, but lighter and easier to carry for travel and in the DX format to stretch my longer lenses; D7000.  You may hold me to that until new cameras are released!!!

9.  I noticed you mentioned larger cards and you said 32 and 64, why not 128 gig cards?  I think it is better to have a few more smaller cards than one very large one.   If you use your 128 gig card you’ve lost the entire shoot, if you loose one of your 32 gig cards, you’ve at least cut your losses!  Plus the  128 gig cards are very expensive.

10.  Is the new metering system in the D800 a big improvement?  Yes, it works fantastic!

Hope that helped, it’s slow at the Masters so I had plenty of time to take your questions!

the pilgrim