First Impression: The Nikon D800

I’ve been carrying the D800 with me all week and I’m loving it. I really haven’t found any major kinks so my first impression has been very positive. I’m going to try and not get into too many technical details but it’s going to be a bit difficult to avoid that since what really differentiates this camera from others is the technical aspects.

Look and Feel
Even though the D800 is a lot more bulkier than regular DSLR’s I still found the size very manageable. I’ve actually been carrying the camera around with me in my small Think Tank 5 bag which I had gotten for my much smaller Panasonic GX1 camera. The camera weight isn’t bad either and feels really solid and comfortable in my hands. The viewfinder is huge compared to my older Nikon D90 but that’s no surprise since the D800 is a full frame camera. What does that mean? If you have a DSLR it’s most likely using a APS-C sensor which is around 23.6 x 15.7mm in size. That sensor is a lot bigger than sensors in point and shoot cameras which are around 7.18 x 5.32mm but it’s still a lot smaller in size compared to a full frame sensor like on the D800 which measures at 36 x 24mm. The larger the sensor the more light and detail it can capture. (more info on sensor sizes)

Customization
The camera has a lot of buttons and majority of them are customizable. I shoot in aperture priority mode so the front rotating dial controls the aperture while I’ve setup the rear sub dial to control the exposure. I have two programmable buttons in the front which I can active without looking and I’ve set one to turn on the virtual horizon inside the viewfinder (shows you if the camera is tilted) while the second button turns on spot metering. One feature I’m currently loving is the Auto-ISO. I’ve previously had cameras that had Auto-ISO but what sets the D800 apart from the others is the fact I can set a minimum shutter speed (for each lens). Once the shutter speed drops below what I’ve set then the camera will increase the ISO until it reaches my minimum shutter speed requirement. I can also set the maximum ISO which I currently have on ISO 6400 (yes it’s that usable!).

The camera has two memory card slots and I can tell the camera to record pictures onto one or video onto the other. I can even tell it to record RAW images onto one, JPG onto the other or even record the same information on both so all my images are backed up. Finally you have three different RAW formats you can save to which is great since the 36MP RAW files can reach 80MB on the highest quality but can drop down to 35MB with very little quality loss if I need.

Features
What’s made this camera really popular is the fact that it’s 36MP. The fact that it’s 36MP was actually a turn off for me since I don’t need 36MP (16MP would be more than enough for my needs). But after shooting with the camera over the weekend I can easily see why 36MP is so great… cropping. When you’re in the moment it’s sometimes difficult to frame the shot the way you want it and that’s what happened with me over the weekend when I was shooting some workers. Because I shot at 36MP, once I got home and started processing the shots I was able to frame and crop into some shots and still have a very large image to work with. Low light shooting is also great with the D800, like I mentioned earlier I have it set on Auto-ISO right now and I’ve set the limit to 6400 because at 6400 the noise is barely noticeable. Actually if I only need the shots for my blog I could shoot with ISO 25,600 and post it here and you wouldn’t be able to see any noise at all.

I really do love this camera. It’s super responsive, there are a ton of buttons which means if I want to change any setting I don’t have to flip through menus, the viewfinder is large and it really just feels great using it. It won’t make me a better photographer but it has reignited my passion for photography. The only negative I have to say about the camera is that you need a powerful computer to process the large RAW files. If you’re paying this much for a camera anyway then you should be willing to invest in your computer. I’m using Lighroom 4 on a 27inch iMAC 3.2Ghz Core 3 with 12GB of RAM and it takes around 5 to 10 seconds to load a photo at full resolution to start developing. I’m now planning to upgrade it to 32GB of RAM to see and if it will help improve things but the best solution will most likely be patience. The camera is currently out of stock all around the world but I pre-ordered mine from Electronic Express and they had it shipped to me within a week. Because of that Electronic Express are now one of my favorite online electronic stores.