D700 upgrade to D800?

[stuartm1]

I love my D700 however over the past 6 months I've become more and more frustrated by its 95% viewfinder coverage but more so its lack of resolution.

95% of my shots are handheld street shots, however I would like to be able to produce bigger images than what I currently get from the D700, which is why I'm flirting with a D800 (again). The speed of the D800 is not an issue for me and I have 4 Nikon FX lenses (24-70mm, 85mm, 135mm & 70-200mm) that should work fine on the D800. I'm pretty much nailing most of my shots on the D700 as it's such a forgiving camera to work with, however I'd like to be able to produce the same quality or even better but at a bigger size.

I'm not a big cropper as I try to frame my subjects as/how I shoot them, but I'm feeling more and more that I need to get closer to my subjects (than I'd like) to compensate for the D700's resolution. This is the only way I can produce larger shots with good IQ. However the closer I get means I lose more of the overall scene and it also messes up my composition which is getting annoying.

Does this sound like it's time for me to upgrade and would the D800 be the right choice?

 

[Tizer]

D610 might save you a few quid.

 

[Bristolian]

Does this sound like it's time for me to upgrade and would the D800 be the right choice?

Nope, sounds like your looking for someone to agree with you so you can justify buying the D800

 

[Thegreatroberto]

You'll have to wait for someone who had already "upgraded" to come along and help you here.
You already know it's going to cost you around £1200 to part ex. You already know it's only 4fps rather than 8 with the grip. You already know it's a load of new batteries to get. Yes, you get 36Mp and better dynamic range ( that's the only thing I'd upgrade for).
How big are you wanting to produce your prints? Me, I did an A3 once, and it was fine with my 12Mp. If you really need extra pixels, get a D3200 for about£300?

 

[simonkit]

I own the D800, great camera, but for your usage I'm not sure I'd recommend it.. It's terrific for landscapes but compared to some other models is weaker on functionality for certain other uses (relatively low FPS etc.)

There is also some truth in the higher res sensor being a little more unforgiving regarding technique, I shoot 90% on a tripod so don't have the issue but perhaps it might be for street photography.. maybe others more familiar with this can advise

Just my thoughts

Simon

 

[stuartm1]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts/advice

Ideally I want A3 print size most of the time. Personally I'm not overly keen on 36mp and would prefer 20-24mp however I doubt I could get along with the D610's AF system and spread of focus pts. The 1/4000 shutter would also sometimes be an issue as I tend to shoot wide open and need the 1/8000 sync in brighter days.

I had considered getting a D7100 as it has the 51pt AF, but as I now also shoot a lot in low light and at night (without flash) it's probably not the right choice either as I'm often shooting at higher ISO's.

Maybe best to stick with what I've got for now until Nikon release a body that caters more for my needs.

 

[AdamSi]

I thought the d610 had a decent af upgrade it was the d600 that had a very limited spread of af points ? I'm sure the d610 is a decent upgrade over the d600 where af is concerned

 

[gramps]

I thought the d610 had a decent af upgrade it was the d600 that had a very limited spread of af points ? I'm sure the d610 is a decent upgrade over the d600 where af is concerned

Nope, the D610 has been described as a 'Maintenance Upgrade'

Nikon has kept this same 39-point AF system for the D610, presumably to preserve differentiation in the Nikon range. The D610 was an opportunity for the company to upgrade the AF, but it hasn’t used it.

 

[Pookeyhead]

95% of my shots are handheld street shots, however I would like to be able to produce bigger images than what I currently get from the D700

Why? Are you printing them? If not... then most people will be viewing them at screen resolutions... so no more than around 2MP. Even when 4K monitors become popular in around 2 years time, that's still only around 8MP.

Even if you are printing them.. how big? Unless you're printing over A2, there's no need for the D800.

The resolution gain isn't a massive factor in cropping either. Perceived sharpness at screen res is more affected by sensor size that resolution, and you already have full frame.

Look at this. These are slides from a much larger Powerpoint I use as part of a lecture on quality.

However.... sensor size plays a much greater role than resolution does.

These are crops from the above image.

and...

So as you can see.... even zoomed in, and reduced from 36MP to 16MP the FF camera still exceeds the sharpness available from a smaller sensor camera, and if you are not printing larger than A3, there's absolutely nothing to be gained from upgrading to the D800 except SLIGHTLY better low noise performance. Dynamic range is the only thing that may give you an edge... but worth spending all that cash on?

Seriously, unless you regularly print at A2 or greater, there's just nothing to be gained from using the D800 for the kind of work you do. If you were using a cheap crop sensor camera, then sure... upgrade... but you've already got a pro level FF camera that looks and handles almost identical. All you're buying is more pixels. Save your cash... buy some nicer lenses instead.

If you merely want it... fine... that's a good enough reason.... but don't kid yourself that your images will look any better and then try and use that to justify spending all that money, as I've just blown that right out of the water for you

If you print at A2 or greater, then yes, the D800 would make absolute sense for you.

 

[Musicman]

^^^ that makes perfect sense to me

I've been able to make A3 prints that bear close inspection with my 5D Mk 1, and that has only 12.8 Mpx

 

[nikonuser]

If you want to print big then consider Onone Perfect Resize which is the old Genuine Fractals and does a great job......having said that I upgraded from the D700 to D800
Dave

 

[f/1.2]

I went from a D700 to a D800 a few months ago.

Both are fine camera's.

The extra resolution on the D800 is great and in terms of what you see on the screen the level of detail will blow you away, and it does offer more flexibility in terms of cropping.

This is just my personal opinion and without getting into the heavy technical side of things these are what I have found the D800 does better.

- Better colour reproduction.
- White Balance is a vast improvement for me over the D700.
- Dynamic range vastly improved, the amount of recoverable detail is astounding.

Again just my personal opinion but these are the issues I have encountered with the D800.

- In terms of focusing the D700 is more forgiving due to the lower resolution. Any sloppy focusing is much more noticeable on the D800, although this is down to technique and no fault of the camera.
- File sizes, I have a fairly decent spec workstation but file sizes with the D800 are huge in comparison and there is a noticeable difference working with files from each camera.

In saying all that I picked up a D700 on eBay just before Christmas at a bargain price and couldn't resist, it's still a very fine camera.

 

[Nod]

The upgrade is only really worth doing if you want to crop fairly heavily and still print big. Any improvements other than MP count are fairly marginal and the D700 is hard to fault on any aspect.

 

[GHP]

I regularly print 20x16 from my D700 with excellent results.
As long as good glass is used, there's no problem with the quality IMHO.
Having said that, I'll probably add a D800 next.
I don't need one, but I still want one.
I did consider the Df, with it's D4 sensor, but didn't fall in love with it, not at that price anyway.

 

[Pookeyhead]

All resizing upwards sucks. You can't add what's not there.

If you want to print big.. then you need larger sensors and more resolution. At A3 though... there will be very little difference between a shot on a D700 and one on a D800.

It's all about using what's right for the job. If you feel the need to be using stuff like OnOne or Genuine Fractals, then you're using the wrong equipment. However.... for A3.. there's no need for any of this.

At the commercial standard of 300dpi a file from a D700 would be 38cm x 24cm... which is almost A3 (42x 29.7). Trying to upres it would achieve nothing at that print size. If you tried to print it at A2 however, then upresing it will just smooth out the aliasing, and not really make it sharper.

If you want to print at A2, then the D800 is where you should be looking, as at 300dpi, it will print at 62cm x 42cm.. which is pretty much A2.. slightly larger along the longest side actually.

If you want to print bigger than A2, then again, upresing the D800 file will just smooth the aliasing and not add any more detail. It would be time to move up a format if you regularly needed high quality A1 or larger prints.


That's not to say you can't ever punch above your weight... of course you can, and very large prints from very limited equipment can always look fantastic if prepared well.... but if you are choosing your gear for a specific purpose, and that purpose is large prints, then you choose the largest sensor you can, and the highest resolution you can. If all you do is publish online, or never go larger than A3, then the D800 is pretty much wasted IMO.

 

[old bloke]

I went from a D700 to a D800 a few months ago.

Both are fine camera's.

The extra resolution on the D800 is great and in terms of what you see on the screen the level of detail will blow you away, and it does offer more flexibility in terms of cropping.

This is just my personal opinion and without getting into the heavy technical side of things these are what I have found the D800 does better.

- Better colour reproduction.
- White Balance is a vast improvement for me over the D700.
- Dynamic range vastly improved, the amount of recoverable detail is astounding.

Again just my personal opinion but these are the issues I have encountered with the D800.

- In terms of focusing the D700 is more forgiving due to the lower resolution. Any sloppy focusing is much more noticeable on the D800, although this is down to technique and no fault of the camera.
- File sizes, I have a fairly decent spec workstation but file sizes with the D800 are huge in comparison and there is a noticeable difference working with files from each camera.

In saying all that I picked up a D700 on eBay just before Christmas at a bargain price and couldn't resist, it's still a very fine camera.

I agree with Tommy on all his points, I was using a D700 for quite a while and was very happy with it but a year ago I was given the opportunity to buy a used D800 for a very good price so I went ahead with the purchase I did however keep the D700 "just in case"
The D800 performed perfectly with none of the faults/problems reported by others, I was able to use the two side by side and concluded that the D800 was a definite improvement for my kind of photography which is mostly landscape,
I'm not sure how it would perform for street photography I wouldn't use either personably I prefer something more discreet like my X100.

 

[Musicman]

So as you can see.... even zoomed in, and reduced from 36MP to 16MP the FF camera still exceeds the sharpness available from a smaller sensor camera

Is it my imagination, or does the D800 'de' sample reduced to 16 Mpx have rather more sharpening applied than the D700 one? Bicubic Sharper resize in Photoshop? There's a suggestion of a halo around the edges of the letters.

Resolution differences aside, even the original 36 Mpx D800 above it looks to have a little more sharpening than the 100% crop from the D700.

Edit: I suppose it may be just the interaction of a slightly weaker AA filter on the D800 and Lightroom's default sharpening settings.

 

[GHP]

The comparison is between the D7000, not the D700.

 

[Musicman]

As a Canon/Sony shooter, they're all Nikon cameras, so they all look the same to me

 

[Pookeyhead]

The comparison is between the D7000, not the D700.

Those slides weren't produced for this thread

They illustrate that even when reduced to 16MP the D800 files still are perceptibly sharper than the D7000 files due to the larger sensor.

Is it my imagination, or does the D800 'de' sample reduced to 16 Mpx have rather more sharpening applied than the D700 one?

Nope... possibly JPEG compression from Imgur (where I hosted them). The reduction was done in PS using Bilinear. The 1:1 pixel views have lighter patches where ideally there should be none... I have on explanation for that. Bilinear was used for both. The demonstration still serves it's purpose. It is a fact even when reduced to the same resolution, a larger format camera will produce sharper images, even if the larger format camera was higher resolution to start with. Try it yourself if you have access to both crop sensor and FX.

 

[GHP]

This is a question which is relevant to (I guess) thousands of D700 users who, like me, don't feel there is a logical upgrade from the excellent D700.
The D4 would be a good one, but out of my price range, as I am not making money from the camera.

 

[GHP]

Those slides weren't produced for this thread

They illustrate that even when reduced to 16MP the D800 files still are perceptibly sharper than the D7000 files due to the larger sensor.

I realise that, but thought I would point it out anyway.
It's the best explanation I have ever seen to this question though, so still very relevant. Thank you.

 

[Pookeyhead]

No problem. More people need to realise that format/sensor size is FAR more important than resolution.

 

[Pookeyhead]

Because there's some doubt over the JPEG compression levels, and artefacts of the first images (they were extracted from a compressed powerpoint after all) I've gone back to RAW and redone them to illustrate that larger sensors play a larger role in perceived sharpness than pure resolution does.

Only JPEGed once (at quality 12 in PS), and all resizing done with bilinear.

Just to re-iterate... All images taken on tripod... mirror lock up, and remote release and focus was manual using a zoomed in live view. Both at f5.6. The D7000 was using a Nikkor 35mm f1.8G prime, and the D800 was using a Nikkor 50mm f1.8G.

all resizing was done bilinear, so no sharpening, or anti-aliasing has been applied.

The D800 @ 16MP image is NOT taken in DX mode. It is a resized version of the full resolution image. If the image was SHOT in DX mode, then it would appear almost identical to the D7000 image. It's sensor size that matters... and (within reason) not resolution.

Even at the same resolution the FX D800 is sharper than the DX D7000.

 

[simonblue]

I guess the secret of upgrading any camera is knowing what you want from the upgrade,and what is it about your currant set that letting you down

 

[Pookeyhead]

Exactly.

If sharpness is required for large prints, then I'd rather have a 16MP FX camera like a D4 than a 24MP DX one like the D7100.

Having said that.... the 12MP of the D700 is pushing this theory to it's limits though

Up to A3 and perhaps slightly beyond there will be hardly any perceptible difference between the D700 and D800.

 

[GHP]

/snip - If sharpness is required for large prints, then I'd rather have a 16MP FX camera like a D4 than a 24MP DX one like the D7100. /snip

All I want is the D4 or the D610 sensor in the D700 style body, without paying D4 money.
Don't want much, do I?

 

[Pookeyhead]

I'd just get the D800. Resolution may be way more than you need, but if your D700 is feeling it's age, and 12MP is a limit for you.... then the D800 is the logical choice. The noise levels aren't significantly different than the D4 and dynamic range is actually better. I can't see another D700/800 style pro camera coming out... not now they've released the Df.. and certainly not a 16MP or so one... not with the D800 at 36MP and the D610 at 24MP.

 

[pmac]

As f 2.8 posted I don't think the only upgrade is in MP count.

WB is better, low light focus is better, I would say ISO is also better and DR is considerably better as is the detail and shadow recovery.

I found my imaged pop more and have better colour as well.

I have had no issues with street photography, can check my flickr I've hundreds of street shots from china.

 

[Pookeyhead]

Yep.. dynamic range is much better. Noise is a close thing between the two, but yes, the D800 is better. WB is irrelevant unless you shoot in JPEG.