D800 street test

macgregor

macgregor

Veteran
Isn't there a Nikon footage subforum to post samples?

Anyway, here's a run&shoot test I took the other day when going to starbucks. Shaky as hell.


Nikon D800, flaat10 profile (+saturation and sharpening all the way down), a bit of secondary color correction in post, and a layer of 35mm grain on top to help with compression.
ISO 100 and ISO 800. 35mm f2.

Shot at sunset, with quite a strong lighting contrast ratio. I notice that if exposing by looking at the LCD, images get a bit overexposed. There is more room in the shadows than one might think by looking at the LCD.
In my opinion, and not counting the aliasing, the results are pretty good.
 
Hi macgregor,

Nice testing. How are you feeling overall so far? I've had mine for three weeks and I totally love it. I'm shooting with a 50/1.8 AIS - love the look I'm getting with Neutral Profile, with Sat and Contrast all the way down, and sharpening at just one notch above 0. Was that and ai/s or afd you were using ( I was considering the 35/2 af-d so it could double for stills when I need AF) ? I'm going to add both a 28/2 AIS and 85/1.4 AIS and I'm set.

On a side note - it's quite pathetic that whenever we talk about the D800, people either troll or act 'shocked' as if they were brainwashed to expect the IQ to be crap. Wake up people :)
 
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Well I bought the D800 for stills, and it´s great for that.

I'm not in the need of shooting video on DSLRs, but it´s good and fun to have a video camera to play with inside your stills camera. I think once the mosaic AA filter is out, the D800 will be a very valid camera for small projects. Sure, other cameras might have more resolution (GH2), or cleaner ISOs (5Dmk3), but they don´t have the pleasing Nikon colors which is what I like the most out of Nikons.

I agree on the neutral profile all the way down is probably the best way to record. Very natural colors and acceptable DR.

The lens I used was the 35mm f2 AF.
 
I'm pretty sure the BMC will be a very nice camera, but it's way too different from the D800 to think of them as substitutes: this sensor is more than 5 times bigger, and, well, sometimes you just want that

Anyway, I was playing with a D800 yesterday, and it's a very nice camera indeed.

I made a shootout with the D800, 550D, NEX-5N, and GH2 (hacked), I will upload it in a week or too. After a quick look at the files, I think the D800 gives the best image of the bunch (and it should: it costs just as much as the other 3 combined!!). The GH2 is very nice, but it lacks DR, it has about 2 stops less than the D800 (which is very nice in this respect, as you can clearly see on macgregor's test).



Quick ad: this nice fella is the photog that lent me the D800 for the day:
http://www.mirallaycalf.com/galeria.html
https://vimeo.com/35842776
 
If you go down a couple threads in this forum this is a short film/test I did at high iso, only available light (dark garage), and lots of post grading. And it really impressed the hell out of us what we were able to get away with.

I've always been anti-DSLR video...even though I have been shooting professional commercials and even a TV show earlier this one on them. But the D800...really pushes me over and makes a believer in this format.

now if only I could afford a full set of Zeiss CP2s to help get around pulling focus.
 
(on the D800, I'd consider Flaat_11p as the workhorse option, instead of Flaat_10p, and here you can see why, very clearly: Flaat_10p is pushing the image DOWN, producing a more contrasty image than the general profiles)
 
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