Nikon : D850 : teaser : 8K timelapse?

[Steve Axford]

It strikes me that this is one of those upgrades that, while good, is possibly not quite enough to prompt most current users to upgrade. It provides 25% more pixels , 1 stop better sensitivity, some live view stuff, a tilt screen and better video (have I missed anything important?). If you can really use the extra resolution then it makes sense, but if not .... ?

[I @ M]

(have I missed anything important?)

I would say one or two omissions that some users will value highly.

From the sounds of things the viewfinder is a nice bright affair, important for those who enjoy an OVF.

[arthurking83]

It strikes me that this is one of those upgrades that, while good, is possibly not quite enough to prompt most current users to upgrade. ....

For some people, the pixels are irrelevant(eg. me!) for others(say a bird photographer) .. they're important.

I think the camera that's being updated from is going to have an important bearing too.

eg. from a D810, maybe you're right .. the increase in pixels may not be enough, and the D810 already has a usable(but annoying) electronic front curtain(EFC), so to choose the D850 on the basis of an EFC need, would be misplaced.
You'd upgrade from the D810, but not for the EFC.
D800's on the other hand don't have EFC .. I (almost) wanted that from the D810(coming from the D800E), but again, it wasn't all round enough of an upgrade in my mind.

Probably the two single most important aspects of the D850 over the D800/810 would be:

1/. the increased speed of the camera, at up to 9fps with the grip, increased buffer .. ie. infinitely more capable for wildlife/sports/action/etc.
2/. next gen AF ability, from the D5. D5 is considered to be about as good an AF camera as can be had(according to many reviewers testers). D800 is OK, never really missed a beat for me .. dunno about others. Once again, I think this comes down to your usage.

I can imagine a stack of other upgrades over the D800/810 bodies that make the D850 a more meaningful upgrade over the D810, than the D810 was over the D800 bodies.

[Steve Axford]

I would say one or two omissions that some users will value highly.

From the sounds of things the viewfinder is a nice bright affair, important for those who enjoy an OVF.

I'd missed that. Given that many DSLR users do say that the EVF is a show-stopper to using a mirrorless camera, it makes good sense to make the OVF even better. Still, probably a nice to have rather than a reason to upgrade.

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For some people, the pixels are irrelevant(eg. me!) for others(say a bird photographer) .. they're important.

I think the camera that's being updated from is going to have an important bearing too.

eg. from a D810, maybe you're right .. the increase in pixels may not be enough, and the D810 already has a usable(but annoying) electronic front curtain(EFC), so to choose the D850 on the basis of an EFC need, would be misplaced.
You'd upgrade from the D810, but not for the EFC.
D800's on the other hand don't have EFC .. I (almost) wanted that from the D810(coming from the D800E), but again, it wasn't all round enough of an upgrade in my mind.

Probably the two single most important aspects of the D850 over the D800/810 would be:

1/. the increased speed of the camera, at up to 9fps with the grip, increased buffer .. ie. infinitely more capable for wildlife/sports/action/etc.
2/. next gen AF ability, from the D5. D5 is considered to be about as good an AF camera as can be had(according to many reviewers testers). D800 is OK, never really missed a beat for me .. dunno about others. Once again, I think this comes down to your usage.

I can imagine a stack of other upgrades over the D800/810 bodies that make the D850 a more meaningful upgrade over the D810, than the D810 was over the D800 bodies.

The EFC is critical for some wildlife photography. I will often use full electronic shutter as it is silent. I remember the frustration of getting a platypus to swim to within a few metres of me only to get a single photo of a platypus backside as he disappeared under water. I wouldn't have believed they could react so quickly if I hadn't so many missed photos. Small birds can be almost as flighty and will often leave on hearing a shutter.

Do you think that the D850 makes sense as an upgrade to the D800?

[swifty]

I'm still using a D700 btw. So the MP count is going from 12-46mp.
But personally that wouldn't the highest motivator, the mp count is quite far down the list actually.
I'd upgrade for the AF module, a more invariant sensor, AF joystick and the ability to shoot silently sometimes.
Nice things to have are the new OVF, MP count, EFC, high ISO.

It's really the sum of the parts.

[Steve Axford]

I'm still using a D700 btw. So the MP count is going from 12-46mp.
But personally that wouldn't the highest motivator, the mp count is quite far down the list actually.
I'd upgrade for the AF module, a more invariant sensor, AF joystick and the ability to shoot silently sometimes.
Nice things to have are the new OVF, MP count, EFC, high ISO.

It's really the sum of the parts.

Makes good sense. Auto focus is one of Nikons strengths, but we are nowhere near perfection just yet, so improvements are going to be well received. I've always been able to use more pixels, but I can see that they aren't always useful and more pixels don't help at all if you miss the focus.

[piczzilla]

Personally, focus peaking would be the only thing that moves me to upgrade from D800 to D850 (I imagine it will make macro shooting a lot easier). But from stories that are going around, D850 focus peaking is still a little tad inaccurate. Once they hit the shops, I might rent one and see it for myself. Holding my breath...

[Steve Axford]

Personally, focus peaking would be the only thing that moves me to upgrade from D800 to D850 (I imagine it will make macro shooting a lot easier). But from stories that are going around, D850 focus peaking is still a little tad inaccurate. Once they hit the shops, I might rent one and see it for myself. Holding my breath...

Macro is definitely easier with tilt screen and focus peaking. Personally, I think the tilt screen is the most important, as all focus peaking isn't always spot on.

[swifty]

Personally, focus peaking would be the only thing that moves me to upgrade from D800 to D850 (I imagine it will make macro shooting a lot easier). But from stories that are going around, D850 focus peaking is still a little tad inaccurate. Once they hit the shops, I might rent one and see it for myself. Holding my breath...

Do you focus stack? If so, have you seen the automated focus shifting feature for macro photography?

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Makes good sense. Auto focus is one of Nikons strengths, but we are nowhere near perfection just yet, so improvements are going to be well received. I've always been able to use more pixels, but I can see that they aren't always useful and more pixels don't help at all if you miss the focus.

It's worth mentioning that the AF sensitivity (-4EV) and the better AF point spread are the more important part of the new AF module to me but I'll take any improvement in C-AF too although I don't typically shoot sports or BIF.

And don't get me wrong, I would love having more pixels. I'd be almost doubling my resolution going from D700-D850.
But there are a host of things required to make the most of those extra pixels, otherwise they are just a liability in processing. Speaking of which, my computer is older than my D700 and also needs an upgrade soon.

Most of all I would need to improve my own shot discipline. But the EFC and silent modes will help when shutter speeds reach those critical hand-holdable levels.
I've also chosen to upgrade my glass first, having bought the 105/1.4 and 70-200/2.8FL. 28/1.4E is next on the list. All of these should make the most of the extra pixels.
So yea, extra pixels are great but I want to make sure I can make use of it.

[piczzilla]

Macro is definitely easier with tilt screen and focus peaking. Personally, I think the tilt screen is the most important, as all focus peaking isn't always spot on.

Ooh I've never thought about tilt screen that way before (I usually just tilt my body). Seeing D850 has both, it's time to save up methinks

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Do you focus stack? If so, have you seen the automated focus shifting feature for macro photography?

Yep, I just recently started stacking. I've got a stackshot auto-rail, but I only use it at home, because it's terribly inconvenient to use in the field.
I'm interested to try handheld stacking for field shots this Spring.

[Cage]

Vanbar (a Nikon AU dealer) are advertising it for $4,999.34

[swifty]

Vanbar (a Nikon AU dealer) are advertising it for $4,999.34

That's a little more like it. Still a tad high IMO. May as well factor in an overseas holiday if you're intending to purchase a D850 to get the GST back which would make it around $4550.
Local Singapore dealers are now saying around $4650 SGD including 7% GST. If you minus the GST it actually works out to be slightly better than the US pricing on current exchange rates which is a surprise. But apparently Sg won't be getting first shipment which is due out in a few days.
BTW, for those that don't know you can claim back GST as a non-resident when purchasing from Singapore but you don't get back the full 7%. Usually around 5% but that would still make it around $4440 SGD or $4115 AUD on current exchange rates. Pretty good but for the extra $400 AUD odd, if I was living in Oz I'd probably go the local AU set with the 2 yr warranty.

[Cage]

Pretty good but for the extra $400 AUD odd, if I was living in Oz I'd probably go the local AU set with the 2 yr warranty.

I really hope Nikon get this one right, but for mine the extra 400 bucks buys a lot of peace of mind.

[arthurking83]

Do you think that the D850 makes sense as an upgrade to the D800? [/COLOR] ....

On the whole, for my purposes, it appears to be so.
EFC for me would basically make macro shooting 'easier' .. less risk of movement(I'm hoping) for greater than 1x magnification.

Like Swifty said, he's still using the D700!
Way back, when I contemplated the update/upgrade from the D300 to the D800, I actually wanted a D700 at the time of the release of the D800 ... thinking that the price would come down massively and the money money saved not getting the D800 would also get me some good lenses as well ...
But having seen some nicely made videos from the D800, for me the video feature was the decider. The massive pixel count (kind'a) scared me a little, as I'd been reading horror stories of people having PC slowness issues.
Wasn't a major issue on my lethargic and very old(back then) PC, except if I did any noise reduction on any image. It could take up to 2 mins on a single image(using CaptureNX2) just to finish rendering the NR routine from enabling it!
Saving the now tweaked image would take barely 5 secs or so .. just the trouble of using the NR routine in my software.
Other than that the extra pixels were nice to have, never really used them, and once I updated the PC to something with a CPU that actually moves data, the number of pixels are generally irrelevant.
They can be nice to have so that if using high ISO and maintaining the entire frame, noise is barely an issue for the most part.

So for me, D800 to D850 make more sense than not(for my purposes).
For someone else that doesn't need the EFC, or care for the larger brighter viewfinder, or whatever .. and predominantly sticks to landscapes only .. maybe not.

Do you focus stack? If so, have you seen the automated focus shifting feature for macro photography? ...

I've done it a few times, but never manually. I can image how tedious it'd be for some situations.
My only focus stacking experience has been using ControlMyNikon (on a Windows Tablet) tethered to the D800E, using the Nikon 105VR, and the CMN software did it all for me.(basically coz I'm lazy, and get bored easily with tedious stuff).
So the software was set to shoot something like a zillion images, then set to open those images with another software(I think CombineZP), and it was scripted to automatically convert images to jpg and run the stack.
In the 5-10mins it took from when I pressed the go button to leaving the room so that my movements didn't affect the sharpness of the images, I made my lunch ate it, had a cuppa and came back 20 or so mins later to find it all done.
Wasn't overly thrilled by the overall mucking about trying to get the image looking 'nice' .. stupid 105VR 'focus breathes' too much for a macro lens.

.... May as well factor in an overseas holiday if you're intending to purchase a D850 to get the GST back which would make it around $4550.
....

This is exactly what I was thinking of doing at some point. HK or SG .. not sure on what/where how .. maybe even Thailand(where they're going to be made).
But I haven't been out of the country for over 40 odd years, and I've always thought to do something like that one day before all my joints stop working completely .. ie. while I CAN!
Not for long tho(can't really do that) .. maybe 4 days .. or a long-ish weekend or something.
ie. go to said OS place, locate reputable shop selling camera for decent $s(incl conversion rate) .. wander around said OS location using camera, and take in some brief sights .. hopefully have saved close to $1K, which basically pays for the trip!

[swifty]

But I haven't been out of the country for over 40 odd years, and I've always thought to do something like that one day before all my joints stop working completely .. ie. while I CAN!
Not for long tho(can't really do that) .. maybe 4 days .. or a long-ish weekend or something.
ie. go to said OS place, locate reputable shop selling camera for decent $s(incl conversion rate) .. wander around said OS location using camera, and take in some brief sights .. hopefully have saved close to $1K, which basically pays for the trip!

40 years!!! Arthur, you need to get out more. Seriously.
If you do decide to drop by Sg, shoot me a message. I'd be happy to show you around and if you're purchasing gear, where to/not to buy it from.

PS: I'd always thought you might be younger than me cos I thought 83 might have meant 1983, as the year you're born. Obviously I assumed wrong LOL.

[Steve Axford]

Are you really 83, Arthur?

[arthurking83]

....

PS: I'd always thought you might be younger than me cos I thought 83 might have meant 1983, as the year you're born. Obviously I assumed wrong LOL.

Nah! .. I wish too!

83 is my old driver number when I used to be a courier.
Tell 'ya what tho, I feel like an 83yo. My pop is 83, and he moves around better than I do.

[Cage]

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If you troll back through the Melbourne meet-ups there is a pic of young Artie looking all of fifty something.

Here ya' go, Post #51 http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...AM-start/page2

[arthurking83]

You mean .. looking fifty-something, but feeling eighty something!
Motorcycling couriering and the broken bones that come with that has taken it's toll .. and funny enough I ended up working for Toll in the end.

Some goody info available now via the Manual on Nikon's download area.
Both View software's have also been updated to allow D850 NEF file compatibility.