Nikon D810 announced. What do I think? Well: 1) Faster shooting. Good. But not much faster. 2) Moves some buttons around aimlessly, just in case you are used to using a D800 and wanted to keep things the same way. :-( 3) 1080p video, adding 50 and 60 fps modes. Nice. No 4k video. Bad. Not that people use this camera to shoot a lot of video only. High resolution 36 mp sensors are a waste on video. 4) Slightly redesigned body to confuse D800 users. See (2) above. 5) Nicer LCD screen. 6) A new form of compressed NEF (raw) files which reduces the size of a raw file from 12mp to 9mp. Conclusion: Not worth $3,300 (plus tax) to upgrade from a D800. In fact, there will be people dumping their D800s on Craigs List at fire sale prices. Get one of those. This is a mid-cycle upgrade. I dont do mid-cycle upgrades of anything. I dont upgrade from iPhone 5 to 5s, for example. It is a waste. In fact, I only upgrade every other major upgrade. iPhone 5 to iPhone 7, for example. Nikon did not announce a D4x. Some reviewers think the D4x is never coming. Well, maybe it is. Who knows? The fact is, the D4 is big and heavy. It is a true professional camera, but a lot of professionals have become very accustomed to the D800. The D800 is slow, true, but it is a serviceable pro camera. What with so many media departments firing all their photographers and crowd-sourcing free material from the general public, it may well be that the D4x is dead. I dont think so. There are still a lot of pros out there. And, lets face it, you are not going to crowd-source important news articles from Somalia or Iraq. You are not going to crowd-source NatGeo or Arizona Highways. Photography as an art is not dead. It is just underpaid. I confess that I am a part of the problem. I am willing to submit free photos to charitable organizations that I trust, like the Church. Nevertheless, if you want one of my photos for your publication or to hang on your wall, expect to pay for it. I cannot afford to work for free and neither can anyone else. But the point is, I have a D3x. It is not worth it to throw my D3x away to get a D4x. A D5 built around Sonys forthcoming 56 mp sensor might be another matter, but I dont see one of those coming out for another couple years. Good thing, too, or I would be flat broke all the time. :D But I digress. If you need a professional camera and you do not already have a D800, you could do a lot worse than the new D810. The 810 is a great camera. It is just not so much greater than the D800 as to make it an obligatory upgrade. nikonusa/en/Nikon-Products/Product/Digital-SLR-Cameras/D810.html
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:16:44 +0000