How Do I Change D600 From Af-c To Af-s

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Nikon D800 & D800 E
36MP FX, four FPS
© 2014 KenRockwell.com. All Rights Reserved.

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

Nikon D800 (about $2,800, 35.1 oz./994g with battery and CF menu) and 50mm f/1.4 Yard. enlarge.

Back, Nikon D800. overstate.

I got my from D800 from Adorama and my D800E from Adorama; you also can become the D800 from Amazon, the D800E from Amazon, or from B&H.

This free website'south biggest source of support is when you use those or these links when y'all get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thank you! Ken.

Adorama pays superlative dollar for your used gear, especially the D700, D7000 and older model Nikon DSLRs.

July 2014 More Nikon Reviews   Nikon Lenses   All Reviews

NEW: Nikon D810, D800E, D600 and D3 Sharpness Comparison . 30 July 2014

NEW: Nikon D810.

Nikon D800 Plain-English Users Guide

Nikon D800 Users Guide App

The D600, D800 and D4 are the aforementioned camera inside!

Nikon D800 versus D600

Nikon D800 and D800E User's Guide

How to Set the Nikon D800 & D800E AF System

Catechism 5D Mark III vs. Nikon D800

The Nikon D800E (same as D800 but slightly sharper)

Nikon D800 versus D800E

2012 DSLR Comparison

High-ISO Sample Images from the Nikon D1, D3 (D700), D4, D800, D7000 and Catechism 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III and Fuji X-Pro1 and X100

Nikon D800 & D7000 partial battery recall.

FX Lens Suggestions

Sample Image File

McDonald'south, 26 July 2012. Nikon D800E, AF-NIKKOR 35mm f/second, f/eight at 1/250 at ISO 100. Camera-original © 36MP file.

Introduction tiptop

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

The Nikon D800 is the world's highest technical operation DSLR for outdoor, nature, mural and many other kinds of precision photography. The D800 is the biggest news from Nikon since 2008 when they introduced their last all-new full-frame DSLR, the D700.

The Nikon D800 is the world's best for these things because it has such extremely loftier image quality that it exceeds not but every other full-frame DSLR always made, it also replaces medium-format digital cameras that toll equally much equally a new Mercedes.

The D800's image quality is unexcelled, and it weighs less than any other Nikon full-frame digital camera ever made, making it unquestionably the all-time DSLR to carry when you take to carry a DSLR in the field.

The D800 has more resolution than any other full-frame DSLR by a large margin, more than than twice equally many pixels as Nikon's own make-new professional Nikon D4 that sells for twice the cost!

The D800 has identical loftier ISO functioning to the Nikon D4, with double the resolution. Nikon and its pitchmen like to get people to retrieve the D4 is better, while as you tin run across, it only looks much worse at its very highest settings. The real reason the D4 is better in low light isn't image quality, for which the D800 is proven every bit slightly amend than the D4, but the D4's superior viewfinder. The D4 uses individual LEDs to light each AF area clearly without interfering with your view of the subject, but the D800's junior dark LCD rectangles, lit poorly from the side past one big LED, get in very difficult to see either your subject area or the AF zones if it'southward very dark.

For action, sports, news and seeing through the finder in the night, the faster, tougher, bigger and heavier professional D2, D3 and D4 nonetheless rule the newspapers, but for fine fine art and careful photography where you have a few seconds to grab your wits earlier you fire away, the D800 and D800E are king. The D800 isn't always every bit fast every bit other DSLRs, only it's certainly much faster than any of the medium-format digital cameras information technology replaces.

No affair how you slice it, if gallery exhibition is your terminate product, no DSLR can make better images today than the Nikon D800 and D800E, even if the Canon 5D Mark III makes images as practiced or better for everything else, much faster and more than easily. (Resolution is irrelevant unless you're printing at least six feet (two meters) wide.) I'm lazy, so I prefer my Catechism 5D Mark III, simply if you're willing to spend a footling more time fiddling with settings, the D800 can make great images. I ain both cameras myself, and paid total price.

Side, Nikon D800. enlarge.

Top, Nikon D800. enlarge.

Bottom, Nikon D800. overstate.

New

SD and CF Slots, Nikon D800. enlarge.

1.) 2 card slots. I've used the 2nd slots in my D3 for backup of everything I shoot, as I'chiliad shooting it.

2.) Direct Pic Control admission push button. The aforementioned every bit the "key" button on the back, this lets me reset my colors quickly from Brilliant for well-nigh things, and back to reasonably normal for photos of people and family unit.

3.) Automobile ISO now also allows u.s. the flexibility to let the D800 alter the everyman shutter speed automatically depending on the focal length, and nosotros can set a multiplier to adjust the factors by which that slowest speed is automatically calculated and gear up, hooray!

4.) Numerous video and other distortion features. These aren't a big bargain to serious still shooters, but sure assistance Nikon sell plenty of cameras.

Lens Compatibility top

Innards, Nikon D800. enlarge.

With a congenital-in AF motor and an aperture feeler for manual-focus lenses, information technology's the same as the D3X and D7000: it works nifty with every Nikon lens made since 1977!

More at Nikon Lens Compatibility.

Missing tiptop

Lacks the U1 and U2 settings of the D7000. Poop!

Lacks an AFS-AFC-K switch; it simply has an AF-Chiliad switch, and you accept to jack with AFC and AFS settings with ii hands past holding the AF fashion button (where the AFS-AFC-Yard switch used to be) and spinning a punch while watching a screen to prepare it.

Lacks the AF Surface area way lever of previous Nikons, so no longer can we swap amidst single-signal, all-point or other AF-area modes unless we stop what we're doing and jack with information technology with two hands to hold a button and spin a dial while watching an LCD. Big stinky pile of poo!

The AF-A style (automatic pick of AF-S or AF-C depending on subject area motion) has been removed.

For the first time since it was introduced on the Nikon F5 of 1996, the MODE button has been replaced with a video REC push. Now we take to stretch to accomplish the Mode push button that'southward been moved to the left, further away from the shutter.

Rear LCD was not color-accurate every bit delivered, but got better with employ. It'due south covered by plain, uncoated glass.

Images are off-colour, usually requiring a ane Magenta WB shift to look right.

A firmware defect renders the in-finder bar graph useless for me because information technology causes the bar graph to read in half stops if the exposure control increments are set to full stops (CSM b2 ), even if exposure-bounty increments are left in tertiary-stops (CSM b3 )!

Set this style, the bar graph reads zippo even with compensation set to ±0.iii cease! It'due south critical to run across if bounty is set up, so this bungle is a real defect for real shooters.

Ignore my whining. xxx years ago I paid more for a used Nikon F2AS than a brand-new Nikon F3 because I didn't trust electronic cameras, obviously just flimsy toll-cutting excuses for real mens' cameras. I didn't even endeavour an automobile-exposure camera until 1992!

The Nikon D800E top

Nikon D800E (about $iii,300) with recommended Micro-NIKKOR 55mm f/2.8 AI-s. enlarge.

See also Nikon D800 versus D800E.

The D800E is the aforementioned camera and has the aforementioned sensor as the D800, except that the D800E has its anti-aliasing filter removed. IR and UV rejection are the same.

Nikon only replaces some of the D800'south blurring (anti-alias) filter elements with similar pieces of glass that don't blur, or blur less.

The D800E costs more is merely considering it'due south a special-involvement item made in smaller quantities. Nikon charges more because it tin.

If you want to employ my settings in your D800E, here is my NCSETUP8.BIN file y'all must copy to a memory card, popular it into your D800E, then MENU > SETUP > Save/load settings > Load > YES to replace your settings with mine. Feel gratis to load them into your D800E, but know that my D800E is programmed to add together my name, address, phone number and eMail to the EXIF data of every photo I snap, and so will your D800E unless yous update that information to your own.

I wasn't able to load settings files from my D800 into my D800E.

Box, Nikon D800E.

Box terminate, Nikon D800E. enlarge.

The legal USA version is coded every bit the "(U)" after "D800E" above the UPC bar code. When you lot open up your own D800E, there is also a "The states" sticker on peak of the inner white box belongings the charger and other accessories.

How to Identify a Legal USA Version (USA only)

If you bought at retail or online from less than a excellent dealer, you may have been sold an illegal greyness-market version. Send it back while you all the same can, and if the dealer tries to shaft you lot or offering a bogus extended warranty, dispute the charge with your credit card company.

Gray-market cameras (in the USA) accept no warranty, will get no firmware upgrades, and volition not be serviced by Nikon. I ordinarily buy grayness-market transmission-focus lenses since they'll never need service, but digital SLRs always demand service, support and firmware updates.

Nikon is no longer supplying parts to independent service shops, so if yous go stuck with a gray-market D800, when it needs service or an update, you lot're out of luck. Your third-party warranty a store might endeavour to give you to become away and be tranquillity will be worthless if you ever demand to use it, merely information technology will have been long subsequently your commonly 30-day window for credit-carte disputes has passed, so you lot'll be out of luck.

Legal U.s. versions accept a (U) afterward "D800" above the UPC symbol:

Nikon D800 Box, The states version. enlarge.

Usa versions take a footling "Nikon USA" sticker within the battery door. Of course the serial number on the photographic camera must match the series number sticker on the box in a higher place, or you also got ripped-off somehow.

Nikon USA sticker within battery compartment.

If you lot purchase from a get-go-class dealer, you'll never need to worry about this.

Specifications   superlative

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

See my separate Nikon D800 and D800E Specifications page.

MB-D12 Vertical Bombardment Grip (optional)         acme

Nikon D800 with MB-D12 grip. enlarge.

MB-D12, new for D800. It sells for nearly $500 subsequently you've bought the batteries for it.

The MB-D12 uses Rechargeable Li-ion Batteries EN-EL15 and EN-EL18, AA cells or an EH-5a/b AC adapter if y'all buy the Power Connector EP-5B.

When the MB-D12 is mounted on the D800, high-speed continuous shooting at most 6 FPS happens in DX.

The MB-D12 has its own shutter-release, AF-ON and multi-selector buttons for vertical shooting.

Same seals equally D800 for dust and water resistance.

Operation top

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

Sample Images

All mitt-held, of grade.

Sharpness: D800

Lawn Furniture Fabric. 55mm f/2.eight AF (plastic lens, beater sample from 1988), f/8 at i/250, ISO 100, VIVID +3 Saturation, sharpness-robbing Auto Baloney Correction OFF, Sharpening fix to vi, hand-held. Camera-original © LARGE Basic Optimum Quality JPG file.

Precipitous enough? The corners would take been sharper if my seat cushions were flat, and if I had the camera more than properly aligned.

Flowers. 85mm f/ane.viii M, f/vii.1 at 1/200, ISO 100, Bright +3 Saturation, Sharpening gear up to 6. Camera-original © Large BASIC Optimum Quality JPG file.

Warning: Very little is in perfect focus.

Sharpness: D800E

San Francisco. (D800E, 55mm f/2.8 AF Micro-NIKKOR, f/8 at 1/250, ISO 100, Bright Picture Control with +3 saturation, six sharpening.) Camera-original full-resolution © JPG.

Realize that closer and further objects aren't in focus.

Sea Life Lego Fish. (D800E, 55mm f/ii.8 AF Micro-NIKKOR, f/8 at ane/250, ISO 100, VIVID Movie Control with +3 saturation, 6 sharpening.) Camera-original total-resolution © JPG.

Smaller Epitome Sharpness: D800

When set to MEDIUM or Small JPG, unfortunately the sharpening kernel radius is besides big, so it's non every bit sharp every bit it could exist.

Katie at Benihana. Full-Resolution © Modest Basic JPG, Optimum Quality. D800, 50/1.4 M, f/3.v at 1/125, ISO 100, AUTO1 WB + A3, STANDARD picture show control, +two Saturation, 7 sharpening.

Smaller Image Sharpness: D800E

As shot in Bones Pocket-size JPG (iii,680 ten 2,456 pixels):

Katie at Legoland, 10 May 2012. (Nikon D800E, AF Micro-NIKKOR 55mm f/2.eight, AUTO ISO 100, f/8 at 1/250, born-flash.) Original file. 6 sharpening.

And here'due south a crop from the image at 100%:

Pretty sharp at 100% at the smaller JPG sizes! Original file.

Sponge

West Los Angeles. D800, 85mm f/1.8 G, f/half dozen.3 at 1/160, ISO 100, Vivid +3 Saturation, Sharpening set to half-dozen. Photographic camera-original © LARGE BASIC Optimum Quality JPG file.

Warning: Very niggling is in perfect focus.

Color

Color rendition is the same as Nikon's other second-generation DSLRs, with the aforementioned Moving picture Controls.

Colour. (D800E, 55mm f/two.8 AF Micro-NIKKOR, f/5.vi at i/125, ISO 100, VIVID Moving picture Control with +3 saturation.)

Blush Resolution

Red Table. D800, 28-300mm VR at 42mm, f/5.6 at i/125, ISO 100, VIVID +3 Saturation, sharpness-robbing Auto Distortion Correction ON, Sharpening gear up to 6. Camera-original © Big Bones Optimum Quality JPG file.

In this snap, the only thing in focus is the vertical red bar in the center. Intriguing is how sharp is the reddish-dark-green transition on a pixel-by-pixel level. Catechism cameras unremarkably have a very hard fourth dimension with this, while the D800 shines.

ISO 3,200

Sushi. D800, 85mm f/one.8 Yard, f/1.8 at one/100, AUTO ISO chose ISO three,200, Vivid +3 Saturation, Sharpening set to vi. Camera-original © LARGE BASIC Optimum Quality JPG file.

Alert: Almost aught is in focus.

30-Second Fourth dimension Exposures

Orion as seen from Earth. D800, thirty seconds at f/2 at ISO 100, 24mm f/1.4 G, AUTO Adaptive Dynamic Range (adds noise in shadows), no long-exposure NR, tungsten white rest to brand heaven blue. camera-original © LARGE Bones JPG.

This looks perfect to me. No extra noise reduction, no problem.

Vertical Bokeh

Dildoplant. D800, 85mm f/1.8 1000, f/6.3 at 1/160, ISO 100, VIVID +3 Saturation, Sharpening gear up to six. LARGE Bones Optimum Quality JPG file (losslessly rotated in iView 3.ane.iii).

Alarm: Almost nothing is in focus.

Dildoplant. D800, 85mm f/1.viii M, f/1.8 at 1/1,600, ISO 100, VIVID +3 Saturation, Sharpening set to half-dozen. Big BASIC Optimum Quality JPG file (losslessly rotated in iView 3.ane.three).

Warning: Almost nothing is in focus.

Shooting Speed top

The D800 is among Nikon'south slowest DSLRs, slower than the D90 and xx% slower than the D700 or even the D200 of 2006 (4 FPS vs. 5 FPS).

This is because of all the pixels that demand to exist processed, triple what concluding year's cameras had, which takes either three times every bit long, or triple the processing ability.

The D800 is only as fast as the D5100, while the D7000 is 50% faster than the D800. Even the world's first practical DSLR, the Nikon D1 of 1999, was faster 12 years agone than the D800 is today.

It volition take a while for large files, especially RAW, to record to slow cards, just the D800's buffer makes this a non-issue unless you like to shoot very big bursts. You'll come across the green writing-to-carte LED stay lit as the D800 is recording your files, and it will go along on shooting while it does.

Finder top

The D800 uses the big, vivid and sharp Loftier Eyepoint finder.

It uses the common, mod laser-cutting screen which only shows depth-of-field and defocus for lenses not faster than f/2.5. If your lens is faster than f/2.five, the finder does not show you the shallower depth-of-field or any actress brightness as the lens is faster to shot at larger apertures. This has been mutual since the 1980s; screens like this make most lenses much brighter.

It marks cropped epitome areas only with lines, not past making the unincluded areas darker and fuzzier as does the D3. If you want the unused areas to be fuzzy and dark, disable CSM a5 . (Unlike the pro cameras with their better finders that use individual LEDs for each AF expanse, the D800 uses only 1 LED to light all the AF zones at once, so it's ameliorate to lite frame lines rather than the large dark areas.)

The AF Areas are shown as small black rectangles. These rectangles are often highlighted in red as they are selected.

Unlike the D3 which uses private LEDs, not an LCD for the AF points, the AF points of the D800 are not piece of cake to encounter at dark. They are lit, but poorly. A single blood-red LED lights the entire D800 finder, highlighting the active black rectangles of the finder's LCD overlay, just too flaring the entire finder a flake, making it hard to see a bailiwick in the dark if the AF zones are lit. This is only a trouble for night shooting, not indoors.

Thank goodness, much better than the Canon 5D Mark III, these black rectangles go away after focus is locked.

A firmware defect renders the in-finder bar graph useless for me. This firmware defect causes the in-finder bar graph to ready itself based on the setting for exposure control increments (CSM b2 ), instead of following our selection for exposure-compensation increments (CSM b3 ).

Specifically, the D800 is defective because when set to ready exposure in 1-end increments, the bar graph reads in merely half-stops fifty-fifty though we've left exposure compensation increments at one/3 stops. When set this way equally I shoot, it's at present impossible to see that I've gear up a ±0.3 stop exposure compensation, since the one-half-stop bar graph still shows nada!

This is a major flaw for me. HDR and video are just fluff added to sell more cameras to the mass-market of amateurs, but equally a guy who shoots every twenty-four hours, seeing my exposure compensation or lack thereof in the finder is important, and why my D800 unremarkably stays home and I prefer to shoot my Canon 5D Mark Three instead. Sorry, Nikon.

Autofocus summit

Side, Nikon D800. enlarge.

See the AF and Grand selector at the bottom? Where is the AF-S, AF-C and AF-1000 Focus Fashion Switch?

Back, Nikon D800. overstate.

Hey! Where is the AF-Area manner selector that's been on the D300 through D700, with which nosotros can select how the camera uses all its 51 AF areas?

Nikon screwed us and removed both the AF-Area Fashion Selector and the Focus Way Switch, and buried their functions backside office buttons and dials.

What nosotros could exercise with a single flick without taking our attention from the subject now demands nosotros stop what we're doing, press the abbreviated new AF mode switch, hold information technology downwardly, spin the front and rear dials while watching a light show both on the finder screen and the LCD below it. With this cheaper system, y'all eventually can ready the AF system.

Now we need to utilise both easily and end concentrating on our discipline to practise what nosotros could do in an instant. Marvelous.

This is OK on the D7000 because the D7000 uses this function-button electronic arrangement so that the settings can be saved and recalled as part of the U1 and U2 instant-recall modes, but the D800 has none of these fast-recollect modes. Whoops! (The D800'southward settings banks are awful and tedious.)

This is OK when y'all realize the D800 is made to supervene upon slow medium-format cameras for studio and landscape use, only not adequate for trying to cover action.

If y'all utilize these switches on your other Nikons you're going to miss them. If you don't use them, or they aren't that big a deal, don't let my whining deter you; it's nevertheless faster than medium format.

AF Fine Tuning

AF Fine Tuning is still adjustable with but one value. It cannot exist adjusted for dissimilar ends of a zoom every bit tin can the Canon 5D Marker III.

Neither the Canon 5D Mark Iii nor the D800 can be set for unlike values of AF fine tuning for different focus distances or apertures.

Manual Focus pinnacle

The D800 has three " > 0 < " manual-focus helper dots in the lower left of the finder.

They piece of work great. The tolerance of the center OK dot has been increased, then while manual focus might feel less precise than with before cameras, it's certain much faster and fun to use. Older cameras were nearly incommunicable to become to zero, while the goose egg of the D800 is much wider, and then information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to get the center dot to stay lit.

In exercise, manual focus was expressionless-on with the 85mm f/1.8 (1964-1977), sometimes a tad far with the 85mm f/2 AI-s (1977-1995) and dead-on again with the 85mm f/ane.4 AI-s (1981-2006), all shot broad-open at 36 MP.

Ergonomics top

Beeps

Thank goodness, the D800 defaults to get out the stupid beeps OFF.

Exposure Mode Button

Nikon put a video REC button in the place of the Fashion button.

Now the Way button is further off to the left, requiring us to stretch to reach it, and ensuring complete confusion if you lot use any other Nikon at the same time.

Bad!

Top LCD

I have no thought why at that place's an LCD on the top; information technology'south left over from the 1980s.

The summit LCD is besides small to read, and at night, it's dimly lit past a dark-green LED, not a nice electroluminescent panel.

Having that little top LCD is bad because the most of import functions, like White Balance, are only shown on the top LCD as you lot press the WB button and suit them. Having no tiptop LCD and showing these on the back LCD (or in the finder) would be much better, only as it is, you now take to hit the INFO button to light-up the rear LCD to encounter these adjustments. That's fine if you're non in a bustle, but bad if you are.

Autofocus Settings

The downgrade in the AF controls would be OK if the D800 had the U1 and U2 camera-land think settings of the D7000, but it doesn't. This is bad.

Custom Settings Store and Recall

Very sadly, the D800 still uses the same horrible Custom Settings Banks and Shooting Banks from the D300 of 2007. These don't work:

1.) Banks tin can't be locked; as you change settings, you never tin can become back to where you lot were, and

ii.) Fifty-fifty after yous jockey 2 sets of banks (Custom and Shooting banks), fifty-fifty then the ii banks together merely recall a limited subset of all the photographic camera settings.

In other words, these settings banks only half accost the problem, and what piddling they encompass is only fast enough to recall settings when changing from consignment to consignment (Presidential portrait sitting versus Route 66 road trip).

If y'all're shooting indoors and suddenly desire to turn and shoot out the window, or recall a unlike set of AF settings, you have to play in the menus and think both banks, which requires a load of clicks to navigate around.

Not CPU Lens Selection

Information technology works every bit usual, just sadly if you prepare a Function to modify this, you have to look at the top LCD to ready information technology, since the finder's display doesn't show you "55 f2" or "180 f28" as you select amidst your pre-programmed lenses.

Carte Arrangement

What is the world coming to? What on Earth does this accept to do with photography? It shouldn't, but Nikon and Canon take made such messes of our cameras that I have to worry most this.

Unlike Catechism, who breaks their huge carte du jour system into pages which tin be navigated among, Nikon's menus are way too long. It tin can take many, many button presses to go from summit to middle, or dorsum from heart to pinnacle, of any of the menus.

The My Menu Menu is very good.

Picture Control

Give thanks goodness, in that location is at present a straight Film Control admission button!

I apply this all the time. I set one picture control for crazy colors, and another for people pictures.

Advance Mode Punch

The D800 has the best advance style punch of any Nikon.

For the first time since the crappy, illegible advance mode dial on top of the Nikon F5 that spins without clicks, the D800 has a new dial which both has soft clicks and can be read from the rear, where you lot shoot.

Hooray!

Quiet Style

Unlike the splendid, quiet, fast and very usable Silent mode of the Canon 5D Mark Three, the Quiet mode of the D800 is useless.

The D800'southward Quiet mode, selected with the summit Advance mode punch, is slow, blanks out the finder for a 2d later y'all shoot, and isn't any quieter than the regular way anyhow.

The D800's Quiet fashion isn't very smart either: it mutes the stupid beeps if for some unknown reason you accept them turned on in the menu, but it isn't smart enough to turn off the AF assistance light.

While the 5D Marking 3'south mode is great, all the D800's tranquillity style does is annoy you, and it'southward but as noisy.

Ability

The D800 shoots and plays, even if the card door is left open up. (Canons shut down practice attempt to forbid y'all from yanking a card with the power on.)

Exposure top

Meters are guides, not gods. They yet need a man to interpret and use them properly.

I detect the meter in my D800 oft needs equally much equally -1 finish compensation on many subjects.

Meters don't overexpose, people do. You lot always need to learn how your meter responds to light, and adjust accordingly in advance.

More at Modern Exposure.

Automobile ISO tiptop

Whoo hoo! Nikon added some improvements I've been suggesting since 2007: Auto ISO tin can be set to adjust the slowest speed depending on lens focal length!

Even better, as requested, Nikon'south the first to heed my request and allow this automatically selected speed to be adapted to set up itself to higher or lower than the usual minimum speed you'd utilise for that focal length.

Still belongings back on us until the side by side camera, AUTO ISO is not smart enough to adjust itself depending on whether or not nosotros have VR — oops!

More at my Nikon D800 Users Guide on how to set up this.

Auto Distortion Control top

This corrects for lens distortion.

Information technology works with nearly AF-D and AF-S lenses, in other words, almost all autofocus AF lenses fabricated since about 1993.

It does a neat task of correcting fifty-fifty complex ultrawideangle distortion. It ordinarily corrects pincushion distortion completely. It won't right the strongest barrel baloney all the way, but the good news is that it removes the worst of the complex office of the baloney then what'southward left is easy to right in Photoshop, that otherwise wouldn't be correctable.

Run across my Nikon D800 Users Guide for how to prepare this.

If your D800 shows a gray menu item here, that means that it can't do it with your lens. If yous're using a very new model autofocus lens, this means that you'll need to load the latest lens profiles from Nikon into your camera.

Flash top

The flash works in the usual i-TTL mode, for utilise only with the newest SB-400, 600, 700, 800, 900 and SB-910 flashes, controllers and accessories .

The built-in flash also works as a remote commander.

LCD top

The LCD is the same as the D4. It's large, sharp and bright, and the AUTO brightness control always works great, only the colour isn't accurate, a beginning for Nikon.

I can't put my finger on it, but only similar the D4, information technology'southward always a little too yellow-dark-green. It'due south subtle, just photography is fine art for me, and I'm very picky about my colors. For some reason, the colors I come across on my LCD just don't pop every bit accurately as I'd expect.

The D4 has a carte du jour option to tweak the color of the LCD to recoup for weird ambient light, merely I don't see that in the D800.

I'yard on firmware 1.00/i.00/one.004, and there'due south funny business going on with the brandish resampling processing (how the D800 takes 36 MP in the prototype and figures out how to display it on an 0.ix MP LCD). The D800 is doing very simple resampling to drive the LCD fast enough.

When not zoomed, you can see some subtle display banding if y'all take subtle washes of color, like a clear heaven. This is because information technology's non clever enough to do the usual processing with redithering.

If zoomed, the banding goes away as better resampling is used to drive the LCD, but it'southward nevertheless simplified. If yous shoot a star field and curlicue effectually, different stars come and become equally you scroll around slightly!

Playback top

Playback Speed

For the showtime time in any Nikon, files are large plenty and data processing is sufficiently limited that it tin can take a moment to become from i prototype to the next on playback.

Playback speed varies with image size. Modest images swap back and along faster than LARGE.

Playback speed doesn't vary by file blazon or size. Basic JPGs play just as fast as NEF or TIFF files.

Playback speed volition vary depending on your selection of card. Hot CF cards like the 1000x 150 MB/south Lexar are much faster than the xv MB/s Class iv SDHC cards I get at the discount store. With other cameras, this was never noticeable.

On rare occasion, I've seen my D800 hang for a minute while information technology tries to wake up from playing. I'm unsure what this is.

Zoom Histograms

Better than Canon, when you zoom on the histogram page, the histogram reads merely the zoomed-in area. This makes checking highlight or shadow exposure easy, which is incommunicable on Canon.

However, hitting the ZOOM button while on the colour histogram screen means you're getting a smaller picture show window then the histogram can be shown, while on Canon, hitting the zoom push button fills the screen even if you're in the histogram page.

Data top

File Sizes

JPG

Big NORMAL: 9.5 MB (default, size priority JPG.)

Large BASIC: 6 MB median, typically 3.3 ~ 7.one MB ("optimum quality" JPG, varies with image complexity, detail and contrast).

Minor Basic: one.8 MB median, typically 1.5 ~ 2.ii MB ("optimum quality" JPG, varies with image complexity, detail and dissimilarity).

NEF (raw)

Compressed 12-flake: 31 MB

Compressed 14-fleck: 38.1 MB

Uncompressed 14-scrap: 77.3 MB.

TIFF (RGB)

113.1 MB.

ISOs as seen in Stage One Media Pro

In Phase I Media Pro (the software I use for sorting), ISOs above half dozen,400 read as blanks.

Clock

When I got mine on 02 April 2012, its clock thought that information technology had been born 16 days earlier.

Power pinnacle

The charger is the same nasty ane included with the D7000. Depending on your country, instead of a folding plug, information technology has a folding socket, and a plug-in socket. This means information technology'due south very lumpy for travel, and the plug tin fall off in your luggage. Canon'southward chargers are and then much more than elegant.

The charger draws 11.v watts while charging, ramping down to 3 watts, and so <100 mW when charged or idle.

Compared  summit

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More than

NEW: Nikon D800 versus D600 14 September 2012

Catechism 5D Mark III vs. Nikon D800

Nikon D800 versus D800E

High-ISO Comparisons of the Nikon D1, D3 (D700), D4, D800, D7000 and Catechism 5D, 5D Mark Two, 5D Mark III and Fuji X-Pro1 and X100 06 April 2012

2012 DSLR Comparison eighteen April 2012

Usage top

Intro Specs   Operation   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

NEW: Nikon D800 and D800E User's Guide 26 July 2012

NEW: How to Gear up the Nikon D800 & D800E AF System 26 July 2012

Charging

Battery and charger are the same every bit D7000.

A blinking light ways charging, and steady means you're done.

Image Area Selection

I often use the professional person 5:4 aspect ratio, which crops-off "Oskar'south Folly:" the too-wide sides.

Especially for vertical shots, the classic v:4 ratio is ameliorate for what most of the states shoot more of the time than the foolish 24x36 frame invented as a work-around by a guy trying to shoot picture show film in a still camera.

Anyway, most of the fourth dimension, the finder only indicates the cropped expanse with lines, like a rangefinder camera, except that the lines are dark.

Much ameliorate is how the D3 does information technology, which is to make the unused areas night and fuzzy.

To get the D800 to do this, gear up Carte du jour > CUSTOM (pencil) > a5 AF bespeak illumination > OFF, which then lets the outer areas go nighttime instead of simply have a line around them.

The D800 does this because it makes more sense to illuminated frame lines in the dark, and the D800'southward AF expanse illumination isn't with individual LEDs equally it is in the D3 and D4; the D800 simply uses on LED that lights the entire finder's LCD overlay.

Autofocus

When you bandy betwixt AF-C and AF-S, it recalls whatsoever AF area way (Single, Auto, etc.) you had selected before.

Car ISO

At present the slowest shutter speed in Automobile ISO tin can be set to AUTO, meaning that the slowest sped automatically tracks your lens as zoomed to 1/focal length.

Yous tin can shift the automatically-selected speed by ±2 stops if y'all click right from Automobile to ready FASTER or SLOWER in 1-terminate increments.

AUTO ISO'southward motorcar-setting slowest speed withal isn't smart enough to conform differently depending on if we have VR or non.

Virtual Horizon (level)

Information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to get the Virtual Horizon to brandish on the rear LCD; just it find near the bottom of the Wrench card and plow information technology on.

Getting it to appear in the finder is much trickier. To go it to brandish in the finder, you lot take to assign any of the various programmable Function buttons for "Viewfinder Virtual Horizon."

The D800/D800E virtual horizon is much improved from the ane-axis (roll-but) levels of earlier cameras. The D800 and D800E virtual horizon actually is, with 2 axes (gyre and pitch) displayed.

Face Finding

Spin the front end dial on zoomed Playback, and it swaps among the faces so you lot tin check smiles. (page 231 in Nikon's D800 User'southward Manual).

Recommendations top

Intro Specs   Performance   Compared   Usage   Recommendations More

Meet as well Nikon D800 versus D800E.

The D800 is the all-time DSLR ever made by anyone at whatsoever price. I've got a D800 already, and accept a D800E on order. In that location is no comparison.

Lenses tiptop

See my full general FX Lens Suggestions.

The best lens to use on full-frame is Nikon's newest 28-300mm VR. As you can see at my review, it'southward just near as abrupt every bit all of Nikon's previous reference lenses, and covers the entire range in a twist of the wrist. Likewise, it volition be sold out very soon with the annunciation of the D800, and so if you don't have yours however, now is the time to guild it while you can. Sharpness doesn't matter if you miss a shot because yous're changing lenses.

Lens quality can exist a huge limitation if you're counting pixels. You lot suckers who got inexpensive with Sigma and Tamron will learn why the old adage says "the poor homo pays twice." This is why the 18MP LEICA M9 and LEICA M9-P completely obliterate the resolution of all DSLRs, considering LEICA's lenses, especially normal and broad lenses, are so much meliorate than whatever SLR lenses — even Zeiss.'

Therefore, unless you really know what you're doing and shooting micro lenses with apartment subjects at f/five.6, yous'll but have full resolution in the middle of your image, and only for what's exactly in focus.

If you actually want to use all 36-one thousand thousand pixels, you'll have to shoot flat subjects! Honestly, though, the 28-300mm VR is a cracking lens, and always gets the shot, simply it'southward not the sharpest if you're a pixel-counter. If you want the sharpest results possible, use the the 24mm f/1.4, Voigtländer 40mm f/2, 60mm f/2.8 AF-Southward Micro, 85mm f/1.8 Grand, 105mm Micro and 200mm AF-D Micro, which are Nikon's very sharpest lenses of all time. For ultrawide, shoot a LEICA camera, or the xvi-35mm VR.

Beware of diffraction. At apertures smaller than f/v.vi, simple physics volition dull the paradigm if you're looking at files at 100%! This is why digital betoken-and-shoot cameras are designed so that their lenses never stop downward to more than f/eight. If you shoot at f/xi to f/22, you'll get much softer results.

Retentivity Cards

CF cards tend to be faster than SD cards, so they both play and record faster.

I only use SanDisk and Lexar cards, the only cards nosotros can get in the Us that are recommended by Nikon. I'd not use any Kingston, PNY, store brands, or any brands other than SanDisk and Lexar, menses.

I peculiarly like the 1000x Lexar CF card I merely got; everything is much faster than with the SD cards I've tried.

If you observe all the time and expense I incur sharing all this information for costless, this website's biggest source of back up is when you use these links get your D800 from Amazon, your D800E from Amazon, or either of them from B&H or from Adorama, or any of these links when you get anything, regardless of the country in which yous alive.

Thank yous!

Ken.

More Information top

Intro Specs   Recommendations Compared    More

Nikon's D800 & D800E User's Transmission

Nikon'southward D800 folio.

Nikon'southward D800 specifications.

Nikon's D800 brochure.

Nikon's D800 sample images.

Nikon's D800 FUD campaign ("Tech Guide") to get you to purchase more lenses.

Nikon's D800 press release.

Assist me help yous top

I back up my growing family unit through this website, as crazy as information technology might seem.

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when yous get anything, regardless of the country in which yous live. Information technology costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places accept the all-time prices and service, which is why I've used them since earlier this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you lot find this folio as helpful as a volume you lot might have had to buy or a workshop yous may have had to take, feel complimentary to help me proceed helping everyone.

If y'all've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, y'all're family. It'southward great people like yous who allow me to continue adding to this site full-time. Cheers!

If you haven't helped nonetheless, delight practise, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

As this page is copyrighted and formally registered, it is unlawful to make copies, specially in the class of printouts for personal use. If you wish to make a printout for personal use, you are granted 1-time permission only if you PayPal me $5.00 per printout or part thereof. Thank yous!

Cheers for reading!

Mr. & Mrs. Ken Rockwell, Ryan and Katie.

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