Nikon D800 released

[gregbradley]

No just view NX2. I think this is the program that does RAW conversion, handles moire and lens corrections unless I have that wrong.

What do you use Capture NX for? Is that more advanced image processing on RAW files?

A lot in the DPreview forum are no leaning towards the E version now there are quite a few posts showing the concern over moire was not justified.

But D800 and 800E differences are small. My rationale was I want 100% maximum sharpness just like I want with my APOs and CDK. I also primarily want to do landscapes and panoramas as well as family type happy snaps.

The differences I see are slightly better shadows, colour depth, contrast and sharpness right out of the camera. Some of the disadvantages are some moire in certain circumstances and other similar type artifacts.

There was a link to a Polish photographers 800E images early on. They put me off. But I realised later that a lot of what I was objecting to was veyr bad chromatic aberration from the 85mm F1.4G lens - shocking. Also he posted only images out of a lot that did show some moire. Moire seems to be somewhat predictable in that it usually will be from a fairly distant buildings' railings, blinds, or repeating patterns. But because they have to be very distant to occur you can't notice it without a huge zoom in.

Also NX2 automatically corrects for chromatic lens aberrations and moire I believe.

I compiled a list of links to a large % of the 800/800E posts in DPreview as this question comes up a lot and only enough information allows you to make a decision:

1. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...mparison.shtml
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/9476880...n/photostream/
3. http://translate.google.com/translat...ed-nikon-d800e
4. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=41215809
5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kuwahara/
6. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=41234447
7. http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d800/sample02.htm
8. https://plus.google.com/s/D800e/posts?hl=en-US
9. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=41279352
10. http://www.flickr.com/photos/androll...7629502264164/
11. http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1107012/0
12. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...ssage=41303227
13. http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/con...=7-11676-12555



Greg.

[Octane (Humayun)]

CaptureNX 2 is a complete editing package, that you have to fork over some cash for.

H

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

No just view NX2.

Cheapskates! In Europe they bundle a free copy with the D800E. As H said, it's Nikon's editing package. I probably wouldn't use it anyway...

Thanks for the pointers to the D800E posts, Greg. I've found some of them already but there were a few new ones.

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

I used to have the original Capture program when I bought a Nikon D70.

Its been upgraded since but yes it did things like exposure control, white balance etc. Plus some colour processing but apart from the RAW file manipulation Photoshop would be better.

Greg.

[Octane (Humayun)]

No, Greg.

You've just spent over $3,000 on a camera. Please, don't let non-proprietary software be the weak link in your chain.

Process what your camera captured, not what Adobe thinks it captured.

Native software trumps third party reverse-engineered solutions, every single time.

Finally, people are starting to wake up at DPR and realising that in Canon's case, DPP is the bomb, and, that Lightroom/ACR has been the cause of ghastly shadow banding.

You will get the most out of your native software, too.

There is always the export to TIFF/Photoshop option after the base conversion.

H

[gregbradley]

Hi H,

I wasn't planning to use Photoshop to do RAW conversion, only post processing once it was adjusted in RAW and converted to I guess a TIFF and then exported to Photoshop. I get your point about the native software. I have seen examples on DPR comparing conversions between various software and you are right there is a considerable difference.

I have seen some threads on DPR about NX View 2 ( supplied with the camera) versus Lightroom and I think ACR. NX view 2 seemed to do lens aberration corrections as well and did a good job of cleaning up chromatic aberrations.

I did a photo shoot today. This camera is magnificent and performed incredibly well. Still learning it (big thick manual) but it is relatively intuitive. A few major things different to Canon layout that threw me but its just a matter of familiarity.

Greg.