D810 what do you think about it?

Cheese&Apple said:

My primary interest is wildlife and at times that translates to a lot of shots...at times too many. I found the D800 file size unnecessarily large for my needs. I'm taking about storage space and slower processing time.

Btw, congrats on your new 810...by all accounts a great camera.

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OK, makes sense. I did shoot a youth soccer game a few months ago, with the D800, and I filled a 32 gb CF card. Thinking back, yes, that transfer was a bit painful and LR's task of making the 1:1 previews also took a very long time. I wouldn't have minded, except the parents wanted the shots up on the web as soon as was practical.

And yes, the D810 is great.

This is the review that pushed me over the edge:

http://blog.mingthein.com/2014/07/29/nikon-d810-vs-d800e-to-upgrade-or-not/

The D800 went to my adult son (in our house we call that "trickle down") and he's pretty happy with it, coming from a D40 and then a Panasonic M4/3.

One of the things that interests me about the D810 is the option for a small RAW file.

I prefer RAW for the ability to make global or local changes to exposure in post, including WB adjustments. For some images/subjects the larger MP of the sensor has a use. Other times I would be content with smaller MP counts (expecting a baby right now and 36 MP images aren't always needed and will result in storage issues if I'm not judicious in my shooting). The option for smaller RAW files has some appeal to me. Times I may want the larger files. Times it won't matter.

Anyone know how the D810 creates those smaller RAW files? What gets thrown out?

kallisti said:

One of the things that interests me about the D810 is the option for a small RAW file.

I prefer RAW for the ability to make global or local changes to exposure in post, including WB adjustments. For some images/subjects the larger MP of the sensor has a use. Other times I would be content with smaller MP counts (expecting a baby right now and 36 MP images aren't always needed and will result in storage issues if I'm not judicious in my shooting). The option for smaller RAW files has some appeal to me. Times I may want the larger files. Times it won't matter.

Anyone know how the D810 creates those smaller RAW files? What gets thrown out?

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Thom Hogan goes into it a bit here: http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-sraw-myth.html

kallisti said:

One of the things that interests me about the D810 is the option for a small RAW file.

I prefer RAW for the ability to make global or local changes to exposure in post, including WB adjustments. For some images/subjects the larger MP of the sensor has a use. Other times I would be content with smaller MP counts (expecting a baby right now and 36 MP images aren't always needed and will result in storage issues if I'm not judicious in my shooting). The option for smaller RAW files has some appeal to me. Times I may want the larger files. Times it won't matter.

Anyone know how the D810 creates those smaller RAW files? What gets thrown out?

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It only uses alternate pixels.

If you skip each alternate pixel then you're halving the the number of pixels both horizontally and vertically. This will leave you with an image 1/4 the size of the full sensor resolution.

Full size raw = 36mp
Small raw = 9mp (or 1/4 of 36)

Hope that makes sense

r.harris1 said:

Thom Hogan goes into it a bit here: http://www.dslrbodies.com/accessories/software-for-nikon-dslrs/software-news/the-sraw-myth.html

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Wow. Thanks for the link. Sounds pretty useless.

[Edit] here is a link to the site that explored the sRaw files and was the data source for your link. A very interesting read.

36 to 9? That's some drop! I'd rather they did mRAW then! Say about 16-24?

Apple fanboy said:

36 to 9? That's some drop! I'd rather they did mRAW then! Say about 16-24?

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There is a 16MP raw option if you use the camera in DX crop mode.

A 24MP option would be possible if they added a 1.3 crop, which it sounds like a lot of people would prefer.

I'm not sure how Canon do their mRaw & sRaw files, but I'm guessing it's through a lot of compression and therefore not "real" raw. Anyone else have experience with Canon sRaw files? How do they stand up to editing compeared to full size?

*Update - found this page which explains how Canon approach sRaw. Unfortunately it doesn's sound like Nikon are doing the same thing.

kallisti said:

Wow. Thanks for the link. Sounds pretty useless.

[Edit] here is a link to the site that explored the sRaw files and was the data source for your link. A very interesting read.

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Yes, a very interesting read indeed, thank you!

swordio777 said:

It only uses alternate pixels.

If you skip each alternate pixel then you're halving the the number of pixels both horizontally and vertically. This will leave you with an image 1/4 the size of the full sensor resolution.

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Considering the RAW file is a Bayer Pattern image and has no color pixels, that would be a very interesting result to look at, though not very useful.

Apple fanboy said:

36 to 9? That's some drop! I'd rather they did mRAW then! Say about 16-24?

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What's worse is they aren't actual raw files but closer to JPEGs with in-camera settings like WB affecting the file! So shooting JPEGs gives you close to the same information as sRaw, but with much smaller file sizes. Or shooting 12bit compressed (lossy) raw gives you about the same file sizes as sRaw but much more information, both for exposure/WB corrections in post as well as enhanced cropping latitude. Not getting the point of sRaw....

Why would anyone want to shoot a D810 and only get 9mp?

Meister said:

Why would anyone want to shoot a D810 and only get 9mp?

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Having one camera for multiple applications. For some things you may want 36MP. For other things, you may not. 36MP on my D800 when shot in raw at 14 bit lossless compressed generate files that are 40-50 MB in size. Closer to 30 MB when shot as 12 bit lossy compressed. Using plugins that convert them to TIFFs result in files that become massive.

For some things this may be an advantage. For some things it isn't needed. If storage isn't an issue it's largely irrelevant, but my MBP is running into storage issues and I'm having to decide if I want to offload all or part of my library to external storage.

I like having my library with me all the time on my laptop. But I'm facing either expanding my HD from 750 GB to 1 TB, offloading to external storage, or culling all of the crappy shots in my library. The big problem is the huge file sizes from the D800. With a baby on the way the volume of images is going to increase. Will likely use my Leica for many things, but there are times I prefer my Nikon with auto focus. Having the option for smaller file sizes while still retaining the advantages of raw has appeal. Doesn't seem that sRaw is going to cut it though. Will either shoot JPEG or crop to DX mode in raw for snapshots.

Don't do it, kallisti.

How many babies do you plan to have? You can't rewind growth (as if you didn't know). Shoot 14 bit lossless. Trust me. In the future, you'll be going back to those infant/toddler shots. Getting some external storage and dealing with its hassles will be nothing compared to saying, 4 or 5 years from now, "S***, I could have pulled something good out of this if I'd shot it RAW."

kallisti said:

I like having my library with me all the time on my laptop. But I'm facing either expanding my HD from 750 GB to 1 TB, offloading to external storage, or culling all of the crappy shots in my library.

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Rip the DVD out and replace it with another disk. I'd use an SSD to keep the heat down.

Paul

monokakata said:

Don't do it, kallisti.

How many babies do you plan to have? You can't rewind growth (as if you didn't know). Shoot 14 bit lossless. Trust me. In the future, you'll be going back to those infant/toddler shots. Getting some external storage and dealing with its hassles will be nothing compared to saying, 4 or 5 years from now, "S***, I could have pulled something good out of this if I'd shot it RAW."

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Point well taken.

compuwar said:

Rip the DVD out and replace it with another disk. I'd use an SSD to keep the heat down.

Paul

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Unfortunately, it's a rMBP and doesn't have a drive bay to swap out. I have about 11k images in Aperture and another 3k in LR. There is quite a bit of bloat in both libraries, both with crappy images and with teaching series where I was taking large numbers of shots (many in raw) to prove something to myself but there is zero chance I will ever want to print them. Dreading going through them all though....

Maybe it's time to look into t-bolt storage. I have an rMBP with 512 gb but my daily driver is a 2010 Mac Pro with many terabytes of storage.

Before I decided to wait on the nMP (upgraded the cMP instead) I was about ready to spring for TB storage, reasoning that it would be just as fast and effective hitched to the rMBP as to the nMP.

But if you don't want the expense and size and general hassle of a big external, how about a 1 TB 7200 rpm 2.5" drive in a USB3 housing? I have that setup and it's low-hassle and very convenient, even when traveling. Case, cable, that's it. I like Oyen Digital housings, but they're hardly the only ones.

Or how about a good NAS? I had cheapos that more or less worked, but finally got a Synology DS412 and am loving it. It's fast and reliable. I have 2 x 4TB mirrored, and 2 X 2 TB mirrored.

After owning my D810 for almost two months now, I've got the following thoughts:

1. One of my hangups in getting the D800 was its low-light performance, compared to a 5D3 or (obviously) a D4/s. D810 has caught up to my needs, and I am super-psyched I own it.

2. The "36 MP is way too much" argument (and I used to feel that way too) is really starting to lose validity with me, and is an entirely different point of view than "No one needs 36 MP." I disagree entirely with the former, and obviously agree with the latter. Of course no one needs 36 MP to produce a good, pro-quality picture. However, are there benefits of having 36 MP files? Of course there are. I hope I don't have to list them out.

Which brings me to

3. The problem with 36MP has always remained the same: once you hit the shutter, everything that follows is slower than it would be if you working with smaller files, and they take up more storage.

However, I truly view this as less of "problem" now. When the D800 came out in 2012, it was just flat-out too soon because the only ones who could really take advantage of 36 MP were those with 5-figure rigs, $1,500 memory cards (etc etc etc). A lot has changed since then. Storage is getting cheaper, computers are getting faster, etc.

I could blather on about this in a way that will likely continue not to make much sense, but the long and short is --- 75mb files (45 mb lossless) aren't as big as they used to be.