I,ve just pre-ordered the new D800.

I have a D300, but I had my mind set to buy D700's replacement asap.

Ok
But now, some doubts start to appear.

First of all, what's your opinion about the performance of my (old, but almost all FX) set of lenses with this 36MP monster?

My set:
- AF 20-35mm 1:2,8 D
- AF 50mm 1:1,8
- AF 35-70mm 1:2,8
- AF 80-200mm 1:2,8 D
- AFS DX 18-200mm 1:3,5-5,6 G
- 50mm 1:1,2 AI-s

My set is based (mainly) on zoom lenses, because I shoot mostly car racing, but also landscape, non professionally.

I am no expert but those are great lenses. They are great with film, so you should not have any problem with them. I read that good technique will be more important with D800 (if you want to pixel peep).

This may be a good reading.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/02/d800-megapixels.html

See Myth #4.

You may need more reach now and 70-300mm VR is a good option.

Do I really need more reach?

There's an on-going debate in another Topic about:

"With D800 no telephoto lenses needed?!?"

I don't agree with this, but, right now, I won't have the money to buy a "bigger" telephoto lens!

I think you'll find your lens' center performance will be very similar to what you've come to expect on your D300. The D800's pixels aren't all that much smaller after all. I think the people mainly raising this concern are moving from D700 or D3(s) which has much larger pixels than either of these cameras. Corner performance is a different story, however if auto racing is your main subject, I'm guessing corner performance isn't critical to you.

>Do I really need more reach?

If you shoot your 80-200 at 200mm on your D300, then you can do the same in DX crop mode on a D800 and get a 15.4MP image that likely exceeds your D300's image quality, and will probably be similar to shooting with a D7000. However, I guess you're not spending $3000 on a new body to achieve similar performance to what you already have, or could have by buying a $1000 D7000. If you want to take advantage of all the D800's 36MP, then you will need a 300mm lens for that situation (and if speed is important, it will need to be a 300mm f/2.8). If you do a large amount of your shooting at 200mm, then this is something you should consider seriously.

Since you're shooting fast-moving action, it's also worth noting that you'll need the D800's battery grip with AA or the D4 battery, and run in DX crop mode, to match the D300's 6fps.

For me this all raises the question, what do you hope to gain with the D800? This camera is IMO not a state-of-the-art action camera due to it's low-ish frame rate. For what I shoot, I plan to use the D800 for high-res subjects (landscapes) and keep my D300s for high-speed telephoto subjects (birds in flight). You may be better served waiting for a D400, or buy a D700 and use the money you save to buy a 300 f/2.8 lens.

Larry - a Bay Area Nikonian
My Nikonians gallery

www.tempered-light.com

>I think you'll find your lens' center performance will be very similar to what you've come to expect on your D300. The D800's pixels aren't all that much smaller after all. I think the people mainly raising this concern are moving from D700 or D3(s) which has much larger pixels than either of these cameras. Corner performance is a different story, however if auto racing is your main subject, I'm guessing corner performance isn't critical to you.

Please, let's focus on this point. My main concern isn't "reach", 200 or 300mm.

My main question is about performance (sharpness, detail, noise, etc) in the center, but also in the corners.
What do you think about will be be the behaviour of my set of lens (that, normally, I won't change in the next months/years) with the D800?

At around f/8, they will all be fine. Wide open or close to it, you will see limitations, especially in the corners.

Tom
Bay Area Nikonian

http://www.tkphoto.me/

Like others have posted you're still ahead of the D300 in DX at 15 mp . To bad the 80 -200 mm isn't newer you could add a TC 1.4 or 1.7 II E for range . I think we will all be happy with the resolution and dynamic range / low noise . That being said you'll be able to use higher ISO to achieve better images than the 300 . I never worry about the slow frame rate ( 4 fps ) the few times I fire off a burst , I will delete 90 % . I'd be better off shooting single frame images .

Hans K.

My Gallery

Visit my Nikonians gallery. nikonus@nikonians.org

Hi Joao,

I ran across this and thought this might be a good article for you to read.

Myth #4
It's pointless to add more pixels because lenses aren't good enough.

Reality: I have no idea where this one came from, because it's contradicted by decades of lens and camera test data. I'm going to cut through the morass of minutia-based arguments about pixel dimensions, filter geometries, and Airy disks and lay it out in very simple terms. A 16-megapixel 35mm-sized Bayer array sensor is going to resolve around 50 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm). A 36-megapixel sensor will resolve around 75 lp/mm. Even mediocre 35mm lenses will hit 75 lp/mm at some aperture over some portion of their field of view. This is true of both fixed focal length and zoom lenses.
Decent (not at all exceptional) 35mm-format lenses can hit 75 lp/mm at just about all apertures and will do so over most of the field of view for at least one aperture. They'll show peak resolutions more like twice that. Really good lenses (not necessarily expensive ones) will be able to exceed 75 line pair per millimeter without even trying hard over most/all of the field of view and will have peak resolutions three or more times that.

Furthermore, until the lens resolution drops to only half that of the sensor, improving sensor resolution will produce an observable improvement in image resolution.
See the previously cited diffraction column and "Why 80 Megapixels Just Won't Be Enough..."
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And if you would like to read all of it, here is the link:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/02/d800-megapixels.html

Good Luck,
Bill

Visit my Nikonians gallery.