Here is the Excel version (.xls) of the D800 Configuration & Settings Spreadsheet I posted a few days ago.

This is now the FULL RELEASE version - I am attaching both the Excel and updated Apple iWork Numbers versions.

As I have not yet had my hands on the camera (still waiting for my pre-order to arrive), I have set most of the settings in the spreadsheets to standard Nikon default settings, but you can play around with them to set the camera up to suit your shooting preferences.

Please read the Instructions on the first worksheet "Introduction" to get a feel of how to use this tool.

I hope it proves helpful! I would welcome any comments or any problems that you may find with it.


MODERATOR'S UPDATE WITH LATEST FILE VERSIONS AS OF 05-08-2012:


Here are the three updated Version 1.2.1 sheets:

Excel .xls UNLOCKED Vesion 1.2.1

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12844510/D800_Settings_vs_1.2.1/D800_Settings_Excel_v1.2.1_unlocked.xls

Excel .xls LOCKED Version 1.2.1

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12844510/D800_Settings_vs_1.2.1/D800_Settings_Excel_v1.2.1_locked.xls

Apple iWork Numbers Versions 1.2.1

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12844510/D800_Settings_vs_1.2.1/D800_Settings_iWork_Numbers_v1.2.1.numbers


I have also attached a Non-Interactive .pdf version so you can see what it looks like (the settings shown in the cells in this version are of course only illustrative of the selection(s) that had been made when this "snapshot" was taken.

http://www.nikonians.org/dcfp/user_files/222148.pdf

I would also like to acknowledge the terrific help that Eric Bowles and Ernesto Santos have given me in getting the orginal Numbers version of this tool to work in Excel, and for their great advice generally. Thank you gentlemen!

Cheers!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Attachment #1, (pdf file)

The "Dropbox" links in the above post are UPDATED versions of those in my earlier post.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Chris;
Thanks so much for the spreadsheet. It helped me plan the setup of my D800 Christmas Present. My experience with the D300 version of your spreadsheet sped things up a lot.

Here's a modest suggestion regarding the Extended Menu Banks option, I added a line immediately below the Extended Menu Banks line (Shooting Menu:12) called Extended Menu exposure mode. For each of the four banks I noted the exposure mode and intended default value for shutter speed or/and aperture (the user manual page reference is of course n/a). This lets me maintain configuration control of the default values stored.

As you've noted elsewhere, keeping a copy of the .bin file on a small SD card stored in my bag always lets me get back to ground truth after I screw up. The fact that the D300 file is named differently than the D800 allows both .bin files to live on the same reference SD card so I only have to carry one to serve both bodies.

Thanks again for your labors.
Paul

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That's a useful suggestion, Paul, thanks. I use the banks a little differently now reserving one for "impromptu" settings that I can change at will and not worry that I have screwed up my defaults!

Glad the spreadsheet helped and enjoy your D800 - it's a great camera no matter what people say to the the contrary - one of the best, if not, THE best (at the price!), IMHO.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Thank you for the effort.

I'm curious how people manage their default settings, other than on paper (i.e. excel).

What I've always wanted since my first camera with shooting banks is a way to save in the bank settings, and then recall them when needed. E.g.

- Call up my "sports" setting
- Shoot, change settings, etc.
- (Time passes, maybe I do other things)
- Call up my "Sports" setting and get the same original settings

The problem is that the camera does not use these as a place to save settings so much as a working area. When you are "in" bank A, any changes are saved in bank A becoming the new normal. So if after my sports shoot I go inside, change some settings but forget I am on "sports" bank, I just polluted my "sports" bank.

If I save to CF card they just disappear every time I change cards or format.

I tried using a separate CF card just for savings, but that lasted through one use -- too much hassle.

To me what would be preferable was a "load from bank" and "save to bank" option, and the camera was always "working". Then I could "load from bank Sport" and do whatever I wanted, and know what I last saved in "Sport" is still there.

Then I could take this spreadsheet and carefully configure it, save it in a bank, and I'm ready to go.

How to real photographers use banks, and avoid polluting them with changes? Or maybe more on topic, people using these spreadsheets -- do they just carry paper along as a checklist? (eventually perhaps committed to memory)?

Ps. With the D800 and two cards, I may now have a bit more luck with "load from" and "save to" cards as an alternative, if I can remember not to format the other card.
Comments welcomed on pictures: Http://captivephotons.com

Thanks, Linwood.

Yes, you are right, the Menu Banks in the camera, which you may have just configured, appear to be "lost" when you make a change to them, which isn't very helpful!

As you say, you can save the settings to a card(s) "reserved" for this purpose (I have "older slower" cards for this), which is what I do, and take along with me.

Unfortunately there is no way, at least that I have discovored, to "upload" the settings from this spreadsheet, for example, to the camera's card.

With my D7000 I used to set up the camera as per the settings I had configured in the D7000 Configuration spreadsheet, and then, if I was travelling, I would simply print off a .pdf of the shooting and custom settings sheets and take them with me for reference in case I had a senior moment. After a little while they lodged in my grey matter somewhere and I didn't often have to refer to the sheets (and of course there were those U1 and U2 settings).

I also stored the tool on line, so if I had an internet connection somewhere, I could get at them that way.

But the D800 seems to have a lot more things to memorize, and wont tolerate our human memory losses so well - so I may have to do some tactical re-thinking!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Dear Chris,

Thanks for the effort.

I downloaded both locked and unlocked version. But while opening it is throwing an error that the format is different from .xls. While I open ignoring this it opens with blank sheet.

Please let me know I whether I did some mistake ?

Regards,

Dibyendu

I just tested it and it worked fine.

What is your hardware and software configuration. Are you using Windows and a 2003 or later version of Excel?

Have you tried opening Excel and then opening the file from within Excel?

Eric Bowles
Nikonians Team
My Gallery
Workshops - Smokies Oct 2012

Nikonians membership — my most important photographic investment, after the camera

Dibyendu - make sure you are using the right version of Excel and that you are downloading the .xls rather than the Numbers version.

The spreadsheet is compatible (.xls version) with Excel 2007 for Windows 7, and Excel 2011 for Mac.

I just checked both and they run fine - I am not sure about later versions of Excel.

Hope that helps,

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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For those that use iPads I can confirm that the Apple iWork Numbers version of the D800 Configuation Settings Tool (posted above) does work fine in iOS for Numbers on the iPad. I think that App costs $9.99 in iTunes and it syncs with iCloud

The only change in the way it runs is that conditional formatting is not supported on iOS - but all that means in practice is that when you change a setting in a cell, and the value you selct is not a "Default" value, then that cell does not turn yellow (as it does in all the other versions)!

I hope this is useful,

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Chris (and Eric and Ernesto)

Thanks! This is great.

Bob

visit my gallery

Thank you very much. This is greatly appreciated.

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Thanks Guys - I just need the camera now!

I have updated these versions with some minor adds and corrections. I have added Live View Focusing options, such as Face-priority AF etc. to the Pre-shoot sheet, have corrected the incomplete selections for WB in the Shooting Menu and made some formatting adjustments (see "Version History" on the Introduction sheet for details). I am going to leave it at that for now until I get the camera in my hands, hopefully on the April 12th!

Cheers,

Chris


Moderator has updated the links in the original post. Please use the links in post #1 to download the latest versions.

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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I'm brand new to the forum - still have to setup all my preferences, but I have to first thank you for this information.

Fantastic Job!

Welcome aboard!

I hope it proves helpful to you - you'll find a lot of good stuff here, along with some incredibly friendly and extremely knowledgable people.

Enjoy,

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Thanks for providing the spreadsheet. I have been away from taking pictures for several years. Ordered a D800 and will be getting back into photography.

Chip

As a new D800 user and new to Nikon as well, this will go a long way to help make sure I can set the camera up the best I can.
Thanks for doing this.

Michael Kaplan
http://www.pbase.com/mkaplan

Welcome to Nikon and your new D800 - I hope this will help your transition!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Love the detail. Very helpful (when I grt the camera).

Ken Rockwell commented on the the lack of "Use" switches like on the D7000, and combined with the complex menu, difficulty in switching from Sports to Portrait, etc. These listings help a lot.

What I think may be a rather easy feature to incorporate into the camera is to export your settings to your card, and let the menu switch easily between groups of settings. We need some camera hackers out there.

Thanks again.

Yes that would be useful - there are some efforts going on now to try and come up with some software to transfer settings from the Camara to the card and vice versa - see this thread for work that Christo has done with the D7000:

http://www.nikonians.org/forums/dcboard.php?az=set_threaded_mode&forum=329&topic_id=15091&prev_page=show_topic&gid=15091#15270

It's not quite as easy as it sounds! And of course the D800 and other "pro" cameras" don't have the U1 and U2 equivalents to revert back to if settings are changed in the camera.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Page 335 in the D800 User Manual addresses this, if I understand your post correctly.

John

Thanks. This is definitely the solution to saving/restoring the settings.
Tim

Thanks a lot! Great job!
Stelian

Thank you for these "D800 Configuration Settings"

BTY...Just received my D800 yesterday!!! from L.L. Lozezu in Montréal.

André

Congratulations on your D800 - still waiting for mine despite promises that I would have it by now!

Hope the spreadsheet proves helpful for you.

Enjoy!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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I am not seeing the spreadsheets. There is a PDF file link in the first post. Is that the file to use?

Best regards,

Victor Chelf (vchelf)
Houston, TX

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Chris:

In two words: Outstanding! Thanks!!

Cheers,

CARL
D3Xwannabe

UPDATE TO D800 CONFIGURATION SETTINGS SPREADSHEETS

I have updated the D800 Configuration spreadsheets, correcting a couple of errors and adding some functionality (full details in the version notes on the "Instructions" page).

You can download the updated versions from the dropbox links at the top of this thread.

Enjoy, and please let me know if you find any errors or have any suggestions!

Chris

EDIT: The links updated by the MOD on 5/8/2012 (and now in the pinned post at the top of this thread) contain additional content corrections made on 5/9/2012. The dropbox links will download the updated files. If you downloaded from these links on 5/8/2012, you may want to download them again so as you have the latest version. The version notes contain details of the changes. The .PDF "sample" file has not been updated.

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Any chance someone who has spend time setting up the banks as suggested in the excel sheet would be willing to share the bin file with the rest of us??

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Henrik - Mike Hagen has a bin file for the D800 with his settings available for download from his website Out There Images.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Hi Chris

Thanks, that's also where I got my D700 bin from

I just thought, there ought to be a bin file in this forum as well. Maybe someone here knows Mike well enough to ask him if it would be okay to either link to or copy his file here.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Chris and Eric,

This is my first post with Nikonians.org. I've just learned about the website and decided to check it out.

I love my D7000 and I love more my D800. Both with advantages and disadvantages against each other and against my Sony A55.

I usually keep my settings in a spreadsheet and keep uploading it to my cell phone, so I can open it in Quick Office Pro and adjust as needed, as well as try new settings.

Looking at all the different topics here and the filtering of garbage out of this website by the Admins, I will probably join as a paid member soon.

At the meantime, I wanted to thank you both for putting this spreadsheet together. I'm SLOWLY venturing into shooting portraits and humans (no weddings though) as requests are keep coming, and your specific settings are just the lucky set I was looking for!

So, thanks again.

Thank you so much- your spreadsheets have been invaluable to me. I did change a few small things like cleaning the sensor only on shutdown just to save the fraction of time delay when it was set on start up & down. In addition, I turned off Active D lightening in all banks as I can edit in pp.
I would be interested to know- how do I save these to CF card and then how to retrieve from the CF card to install in camera if needed?

Thanks again!

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.



www.TinkersRealm.com

Devek - Welcome to Nikonians! Glad you are finding the spreadsheet helpful.

Tinkers Realm - Actually you can't save/upload the Spreadsheet settings to the card (yet = but that's a big challenge), but of course you can save/load your camera settings to and from the card as is described on Page 335 of the manual, which also includes what settings can be saved.

FYI, I also turn Active D lighting off! The settings on the spreadsheet were mostly the Nikon deafaults to be changes as you prefer.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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These are excellent. Thank you so much for posting these.

OK, I will read pg. 335-I used to know how to do this but have not done it often enough to remember-Thxs!

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.



www.TinkersRealm.com

Just one thought on Active D-Lighting. ADL may adjust exposure and applies a complex curve to enhance shadows while retaining bright areas. If you are using a Nikon program or other program that reads the camera settings, the software uses the ADL setting. If not, it is ignored except the exposure adjustment if any will be maintained.

If ADL is active on any setting, it can be adjusted in post processing to any other ADL setting or it can be turned off. Of course, the exposure adjustment cannot be changed in post processing. If ADL is Off in the original shot, you cannot activate ADL in post.

Using ADL Low, there is no exposure adjustment. ADL Normal reduces exposure by 0.3 stops, ADL High by 0.7 stops, and ADL Extra High by 1.0 stops. Each applies an increasingly aggressive curve to create the proper image.

In my testing, the ADL curve could not be easily replicated with simple adjustments in post processing. I found the curve applied in the camera did a pretty good job and for high contrast images was better than what I could do without significant effort in post processing.

I use ADL Low as my default setting since it does not adjust exposure and simply applies a curve to recover shadows and control highlights. This allows me to use the alternate ADL settings in post processing. It also helps to avoid blinkies or blown highlights which might otherwise be controlled with exposure compensation.

If you have an Adobe centric workflow, there is no disadvantage to ADL Low. The exposure would be unchanged and the curve would be ignored. But you would retain the data in the RAW file and could use it later if software permits.

If you have a Nikon based workflow, or use Photo Mechanic or other programs that use the Nikon settings, ADL Low makes a pretty good adjustment and gives you some additional options in post processing.

Eric Bowles
Nikonians Team
My Gallery
Workshops

Nikonians membership — my most important photographic investment, after the camera

Eric, thank you for that - very useful info ineed and a helpful explanation of how ADL works in practice. I am going to experiment!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Since I don't make use the DOF button, I replaced its function by the ADL adjustment (together with the main command dial), which is pretty handy in backlight situations. I always put it back to Off after shooting, but from now on I will use Low as the standard setting. I hope Aperture 4 will offer ADL post processing. Thank you for the advice Eric. Marc

Chris,

Thank you very much for sharing your spreadsheet. It is great to have for somebody like me who is anal retentive... er... uh... I mean well organized!

Rocky

Happy you find it useful, Rocky. Enjoy!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Thank you. Got my 800 today. This is a wonderful tool for helping me get to know it.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Congratulations! Enjoy your D800. I noticed the other day there was a small ommission in Custom Settings menu f/6, which should have included "AE lock only" in one of the menu choices. I will update the tool shortly.


Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Chris:
Your spreadsheet is a real blessing. I got my D800 a week or so ago, and I started a spreadsheet that is a 3rd grade version of your post-graduate masterpiece. I might have ended up with an 8th grade version in a couple months' of work, but you have saved me an immense amount of time and effort. If you're ever near Indianapolis (Greenfield specifically), give me a holler and I'll buy you a beer. Great job...and thanks for sharing!
Dave Medved

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Great, Dave - glad it saved you some time. I'll be sure to take you up on that beer if I'm in your neighborhood!

Cheers,

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Priceless, that's all i can say!
New to the forum and just received my D800 a week ago.
cheers and thanks!

Got my 'E' a couple of days ago...I'm stoked.
Thanks for the spread sheet. Very useful info.
Just coming over from C...
Now ...how do I turn this thing on:0

Thanks....Ken

KEN

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Page 6,471 in the manual under "Power" !

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Thanks Chris!

How can I print these out and get them all on the standard sheets correctly?

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

The ShootingMenu and CustomSettings tabs need to be printed in landscape mode. Other than that, what problems are you having?

---------+---------+---------+---------+
Joseph K
Seattle, WA, USA

D700, D200, D70S, 24-70mm f/2.8, VR 70-200mm f/2.8 II, 50mm f/1.4 D,
17-55mm f/2.8 DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 DX

Yes, as Joseph says, just size them appropriately for the printer and paper size you are using.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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Thank you for these. After checking various websites for over a month I got lucky and ordered a D800E. Tracking says it will be here Monday. I cannot wait to get this to compare with my 3yr old D90. I am hoping I am knocked off my chair when i compare IQ and higher ISO.

Now to convince my wife that i DO need the Sigma 120-300 ;- >

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Congratulations! You will be! She'll love for for it

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

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I used to configured my old D200 and D300 with these settings (long time ago). I'm more than happy to see they're still around with the D800 settings.

This is a GREAT spreadsheet....thank you for your time !!

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I have a slightly different take on the Settings banks, aimed at getting more versatility programmed in without needing to make as many changes while shooting.

On my D200 and later D300 I had them set up as many have done ; both the shooting menu and custom settings menu had the same categories (in my case Normal, Landscape, action/wildlife, tripod/macro). This effectively gives 4 cameras in one. when shooting e.g. action/wildlife I would adjust both the settings banks to the relevant option. With this approach I still found that I often had to make further on-the-spot changes to suit the scene.

I always had the view that if the tweo sets of banks could be configured as a 4x4 matrix of settings - you would effectively get 16 different cameras and much more versatility. This requires the two banks to have appropriately independent sets of features (more on this later) to get greatest versatility.

Now with the D800 I am having an extended think about this (bear with me while the gears grind ). Firstly though, have to state a baseline assumption that makes it all work : I post process using Capture NX2. This makes nearly all the features of NEF files available for change after the fact in post processing. Other post processing software does not make as much use of the info available in the NEF format (e.g. if you convert to .dng on importing to LR).

Critically, not all settings can be changed after the fact in software and these are the ones that must be made in-camera. In particular, choices relating to ISO and noise reduction, shutter speed, depth of field, supplementary lighting etc. must be made before the exposure occurs and cannot be fixed later. Some of these choices also cannot be adjusted without diving laboriously into the menus (e.g Noise reduction settings) This hints at where I am going.

The shooting settings menu could/should have been called the Image Development Menu. This would make it consistent with the "develop" tools in Capture NX2 and LR 4.x because all contain categories of settings that relate to the processing of image data (i.e. things that happen to the data during and after light hits the sensor). Stands to reason then that the setting banks in the shooting menu can be set up to respond not to the genre of photograph being taken, but to the nature of the light in which the photo is being taken. Consequently I have set up and am experimenting with following settings banks:
A - Good light (maximum responsiveness with high ISO NR, Long exposure NR turned off, Auto ISO on but restricted to very low noise range. ADL activated to compensate for stronger shadows in bright light
B - Low light Long Exp : This would occur on a tripod. Long exp. NR active, Fixed low ISO etc.
C - Low Light High SS : intended for action and wildlife in poor light so makes use of Auto ISO and high ISO NR to keep the SS high.
D - HDR : just for fun because its a novelty to me and requires jpeg output. when the novelty wears off I will find some other use for it but the plan for now is to keep this one for HDR, Multiple exposures and other fun stuff. Could be useful to set this one up to work with flash if you do a lot of supplementary lighting shots.

In these banks I have left settings such as WB, Picture Controls and others that can be altered in PP all at defualt values. At a later time I might choose WB presets for the poor light options because these will usually apply in overcast or shaded situations.

The one thing that is irritating is that for this approach to work even better, the Picture Controls should be in the custom settings menu and I also think the flash controls should be in the Shooting setting menu for better independence of the sets of options.

In the Custom Settings Menu I am setting up the banks in the conventional way to make choices of AF settings, exposure control, flash settings etc. to suit my favourite Walkaround/Candid, Landscape, Wildlife and Macro genres.

Any one of these genres can now be selected in combination with a lighting type from the Shooting Menu banks and voila! Not quite 16 cameras in one but I expect to do a lot less fiddling around in the menus when the light changes.

This approach might not suit all and I have not taken many pics with it yet. I would be interested to hear comments on the concept and some suggestions.

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Its nice & useful. Thanks Chris.

Glad you find it useful - enjoy your Nikons.

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

thanks Chris, I'm still learning all about my 800 .. all info greatly appreciated

Thank you - enjoy this remarkable camera!

Chris

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
- Ansel Adams

Visit my Nikonians gallery.