I'm confused. The D800 is being touted as a great camera for landscapes, but it's being reported, because of severe diffraction, you should not shoot at an aperture greater than f8.0. How is someone suppose to get great depth of field in landscapes if you can't go above f8.0? Does shooting at f16 or f22 reduce the sharpness and detail so much that the increase in depth of field is useless, because the overall image will be soft? By the way, I am referring to the use of a wide angle lens.

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I think you are confused about the severity of the tradeoffs between f/8 and f/16.

Diffraction exists on today's cameras at f/16 and f/22. But if you are happy with those images, it's not enough to be an issue. Others would avoid those apertures due to diffraction.

On an FX body at 16mm, with a subject 2 feet from the lens, a DOF calculator shows a hyperfocal distance of 3.55 feet with an "in focus" range from 1.28-4.51 feet. At f/11 your hyperfocal distance is 2.5 feet with a range from 1.12-9.39 feet. At f/16 the hyperfocal is 1.8 feet with a range from 0.95 to infinity. So we are talking very small differences due to a single stop.

With the D800 you lose about one stop to maintain equivalent diffraction to the D700/D3.

Now with the D800 you also pick up a sharper in focus area with more detail. And if you ignore diffraction, you will probably have something very close to a D700/D3 - it's just that you won't realize that extra sharpness.

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I would LOVE to see some proper landscape images at different stops to illustrate the point you are making.

I think that the extreme size of the images the D800 is manufacturing reveals these negative properties to a greater extent than an image create on a lower density camera. It not an issue with the camera ... but the flaws will be more evident ? does this make sense ?

Almost like a with great power (image resolution) comes great responsibility (great camera technique) thing ... hahaha.
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - A. Einstein

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Michael Donovan is "steel on target."

Greater resolution will obviously make more evident both flawed lenses and technique. The same is true of image size -- larger prints enlarge defects as well as the picture. But that does not negate the value of higher resolution. This is like arguing that all other factors being equal, Panatomic-x would not be more useful for large prints than Tri-X in the bygone era of black and white film. (Speaking of high reolution, does anyone here remember H&W control developer, which enabled Kodak Tech Pan and High Contrast Copy films to render a fairly full tonal range at incredible resolution?)

And yes, diffraction (scattering of light by the diaphragm blades) reduces sharpness, but if you need DOF, you must surrender diffraction sharpness to gain DOF.

Photography unfortunately is governed by the laws of physics -- and is not subject to what we want! It is kind of like computers, which also do what you tell them to do and not so much what you want them to do. (I must be telling this one to make typos -- it doesn't "want" to make me look illiterate!)

But to answer the question -- yes, I suspect the D800 is a great tool for landscapes. Look at Digital Darrel's post in this forum.

Alan
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www.proimagingmidamerica.com

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>How is someone suppose to get great depth of field in
>landscapes if you can't go above f8.0? Does shooting at f16 or
>f22 reduce the sharpness and detail so much that the increase
>in depth of field is useless, because the overall image will
>be soft? By the way, I am referring to the use of a wide angle
>lens.

Just for a ballpark numerical estimate I looked at a DOF calculator with the D3X (it wasn't updated with the D800). With a 24mm lens, at f22 it says the near limit is 2.2' with hyperfocal at 2.86.

with F8 it is 4.4' and hyperfocal at 8'.

That could be a significant difference if you wanted to get a very near object, but I really wonder how often you use that 2.2' in between in a landscape shot?

Clearly the numbers may change slightly with more pixels available.

But one more comment:

>Doees shooting at f16 or f22 reduce the sharpness and
>detail so much that the increase in depth of field is
>useless, because the overall image will be soft?

Bear in mind that diffraction is a lens feature, not a camera feature. The D800 just let's you see it more if you peep way down in the pixels. Your images will be LESS soft (or to be more precise you can resolve more detail) with a given lens and scene than with a lower resolution camera, you will just be able to get more improvement at F8 than F22.

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I appreciate the feed back and information. I never paid attention to diffraction with my D100, D2x, or D700. After purchasing the D800, with very high hopes and expectations, I find myself being much more analytical in my results with the camera. When I pixel peep (A phrase I was not familiar with until getting the D800)I am less impressed than I was expecting. Sometimes I shoot at f16-22 for depth of field, but more often than not, I will shoot at those apertures, to maintain long shutter speeds for as long as the light will allow me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm taking from your comments, is if I have been satisfied with the results of my previous cameras at f16-f22, then I should not be overly concerned with my D800. I should be just as happy or more so with the results of my new D800. By the way the wide angle lens I have been using is the Nikon 16-35 f4.0.

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>Correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm taking from your comments,
>is if I have been satisfied with the results of my previous
>cameras at f16-f22, then I should not be overly concerned with
>my D800. I should be just as happy or more so with the results
>of my new D800. By the way the wide angle lens I have been
>using is the Nikon 16-35 f4.0.

I am not an expert but that is my take on both the physics and some early testing.

One caveat: when you are in a post processing program now, and look at a 1:1, bear in mind it's a very different 1:1 image than before. I think that's what is throwing a lot of people. Everywhere you see "this is a 100% crop", what they are saying is "this is X pixels". With twice the pixels for a given part of an image in each direction (+/-) this means in effect you are seeing a 2x magnification relative to a 1:1 image with your prior camera.

What's more meaningful is to take the same percentage of the frame. So on a D700 if you look at a quarter frame as a crop, and do the same on the D800, I think you will find at all F stops the D800 has the same or more detail.

Now Sharpness is something I have not experimented with, or more specifically the edge contrast added when you sharpen in post processing. Because you have more pixels, your edge is different, and I do not know whether for a specific type and amount of sharpening you will get the same result. One habit I will need to consider is that to sharpen I usually go to 200% and make it "a bit crunchy". Now that 200% is different. Experimentation needed.


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Indeed ... please post the results of your sharpening tests asap ! =)

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According to DxO the D800 has the highest dynamic range of any sensor they have ever tested (14.4 EV). This makes it, at least in one sense, the best landscape camera they have ever tested, since landscape photography is frequently the discipline most challenged by dynamic range. Check out DxoMark to see the numbers and rankings.

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<One caveat: when you are in a post processing program now, and look at a 1:1, bear in mind it's a very different 1:1 image than before. I think that's what is throwing a lot of people. Everywhere you see "this is a 100% crop", what they are saying is "this is X pixels". With twice the pixels for a given part of an image in each direction (+/-) this means in effect you are seeing a 2x magnification relative to a 1:1 image with your prior camera.>

This is an important point. I did a quick test in View NX2 with two images of the same scene at the same focal length with two different cameras - a D200 IR and a D7000. The D7000 image at 100% was tighter than the D200 reflecting the smaller sensor of the D200.

Here are the referenced images to confirm that a 100% crop varies by sensor size. The Color images are from the 16 mp D7000 and the B&W images are from a 10 mp D200.

EXIF is attached to the files. The settings are slightly different as these images were created for another purpose. But the crop demonstrates the difference in zooming at 100%.

D7000 uncropped


D200 IR uncropped


D7000 100% crop


D200 IR 100% crop



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"Sharpness and detail" are limited by diffraction only if one uses good technique (tripod, mirror up, remote release) and first rate lenses. Otherwise, sharpness and micro contrast are limited by blur introduced by other factors rather than by diffraction.

I am convinced that with a D800, used hand held and with a "walk around" lens one would not see a degradation of IQ even at f/16.

Tristan

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