Nikon D800 — Soon
With a bit of luck, perhaps I’ll see the new 36-megapixel Nikon D800 next Friday March 23rd, since B&H lists it as coming on March 22nd (and I asked for overnight). Maybe, maybe not, but it does seem that it will be the first of a big batch of new cameras to hit my door in the next month or so. I have ordered (paid money) for a Nikon D800E, but that is farther off.
Lens selection is of course very important when evaluating peak image quality from a new camera. See my recent thoughts in this area.
- Lens Performance: What Matters
- Which Wide-Angle Lens is Best?
- Blur Can Be Beautiful
- Lenses as an Investment; Electronic Lenses vs Manual Control.
- My Reference Lenses For Testing Sharpness.
- Shooting a New Lens — Focus.
- What Does Depth of Field Mean on a 36 Megapixel Camera?
- Nikon D800 / D800E — Which Nikon Lenses?
- Reader Comments on Lens Reviews.
Since I can shoot Zeiss lenses on Canon and Nikon, I will likely do most of my analysis using the best Zeiss lenses.
What’s coming
Mid March to early April a wave of new gear is arriving, which will make it one of the busiest periods I’ve ever had in the past 7 years of this site.
Since there are so many camera bodies involved, a major thrust of my reporting will be on the relative quality of the image sensor, as well as relative ergonomics and which cameras might naturally complement each other in a complete system. For example, a serious shooter might want a pair of cameras to cover a variety of shooting conditions:
- Nikon D800 or D800E + Nikon D4.
- Canon 1DX + Canon 5D Mark III.
- Nikon D800/D800E or Canon 5D Mark III + Fuji X-Pro1
- Leica M9 + Fuji X-Pro1
- etc.
Below is what B&H reports for expected availability on red-hot new products, keeping in mind that this likely means product arrival followed by immediate sell-out of all stock, so be sure to pre-order. These dates are probably the earliest I could possibly receive this gear.
A big THANK-YOU to B&H Photo for making this gear available for evaluation.
Thank you for ordering all your gear at B&H Photo by clicking through my links: Canon links, Nikon links or Fuji links (and others).
- Nikon D800: March 22, 2012
- Nikon D800E: April 16, 2012. I have ordered and paid for one of these for myself.
- Nikon D4: “Pre order. Released in limited qty”.
- Nikon 85/1.8G: “New Item, Available for pre-order”.
- An excitingly superlative new lens (March). Please do not inquire.
- Fuji X-Pro1: March 28, 2012
- Canon EOS 5D Mark III. “Pre order. Released in limited qty”.
- Canon 1D X: “not available yet” (my guess is late April / early May 2012).
- Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II: April 17, 2012
