Nikon D810 Review

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After more than two years since the successful launch of the Nikon D800 and D800E cameras, which shook up the photography industry with the high resolution 36.3 MP full-frame sensor, Nikon finally introduced an update to the cameras and combined the two into a single camera body. Although the new Nikon D810 has the same 36.3 MP resolution as its predecessors, it features a new sensor with an expanded native ISO range and comes with significant improvements to camera features, performance and ergonomics. In this review, we will take a closer look at these improvements and compare the performance of the D810 to other Nikon cameras.

 

So far our team at Photography Life has been shooting with the Nikon D810 for over a month (since the day it became officially available) and we have tested three samples of the camera to evaluate its performance for different types of photography including portraiture, wedding, landscape, astrophotography and wildlife. Hence, the review is a collective effort and will be presented from different perspectives of our contributors.

Before I delve into the review, let’s first go over the camera’s technical specifications and compare them side by side with the predecessors, the Nikon D800 and the D800E.

1) Nikon D810 Specifications

Main Features and Specifications:

Sensor: 36.3 MP FX, 4.8µ pixel size

Sensor Size: 35.9 x 24mm

Resolution: 7360 x 4912

DX Mode: 15.3 MP

DX Mode Resolution: 4800 x 3200

Native ISO Sensitivity: 64-12,800

Boost Low ISO Sensitivity: 32

Boost High ISO Sensitivity: 25,600-51,200

sRAW File Support: 12-bit uncompressed

Processor: EXPEED 4

Metering System: 3D Color Matrix Meter III with highlight weighted metering

Dust Reduction: Yes

Weather Sealing/Protection: Yes

Body Build: Full Magnesium Alloy

White Balance: New White Balance System with up to 6 presets

Shutter: Up to 1/8000 and 30 sec exposure

Shutter Durability: 200,000 cycles, self-diagnostic shutter

Camera Lag: 0.012 seconds

Storage: 1x CF slot and 1x SD slot

Viewfinder Coverage: 100%

Speed: 5 FPS, 6 FPS in DX / 1.2X mode, 7 FPS in DX Crop Mode with optional MB-D12 battery pack

Exposure Meter: 91,000 pixel RGB sensor

Built-in Flash: Yes, with Commander Mode, full CLS compatibility

Autofocus System: Advanced Multi-CAM 3500FX with Group Area AF

AF Detection: Up to f/8 with 9 focus points (5 in the center, 2 on the left and right)

LCD Screen: 3.2 inch diagonal with 1,229K dots

Movie Modes: Full 1080p HD @ 60 fps max

Movie Exposure Control: Full

Movie Output: MOV, Compressed and Uncompressed

In-Camera HDR Capability: Yes

GPS: Not built-in, requires GP-1 GPS unit

Battery Type: EN-EL15

Battery Life: 1200 shots

USB Standard: 3.0

Weight: 880g

Dimensions: 146 x 123 x 82 mm (5.75 x 4.84 x 3.23″)

Price: $3,299.95 MSRP

A quick glance at the above specifications reveals that the D810 is similar to the D800E. And one would not be wrong in making that assumption, since there is nothing truly revolutionary about the D810 – many of the specifications are either the same or very similar. However, if you take a deeper look at the D810, you will see a different picture.

Please note that the above table only shows differences in specifications between the two cameras. For a more complete list of all camera specifications, please see my Nikon D810 vs D800 / D800E comparison article.

The first thing you will notice in the above table, is that the Nikon D810 completely omits the Optical Low Pass Filter (OLPF), while the D800E has a slightly different design, with an OLPF that cancels itself out. Contrary to what some people think, although there is no low pass filter on the D810, it does not mean that there is no filter stack at all – the D810 still has a filter to cut off UV and IR. Does the omission of the OLPF actually increase sharpness in the Nikon D810? I ran a number of tests on both D810 and D800E using Imatest and came to a conclusion that there is practically no sharpness difference between the two cameras in the center of the frame. In the corners, however, the D810 resulted in sharper mid-frame and corners with some lenses, particularly the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4G and 85mm f/1.8G lenses. My detailed findings are shared in my “Is Nikon D810 Sharper than D800E?” article, where you can see comparisons between the two, with some additional commentary on flange distance variances.

There is also very little difference in noise performance between the two cameras, as shown in the camera comparisons page of this review. And as shown in my Nikon D810 vs D800E dynamic range comparison, there is practically no difference in dynamic range either (at same ISO levels). Thus, we can conclude that the D810 does not bring significant changes to image quality.

At the same time, we must understand that further improvements to image quality probably require new sensor technologies and we are almost hitting the innovation wall during the past few years when it comes to noise and dynamic range performance. We have seen this with the D3S and the D4 and subsequently with the D4 and D4S, where noise performance did not seem to improve as dramatically as it had before. It is getting tougher for Nikon and other manufacturers to set new image quality records with each camera announcement and hence, the Nikon D810 release is not focused around improvements in that area.

The Nikon D810 is all about features and that’s where it truly shines. Nikon might not have delivered much better image quality, but it certainly did deliver a very useful feature – decreased base ISO of 64, which is 2/3 of a stop lower than ISO 100. Why is this useful? Because 64 is a native ISO, which means that you are getting a real hardware change and not a software “boost”. This makes ISO 64 as good as ISO 100 (actually even better, since there is a bit more dynamic range) and better yet, you can now go all the way down to ISO 32 when needed. As far as I know, the D810 is the first modern DSLR that allows going below ISO 50 – the last DSLR camera that could do that was the Kodak SLR/n, which could go all the way down to ISO 6.

Arguably the best improvement in the D810 is its 30% faster EXPEED 4 processor. As I reveal in the Autofocus Performance page of this review, the faster processor results in much faster autofocus speed for acquiring initial focus and tracking moving subjects. The difference is quite drastic and something our team was able to feel while photographing wildlife. In addition, the new processor allows for faster data throughput, which translates to a number of improvements such as: faster frame rate for stills and video.

The addition of sRAW format is also relatively new – the D810 is the second Nikon camera after the D4S to get this format. Although we have previously covered the problems of sRAW format in detail in various articles, you can see our summary in the Image Sensor, RAW and sRAW Options page of this review.

 

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