More Experiments on the Virgin Mary

I did get out for quite a while with the D800E today. Main task: carry it around town with one hand for a while, see how it feels. (At this point I'm evaluating this camera and lens for purchase, not "testing" it in any objective sense. When I'm photographing, I tend to walk with the camera hanging from my right hand—a holdover from a long-ago medium-format SLR that didn't accept a camera strap.) Verdict: comfortable enough. But I'd get a wrist strap.

As promised, here's the Virgin Mary statue picture (this is at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Waukesha, by the way) with more ambient daylight, taken about half an hour after sundown (ISO 1600, handheld). I don't see how including the telephone poles adds anything to the picture.

This color record shot shows you approximately how dark it seemed subjectively when I took the first picture—still a little light in the sky. (Click on any of these to see them somewhat larger.) But just for fun, check this out:

That's a screenshot of the telephone wires in the background to the right of Mary's head—the white rectangle from the JPEG above. If you click on this you should see it 200%, which is really larger than you need to pixel-peep if you're printing (100% is plenty). No noise reduction of course, and bear in mind those wires aren't even entirely in focus.

I don't know about you, but this is plenty of detail for me, after shooting 35mm Tri-X for twenty years.

And look at this. This is a frame straight out of the camera, at I think ISO 2500, a screenshot again:

And just look at all the shadow detail that's in the same frame when I crank the sliders:

Yowzuh. That'll set ya free.

This is about as good as I can do from tonight's shooting, and I don't like it better than the original shot from yesterday. Sometimes you have to see in order to tell, though. (And a disclaimer: there's some Photoshop compositing in this, to get rid of some stray light sources, as you can see in the two frame grabs above it. No £10,000 for me.)

I do not get good pictures wandering around town, but this must be the King of Stumps. Somehow I've got to find out what the story is behind this tree-that-was...this bad boy is twenty feet tall.

The amount of detail you get seems almost a little...intoxicating. Or whatever the photo-geeky equivalent of "intoxicating" is.

I might actually like this. There are all kinds of delicate things going on in the big version; might depend how much detail shows up in a print. I'd have to put it on the board for four or five days to sort out how I feel about it.

Again, seems like plenty of detail for me, at ISO 1600. (And again, do I really need a tripod here?) Although it could take a bit of noise reduction, depending on what showed up in a print—the files have a slightly gritty look from way in close (although I haven't even shot the camera below ISO 800 yet!). Bear in mind that noise relates to size; this detail is only ~600 px wide, so the whole file is twelve times as wide as you're seeing this. (I should do a comparison of the A900 vs. the D800E, shouldn't I? Don't hold your breath...that's not the sort of thing that interests me very much. And making sure such a comparison is rigorous, as Ctein will attest, is too much like work.)

Here (above) is the same detail converted in Nikon NX2, saved as a TIFF, then opened in Photoshop and converted to grayscale. Seems to have none of that grittiness—less noise—but not as much sharpness; as the ACR conversion could use a little noise reduction, this could use a little unsharp mask. Looks better to me, though.

Did I mention the weather cleared up? Anyway, here on Day Two, the Big Dragoon and I are getting on quite well.

Mike

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Comments

[Richard Alan Fox]

I keep the strap around my neck, to prevent a drop, but hold the camera in my left hand, switch to the right to shoot.
I am coming from 4/3 and m4/3 and smaller sensor cameras to the D800E so the upgrade is extreme.
I am curious as to how you compare the D800E images to your A900 ones.
What lens or lenses are you using?

[Phillip E]

Those net details illustrate moiré nicely. Can you please rent the non "E" 800 as well and carry that around in your other hand so we can compare the two? Thanks ;)

[Peter]

You know, I remember when you first got the A900, and you wrote about how the camera "saw" better than you did with your own eyes. Apparently the D800 is the same experience, but just taken to a new extreme.

[Mike Johnston]

Phillip,
I'm 90% sure that's not moiré, but I'll go take a closer look at the net tomorrow.

Mike

[D. Hufford.]

"Or whatever the photo-geeky equivalent of "intoxicating" is."

I see it ofte, so the rough equivalent must be: "Blew/blows me out of the water", or "blew/blows me away."

[Tony T]

That's not color moire, but obvious aliasing. That word seems to have been forgotten since the D800E's birth (haven't seen mention of it in any reviews), but that's what gives false and ugly details in cases like this.

[Robert Meier]

What lens(es) are you using?

[mitch cohen]

"comparison is the thief of joy" - teddy roosevelt

[Ctein]

Dear Philip,

Yeah, it's moire, but I'll give you 20-1 odds it's NOT got anything to do with the sensor array.

pax / Ctein

[Martin]

I don't use a neck strap on my DSLR either, but carry it around in one hand, using a DIY wrist strap:
http://martybugs.net/blog/blog.cgi/gear/hacks/DIY-Camera-Wrist-Strap.html

[Stan B.]

That shadow detail is totally and utterly somewhere between hilarious and insane.

As for detail- repeat...

[Mike Johnston]

"What lens(es) are you using?"

The only Nikon lens I have is the rented AF-S Nikkor 35mm ƒ/1.4G. That's all I'll be using on the camera this go-round.

Mike

[Godfrey]

It's a beautiful piece, the D800(E). A larger camera than I want carry around at present, but there's a reason that, of the SLR kit I'm selling off, I'm keeping my Nikkor lenses ... !

[cb]

...picture 7 does it for me.

[Mike Johnston]

"What's going on with the 'red' floodlight? Bad RAW conversion?"

No, it's just the saturated pixel warning in Photoshop. Too much exposure to recover detail.

Mike

[adamct]

"I don't see how including the telephone poles adds anything to the picture."

[...Deep breath...]

OK, bear with me. I could make a fair case that having the Virgin Mary emerge from the outline of the tree behind her extends her aura. She isn't floating in space, and instead the shadow of the tree amplifies and magnifies the general form of her body.

And the telephone poles (I'm sorry, but I have to say it) evoke the cross.

So I'd say the telephone poles and the tree CAN add something to the picture, but whether that something is something you WANT to add, is another question altogether.

[Ahhh...the dangers of reading into new camera test shots...]

Best regards,
Adam

[Richard Sintchak]

Ack. Pixel-peeking! Let me know when you're done....

:-)