[Pavel]

Just picked up my D800. The first one sold by Aden Camera. The shipment was delivered to the store today.

Played with it for 10 minutes. Here are some very early thoughts:
1) It does not feel heavier than D300 (big surprise).
2) The layout is not that different from D300, except that indicator showing over/underexposure is reversed - confused me until I paid attention to the signs.
3) Wonderful large and bright viewfinder.
4) Brighter LCD display - perfectly usable outside in a shadow on a bright sunny day.
5) Dedicated buttons for bracketing (wonderful), live-view (good), movie use (OK).
6) CF card from my D300 did not work (!!)
6) Thick manual (it is good for you, I suppose)
Now I have to learn how to use this beast, so this is it for now.

[shuttertalk]

Fantastic Pavel! I'm glad you finally found your D300 replacement!

Do post some pics when you get a chance - I would like to hear how you find the difference in output.

Which lens are you using with it?

[matthew]

It goes without saying that I'm a little jealous… pleased to see you have it, but also a little jealous.
I am looking forward to seeing what you can do with it, and hearing your thoughts on the camera.

Check function f12, "reverse indicators", to switch the direction for the exposure compensation. (Page 319 in the manual.)

[Pavel]

A problem. As I was rather gently putting the camera on a table, battery door fell off and clinked on the table. As I did not have the battery door opened since placing the battery in in the store and since the design is familiar from D300, I do not suspect my error. Closer inspection showed that the door is held in place by two very thin plastic pins and one of the pins broke off. Please advise on the next course of action

[NT73]

6) Thick manual (it is good for you, I suppose)

Handy if the grass is wet (to sit upon)

A problem. As I was rather gently putting the camera on a table, battery door fell off and clinked on the table. As I did not have the battery door opened since placing the battery in in the store and since the design is familiar from D300, I do not suspect my error. Closer inspection showed that the door is held in place by two very thin plastic pins and one of the pins broke off. Please advise on the next course of action

er er er superglue?
I remember saying if you don't NEED it don't get it.
Sorry Pavel, not a nice thing to happen, even under warranty.

[matthew]

I'm at a loss for words. Which I suppose is just a shallow echo of what you're thinking right now.

Off the top of my head, my first thought would be to take it back and see if the store could swap it for a new camera. But in this case, there's no swap units available and no eta on more cameras, so that's problematic at best.

I can ask around tomorrow and see what I can find out....

I would suggest calling Nikon Canada first thing in the morning. They might be reluctant to accept this as a warranty issue if the camera was older, but at this point they know exactly how long you've had it for, which gives you moral authority. See if they have the replacement part available, and if they do, if it's possible to have it fixed while-you-wait at their Mississauga service centre. Even if they don't/can't, get the fault on file as a warranty complaint even if you don't send the camera in right away.

[Kombisaurus]

Congrats Pavel... I'll be very interested to see the results you can get from this camera as well as read your thoughts. Having just put an order in for a 5DMk3 myself, I'm very keen to see how it stacks up against the D800. I'm too invested in glass to have jumped ship from Canon to Nikon over a single camera body, so I never seriously considered the D800... but if I was starting from a blank slate it could have been a very different story.

I'm sorry to hear about the battery door. There's nothing more frustrating than minor things that become major issues like that. I hope you can get it sorted quickly and painlessly.

[Pavel]

Nikon Canada is expecting to take delivery of spare parts HOPEFULLY (service reps term) in 3 week time. In the meantime the advice is to use electrical tape. Careful about jokes guys. I am not in a joking mood.

[Toad]

Great news about the D800. The battery door thing sucks though. Reminds me of the day that my wife bought a brand new car. A vandal threw a rock through the back window the first night she had it. No time to enjoy the untouched beauty of the new toy.

I think this may be a legitimate warranty issue. If this has happened to you, it will happen to many others as well. The D800 is aimed at a professional market with high usage needs, and the battery door should be designed to be more durable then that.

[matthew]

That sucks.

I just checked the D7000, hoping that it might have the same design. It is also held in place with two plastic pins, and is designed so that it can pull out and off of the camera quite easily when it's at about a 45 degree angle. I don't know why they would make it removable, since the battery grip doesn't insert into the camera body, but not everything makes sense.

Fingers crossed and hoping against the odds that this is all that's happened....

[Pavel]

thank you guys. Matthew, the pin actually broke off. It if very thin, fragile-looking piece of what looks like ordinary plastic

[shuttertalk]

Sorry to hear about the battery door - that's the last thing you want to happen to a new toy...

Good that you've been in contact with Nikon - did they say that they would fix this under warranty?

I suggest documenting the sequence of events in detail, as well as every interaction you have with Nikon and the camera shop. Dates, times, names, etc. as it is fresh in your mind now. Three weeks later things may be a bit hazy and it could turn into a he-said-she-said thing...

All the best!

[Pavel]

Sorry to hear about the battery door - that's the last thing you want to happen to a new toy...

Good that you've been in contact with Nikon - did they say that they would fix this under warranty?

I suggest documenting the sequence of events in detail, as well as every interaction you have with Nikon and the camera shop. Dates, times, names, etc. as it is fresh in your mind now. Three weeks later things may be a bit hazy and it could turn into a he-said-she-said thing...

All the best!

good point. Thanks Julian

[Pavel]

I posted a result of shooting at ISO 128 000 in a high contrast situation here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/. This is a nightmare situation for D300, which would have a lot of trouble with this at ISO 800. Basically I expose for highlights making sure that they are not blown and let the shadows fall where they may and than I bring out the shadows. With D300 in this situation, there would be a lot of noise and colors would be terrible. I am amazed how well D800 handled this. The colors are perfectly lifelike and the noise is controllable and tolerable. The Dynamic range is reduced of course compared to ISO 800. I shot series of photos starting with ISO 800 and at ISO 800 the highlights were not blown. As I kept the overall exposure the same, compensating for ISO increases by increasing comparably the shutter speed, I inevitably ended up blowing the highlights at high ISO settings.

The other features I am learning to appreciate are the many mechanical controls (let us call them buttons) I gave up using a lot of features on D300, because I hated hunting for them in the menus. Now for all those features there are 1 button or 2 button controls. This means I will use a host of features I did not use on D300.

The LCD monitor is brighter than on D300 and quite usable on a bright day (unlike D300), although my wife's Canon G11 has a brighter display. I may well be using lifeview some of the time. It even has a dedicated button and many features of life-view are controlled by other buttons. Love it.

The camera has numerous features that I like and plan to use. These are possible due to all these buttons and because the processor is so powerful. Let us mention multiple exposure feature as an example. You can take multiples of shots and combine them into a single RAW image. Nikon claims that the color is better in shadows when you combine the images on the sensor-processor level than when you combine the RAW images in software. I expect that the noise will also be averaged out. This feature can be easily assigned to the bracketing button and it can be apparently used without a tripod. The output of combining up to 10 exposures into one image can be output as a raw image, unlike HDR function, which is generated with only 2 exposures and the output is jpeg.

The defective battery door aside, I think you can see that I think that this is a great camera and worth the cost

[NT73]

You are gonna love it, along with the gaffer tape.







Oh come on lighten up! Nikon will fix it eventually. It might even be a stronger modification.

[matthew]

I'm not sure how to say this after the mixed experience that Pavel has had, but…



I don't rank as highly, so I was seventh on the list at the camera store. Given Pavel's issue with the battery door – I've heard a passing mention of this fault elsewhere as well – I decided that this would also be a good time to buy a battery grip to put on the bottom of the camera.

I haven't been able to form a lot of coherent thoughts since then, but essentially all of the good things people are saying are true. I'm looking forward to really trying it out this weekend.

[Toad]

Wow! Guess we are going to be seing a lot of D800 shots moving forward. Can't wait. Looks like a wonderful camera.

Might be a good time to pickup a used D700 body. I still have a lot of good Nikon glass - even if the D200 body is well past its prime.

[Pavel]

Matthew, I very much appreciate that you let me keep my spot in the queue and I hope you will get yours really soon. Knowing how much we both looked forward to this, it was very generous of you. I also appreciate your even-tempered response to my anxious inquiries when the camera did not show up when Nikon promised it will.

I assume that the passing mention about battery door was in Thom Hogan's blog. I do not know if anybody beside me sent him a note about this issue, but I certainly did. I am surprised how flimsy (ultra-thin plastic) they made the pins that hold the door. After all this is supposed to be a pro-grade camera and I would expect a more robust construction.

[matthew]

Pavel, everything's right in the world – I do have mine now. And yes, I did see that mention on bythom – but he mentioned a pin 'falling off', so I assumed it was someone else. Small world.

Robert, I know from experience that there are a lot of D700's on the market right now. They're still not quite cheap, but it's a buyer's market just the same.

[shuttertalk]

Wow, congrats Matthew - that's fantastic! Now we have to convince Rob to get one too and we can turn into D800talk or Nikontalk

So... A new review coming up for thewsreviews?

[Pavel]

Fantastic Matthew! I am glad. How come? I thought that next shipment is ages away? Did you get it at Aden?

[matthew]

Pavel, I did get it from Aden – it just goes to show that camera store information isn't always accurate.

Julian, I suspect that Nikon is in the process of taking over the world. There may be a couple of reviews' worth of material from this camera.

[matthew]

Jules, since you asked, here's a link to my D800 'first impressions' writeup: http://www.thewsreviews.com/2012/04/firs...-d800.html

[shuttertalk]

Fantastic writeup Matthew... you make some good points regarding the jump in resolution - you notice mistakes and sloppy technique more, and the deficiencies in your lenses become much more apparent.

Thanks for sharing...

[shuttertalk]

Hey Pavel, any update on your issue with the battery door?