Nikon D850 previews, commentary - first reviews

[Michael Erlewine]

It’s been since about June of 2016 when I ordered the new Hasselblad X1D and waited. Then I ordered the Fuji GFX... and waited. I sent both of those back for various reasons along with a lot of lenses, etc.

Then I ordered the Nikon D850 and waited just a little.

I received my copy today and have only had a couple of hours of time in on it. There may be some deep-dark flaw, but I have not seen it yet. Some of our techsperts will have to check that out. My initial impressions, so far, are:

(1) The ISO 64 seems to be there.

(2) The extra Mpx are definitely worth it. Very much a difference that counts.

(3) The new LiveView screen is better than the D810 by a lot, but also perhaps a little more difficult to focus, not to see, but to adjust focus.

(4) The sharpness of older lenses like the photo here taken with the Voigtlander 125mm APO-Lanthar push this lens to a higher state of us. The camera makes sharpness... sharper, IMO.

(5) The color on the LiveView screen looks different than the D810, but the end result (color-wise) is excellent. No complaints.

I don’t use auto-focus and I still have not got the camera set up properly, but I’m working on it. So my initial impression is that this camera is as good or even better than I had hoped and at a HUGE savings in cost, not to mention that I have so many great lenses in the Nikon F-mount. If I have a single doubt, and I am not done checking this out, the highlights may clip... slightly more easily than the D810, but I will wait for gear guys to test this.

So far, so good.

Photo by the D850 and Voigtlander 125mm APO-Lanthar lens.

[Fons Baerken]

Wow!

[armando_m]

Michael, I was looking forward to your first image taken with the D850, beautiful !

[Jakov Minić]

Michael, you have posted many wonderful images, but this one trumps them all!

[Ann]

A superb photograph, Michael.

[Jacques Pochoy]

Re-Wow... :-)

[David H. Hartman]

Software/WiFi hiccup

[David H. Hartman]

Love the colors! As usual every other aspect is excellent.

Thank you,

Dave Hartman

[Jack Dahlgren]

Michael,

Looks spectacular. Hope to see more from you with the camera.

[Airy]

Michael, Nikon owes your something here. Not only is this a superb picture, but also a big piece of ad (or GAS-triggering artefact).
Since I'm broke, I'm immune, fortunately so to say.

[Akira]

Michael, my monitor cannot discern the image quality of D850, 810, X1D or GFX50S.    Nevertheless I'm looking forward to your share of the impression of your new toy!

[schwett]

gorgeous shot michael. glad that you're happy so far.

i think you may be right that the highlights can't be recovered quite as deeply. hard to say without technical exploration, which i'm both unsuited to and uninterested in doing.

the silent shutter combined with "touch to focus and shoot" on the live view screen is pretty useful, actually. great for candid shots of kids, seated people, etc, like all the mirrorless folks have been doing for so long!

[Fons Baerken]

gorgeous shot michael. glad that you're happy so far.

i think you may be right that the highlights can't be recovered quite as deeply. hard to say without technical exploration, which i'm both unsuited to and uninterested in doing.

the silent shutter combined with "touch to focus and shoot" on the live view screen is pretty useful, actually. great for candid shots of kids, seated people, etc, like all the mirrorless folks have been doing for so long!

Reminds me of the D500, highlights are similarly less recoverable.

[Frank Fremerey]

After two weeks I can say that the ISO64 IQ is superb under controlled lighting, but: I shot a brass band in bright sunlight and I must say that neither the highlights nor the shadows are as recoverable as they are using the D600/610/750 sensor.

My way of using the camera is to expose the way I would expose a good low ISO slide film if I want to use the picture as it is.

 In case I need all the highlights and shadows in a scene with movement I would underexpose for the highlights, use the RAW converter to exploit ISO invariance to make TIFFs for different parts of the picture, delete the EXIF and feed the result to a HDR program. I will do that right now, have lots of proof. And show results of course.

[Frank Fremerey]

It’s been since about June of 2016 when I ordered the new Hasselblad X1D and waited. Then I ordered the Fuji GFX... and waited. I sent both of those back for various reasons along with a lot of lenses, etc.

Then I ordered the Nikon D850 and waited just a little.

I don’t use auto-focus and I still have not got the camera set up properly, but I’m working on it. So my initial impression is that this camera is as good or even better than I had hoped and at a HUGE savings in cost, not to mention that I have so many great lenses in
So far, so good.

Photo by the D850 and Voigtlander 125mm APO-Lanthar lens.

You are a genius and I adore your work. Thank you.