Nikon sensor design lab

[Frode]

Interesting:

https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2018/07/17/pixels-for-geeks-a-peek-inside-nikons-super-secret-sensor-design-lab

[MFloyd]

Very interesting article. Thank you 😊

[Akira]

Indeed it is interesting.  Thank you for sharing!

[Seapy]

Still only half way through but am fascinated by the depth of development Nikon are involved in.

Perhaps they see this as their way to get, and stay ahead in the image quality race.  It seems to have paid off with the D850.  If they are devoting similar nano attention to detail with the mirrorless camera, which must be very important to get right then perhaps it will be very special?

[armando_m]

Incredibly interesting article, thanks for sharing the link

[chambeshi]

Fascinating, Thank You 

The integration by Nikon of their DSLR sensors to interface with not only propriety EXPEED processors but optics too!
These engineers rank image quality is a paramount goal, and we have the D5 and D850 to testify to the industry-leading success of Nikon in this endeavour.

[Erik Lund]

Thank you for sharing! Great

[JohnBrew]

Thank you for posting this. As a "dummy" I think I understood most of it, a tribute to your writing skills and understanding of the subject, but I am mystified by one thing. The "true" 64 ISO of the D850. So what are we to make of the claims of the ISO 64 of the D810?

[Jack Dahlgren]

Thank you for posting this. As a "dummy" I think I understood most of it, a tribute to your writing skills and understanding of the subject, but I am mystified by one thing. The "true" 64 ISO of the D850. So what are we to make of the claims of the ISO 64 of the D810?

“Fake ISO”. Think of it as similar to digital zoom, achieved through electronic means rather than the basic physical properties of the light. I rarely care about low ISOs as I’m usually dependent on natural light and often there is not as much of that as would require such a low ISO. If you need to do a lot of flash work balancing with daylight, low ISO may be useful. Some people like to do long exposure work in daylight, but it is less than a stop worth of speed, so 64 vs 100 is inconsequential compared to the 5 and 10 stop neutral density filters those people seem to use.

This is mostly bragging rights in my opinion. I’d rather have a extra usable stop on the dark end.

[Akira]

Thank you for posting this. As a "dummy" I think I understood most of it, a tribute to your writing skills and understanding of the subject, but I am mystified by one thing. The "true" 64 ISO of the D850. So what are we to make of the claims of the ISO 64 of the D810?

I guess that the writer simply misunderstands the fact.

[golunvolo]

Very interesting article. Thanks!

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Both the D810's and D850's true base ISO is 64, there is nothing fake about it. The tonal range (number of grayscales that can be distinguished) grows as you lower the ISO goes down to 64.

The tonal quality is beautiful at 64 and this setting has many uses. Outdoor flash work is one, landscape or architectural photography (with wide scene contrast), and event / portrait photography in bright daylight. It may be argued that the difference is small but the same argument could be made between 100 and 160, and so on. The D810 and D850 can collect more photons to record a single image and it shows in the quality of the images. (Of course I'm not going to say that everyone can see it; there are lots of people who can't see or don't care about such things, or simply have other things that take precedence). I take what improvements in image quality I can get and am happy about them. To me ISO 64 is both a convenience feature (permitting wider apertures in bright light, slower shutter speeds for blurring moving water) as well as giving an image quality benefit. And it is one of the reasons I own the D850 since its low ISO solves the D5's comparative weakness when photographing in bright contrasty daylight (combined with selective adjustment in post, if needed) and complements it.

DXOMark's measured base ISO for the D850 is actually 44, D810's 47 and D800E's 73.

[Peter Connan]

This is mostly bragging rights in my opinion. I’d rather have a extra usable stop on the dark end.

While I agree that 2/3rd of a stop is not a massive improvement, this will still be very useful in aviation photography. When trying to get a full prop disc on propellor-driven aircraft, 100ISO and f16 (the largest aperture on most of the big primes) is just not slow enough in the kind of daylight we get hereabouts.

And an Nd filter is not ideal as that slows down the AF...

[chambeshi]

This historical overview by Thom Hogan sets rational context on this sponsored article from inside Nikon:

https://dslrbodies.com/newsviews/nikon-2017-news/july-2017-nikon-news/confirmation-bias-and-image.html

[Macro_Cosmos]

Fascinating but Nikon like everyone else won't let the media see what they truly have for testing and development. We're seeing a mere surface.