We use the 'moment in time' approach in evaluating all the individual metrics, which combine to calculate the overall score.

Category is based on "market position, feature set and price point", again available at the URL I posted above..

Agreed. The oneupmanship and petty competitiveness on the site are worrisome and at times really out of control. It's like the fans of hostile sport teams! We are all supposed to be interested in the same thing, can't we improve our dialogue?? - if we can't shouldn't the moderators step in and set limits?

Not a Nikon Sony success; because Sony builds a sensor to Nikon specs. That would be like saying a Corvette Z06 is a GM Brembo success. Pretty well every tech company in the world has parts made, to their specs, by others. Would you call a PS3 a Sony AMD success?

Human eye has only 7 million cones. If you watch a picture from the distance where both your eyes can actually focus on it, it covers at best 30% of your FOV in landscape orientation, less in portrait. Hence 3-4 megapixels are more than enough, the rest is for pixel peepers looking not at the picture as a whole, but at the tiny parts of the picture under magnifying glass.

Just curious, are you still using a 3 megapixel camera?

Wow, peevee1; do you always look at the picture as a whole, all the time? I'm impressed. As for myself, I'm always enjoying the whole AND the details in a picture, especially if it is printed in A3 or larger.

"However, I think that most people would be happier and better served to own the 5D3."

You are assuming that most people buy a $3500 camera to shoot JPEG.

The difference between 50 g lighter and 50 g heavier is 100 g. :-)

In a 29-page review filled with minutia, all readers will find lots of stuff they don't care about. Some people do, however, care about weight. It's right that the reviewer report it accurately, and it's also easy: even a kitchen scale will tell you the Nikon is heavier rather than lighter than the Canon.

In fact, you'd notice the weight difference by picking up the two cameras!

The difference between 50 g lighter and 50 g heavier is 100 g. :-) ????????????????

what school taught that? you can't have it both ways.. it's either heavier or lighter by 50g, the difference will always stay the same.

I am gonna defend his math... cuz yeah common sense demands it. if it is 50 grams heavier and is reported to be 50 grams lighter, that is a 100 grams of difference.

i am not saying it important

just yeah... go math!

I take it back then and apologise.

50 grams might not affect me much but I'd say 100 over a long day would. I ditched my D700 for weight reasons. No D800 for me.. :(.. or a 5D III either by the sounds of it.

more to the point it is silly worry about doing that just because you camera can offer a benefit if you do. approach the shot they way it ought to be. I for one still intend to shoot handhelp portraits at f1.4 all the time. why? to get the shot! sometimes thats the way. frankly nothing is gonna do more for sharpness than stopping down to f 5.6 . does that mean we forget about low dof just cuz we have a d800. Lots of shots are better don hand help do we leave these shots to the 5DMK3 owners out there? of course not

The pixel pitch of the D800 is 4.6 microns. The pixel pitch of the previous APS-C king, the 7D (now unseated by the D3200, I guess) was 4.3 microns. Owning a 7D myself, I know how much it magnifies even the smallest vibrations and camera shake. If you are unconcerned about how the D800 will push your gear, then, to put it simply, you don't need a D800 (you can get nearly the same DR with a D700 or D7000). If you are concerned, then the D800 will definitely have something to offer, and if you put in the care, you'll have truly amazing, wall-spanning prints hanging in your home (or, potentially, your customers homes) soon enough. :)

@Jon Rista no no no no NO! >.< d700 doesnt shoot video donsnt have as good image quality in every other way doesnt have a 100% viewfinder dont have nearly as top notch an autofocus system. it doesnt offer a superb DX mode. its not as good. also any lens stopped down should perform. no lens wide open is likely to take advantage of it. so it doesnt matter nearly as much as you think.

you dont need to shoot every image on a tripod at 5.6 to warrant a d800. Everyone suggesting this making me lose my mind. Its enough that you can when you want too. dont let it stop you from handholding the camera in a portrait session cuz man thats they way most people shoot portraits. dont let it stop you from shooting at f22 to get infinite DOF in a landscape.

@Jon Rista

By your logic you should never buy a new, higher mp, camera unless you are planing to do everything possible to get the max resolution and IQ out of it that you can for every shot. Which is absurd on it's own but also fails to take into account the other, numerous advances most new cameras, and the D800 in particular, have over the previous model besides more MP.

The fact is that everything required the get the most IQ out of the D800 is the same for the D700/D3200/D7000/7D/5DIII/ect. In fact most photographers aren't getting the absolute max IQ and resolution possible out of their cameras no matter what camera you are talking about. It simply isn't possible to use MLU and the sharpest aperture and a really fast shutter speed and a tripod for most shots most photographers take. That doesn't mean we shouldn't even bother upgrading our gear. It is just a fact of life.

josh i am just glad somebody gets it :-)

I agree with Jon Rista. Most of the people buying this camera will never fully realize the power of the resolution (which is the number one reason this camera is still newsworthy after the 5D3 specs were announced.

However, I also understand the repsonses as being noteworthy. They might not get the results you or I will be getting, but all the rest of the story about the camera's exceptional capabilities is certainly a good group of reasons to own the camera. I suspect most will downsize to print, which is really weird to even think about. I expect that there will be lots of questions soon about what's the best computer for post-processing D800 images, etc.

@Picturenaut this is foolishness. you will get the quality your lens offers. you dont need to run buy new lenses everytime nikon or canon makes a new hi res camera or not shoot moving subjects or whatever. dont take the pontential resolution of you camera as a limitation. there isnt a lens manufactured that is going to have anything like the d800 's resolution at but a couple f/stops. does this mean we just lock in at 5.6 and never change it? cameras are made to be shot. the d800 can handle many shootin situations not just f5.6 on a tripod shooting still lives with the mirror locked up

Higher (spatial) resolution most certainly puts greater demands on your equipment. You don't buy a megapixel monster to print 4x6s...you buy one to print at gargantuan size. The D800 has a 4.6micron pixel, where as a camera like the 7D (well known for its spatial resolution) has a 4.3 micron pixel. Both cameras do indeed exacerbate camera shake of any variety, and greater care is necessary to eliminate it. If you are that unconcerned with camera shake on a D800, then you most certainly don't need a D800.

Just wanted to let people know about this small bug, as you would hate to take a 36mp images and get a 5mp! Love the camera.

I use NX2 to transfer and have no problems..........having said that I would never transfer direct from the camera, use a USB3 reader its way faster.

lowering the resolution of a raw file isnt strictly possible. I dont believe it

Technology marches on. I am still holding out for an ocular implant.

The majority of professional architectural photographers have been using 5Dii's since they came out. Very few still use view cameras and film. And very few can afford digital backs. Not irrelevant - I'm serious.

The D800 has improved high ISO performance over the D700. From DxOMark:

D800

2835 ISO score
14.4 EVs DR score
25.3 bits Color Depth score

D700

2303 ISO score
12.2 EVs DR score
23.5 bits Color Depth score

Re: MF, no all photographers have $10,000-20,000 for a medium format camera body. So your argument is like saying if you want a fast car, you should just buy a Ferrari. Good theory, not always possible. Besides, a FF DSLR is much more versatile than a MF camera for many types of photography, i.e. more lenses, particularly super telephotos.

almost no professional photographer own digital medium format system. the whole industry pretty much dropped medium format when digital came out. it has become the realm of big advertising and fashion shoots and is mostly owned by rental houses these days. and even that stuff is going the way of the dslr. 35mm was almost impossible to get any kind of quality blown up. the moment even 6mp dslrs came out that restriction was gone.

pros have a lot of needs. dslr are more effective tools for most of them. only if you are only shooting low iso all the time in a controled studio enviroment is a MF even better. everywhere else the dslr is king. and most people that could get a benfit from MF cant afford it anyway. DSLR is the tool of choice for just about every pro photographer out there

Signed
A working pro

@ Zilvinas K......Twoddle........I have been a professional for over 40 years and started with Nikons in PJ then 5x4 in the studio and on location for architectural work, I now specialise in engineering work both studio and location, all I can say is thank heaven for D3X and D800E cameras, format is virtually irrelevent, it boils down to the right tool for the job your doing, no secret art about it, its just a job!

M Lammerse, I have already used my E model to photograph very large electrical/pneumatic enclosures using JPEG-Large-Basic. With only one photo for documentation we have an image that allows us to zoom in to see every single wiremarker, terminal number and tubing connection. Not four photos, just one. Many here have no idea of the uses for this camera.

True. There is little or insignificant difference between a D800 or any other camera when it comes to techniques to achieve pixel sharp results.

Japanese don't really like the idea of universal parts. Just look at the lens mount, every manufacturer has its own format. I wish some Americans can start making camera, the first camera with an open source firmware.

And I wonder who cares about storage space when you can buy 1TB External HDD's for less than $100.

And I wonder who buys only what they "need". Talk about collapsing economies. Why would cameras be any different than the other things we buy that we don't "need"? I want it, I have the money, I buy it. Pretty simple, really.

Don't need it
Don't have money.
Only have Canon lens
but I want D800.

FastFisher, one word....ebay. Another word, craigslist. You can sell that stuff.

Sergey, "Professional quality is still medium format"? Why buy $10,000 Pentax 645D when $3,000 D800 is better in every way, except resolution which is practically the same?

@peevee there is also an optical difference in using a larger sensor

@sergey all most all pro photographers use DSLRs. medium format digital is still by and large the tool of rental houses and big commercial shoots. More pro photographers are going to buy the d800 then all currently available medium format backs x10

so what are you talking about?

Everytime a new, significantly higher MP DSLR comes out people are asking "who needs all those MPs." Quite frankly I am sick of it. If we listened to that nonsense we probably will still be on 6 MPs or even still using Film.

We would still be living in grass huts and caves if housing technology advancement was dictated by closed minded people who thought grass huts and caves were perfectly fine and no one needed anything better.

The sensor inside D800 is NOT a Sony sensor; a statement like that is uncorrect.
Nikon Designs the architecture. Sony FABS the chips. That is it.

There are more CCD/CMOS manufacturers than just Canon and Sony, you know. According to Sony's own figures, it holds the largest share of the world's CMOS image sensor market and that stands at "just" 30%.

Nikon 1 cameras use sensors made by Aptina Imaging, the 12 mpix FX sensor used in D3/D700 and D3s is manufactured by Renesas Technology Corp ... and so on. And yes, some sensors in Nikon DSLRs are manufactured by Sony.

But the fact that Sony does not have a 36 mpix sensor in it's portfolio, makes it safe to say the sensor is not Sony's.

I suspect it will be the same as with film. Nikon will run Canon out of the sector, as they have done twice before. Canon doesn't build cameras. They build profits, and if they can't make a camera with an actual AF system and an old sensor for less than $3500 in order to get a margin, how do you propose they compete? What do you think they would charge for a 5DIII with the Sony/Nikon sensor?
However, Sony didn't do this by themselves. There is a lot of Nikon engineering in this, so good luck to Canon trying to buy that.
Cheers right back at you.

"The sensor inside D800 is NOT a Sony sensor; a statement like that is uncorrect. Nikon Designs the architecture."
BS. It as known that Sony DEVELOPED 36 MPx sensor MONTHS before first rumors about D800 appeared. You'll see this sensor in FullFrame Alpha that will be released in 2013 (while at the end of this year we should see 24MPx A99)

"Now, which one of the two cameras you will choose, both having the same sensor, but considering all other differences?"
I would pick Canon any time. Mostly for ergonomics which sux in Nikon. (and to be clear: I shoot Sony, not Canon).

@ BackintheGame: "Nikon will run Canon out of the sector, as they have done twice before." I am no Canon fanboy, I just use this system as I used Nikon before (still love my FM-2, the real Nikon) ... but, sorry, that's pure nonsense. Nikon really had to struggle in the 80s/90s because they were fallen back in technology.

In 1985 Minolta shocked all other camera manufactures with the first AF DSLR, but Canon managed to take over quickly. In fact, always brilliant Leica engineers were doing pioniering AF work but Leica missed to make use of that.

Then, in the 90s, Canon took over much of sports and wildlife pro market with its new ultrasonic drives and IS in its superteles. Later, Canon was bashed for driving "noisy" CMOS sensor technology forward when all other used CCD sensors. Canon sported the first affordable consumer DSLR and FF DSLR ... Nikon came always later.

But today Nikon is in an impressive shape again, and that's good for competition, so we all profit from that.

colour balancing issues weren't mentioned either

Another thing not mentioned is that the video doesn't use the full sensor area for two reasons: it's cropped, and it line-skips. This results in a surprisingly poor signal-to-noise ratio, far behind the D4 or 5D Mark III (and probably 5D Mark II), in addition to the severe moiré.

Frankly, the video's pretty ugly.

@Samuel Dilworth. You are completely wrong.

It shoots HD at up to 1920 x 1080 (30p): 30 fps.

Note the "p" = progressive and not interlaced as you try to say and all modes are progressive.

And why should it use the entire sensor when 1920 x 1080 is the standard?

AnHund, you really need to do some homework.
Why you think videographers around the world have so warmly embraced FullHD capable FF DSLRs? Why not shoot with crop sensor DSLRs? iPhones? They too can do FullHD.

Talking about home work - you too - LOL.
But there is a difference in sensor size, so the FF sensor will always give better IQ than the small sensor on a phone. Also I'm quite sure there is not much difference in how the video is produced on Canon or Nikon, but you may be right, probably the entire sensor is used and then downsampled to HD.

Sure. Nice to learn something new - enjoy the D800 - I'm still waiting for mine :-(