Nikon D800 is outed with pics and specs. 36 MPX

[hjulenissen]

And here's another question. Does moire occur with any regular repeating structure that's of the proper size to generate it, or does the structure have to have a rectangular form? That is, would a series of regular, closely-spaced, curved forms, like the scales on an insect wing, also generate moire?

If you have no AA filter, you will have aliasing for any scene/lense/stand/... combination that project light with sufficient high spatial frequency onto the sensor.

This aliasing may look "good", "bad" or "just the same" for any one viewer in a particular setup. If the scene contains highly regular structures (typically, but not necessarily man-made) of high contrast and/or color-contrast, this aliasing will typically give false-frequency content that can be quite visible, that most people dislike, and that can be hard to remove.

-h

[Mulis Pictus]

A few reasons:

- I don't believe the small extra resolution is worth the extra time required to deal with moire. I know that I will not have the time to scan images for moire and will end up finding it after printing large images which will generate a significant cost,
- Since I intend to keep stitching anyway, this extra detail is even more irrelevant,
- The difference of price in Japan is nearly 600 US$ which corresponds to the money I just spent on a Sigma 8mm circular fisheye which I find to be much better value,
- I still have philosophical doubts about the relevance of capturing images that can mathematically not be a faithful reproduction of the scene due to the presence of false colors and false details,
- I intend to use the D800 for video also and there are widespread concerns about video on AA filter less devices (unconfirmed so far though),
- For family reasons, I need this camera quickly and the 3 weeks early shipment of the D800 will actually make a difference for me,
- Finally I know from my D3x experience that proper sharpening manages to remove most of the initial softness one can feel when opening images in a suitable raw converter,

We may find out that Nikon did an outstanding job with moire control on the D800E and that there really are no issues with moire. Worth case I'll get one in a few months as a back up. 

Thanks for sharing your reasons.

I am quite tempted to get the E version. I think I will wait to see more samples. Hopefully LR and other tools will get support for D800(E) soon after the cameras start shipping.

My thoughts are:

- one cannot get rid of a moire even with the AA filter anyway. See current Lloyd's blog for example, the D3x test pictures with the roofs have a lot of it. The bad thing about moire is, that once you start looking for it, you find it more easily :-)

- I am not sure about the false details, are the blurred details more real than the aliased ones? Probably not, sometimes maybe better looking and sometimes not. Deconvolution is great, but has trouble with noise and cannot reconstruct the signal completely. It might introduce slight halos as well

- I will be (probably) not doing any wedding or studio work with clothes, so the risk of loosing critical shot because of moire is quite low

- don't hear much complaining from MFDB users about moire

- OTOH the price difference is indeed not negligible, nearly 20% here as well right now

It is a bit difficult to choose, but having the choice is great and I am happy Nikon offers both versions ;-) I would prefer to have the E version without any low pass filter though.

[hjulenissen]

- one cannot get rid of a moire even with the AA filter anyway. See current Lloyd's blog for example, the D3x test pictures with the roofs have a lot of it. The bad thing about moire is, that once you start looking for it, you find it more easily :-)

You cannot remove it completely, but you can have less moire at the price of reduced sharpness.

What kind of scenes and print sizes do you do where the difference in sharpness is so important?

-h

[Mulis Pictus]

You cannot remove it completely, but you can have less moire at the price of reduced sharpness.

Yes, that's clear to me.

What kind of scenes and print sizes do you do where the difference in sharpness is so important?

I usually do landscape (often use stitching), who know what I will do in few months though. I don't think the difference in sharpness will be that big, I can just stitch more frames. OTOH it is always not bad to get more details and be able to finish with less images. Hard to tell how much more detail will one get with E version right now, without more samples to look at. Difference in resolution between D3x and D800 is around 23%, one might say it is not big difference too.

[Derry]

when my 800E arrives I let everyone know,,

Derry

[benmar]

Having moved mostly away from MFDB to 5D2 I now encounter moire very rarely. Just for the record, I have been frustrated with MFDB moire for years and have spent way too much time both in-camera and using software in post to avoid/fix it. My experience has also been that often software cannot remove moire without leaving "zebra stripe" pattern moire behind.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Shouldn't deconvolution sharpening help getting rid of the unsharpness caused by the AA Filter?
The PSF should be well known or am I totally wrong here ?

[jeremypayne]

Shouldn't deconvolution sharpening help getting rid of the unsharpness caused by the AA Filter?
The PSF should be well known or am I totally wrong here ?

Time will tell ... but what I do know for sure is that I have seen some extensive comparisons using D300's both with and without AA filters.  The cameras were put through some rigorous testing and the processing was sophisticated.

The results of the test were very clear, to me:

 - without capture or output sharpening, there was a very noticeable difference between the files; these differences were clearly visible in modest sized prints (10"x15" prints)
 
 - with proper capture and output sharpening, it took a bit of work to find the differences in the files and I could not see the differences in the prints

At the time, I was considering having my D700 modified to have the filter removed and concluded it was not worth it.  I came to have a better grasp and appreciation of the role of capture sharpening in digital imaging.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Sounds reasonable to me and is similar in my current hybrid film-scanning workflow.

[kers]

Having moved mostly away from MFDB to 5D2 I now encounter moire very rarely. Just for the record, I have been frustrated with MFDB moire for years and have spent way too much time both in-camera and using software in post to avoid/fix it. My experience has also been that often software cannot remove moire without leaving "zebra stripe" pattern moire behind.

Hello Benmar,

Could you tell me with what type of photography you had problems with moiré when using MFDB..?

[benmar]

My work has been shooting products for catalog/internet, with lots of bed linens and upholstered furniture. One thing I'd add about the relatively rare instances I find moire with the 5D2 is that it is softly defined enough that I can take it out with software without luminosity moire remaining when the color part of the moire is taken out.

[KenS]

Time will tell ... but what I do know for sure is that I have seen some extensive comparisons using D300's both with and without AA filters.  The cameras were put through some rigorous testing and the processing was sophisticated.

The results of the test were very clear, to me:

 - without capture or output sharpening, there was a very noticeable difference between the files; these differences were clearly visible in modest sized prints (10"x15" prints)
 
 - with proper capture and output sharpening, it took a bit of work to find the differences in the files and I could not see the differences in the prints

At the time, I was considering having my D700 modified to have the filter removed and concluded it was not worth it.  I came to have a better grasp and appreciation of the role of capture sharpening in digital imaging.

Thanks for the info, it is useful to me to know you couldn't see a difference in the prints.  Was capture and output sharpening applied to both both the AA and non-AA files, and if so, was it applied in equal amount to both files. The obvious 'concern' being that the non-AA files will always remain a step sharper if both files are sharpened equally.  I also wonder about the relative effects of micro-contrast enhancers such as Focus Magic, Topaz Adjust 5, and perhaps the Clarity control in Adobe Camera RAW.

[hjulenissen]

Shouldn't deconvolution sharpening help getting rid of the unsharpness caused by the AA Filter?
The PSF should be well known or am I totally wrong here ?

I doubt that Nikon publish the PSF of their cameras. Further, Nikon may not choose to use deconvolution in camera or in their raw development.

Any signal attenuation prior to adding noise will reduce the SNR. Depending on how large the SNR is to begin with (and how much attenuation), compensation gain (sharpening) might cause objectional noise/artifacts.

-h