Does anyone actually buy the Nikon D4

[lukaswerth]

...It seems to me that or anyone who has other priorities the D4 may not be the best choice.

Why?

Different tools for different purposes, I'd say. But I want to answer with an objective - well, sort of - and a personal aspect.
Objectively, it seems useful to assume that the sensor is the heart of a camera, all else is secondary. The D4 sensor is very good, but both the d800(e) and the d600(10) are graded higher on DxO. Plenty more pixels, of course, but also a good stop more dynamic range - and high ISO performance is also not bad at all, particularly if you consider that you may downsize them to the same size as the D4.
Personally spoken, for me far more important, I think a photographer has to see, and know, her or his preferences. Resolution and detail matter for me, as I come from - and still use - analog view cameras, as does dynamic range - I don't think there can ever be enough, and digital still has a long way to go to meet monochrome film. I also very much like night photography, but whenever possible, I use a tripod, and even otherwise the D600 and D800 still give excellent results.

Frankly, if I wanted to buy a 16 MP camera, I would go for the Fuji xpro1: also very low noise on high ISOs, a sensor which doe not need anti-aliasing and still does not produce moire, excellent lenses available.
Also, even leaving the price difference out of consideration, the Fuji is very much lighter, looks unassuming and not like a DLSR on steroids.

That's my view, others may differ. However, I still hope this helps.

Lukas

[shreds]

Interestingly, there is little informed debate from D4 users here.

This camera is aimed at a professional audience (dare I say Nikon had its sights on the London Olympics press pack when this was released), for which it is a very good camera.

I have the older D3 from which it was developed (through the D3s upgrade), and it is absolutely brilliant for that (and numerous other purposes too). Bombproof, goes on all day, but for many amateur shooters, too heavy.

Its studio sibling the D3X is identical externally, which is great if you are using both cameras (dual flash cards, batteries and of course lenses and other accessories are totally compatible). The D3X has 24MP, but its speed and low light capabilities are limited (which is not a problem in the studio). So it is not 36MP of the D800, but for what sizes I need to crop/enlarge to, I can live with that.

I got to try the D4, as an upgrade, but due to the new incompatible memory card and a shorter capacity battery, incompatible wireless remote etc, despite having again the same body (easy upgrade, nice when all the buttons stay the same), I decided that the small improvements were not justified versus the depreciation.

I looked at and used the beautiful D800E, which produced stunning results, but again compatibility and a somewhat backward step down to a slightly less robust camera with the need of a bolt on handgrip/extended battery pack, saw me pitch up a D3X instead, as for some work, the D3X was ideal and I managed to get a D3X for not that much different a price to the D800. Meant I can swop batteries, accessories and cards at will.

I am lucky though, they are used commercially, and as such are merely a tool of the business.

So much depends on what you are shooting, your budget, and what you need to achieve from the finished shot.


The D800 is probably one of the best top notch enthusiast cameras out there and if it were not for having my stable already I would give it the utmost consideration, it is a good pro camera too and have recommended it to a couple of friends, knowing their needs and budgets.

Oh and Mr Rockwell is amusing. Not to be taken without a little irony. I do think he quite deliberately throws a few little gems into his words to get a response or two!

[NorthernFocus]

...Objectively, it seems useful to assume that the sensor is the heart of a camera, all else is secondary...

As in nearly all cases where opinions on this sort of topic are offered, this statement reflects a narrow perspective based on a specific type of photography. "All else" is not necessarily secondary. As and example, there are currently thousands of wildlife shooters who are hanging on to their Nikon D300 bodies and have passed on two successive generations of newer DX bodies with far superior sensors in them. Why? Because the need for fast/accurate AF, high frame rate, and large buffer capacity override the desirability of a better sensor. To-date Nikon has not produced another pro style DX body that matches the D300 in that regard.

...So much depends on what you are shooting, your budget, and what you need to achieve from the finished shot....

Bingo.

[AB26]

- unfair and unpleasant.
Philip

Sorry Philip, my irrational freedom of expression.
Have you ever had a good look at KR’s gallery? Once you have done that you should do yourself the favour of going to Tom Hogan’s gallery.

OOPS!

PS: Bad habit of mine to judge a Photographer by the work they produce and not by what they have to say.

[AB26]

What makes you think KR is a useless photographer?

Got no idea.

He is a brilliant portrait Photographer:


And even better at landscapes:

[Colin Southern]

Sorry Philip, my irrational freedom of expression.
Have you ever had a good look at KR’s gallery? Once you have done that you should do yourself the favour of going to Tom Hogan’s gallery.

OOPS!

PS: Bad habit of mine to judge a Photographer by the work they produce and not by what they have to say.

Well, from his about page ...

I feel like the Forrest Gump of photography, although unlike Forrest, in addition to having won many top awards for my artwork, and having had my work published and held in private and public collections worldwide for many decades, I have earned my living full-time in digital imaging since the 1980s. I hold a couple of US patents. Heck, even though I prefer to shoot real film for my personal work today in 2010, I've been doing this digital stuff for a full-time living for over twenty years. My dad is an engineer, so he taught us about things like discrete cosine transforms, quantization matrices and cos⁴ laws around the dinner table as children, thus this digital stuff has always been trivial for me. To me, understanding this technology is simply a foundation from which to create artwork, not an end to itself

Not bad for a "useless" photographer.

A bit more stuff about him that might surprise you ...

http://sbe36.org/2000/0606_tek_rockwell.html

[Adrian]

It seems to be almost a universal so called "truth" on photography forums that Ken Rockwell is full of hot air, misguided, misinformed and should be ignored. It is something of a mystery to me why this is, as a lot of what he says makes good sense and his web site is a useful resource among many, for reading about cameras and lenses. Some of his opinions upset fans of particular equipment, but his opinions appear no less valid to me: none of us have to agree with him. KR is clearly a bit of a bubble pricker and he tries to say it how it is, without regard to what manufacturers want. He is also not overly concerned with allowing technical comparisons to cloud his judgement on the usefulness of the tool. This may explain why his site remains popular. Good luck to him for making money out of it.

[Colin Southern]

It seems to be almost a universal so called "truth" on photography forums that Ken Rockwell is full of hot air, misguided, misinformed and should be ignored. It is something of a mystery to me why this is, as a lot of what he says makes good sense and his web site is a useful resource among many, for reading about cameras and lenses. Some of his opinions upset fans of particular equipment, but his opinions appear no less valid to me: none of us have to agree with him. KR is clearly a bit of a bubble pricker and he tries to say it how it is, without regard to what manufacturers want. He is also not overly concerned with allowing technical comparisons to cloud his judgement on the usefulness of the tool. This may explain why his site remains popular. Good luck to him for making money out of it.

I've always found him to be someone who's good at providing "food for thought". I may not always agree with him, but I do respect him.

[MrB]

A Ken Rockwell quote from his website - "Far more important than having a nice camera is having vision. Too many people spend all their time researching and buying cameras, instead of spending their lives learning how to take great pictures. Cameras don't take pictures, people do" - a message that he repeats on several pages throughout his web site.

Some images on his web site are simply family snapshots from a proud parent. However, in the Galleries there are many images that appeal to me, and he has the versatility to use film, DSLR, compact, or iPhone to capture them (in digital mostly as Jpegs), to produce both colour and B&W photos, and often with minimal processing. Some of his writing also interests me, and he has thereby gained my thoughtful attention, although I don't have to agree with everything I read, anywhere, including here on CiC.

His web site content certainly indicates to me that he deserves more respect than the term "useless" accords.

Philip

[Manfred M]

I find that I agree with his assessments about half the time and disagree the other half. He is an amusing read and a fairly decent photographer. I only have two issues with his work;

1. He presents opinion as fact, and really does not do a particularly good job explaining how he reached his conclusions; and

2. Is really very much a blogger and spews out inconsistent advice and recommendations.

Frankly, many of the other review sites have their strengths and weaknesses and in many ways give worse recommendations than Ken does. They do base their reviews on technical measurements that are easy to perform in the lab, but are totally meaningless outside of a lab situation. Things that are truly important like build quality and robustness get short shrift.

[NorthernFocus]

... I only have two issues with his work;

1. He presents opinion as fact, and really does not do a particularly good job explaining how he reached his conclusions; and

2. Is really very much a blogger and spews out inconsistent advice and recommendations.
...

I've been trying to stay out of the KR debate. But this is exactly my take on him. He flip flopped one too many times for me without explaining his change in position. I gave up on him a long time ago. But he remains amusing. For providing fodder for debate if nothing else...

[JR1]

Actually I like KR, but no one would take any one review at face value, before I buy I look at all the reviews, trusted review, DP review, KR and more then ASK members of forums, after that I weigh up the comments before deciding

[RustBeltRaw]

Rockwell strikes me as very intelligent, but an extremely poor editor. If he released one well-researched article a month instead of a steady stream of whatever's on his mind, quite a few more people would trust him. Personally, I'll stick with DxO Labs, The Digital Picture, Luminous Landscape, CiC, Zack Arias's blog, and many, many books.

Crucially, not a single one of these provides all the information one needs. The combination is another story.

Returning to the OP's question, yes, plenty of people buy, and can use, the Nikon D4 and its features. Can you get by with a heck of a lot less? Absolutely. Personally, I tried out its Canon cousin, the 1DX, at ProCam a few days ago, and its greatness is immediately and brutally apparent. Is it worth about $6,600? Not to me. Not yet, anyway.

[xpatUSA]

A bit more stuff about him that might surprise you ...

http://sbe36.org/2000/0606_tek_rockwell.html

Good link, Colin, I agree with you (for once ;-).

cheers,

[NorthernFocus]

...I'll stick with DxO Labs, The Digital Picture, Luminous Landscape, CiC, Zack Arias's blog, and many, many books.

Crucially, not a single one of these provides all the information one needs. The combination is another story...

Exactly so. Even if one doesn't agree with some of the methods used to test equipment by DxO and others, understanding said methods and using the data for relative comparisons is still useful. After all when considering camera gear one is typically considering available options rather than attempting to evaluate against some absolute standard. Even when attempting to do so, differences in how standards such as MTF charts are generated is style subject to argument.

Frankly I don't even bother reading equipment reviews that are opinions and/or observations written in general terms. If there isn't some sort of standardized test involved and data presented (albeit reduced/analyzed), I don't have time for it.

... and yet I have time to hang around places like CIC arguing the merits of the likes of KR

[Colin Southern]

I find that I agree with his assessments about half the time and disagree the other half. He is an amusing read and a fairly decent photographer. I only have two issues with his work;

1. He presents opinion as fact, and really does not do a particularly good job explaining how he reached his conclusions; and

2. Is really very much a blogger and spews out inconsistent advice and recommendations.

Frankly, many of the other review sites have their strengths and weaknesses and in many ways give worse recommendations than Ken does. They do base their reviews on technical measurements that are easy to perform in the lab, but are totally meaningless outside of a lab situation. Things that are truly important like build quality and robustness get short shrift.

To be honest Manfred, I don't think #1 is any worse than the gazillion review sites out there that present technically accurate facts, but imply a totally incorrect weight to them.

[NorthernFocus]

...the gazillion review sites out there that present technically accurate facts, but imply a totally incorrect weight to them.

Humans do have a propensity to grab the first thing that even remotely resembles fact and run with it when said fact supports the preconceived conclusions.

We all know that two points describe a line. But if one has only one point, then a line can start there and extend into infinity in any direction one chooses.

[Black Pearl]

Or it could curve back to where it started and cease to have a point at all.

That started out better than it finished

[Dave Humphries]

Or it could curve back to where it started and cease to have a point at all.

That started out better than it finished

Keep me in the loop Robin

[Colin Southern]

Humans do have a propensity to grab the first thing that even remotely resembles fact and run with it when said fact supports the preconceived conclusions.

We all know that two points describe a line. But if one has only one point, then a line can start there and extend into infinity in any direction one chooses.

I just kept reading so much irrelevant rubbish that in the end I gave up reading them - things like how "you can make a bigger print from model "B" (18MP), -v- the "only" 16MP of Model A. When what they really needed was advice like "forget things like MP - doesn't matter a damn for the most part. Instead, invest in a tripod - a flash - and some good educational material covering exposure, composition, and processing".

But then again, if people followed my advice I guess "reviews" would get pretty monotonous and then not many people would buy their magazine nor visit their websites (and we can't have that!). On the flip-side though, it would do wonders for heaps of people's photography, so all wouldn't be lost (unless you're a publisher of physical or digital content).

Hmmmmm - I think I see a pattern here - it's actually about what's best for the publishers, not the customers ...