Saturday 3 March 2012

Is the Nikon D800E a bit of a con?

Courtesy of Amateur Photographer magazine:-

Do read the whole article, very informative.

 This comes from Nikon:-
"At its launch, last Tuesday, Nikon said it had removed the D800E's anti-aliasing filter, a move Nikon conceded risked the appearance of 'false colour and moiré' in photos.

Speaking at CP+ a few days later, the company's general manager for marketing, Nobuaki Sasagaki, explained that if Nikon had completely removed the low pass filter the D800E's sensor would have to be repositioned to compensate for the change in optical path - and this would make the cameras very expensive to produce.

Sasagaki said Nikon removed one of the low pass filters and replaced it with another that redirects the light in a way that makes it appear there is no filter there at all.

'Digital cameras usually have two low-pass filters,' he explained. 'The first divides the light path into two paths and the second one divides each of those paths again, to make four paths. We have replaced the second filter so that the two paths are directed back to become one again. This simulates the effect of having no low-pass filter, and it can be done easily and without shifting the focus position of our lenses.'

Sasagaki went on to claim that the difference in resolution between the D800 and the D800E would not be noticed by amateurs, but that professionals would appreciate it and see the benefits of the E variant."

I wondered why I wasn't seeing any difference between D800 and D800E pictures. It has nothing to do with the fact that this sounds like an almighty fudge, its obviously because I'm an "amateur".