Non Technical Nikon D4 Review.

        There are many reviews out there of the Nikon D4. I know this because I read through every one of them I could find when I was contemplating upgrading. So why am I writing yet another one? Well, it seemed to me that all of those reviews were by experienced professional photographers for other experienced professional photographers- mostly along the lines of "it's great, but is it worth upgrading from your D3S or not?" While those reviews were informative, they didn't really answer my questions as someone going for their first professional level body. So, now that I have had Excalibur for a month or two and have put her through some fun test shoots, I am venturing into review land once again in case there are other people who find themselves where I was and are contemplating the heart stopping decision to turn a massive amount of cash into a D4 body. So I hope to answer the question of whether it is worth it to go all the way up to the D4 if you are contemplating an upgrade to your first pro body. I won’t be able to compare to the D800 or D600, but you can also find plenty of that flavor on google.

   

    For those just tuning in for the review, here is a little history and how I came to this point. I have dabbled in photography for two decades, from back in the film age, but had taken a break from serious (D)SLRs for a few years until last year, when life events brought me back to photography. I didn’t have a large budget getting back into it, so after looking around for a while, I picked up a Nikon D3200 and spent as much as I had left on good glass, then upgraded glass as I could. Earlier this year, I realized that since the bulk of what I was shooting was low light, high speed performance work, and to get the images I wanted in that environment I needed to upgrade my camera body. Full frame was the only way to go for that, so I pretty much had to choose between a D4, used D3S, D800 or D600. You can goback and read some of the older posts here detailing the decision process but I finally decided to go all the way from Nikon's lowest entry level body to the top of the line D4. Found a Nikon refurbished one for about $1000 less than new at KEH Camera and pulled the trigger. Spoiler alert- NO REGRETS!

    Unboxing and First Impressions:

    Arrived on schedule in a grey refurb box. Other than the box color there was no way to tell this was not a brand new camera (even shutter count was at 0). First impression was "holy smokes, this thing is HUGE!" The D3200 is definitely on the small end for DSLR bodies and I had grown used to that, but even compared to the D800/600 bodies the D4 is massive. It is a tank. Apparently it is slightly lighter than the D3S, but if you are coming from anything except another large professional body, be prepared to be slightly overwhelmed by the size of this beast. That being said, the ergonomics are excellent. I have average size hands but despite its' size the D4 fits like a glove, whether in horizontal or vertical orientation. The camera is so comfortable and easy to hold, in fact, that unless I am going to be doing a lot of climbing or walking around for any significant length of time, I don't even bother to put on a strap, I just hold it and feel totally comfortable letting it dangle by a couple of fingertips on the grip ridge. The only slight negative I can give in the handling arena is that the depth of field preview and function button on the grip side of the lens are hard to reach when shooting vertically. The important controls are all duplicated so as far as your hand is concerned, although not quite as comfortable as horizontal, there is no noticeable difference in control placement or function when switching to vertical orientation. Which is awesome, because it seems like I spend about 80% of my time shooting vertically.

Controls and Setup:

    A Nikon is a Nikon is a Nikon in many respects. Although the D4 has probably three times or more options and menu items compared to the D3200, the layout and overall themes are similar enough that I had no problem navigating and getting the camera set up for initial shooting. That being said, this is a far more capable tool and there are menus and settings that I have not even begun to explore yet. I am pretty sure that if I really dig deep enough and find the right combination of settings that I can network the D4 into NORAD and take over the world. (maybe that is what that built in ethernet port is for.....) I do admit I had to spend a lot of time on google researching various options and settings, although Nikon does have a basic setup guide that covers various generic shooting environments. There is also the option to import other people's settings by saving them onto one of your memory cards. I have not tested this ability yet, but I can see situations where it would be useful. I did update the firmware, which is also done via card, and that was fairly simple and straightforward. (note- other reviews have mentioned that if you have networking enabled, this will keep you from updating firmware until you turn it off) Looking forward to David Busch's guide when it finally comes out, I read his D3200 guide almost a year later and still learned new things about that camera so his D4 guide should be very handy. Probably the best thing about the controls- they are backlit so you can see them in the dark, even though they are intuitive enough that I expect not to need that feature much longer and already don't for commonly used ones. My least favorite so far- the custom settings and shooting banks. For a beginner at least it is a confusing setup, despite having read all I can online about them. In fact, it seems from my search online that there are many more people confused as well. My biggest problem with them, even as I start to figure them out, is that they don't stay static as you would want to save them for a starting point, when you switch out of one it saves in the state you were in when you left it. I guess that is useful in it's own way when repeatedly jumping between setups, but I wish you could control this behavior so I could always have a certain set point to start from. You can control almost everything else on the camera, do why not that? Small gripe overall for an excellently designed piece of gear with so much configurablility and control it will make your head spin.

Capabilities:

    First and foremost- low light, awesome autofocus and speed. These were the main reasons I was looking to upgrade in the first place. So how does Excalibur deliver on these fronts? Again- HOLY SMOKES! This think sees in the dark and is blazing fast, it's like you mixed a wizard, Chuck Norris, a cat and a Ninja all into one.

    Speed on many levels. From power on to taking the first focused shot is pretty much instantaneous. I've done some emergency pull outs from the bag and been shooting even before the lens cleared the bag. (anyone want some great pictures of the inside of my camera bags?) Speaking of which, due to the size of this camera, I had to also upgrade most of my camera bags to hold the larger body. Minor point, but you will be hearing bag reviews in the future as well. There is no perceptible shutter lag. I actually didn't understand what the term really meant until I got used to using this camera. Now the D3200 feel slow and my waterproof P&S (which is otherwise awesome and indestructible) feel positively glacial. The controls are so light and responsive that it seems like all you have to do is think of shooting and the shutter fires. Shooting feels almost psychic. So sensitive that even on single shot mode it’s easy to accidentally shoot two or three frames.

   Then there is burst speed. The D3200 shoots 4 frames per second and when shooting RAW the buffer only holds 7 shots. On the D4 shooting 14 bit Raw I can do 10 frames per second and the buffer didn't fill until 63 shots in. Basically, I shot an entire swing and trick of a trapeze flier at 10 FPS without filling the buffer. I had to capture the first bounce in the net because I wanted to see the buffer fill. It sounded like a damn machine gun. It will go a bit faster, 11 FPS, but only if you lock focus/exposure on the first frame. So let me break that down for you. 10 FPS and each one gets an updated exposure and focus calculation. FAST!

   Autofocus speed- Again amazing. If there is minimal contrast, focus is quick and solid, whether I am using the pro zooms or the primes. I haven’t put my consumer DX zoom on yet, but on all the other lenses the focus in noticeably faster, more accurate and takes a lot less light. If it is really dark and there is no contrast, it will still hunt, but I have found that in that case I can switch to live view and usually still manage to get good focus on anything that is lit enough for me to see its’ outline in the dark.

   In short, major wins in all three areas I was looking for with this upgrade.

High ISO Performance

    The D4 shoots native at ISO 100 – 12,800. It can drop down to ISO 50 or go up to HI4 (204,800). The D4 will produce useable images at any of its’ native ISOs. ISO 12,800 on the D4 has similar noise characteristics to ISO 3200 on the D3200. Unless it’s a very dark image overall I pretty much do no noise processing if I was shooting under ISO 6400, from 6400-12,800 any of the noise processing plugins I use with aperture are capable to completely negating what little noise there is. 

 ISO 12,800 with no noise reduction. 70-200mm f2.8, 1/50sec 

Same shot with noise reduction applied. 

    Just for fun one night I slapped on a 35mm F1.8 (dx) lens, cranked the ISO up to max at 204,800, walked into my son’s bedroom and took a shot of him in the crib in almost complete darkness. Had to use live view to focus, and boost it a bit in aperture, but after running it through some post processing noise reduction, it wasn’t an image I would post anywhere (except here for illustrative purposes) but the noise level would have made for an acceptable newspaper shot.

Pitch Dark bedroom, ISO 204,800. 50mmF1.8, 1/40sec No noise reduction. 

    Overall highly impressive. What is practically lets me do is open my zooms up to 2.8 and shoot performances at 1/500 second or sometimes faster, which lets me freeze anything I need to, and not have to worry about images getting ruined by noise.

ISO 12,800, 50mm f1.8, 1/1000sec - no noise reduction

    I have found that the Auto-ISO setting on the D4 is pretty damn useful. I set it to max out at 12,800 and then don’t worry about it unless I need to do something specific. The one consequence I found with this is that I was used to adjusting exposure by varying either aperture or shutter speed in manual, but with auto ISO on, unless I was maxed out, the D4 would adjust the ISO to maintain the same exposure when I changed the other settings, so I have had to learn to use the exposure compensation function. A minor adjustment and totally worth it for the convenience.  

Image Quality

     Talked about the high ISO performance earlier. Won't repeat how awesome that is. Also have no intention of getting into pixel peeping and all the technical mumbo-jumbo, the people over at DXO Mark do that way better than I can, if you want to go super deep geek, check them out. I'm going to give you my impressions as a user, not a tech nerd. Overall, the full frame sensor just gives better images all around vice the smaller sensor. Images seem more 3 dimensional somehow, they have more depth, and the depth of field is less for any given aperture, so it's easier to get good subject isolation. The color is phenomenal. I had the pleasure of shooting a bright daylight event with a friend and totally awesome photographer who is sort of my photo idol and inspiration. He shoots a high end Canon, and comparing the two image sets I could finally see the difference I had read about in the way Canon and Nikon capture things. I like the Nikon color and depth better, the Canon images seemed flat and a bit washed out. Maybe that is just how we processed them after, we're opposites on all fronts, he's Lightroom and I am Aperture, but anyway, the difference was obvious. One isn't better than the other, it's just a matter of preference and I guess I prefer the Nikon palette.

    One of the biggest criticism I saw of the D4 when looking around reviews was that it was only a 16mp camera. The D3200 is a 24mp camera, the D800 shoots at 36mp. Sure, I can crop in farther at greater resolution on the D3200 images. I am sure that is even more of a factor on the D800. Guess Nikon traded resolution for low light performance, and it seems like a good trade. Effectively it means I just have to plan my shots a little better and take time to compose the shot I want when I take it, instead of shooting way too wide and cropping down later. That being said, the focus and clarity is better enough on the D4 with a pro lens than on the D3200 with a consumer level lens, that I can actually crop tighter and still get clean results. (if I put the pro lenses on the D3200 that advantage goes away).

Lenses and Compatibility

    Since I am writing this primarily for people like me who are wondering about jumping up from DX to Full Frame for the first time, I should talk a little bit about lenses and glass compatibility. In short, you will be able to use any lens on the D4 that you were using on your DX body. The D4 will auto crop itself down when you put a DX lens on, but then you get less use out of that full frame sensor that you just paid a hell of a lot for. So what happens when you turn off the DX auto-crop feature and slap a DX lens onto Excalibur? I had to experiment with this out of necessity when my 24-70mm got knocked out of alignment (not by me) and had to go to Nikon for repair (not a speedy process). I ordered a 50mm 1.8 FX lens, but had a couple things I needed to shoot before that came in that were just too close for my 70-200, so I had to use the DX lenses I had. The 35mm F1.8 worked almost flawlessly in FX mode on the D4, I am happy to say. There was a slight vignetting around the corners, but since most of what I was shooting was in a theatre or club where the edges of my frames were dark anyway, this was not at all an issue. The other DX lens I had on hand was my 17-55mm F2.8. Zoomed in to 55mm there was little to no noticeable vignetting, increasing markedly as I zoomed out. At 17mm, there was a huge amount of vignetting, in almost a lantern pattern. (these pics were with NSFW subject matter, so no examples here, sorry) So- are your DX lenses going to be useable on the full frame camera, yes they are. But you will have to test each one out for yourself and see what focal lengths equate to a level of vignetting you can live with, or just use the crop mode until you can get some FX glass. Really, you should upgrade your glass before the body anyway, it’s a better investment of money, but if you need the performance of the FX for a specific purpose like I did, you can still use your old lenses while you upgrade. As a bonus, because it has a built in motor, you will be able to use older non-motorized lenses with the D4 so you can find some great lenses out there for relatively little money that will give you access to the full capability of the larger sensor. Google around and you’ll see lots of reviews. (disclaimer, all the Nikon FX bodies have the same in body motor, and some of the higher end DX bodies as well, this is not an exclusive feature of the D4)

Battery Life

    One thing I saw a lot of discussion about was the battery on the D4 as compared to the D3 series. It is not the same battery, nor does it share the same charger, which annoyed a lot of people, understandably, but there was also a concern that it was rated for way less shooting than the old. Apparently this was due to new battery design rules effective in Japan. I have not had the chance to shoot a D3, so I can't talk to the battery life on that, but I started a day long soccer tournament with a fully charged D4 battery. When it got to about halfway through the charge I decided not to change it out so I could really see how far I could push to get some data for this review. I was shooting continuous machine gun style, with an older lens (so the body screw had to do the focusing) and JPEG Fine resolution. I started the first game at 8am, shot ten 1 hour long games, averaging of 450 shots per game. Formatting memory cards after each game. The battery died in the second half of the 11th game. So, made it just shy of 5000 frames spread out over 10 hours on a single charge. Maybe the old batteries were better, but this one is plenty good enough for me. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

    I have not regretted upgrading to the D4. Even before I upgraded, I had no illusions that buying the best camera out there would magically make me a great photographer. I actually expected the opposite, that the higher level of camera would make my shortcomings as a shooter more obvious, instead of less. That didn’t happen. What I have found is that Excalibur makes it easier to capture the images I want, and it has taken me a giant step closer to where I want to be. It has also forced me to up my game and to learn new techniques and get better as a photographer. As I mentioned, the handy auto ISO feature has forced me to use exposure compensation instead of just playing with shutter and aperture settings. The AF is so good and the full frame depth of field is so razor thin at the wide open apertures of my pro lenses that I really have to pay attention to focus points and put the focus precisely where I want it, down to which eye I want in focus sometimes. The high burst speed has, contrary to expectation,  made me more conscious of waiting for the right moment and trying to get it in one shot instead of just machine gunning it. And I haven’t even begun to play with a lot of the modes and settings out there like interval shooting, 9 stop auto bracketing, and things like that. While the camera didn’t magically make me Ansel Adams, it has definitely opened doors to me and made me a better photographer already just trying to work to its’ potential. By way of analogy, a professional Tour de France cyclist, when put on a beach cruiser, would definitely be able to crush a regular joe on another beach cruiser, and could probably beat a couch potato on a high end race bike. But to compete at the top level against other pros on race bikes, that cyclist needs to be on a good race bike or they will get left in the dust no matter how hard they train. Can a great photographer take an amazing picture with a point and shoot? Of course. Can a great photographer use the same point and shoot in a darkened theatre, turn off the flash and take a picture of a rapidly moving dancer at a high enough shutter speed to freeze her motion at the precise peak of a leap across the stage? Probably not. Would I have been happy with the D600? Maybe for a while. The low light performance and image quality would have been a step up still, but I think I would have outgrown it. What about the D800? I may eventually grab one as a second body, but I think the resolution was much higher than I needed and the high resolution seems to come at the expense of speed, so I think I still would have found it limiting in the shooting environments I am focusing on. So yeah, I went from one end of the camera body spectrum to the other, no intervening steps. But I have no regrets at all. Is it right for you? I can’t say. If you shoot action in the dark, then heck yes. If you are shooting landscapes, the D800 would probably be a better choice for you. But for me, the D4 was the right call. It is awesome!

  The final note- I shot some pics at an overnight Search and Rescue last weekend, and when I posted them someone asked me if the night shots were HDR, and when I told him no, the follow up was, "holy crap, what are you shooting with?" That pretty much says it all about what Excalibur can do. 

ISO 12,800, 50mm F1.8, 1/50sec, noise reduction applied in post