Category: Photography

Last Saturday my friends CaDs, Lapastillaroja and I decided to go to the CP+ Camera & Photo Imaging Show 2012 to be able to have the privilege to see for the first time, as a world exclusive, the Nikon D800. When we arrived we went directly to the Nikon booth and after almost one hour lining up….

Yes! we also visited Canon’s booth! It was the largest booth at the show along with Nikon’s booth. The main Canon novelty were the LEGRIA video cameras that showed the visitors a girl dressed in a miniskirt playing tennis.

A new inkjet printer by Canon!

Canon and Nikon had the largest booths, however Sony and Olympus also had a large presence at the show.

Sony’s booth was full of beautiful models

Olympus’ star product!

We walked around the rest of the show. Tamron, Sigma, Casio and Fujifilm booths were also quite big. There were also many other companies, from tripod manufacturers to complex lab equipment brands that for example were showing products to test the proper operation of cameras (image stabilizing testing, etc)

I wanted to try it, but after seeing the huge line I bailed out!

According to this… 5 times faster!

This Casio camera has a function to help you correct your swing!

A seminar to learn how to use the Nikon 1… you can clearly see the target user of this camera

Casio girls had an iPad hanging on their neck

Antonio trying a Hasselblad with a zillion megapixels

Carlos checking Tamron lenses.

Snipers equipped with Sigma!

And where there are cameras and geeks… there’s also lots of models to photograph!

Finally, after a long wait, the Nikon D800 release has been announced. I had long planned that it should be my next camera and had been expecting it for a long time. I even sold my Nikon D90 a while ago.The Nikon D800 will be my first Full Frame camera. The specs are more than enough for me: 36Mpx sensor, 1080p HD-Video, ISO 100-6400, an improved autofocus system of 51 points…

What I like the most about it is that the price is going to be quite competitive (when the Nikon D700 was released it was quite more expensive). The Nikon D800 will be released in Japan at the end of this month for a little bit less than 270,000 yen (2,600 euro / 3,500 dollars):

• ニコン D800 ボディ 《３月２２日発売予定》販売価格￥268,200 (Nikon D800)
• ニコン D800E ボディ 《３月２２日発売予定》販売価格￥356,400 (Nikon D800E)
• ニコン D800 28-300 VR レンズキット 《３月２２日発売予定》販売価格￥313,200 (Nikon D800 lens kit 28-300 VR)

Another thing to celebrate is that the body weights “only” 900 grams (almost 100 grams less than the D700). Moreover, for those of us used to Nikon cameras the controls and interface are very similar to the D700.

Image by Btobey.

Image by Btobey.

Two different models will be released: the Nikon D800 and the D800E. The only difference between the two models is that the D800 includes a low-pass filter to eliminate moire patterns. Including a low-pass filter is a simpler and cheaper solution, while the D800E eliminates moire patterns without using it, which results in a higher quality. This is an example of the moire pattern:

Most likely the differences between the two models will be minimum and will only be appreciated by zooming into photos, by geeky reviews that we will soon enjoy, or in this comparison by Nikon.

Sources: English, Japanese.

Following the annual tradition, these are my favorite photos of this year. I used the iPhone 4 camera, a compact Canon S90, a Hasselblad 500C/M, a Nikon D90, a Polaroid ONE600 and a Kenko KF-2N.