Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Yes that is true for those who do not understand exactly the significance of how Anti-Aliasing works, and also how to make the best use of various different "Sharpen" algorithms.

The D800E is easier to make sharper images... as long as there is no high frequency spatial detail at just above the Nyquist frequency. If that happens the result is moire, and it is relatively difficult to remove while retaining sharpness. The D800 will produce a sharper image for such a scene, with no extra work required. But lacking spatial detail in the range of frequencies just above the Nyquist limit, the D800E makes sharper images with less attention to how the image is post processed. The D800 requires close attention to how it is processed... but if that is done the image will actually be cleaner overall than one from the D800E.

The D800E spreads aliased noise all through the entire spatial frequency range of the image, and it cannot be removed. Fortunately it also is not easily identifiable to a viewer, and merely makes an image look slightly less "crisp" due to a lower SNR. But the D800 does not do that, and instead produces a much lower SNR but only in the frequency range just below the Nyquist frequency. Overall the image is crisper, and if there is no detail in the scene at those frequencies there is nothing detrimental at all (just as when there is no moire to start with, it need not be removed). If there is detail in that frequency range, unlike the very hard to deal with moire on the D800E, the lower SNR on the D800 can be almost totally overcome by Sharpen, UnSharp Mask, or Richardson-Lucy Deconvolution.

The above is something Nikon engineering understood when the came out with the D800, and made the D800E an added item for special purpose use with a lower production rate. The market didn't see it from an engineer's point of view and the lack an AA filter became a big selling point even though the engineers knew better.

RickL Loc: Vail, Az

Thanks everyone. I uses lot of vintage glass and I know that that D800 series had a motor in the camera that would work with my glass.
Does anyone know if the D750 had an internal motor?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

It does.

Red arrow indicates the focus motor connection

N4646W

Same here, but then every camera I have is a better camera than I am as photographer. Still I'll keep looking for the one I can out shine.

Ron

BlackRipleyDog

What is your plan for it? The 800 series are serious bodies that require an enhanced shooting discipline and skill sets.
I use mine primarily for fine art landscapes. I print panoramics at home framed out to 40". Bought it in mid-2015 refurbished for around $1700. It was my Holy Grail and I have not been disappointed. I do night work, portrait work and this winter I shot snowmobile races on the frozen lake. 6 hours of run and gun on the ice and snow with the battery grip pack and a 70-300 VR AF-S. Never missed a beat and the resolution allowed me to get some really sharp tight crops of the drivers as they approached head-on at 40 mph.
My history is to use a body for a little while and move up to something with some improvements that make sense and dollar-sense. 3mp to 6mp to 10mp to fx24mp and now fx36mp. The D800 however, will be my daily workhorse until it can go no more and then I will probably replace it with an 810 and that will be due primarily to the absence of the anti-aliasing filter in the 810 like the 800e and I am already kitted-out for it with accesories.
It just plain and simple works.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Used my D800 for several years. Traded it on the D810 cause the new one had no low pass filter. Which meat cleaner results, not that there is a world of difference between them. The D800 gave me really great results. You can get a great deal used on these cameras and they hold their value cause of the 36 mgs.

par4fore Loc: Bay Shore N.Y.

I have an 800e, would not buy D800 unless it was the "e" or get the d810. Love!!

BlackRipleyDog

All Nikon bodies, with the exception of the earlier D40, D50, D60 and all the D3xxx and D5xxx series bodies, have the focus drive motor in the body. Which means they can auto-focus with legacy AF-D glass as well as the AF-S stuff which the smaller bodies need to focus. Nikon does not make a dslr full-frame body that does not have the screw-drive motor since full frame is the same size as film and you want to use that older glass as well.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

The D800 is an excellent camera.

Mary Kate Loc: NYC

The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

non sequitur
--Bob

JennT Loc: South Central PA

I liked the D800--- until I got the 810-- which I consider the best camera I have ever owned-- I continue to use the 800 but tend to prefer the 810

JennT Loc: South Central PA

I liked the D800--- until I got the 810-- which I consider the best camera I have ever owned-- I continue to use the 800 but tend to prefer the 810 It is a matter of which lens I might need stat!

TGanner Loc: Haines, Alaska

As a wildlife photographer, I love my D800. You are never close enough for wildlife (they have their own opinion about it) and sometimes you do not want to be any closer than you need to be (hello Mr. Bear!). The high resolution allows for cropping in while maintaining good resolution. Granted, it isn't fast due to the file size, but at the end of the day I have all the photos I need (sometimes more than I need) which is something some Canon owners concede sometimes is a plus. Free time is nice too!

aflundi Loc: Albuquerque, NM

That is very curious. The D800E has more glass interfaces than the D810 since it has the anti-alias filter still there, but aligned to cancel the effect, versus no AA filter at all in the D810. Given that, I'd expect the D810 to be the sharper (very, very slightly). It seems to me that the only way the D800E could end up sharper, assuming they use the same sensor, would be the way the software deals with the sensor output. That could be in-camera, or in the external post processing software.

I'm pretty sure that the D800E and D810 raw files have different black and white points, so it seems likely the intrinsic raw contrast would be different, and with different in-camera processing units, there may well be differences in the way the data is massaged.

MT Shooter, do you have any thoughts on that? To remove the automatic pre-processing (in ACR and other software) from the equation, has anyone here tried comparing D800E vs D810 using DCRAW to start in each case with straight, linear raw data?

[Not that is really matters. It's just a very curious observation.]