I agree with this. A fast prime is useful for purposely isolating a subject with shallow depth of field. This can be pretty tricky. If your focus is off by even a small amount, it can ruin a picture. For general picture, modern cameras can function at ridiculously high ISO without much degradation of the image, and a zoom lens now becomes useful in dim light. Fast lenses can let in more light, but the shallow depth of field may not be what you're looking for in a picture.

If "suckers" like me didn't buy these cameras that we don't need, I believe they wouldn't be able to make enough of them to recover the tooling cost without charging much more money for them.

I sometimes use a tripod. I sometimes don't. I walk around with it most of the time when I want to take a camera. I'll take along a couple of lenses. Sometimes I'm not in the mood for so much hardware and take a compact Canon. I've taken hand held pictures with this camera that show astonishing detail at various apertures, including f11. The problem with small apertures is image degradation due to diffraction, and that varies somewhat depending on the lens used (In my experience. Let's not pull out technical articles on the subject to keep this simple.) The bottom line is that I like the camera and would buy it again. It's rather large and heavy, but not heavier than the Nikon FTn I had slung over my shoulder for many years.

I cringed when I read this question. I never throw away the originals of anything. I'm in the process of scanning thousands of negatives and some slides for distribution to several family members. If I ever want to go back and make prints or enlargements from these old photos, I'll have them done professionally from the originals for the best image quality. Keeping the originals also makes it possible to duplicate this effort in the future on better equipment for better results.

For me, pixel count mattered a lot, and I don't regret the purchase one bit. Also, by reputation and confirmed by many users, the overall image quality is off the chart, limited by your ability to compose and take a good picture. It does expose the weaknesses of a mediocre lens. You can plainly see differences in lens quality with this camera. You shouldn't buy one of these things unless you have or plan to buy some really good lenses. It isn't a camera to buy if you want to take pictures of sports. The highest frame rate is too slow.

Buy a book that tells you how to do things like this and many other things. The user manual that comes with the camera seems rather condensed to me and not written by a person with hands on experience. It's simply a list of everything you can do with the camera, and a very long one at that. I walked into a Barnes and Noble store and bought this one by Darrell Young. I have spent hours reading the thing, not because it is hard to read, but rather because it contains volumes of useful information on the camera settings and the rationale behind choosing one setting over another.

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Nikon-D810-Darrell-Young/dp/1937538605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485336036&sr=8-1&keywords=nikon+d810+book

Thom Hogan has also released a book on this camera. It is available so far as a PDF/eBook only on a web site by download. I've not read it.

http://www.dslrbodies.com/books/bythom-complete-guides-/nikon-d810-guide.html

KR puts some time into explaining the features and the history of the hardware he tests. So far so good. His subjective opinions on the equipment seem to be whatever is in his head at the moment and often don't agree with what anyone, and I mean anyone says about it. I believe that he once advised people to stop buying expensive equipment and just use an iPhone for their pictures. He praises decades old, mediocre lenses. Sometimes it seems that every camera or lens he tests is his favorite and the one he uses all of the time. He has an aversion to third party lenses like Tamron and Sigma and warns that you buy at your own risk. "They may not be compatible with the next camera you buy." His quality rating on equipment boils down to where it is made. Japan great. Anywhere else, not so great. (Should I throw my Nikon D810 in the trash now because it is made in Thailand?) Nonsense. He rarely updates the reviews on his site or goes back to test old lenses on modern equipment. (Does a 10 year old review of an old lens have any validity in this era of high megapixel cameras that bring out the weaknesses in lenses?) I can't prove it, but I'll bet he gets kickbacks from the online stores he plugs over and over. I do get some useful information from his site, but I think I've learned how to filter it.

I doubt if you'll get inferior images out of the Sony you mention. The only criticism I read over and over is that the menus on the Sony cameras are not as easy to navigate as those on the Nikon and Canon cameras that they compete with.

I'm still using an original Tiltall tripod with twist locks. (Don't tell me to buy a new tripod. It's becoming a working heirloom.) It's easy to extend the legs all the way. It's easy to collapse them all the way. I find it a pain to use twist locks for in-between adjustments. It may be something about me and not the tripod. Also, there is some mention of carbon fiber tripods in some of the answers so far. I always thought that the best way to prevent a camera from moving or vibrating is to add inertia. In other words, use the heaviest tripod that is practical in your situation.

Every single review I've read on this lens, excluding Ken Rockwell's, says that it is inferior to the 24-120. I've seen the measurements. I've seen sample pictures in the reviews. It simply isn't something I'd put on a D810, and I own one of those too. This camera is very unforgiving of an inferior lens. I know that to be true from my own experience with lenses that I own. As soon as you start cropping and get into the detail, you're probably going to realize that you spent a thousand bucks on a lens that doesn't do justice to this camera. If your goal is a huge zoom range and pictures that make decent 8x10 enlargement, spend less money on a compact "Superzoom" camera that you can put in a pocket and be done with it. Every time I'm on vacation and I'm not in the mood to carry around a huge camera with a bunch of lenses, I slip a Canon SX 230 into my pocket. Much better pocket cameras exist now, and sooner or later I'll upgrade.

My first thought would be to buy from a local dealer if you have one. Nikon's prices are fixed anyway. Maybe you might have to pay more in taxes, but how are your local potholes going to be fixed if people don't pay taxes. Support your local dealer if you can.

I own and use this lens that you recommend here. It is a bit soft in the corners until you stop down to about f4, but otherwise it's quite good, even on my D810, which is very unforgiving of an inferior lens. Beyond f4, IQ is neck and neck with my 50mm f1.4 D. It's a bargain. The following lens is considered significantly better by DXO and it may be, but I'm not compelled to spend $600 on it at the moment.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/35mm-f18-fx.htm

By the way, this isn't a plug for Ken Rockwell. His opinions are all over the place and sometimes just plain idiotic. What he does well is give you a good history and detailed specs on a lens. Beyond that, his opinions are subjective and sometimes questionable.

I use my Google Drive for sharing photos. I create folders for individuals and send them links to those folders. (My problem is that I use a Nikon D810, and the files it produces in any format are too large for e-mail. It's a convenient way of sending people pictures without having to cut them down in size.) I also use it for easily moving photos from one computer to another. I do not keep all of my photos in the cloud. I don't consider it to be permanent storage. Aside from using two external hard drives for more permanent storage, I never reformat and reuse my SD cards. When they're full, I take them out of the camera, label them, and put them away. That's my third backup. I've never had an external hard drive fail, but I use two in case one does. I have never had an SD card fail, though I had one micro SD card in a phone fail.

I don't think they care what they make money on, so long as they make money. Phones have hurt this market. They've gotten so good that most people would rather just carry a phone that takes decent pictures and forget about buying a separate camera. I would even say that the average consumer can't even see the difference between pictures taken on a good phone and pictures taken with a pocket camera. I'd love to own a point and shoot that offers near DSLR results. I'm sure the technology already exists. If the camera manufacturers thought they could make a profit on such a camera, we would already have it.

I'm facing a decision on what to buy in a point and shoot as a backup to my DSLR. I have found when on vacation that it is sometimes inconvenient to walk around all day long with a huge camera and a bunch of huge lenses, and I always have a Canon Powershot SX 230 in my pocket for a quick picture of something. It only as 12 megapixels. Under some circumstances, the 14X optical zoom doesn't cut it in terms of image quality, soft around the edges with visible chromatic aberration. This particular camera also has a problem with battery life when shooting video. I'm leaning toward the G7 X. There are many options out there, including the Panasonic, but my feeling is that a faster, more limited zoom is likely to give better results than any 25X+ zoom lens, just based on years of experience with zoom lenses in general. The more range you try to squeeze out of them, the more the image quality is compromised. Pro quality DSLR zooms are usually limited to 2.5-3X for this reason.

What makes a lens worth $8288? I don't mean what makes a lens cost $8288. Anything hand made in small quantities is going to be expensive. Is it worth it?

I've been thinking about this through these many posts. Big mail order stores are run by multimillionaires who pay their employees salaries (and possibly commission.) Local businesses are more likely to be owned by real people who are living their dream to own a business, who are invested in their community. We are in an era where that dream has become impossible for many people, no matter what they are trying to sell to make a living. It could be shoes. Maybe we'll never go back to a time before the internet, when small retail stores were the norm in every community. I don't suggest we have to live in the past. Things are the way they are. I would just like to see people support local businesses when they have a choice. I do it as much as I can.