Nikon D4 16.2 MP CMOS FX Digital SLR with Full 1080p HD Video (Body Only) (OLD MODEL)

التعليق

I pre-ordered this camera, and have now had it for about two months and taken over 10,000 shots with it. Im upgrading from a Nikon D700. Im not a pro, but I do occasional commercial jobs. Ive updated this review several times, and will continue to do so as needed. Vertical orientation: Nice. The vertical grip isnt nearly as contoured as the main horizontal grip -- theres just not as much stuff to grab your hands onto (no deep pockets for your fingertips). Too bad. But when holding it for any length of time, its sure a lot easier than holding twisting my arm above my head and rotating the camera. Note that the vertical grip has a programmable button on it, which I use for Mode (A/S/M/P). I understand the D3s didnt have this, which seems crazy -- I use it all the time. I wish the vertical grip had all the buttons as the main grip does -- e.g., theres only one programmable button, so if you want to use it for Mode, then theres no way to change EV +- while vertical, or start taking a movie. Also, I wish the two function buttons (DoF preview, and the one above it) were replicated in vertical mode. Theyre not, which is silly -- theres room right there for them. I shoot one-handed a lot, at events where I have a flash in one hand an a camera in the other (using a set of PocketWizards). I thought the weight of the D4 would make this harder. But no: when holding it vertically, the D4 is a lot easier to manage than the vertical D700. (I never had a vertical grip for the D700, so I cant compare.) Even holding it horizontally, the larger grip makes it easier to manage the D4 than the D700 one-handedly -- it makes the camera honestly feel substantially lighter. One gripe: the vertical joystick for adjusting the focus point is still a bit too much of a stretch to use with one hand. Shutter: yep, its 10 fps. Let it rip! Great for capturing faces of both kids and adults at just the right moment. General ergonomics and build quality: Great. Totally solid. Weight: Having never had a pro-sized body before, I feared itd be too heavy. But no: once you throw a 70-200 2.8 on there, the difference between this and a D700 is pretty small, certainly not a big deal. I carry it around on an Op Tech slider strap bolted into the tripod port, plenty stable and strong. Battery: 2000+ shots (including lots of live view and some movies), and its down to half. Thats plenty of capacity for me. The charger is a real monster to carry around, about 4x the size of a D700 charger, too big to just slip in a pocket. One BIG PROBLEM: after charging it the second time, I had the camera turned on and sitting out overnight. The next morning, the battery was completely dead. I have no idea what happened -- the D700 never ever did this to me. Was the camera turned so the AF was being pushed all night? Or is there a bug in the auto-off? No idea, but Ill post if it happens again. (Update: This has now happened to me three times, where the battery has gone from 100% to 0% overnight. Very frustrating. The first time I thought it was because the camera was in my bag and the AF-On button was being pressed, so it was trying to focus all night long. But thats not it, since it was on a shelf the other two times. Since I dont see others who have had this problem, Im sending it back to Nikon for service.) [Update: Beats me what the root cause was, but Nikon replaced the logic board and I havent seen the issue come back.] Lit up controls: Nikon wont point this out, but they dont *all* light up! Most do, but not the trash, or playback, or EV+-, or Mode, or Live View. Huh? All the buttons on my cell phone lit up 10 years ago. Its not that hard. XQD card: Fast to write, fast to transfer. I love it. Being able to shoot off dozens of RAWs without stopping is great. Nice of Nikon to include the card and reader (but really, Im not sure they had any other option here -- the market isnt exactly flooded with these cards). Live View: Works a million times better than it did on the D700. Its kind of funny though: it now makes the pro-DSLR able to shoot as easily as a $200 point-and-shoot. But whatever: Live View is nice to have. Its fast and intuitive. One advantage that isnt obvious: you can use it to set the focus point to the far corners of the frame, well outside the small area of the sensor covered by the 51-point AF grid. How I wish Nikon would allow the main AF system to focus in the far corners too: those 51 points still only cover about 20% of the cameras full frame! More in DX mode, but come on, Nikon. This is probably my single biggest complaint about the camera (or any DSLR) -- bigger focus area please! Focus modes: I was initially bummed to see that the three-position focus-mode switches from the D700 had been removed, replaced by software settings using the main control wheels. But after using them Im fine with the change, even in favor of it. The number of focus modes has increased (because you can change between 9-, 21-, and 51-point tracking easily now, which were hidden in a menu before), and the design works pretty fast. Disadvantage is that it requires two hands to change modes, where you used to do it with one. The built-in AF motor is noticeably faster than on the D700. Live View mode uses contrast-detection focusing which was ultra-slow on the D700 (especially using motor-driven lenses like the AF-Ds), but pretty usable now. Face Detection (in Live View) works great. Its super easy to get low-angle shots holding the camera away from your body. If the subject moves youll see a green box on the LCD follow the face around -- its pretty cool to watch it track. Believe it or not, Face Detection also works through the pentaprism viewfinder. It took me awhile to believe this, but it really does. I proved it to myself by displaying a photo of a face on my laptops screen, and focusing the camera on it. And like magic, no matter where it was, the focus indicators would lock on to the eyes. If I panned so that one eye left the FOV, then the focus would jump to the other eye. This is really cool. However, in reality it only works moderately well... I mean, if youre shooting at 24 mm in a busy room, and theres a few people in front of you, the camera is likely to focus on the wall instead of the people. Switch to Live View and itll lock right on to the faces. Switch back and it jumps to the wall. My thought is that when using the viewfinder, the camera is dong face-detection on the smaller 91,000-pixel metering array. When using Live View, it can use millions of pixels from the main chip. Small faces can get hidden in 91,000 pixels (thats sub-VGA resolution!), but are seen in the big chip. Im not knocking it, since its clearly state-of-the art... its just not perfect. One cool thing about face detection is that it also finds faces on playback (even if face detection wasnt used on that shot). Scroll the front control wheel and itll zoom in to just the face on every image, so you can easily check focus on the parts you care about. Super. Metering modes: Too bad that the three-position metering switch is now an electronic controller, set in the viewfinder. But it turns out to be no big deal, because the metering on the D4 is really an improvement from the D700. I used to have to go to spot metering a lot for faces in the shade, and the auto face-detection now catches that so much better than it used to, that I havent been using spot metering very much. Really, the new metering is very, very good. It has its quirks though: like, lets say youre taking 10 shots in a row of someones face. If on one shot they turn or are blocked and the face-recognition doesnt work right, then that shot is likely to be underexposed by a stop relative to the rest in the series (see my example photo of this posted on Amazon). In the end under- or over-exposure by a stop or two is no big deal on this camera if youre shooting RAW, because the files give you tons of leeway to work with to fix the exposure in post. But its always best to get the exposure right the first time, and the D4 does a better job of that than the D700. Quiet and Silent modes. Quiet mode is indeed a lot quieter than the regular shutter. It seems to move all the mechanical parts slower -- so you hear it for longer, but its definitely quieter. Limited to 1 fps or so, and it doesnt work in Continuous mode (except if youre in Live View, in which case it does). Silent mode takes 2 MP shots in Live View mode (essentially movie stills - shutter must be between 1/30 and 1/125 sec, and JPEG-only, no RAW). I could see using it occasionally, though I wish the resolution were higher. Also, in order to *enter* Silent mode, you have to be in Live View, and you have to pull up the mirror to do that, which makes the normal chunking sound one time. An interesting note: in Silent mode, the exposure counter increments like normal (DSC_0101, 0102, etc.), but the EXIF value for Shutter Count stays unchanged, just like it should. ** Silent mode is exclusive to the D4, and isnt on the D800. Image quality: Beautiful... really crisp and sharp and smooth. The D700 was great too. For some reason this looks better. The number of pixels and the ISO are only slightly improved from the D700... the improvement to my image quality is dramatically better, more than the one or two stop improvement would suggest. Maybe Nikons color processing softwares improved, who knows what. But I didnt expect much improvement in image quality, and I got it. ISO: Its a stop or two better than the D700. The ultra-high ISOs (like 200,000+ = H4.0) are there, but pretty silly. Even in bright sun, theyre so full of noise so as to be useless. In low light theyre even worse. (I guess you could use H4.0 if you were trying to monitor license plates of speeding vehicles under moonlight, or something crazy like that... but no normal photographic application is going to use that.) Up to ISO 10,000 or so, images are very clean. Focusing works really well in low-light, better than the D700 for sure. A nice change is that Auto ISO can now be easily turned on/off by holding ISO and rotating the front control knob -- no more going into the menus. One big change to exposure calculation is that the shutter speed can now be set based on the focal length. In the past, youd set it (in the Auto ISO menu) to use a minimum of say 1/30 sec, which is great at 24 mm, but not what you want at 70 mm. OK, terrific -- I was really stoked on this, since it makes a lot of sense and is more accurate in setting the shutter speed. But theres a huge problem in how its implemented, in that its blind to whether youre using a VR lens! So if Im at 200 mm, itll pick 1/400th sec for me. But I paid the big bucks for the VR lens so I dont have to shoot at 1/400th... I know I can handhold it just fine at 1/50th. The net effect here is that youll end up shooting at a higher-than-necessary shutter speed, putting you into high-ISO territory, when youd be otherwise safe to shoot much slower at low ISO. Alas -- maybe Nikon will get this right with the D5. I ended up turning off this focal-length sensitivity setting, and telling it to shoot at 1/100th or faster regardless. Ethernet connection: Plug in a cable, and the camera has a built-in web server, for doing tethered shooting. Not something Ill use much, but it seems to work. No additional software needed -- just a web browser. I also used it for tethered shooting through Aperture straight out of the box, and it worked fine, no new drivers needed. Auto white balance: as advertised, seems to work better than before. No big deal, but a nice bonus. One weirdness though is that the white balance seems to be less consistent than it was before. For instance, shooting outside in the shade, in the past I could set the right WB correction in Aperture and itd be right-on for every shot in the series. No more -- a good number of individual shots require more hand-tweaking now. This seems like a bug, like maybe the RAW files are getting tagged with the wrong color temp. It could well also be a bug in Apertures handling of the D4 RAWs; I havent tried it with Lightroom yet. A bonus with Display: Better than before. Not really a big deal to me. Minor point: the display itself is polarized such that if youre wearing your polarized Ray Bans, the screen will look dark until you turn it to vertical mode. The D700 was polarized, but at a 45 degree angle, so it was still visible in horizontal mode. The display has a really viewing angle, meaning that if you hold it overhead in Live View, you can glance up at it and at least get *some* sense of how your framing is, even viewing the display nearly edge-on. It doesnt pivot of course, but its definitely usable for a lot of overhead shots. [** Update: Nikon replaced the main display for me when mine failed. The new one is different, and is viewable in landscape mode while wearing polarized shades. I doubt it was an intentional change on their part, but for me it worked out as a minor bonus!] Viewfinder: The image looks a bit bigger and fuller than on the D700. Not that big a deal -- I could always see my subject just fine before. Maybe a bit less squinting necessary now. Extra configurability: Nikon now lets you reprogram even more of the buttons than the D700 allowed. I like one of the options in particular: Ive set the Fn button (below the DoF preview button, next to the lens mount) to go to image review. Normally it takes two hands to hit the image-review button, but now I can do it quickly and using the right hand thats already on the camera anyhow. Just one more thing I miss now going back to the D700. HDR, timelapse, multiple-exposures: they all work as advertised. Probably wont use them much. Video: Im not a video shooter but I tried it out outside under streetlights, where the video was super-clean. Inside with a night light it was a total failure at high ISOs -- too much noise to see anything at all. Others know a lot more about video than me, so read their reviews instead. Minor operational change: On the D700, the control wheels went dead right after taking a shot, requiring a half-press to wake up the metering system again, if you used the control wheels to select through images. On the D4, they stay live after the shutter press. Awesome. This was always a minor annoyance before, and Im glad its changed. Its hidden on an obscure setting within Custom F10. Flash: There is none. Occasionally I used CLS for remote triggers on the D700 and you obviously cant do that any more. And sometimes I dont want to carry around the PocketWizards for just a snapshot flash-fill. Oh well -- cant have it all. For what its worth, the PocketWizards (TT5s) work perfectly, no problems at all. I called up the PW people about an unrelated issue and they confirmed to me (as of June 2012) that the PWs work great on the D4... not working yet on the D800/800E, they said. Flash exposure: The EV+- and the Flash EV are now separated. It use to be that lowering the camera EV would also lower the flash output (so dropping the background while keeping the subject lit would require two syncd setting changes). No more. Nikon took after Canon here, good to see. This stuff works fine with the PWs. ** This Flash EV setting (custom e5) is exclusive to the D4. Its not on the D800. Reviewing images: You can zoom out to see 72 images at a time, and use the joystick to cruise around these. But regardless of all of the image-processing power onboard, its still frustratingly slow to scroll backward by 500 or 1000 images. Theres apparently no in-camera buffering of the thumbnails -- theyre reloaded from the card every time, so it may still take you a few minutes of slow scrolling to find that cool shot from a few days ago that you want to show someone. Manual: 456 frikkin pages. I like camera manuals and this ones pretty well written. Its not literature but it explains the settings clearly enough. Why not the D800? 50 MB images are too big for me, and Im not going to be printing any banners or posters from my work anyhow. Almost everything I do goes online. Virtually any camera has enough resolution for me. Im more interested in handling / ergonomics / ISO / dynamic range / speed, than resolution. If I was doing landscapes instead of people, Id of course go for the D800 instead. Is six thousand bucks too much to spend on a camera? Probably. But Nikon bodies remain in high demand, and used prices are high. I can likely sell this in a year or two for not much less than I paid for it. (My three-year-old D700 has only lost 1/3 of its value since it was new, or about a thousand dollars over three years.) Is having a camera like that worth a dollar or two a day to me? Absolutely. P.S. Ill answer any questions below. And if you found this useful, feel free to click and tell me so! [Update June 2013. 45,000 pics and one year later, it remains awesome. I only have a few frustrations and minor things to add: o I wish the front buttons -- Function and Preview -- were more programmable, and I wish Nikon put a duplicate set you could reach in vertical mode. o I prefer the analog buttons to change exposure mode on the D700, over the menu here. o I dont use Live View very much -- its just so much slower than viewfinder mode that even though focus on a face in the corner very nicely, I can usually do it myself faster. o Dont mind the weight at all. Feels great in the hand. I use an OpTech slider strap into an arca-swiss knockoff plate bolted into the bottom. o I use 10 fps *all the time*. On safari, with kids, anything. Its wonderful. o XQD card is great, though I wish there was a good way to take advantage of its speed to download to my older Mac, which only has a USB2 and not USB3. o Nikon replaced the main logic board after I reported problems with the battery suddenly dying overnight. No problems since then. o I wish the 51 focus points went further across the FOV -- theyre all clustered at the center. o Im not a big bird shooter but I have been amazed at how well the focus tracking will follow a bird who moves in & out of the frame, well away from the original focus point. o Picture quality is just great. I get a ton of keepers, and when I dont, its always my fault and not the cameras. I managed to drop the camera -- 8 inches onto carpet with an 85/1.4 on -- and it knocked the camera completely out of focus, and apparently knocked the main display loose so it flickered a lot. (So much for indestructibility of a pro body...) I sent it back to Nikon explaining the situation, and they were nice enough to fix it for free, which involved replacing the front bayonet mount. But the camera spent *nearly two months at Nikon* to get fixed! It was on "parts hold" for over a month, and when they returned it, they sent to to the wrong address to boot -- an old address of mine.]

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

Im a full-time photographer and own two D4 cameras and use the D3s as a backup. Ive used the D4 for over a year now and have only positive things to say about the camera. Even after 80+ weddings, corporate events and countless portraits and product shoots, the camera is still solid with zero problems. What I care most about is getting the shot! Image quality is a close second. The D4 shines in both of these areas. Ive found that focus is extremely fast, even in very low light. Probably the biggest improvement I see over the D3s is Latitude; my experience with the D4 is that it gives you an extra stop to work with in case your exposure is off. The pixels hold up VERY VERY well when edited hard in Photoshop. If there is anything negative I could say about the camera, itd be the fact that it takes two different kinds of memory cards!!! Ive learned to live with it but its still irritating; very expensive too since I already owned around 400 gigs of CF memory. Most of my competition use the Canon 5D Mark iii. It produces excellent image quality, but falls far short mechanically. For starters it has a shutter rating of 100,000 (vs 400,000 with the D4), which makes it VERY UNDEPENDABLE after about six months in the hands of a full-time professional. It also has a low ISO rating compared to the D4 and focus problems. I have one second shooter that uses the 5D and have noticed a definite difference between the RAW files from her camera and mine. The Nikon files suit my taste better. If she wasnt so good Id insist that all my second shooters shoot with my same equipment... Now I WOULDN"T purchase this camera if you arent a professional photographer. It is a TANK and a WORKHORSE. That is what you are paying for with the D4. However, if you are an enthusiast or part-time photographer youll save a LOT of money and still get great file quality by choosing a significantly less expensive camera - Nikon (D700, D800) or Canon (5D Mark iii). One thing to say about Amazon... in the beginning, there was a massive waiting list for the D800 and the D4. Ive always been loyal to a certain camera super-store in New York. Through them, the waiting list was over six month... with Amazon, it was WEEKS. Also, after 10 years of loyalty and around $100k of my business Ive always felt like a meaningless number to them. On the other hand, Amazon has given me an incredibly personalized experience by assigning me a Camera Concierge (yes, a real person with a real voice) who made sure I was perfectly happy with my camera purchases. And thank goodness for that because I bought the D800 and was not happy with a focusing problem. They arranged a free return and zero hassle. This is when I chose to fork out the extra $$$ and purchase a second D4. I now purchase most of my camera equipment through Amazon.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

This camera is incredible. I pretty much relegated my D90 and D300 to the back of the closet from the moment I charged the battery for my D4. There is nothing important to criticize. It is Nikons flagship for all the reasons the word "flagship" was invented. I actually have tried to find something to dislike. The only thing I can come up with is that the smaller-output readings on the control panel at the bottom are difficult for me to see, even with reading glasses. Others have criticized the two different format storage cards. I dont think thats a problem. Some have remarked about how big the D4 is. True, its bigger. But once I got used to the D4 (took about 10 minutes), the smaller D90 and D300 feel like toys in comparison. The D4s ergonomics are much better than any other camera Ive used. Some have criticized the loud shutter. I dont have a problem with it. I think people who criticized the shutter, size or storage cards were trying to find something negative to say just like I whined about the small readout of the lower control panel. The price is certainly hefty, but I got my moneys worth.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

This review is written from the viewpoint of someone upgrading from a D700/D3. PROS: -Much faster shooting. -Visibly much better high ISO pictures (both tone and noise) -More tonality in low ISO pictures -Amazingly fast and accurate auto-focus -More detail (due to higher MP count) -Lighter -Longer lasting battery -Back-lit buttons to aid in low light shooting -Dual battery charger included (MH-26) NEUTRAL: -Ergonomics have changed -Can shoot 1080p video if for some reason you desire to do so -For the price tag, Nikon didnt throw in any basic goodies like a screen shield, extra battery cover, Capture NX software, HDMI cable, rebate towards wireless connection, etc. Including little things like that really make a loyalty difference to some consumers. After tens of thousands of dollars on lenses and bodies, I wish theyd be more inclined to toss in something like a ~$12 screen cover as standard. My D700 even came with a screen shield. CONS: -Takes a bit of getting used to the new button placement -Mixed media slots/no option to go dual CF or dual XQD. I would LOVE to have dual XQD slots, and would have paid extra for it. -Nikon still includes one of the most uncomfortable straps you can make to put on a pro body. With a decent lens and flash, it feels like its cutting in to your neck. Overall, its an amazing upgrade from the D3/D700. If I had a D3s, Im not completely sure I could have justified the jump as much. The biggest advantage Ive noticed over the D3s is the miraculous auto-focus. In lower lighting conditions on moving subjects, the camera seems to have ESP and snag perfect focus over 90% of the time.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

There is nothing I can say that hasnt been said on the myriad of reviews on this photographic tour-de-force. However, few things to point out compared to the D3-series (from my experienced as a wedding photographer): 1. Ergonomics: with the reduced weight and improved feel, my hands arent as cramped and exhausted after a full day wedding shoot. 2. SPEED!!! The Xqd has been a flawless speed demon, coupled with the Lexar Professional 1000x 32 GB CompactFlash Card 2-Pack LCF32GCTBNA10002 , you will be set for an entire day of shooting without skipping a photographic beat; priceless in a wedding ceremony. 3. Battery life: the CIPA numbers do NOT accurately reflect the actual shooting time. One battery will last me an entire wedding day, which is 8-10 hours, and includes about 3500 shots. I hardly use my spare battery. 3. High ISO with more Mpx: really amazing shots up until about 12,800; after that, you can touch it up and be ok at 25k. We arent at useable 100k yet (I cant believe i can actually write that though!) This made the most logical sense versus a Nikon D800 36.3 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) simply because I needed speed and resolution during a wedding shoot; the D800 is a nice to have, but not a must-have for me at a wedding. Processing pictures with the 16mpx files is arduous enough, especially when giving all digital files to clients, so I cant imagine 36mpx images being entirely client-friendly.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

I purchased the D4 because of its versatility to adapt to any situation. I primarily shoot Portraits and events and I plan on this being my last body. The unit has an incredible dynamic range, I do not have any focusing problems reported by other users. The ergonomics are excellent, and weight is less than my D700 with a Power Grip. I have shot images at 12,800 ISO with little or negligible noise, and at 50 ISO images need only minor post. I especially like the ability to Auto bracket at up to 3EV. This is great for HDRs. The Auto HDR setting is a waste. Do it yourself. Images are sharper than my D700 with the same lens, all settings equal. From what I have read though, if you have a D3S it is not worth the upgrade do to cost. To keep it short, is the camera worth $6000.00?. Well, since I couldnt find a new D3S, yes it was. I am very happy with the investment. I have only had the unit for a week and still familiarizing my self the the controls. Bottom line, its well built, and does what the reviews say it will. I already installed the second Firmware update 1.02, and there will probably be more. I finally have enough buttons on the body to do what I want without going to the Menu. I will still keep my D300 and D700 bodies, they have their purpose. Update 08/16/12: Instead of purchasing the $700.00 WiFi unit from Nikon, I purchased a mobile router mfg by Sapido. (Available from Amazon. Cost: $69.99,plugs into LAN port via cat5 cable, has lithium rechargeable batteries that last about 6hrs. Doesnt draw power from cameras battery to operate. Yes, its tethered, but look at the cost difference, and works great. About the same range as Nikons. Fits in a pocket. Update 3/26/13, The battery on this camera does not last as long as that of my d700. Would suggest spare battery for anyone who is buying the D4. Still happy with the body.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

Table Tennis is a tough sport to photograph. The matches are played in gyms with bad light, often with mixed color bulbs. The ball travels at 100+mph and flash is a no no since it would blind the player. Ive been covering a couple of tournaments a year, pro bono, to help publicize this wonderful sport. For the last 3 years Ive been using a D3 and a 200 mm f/2 NIkkor to capture the action which is done best at 1/1000 or faster while keeping the ISO right up near the top of the range. The D4 with an even better sensor, reduces the noise and allows an even faster shutter speed. The D4 also lets me use a 180 mm f/2.8 Nikkor as an option, too. Additionally, the D4 weighs noticeably less, has an improved ergonomic feel, and improved placement for most of the controls. If you need to push the limits of whats possible in shooting fast action, low light photography, this camera is tops!

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

Love this camera. Have another one, that I use all the time. Had a D500 as a second, but hated that. I work as a sports photographer, and the D500 just didnt follow the action. The D4 is perfect.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

Im a Nikon guy through and through. Shot with a F100 back in high school. First DSLR was D200 and then a D3. Loved the D3 but it didnt have the option for video. Then comes the D4. Pricey at first and finally manageable for the wallet. I love the speed, the weight, and it feels so natural upright and on verticle grip. It offers ISO for any situation. Only complaint is this new card slot. I have all CF cards. Other than that, worth every penny. Bought mine used with over 200K shots but still running like a true champ. FPS is sweet.

إظهار المزيد

التعليق

Purchased this camera to supplement my other Nikon bodies used for my work as a professional fashion photographer. This is my fifth D4 body. They are used constantly. The Nikon system have been giving me nothing but superb results. This recent purchase is no exception. It is pricey but this is where you get what you pay for is true. Without going into boring details about my studio and on location activities with the D4s, I highly endorse this camera if you need most of its features and capabilities in your photography. I ordered from Amazon because of the great customer service before and after the sale if issues come up.

إظهار المزيد