I just purchased a D850

It just seems like the right time to pull the trigger, in spite of using credit (interest-free, if paid within a year). It seems to me that the Z8 is getting some people with low usage D850 cameras to trade those in for the latest, greatest thing. I suspect later that the D850 copies that come on the market will have more shutter actuations and therefore be less of a bargain.

As a value proposition, this will by far be the best deal I've had on a camera. Adjusted for inflation and factoring in expected usage, I paid way more for a new D70, which was my first DSLR. I also paid more for two new D200 cameras (bought separately about a year apart), a new D300, a used D800 (which had more actuations than the D850 is supposed to have), and for a lightly used D500.

I plan on keeping my D800 as an emergency back-up, using my D500 as a day-to-day camera, and using the D850 for nature/landscape and special occasion photography. I also anticipate situations where I have both the D500 and D850 at the ready with wider angle lenses on the D850 and more telephoto lenses on the D500.

I will update this thread when I have the D850 in-hand and start getting it ready for use. I will be testing the D850 against my existing cameras with various lenses I have, set-up UniWB and customized Picture Controls, etcetera.

I'm curious to see your comparisons.
And congratulations on your new toy! 👍

Smart move! Happy shooting!

So don't keep us in suspense Tony. How much did you pay for it and what was the shutter count?

www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-692202-1.html

With sales tax and free shipping it came out to $1900 with less than 15,000 actuations. I could have paid 10% more for one that had fewer than 1000 actuations, but I figured that the difference in actuations reasonably reflected the expected difference in the life of the cameras (150K actuations seems like a reasonable number).

I disagree. I install UniWB into my cameras along with a customized Picture Control, and the two work together to better reflect the Raw exposure than using Auto or Daylight or any other preset white balance setting along with Standard Picture Control (the Default) or any other preset Picture Control (Neutral, Flat, Portrait, Landscape, etcetera).

Here you can see a full stop difference in foliage, a comparison I did just now to refute the link you provided (so never mind that the red channel was completely blown out on the D500's histogram display.

Sounds a fair price. A reliable camera company here in the UK have a few and one with about 22k actuation for £1480 including tax.
Enjoy.

thats works really good. what a shame you only get to see a green image in the lcd 😌

It's a bit cumbersome in that regard, but the solution is when viewing the image on the rear LCD press:

the "i" button > Retouch > NEF (RAW) processing > and then I'm at a screen with several options that can be applied to convert the Raw file to a JPEG (including AWB, or another WB you have on your camera). This screen retains the last adjustments applied, so typically I'm just clicking up on it to EXE and generating a finished JPEG.

I have also installed a customized Picture Control on my D500 (and will install one with the same adjustments on my D850), so other than adjusting EC for the shot to attain a desired result I'm just two more clicks away. Typically it takes about 7-8 seconds to see a more viewable result, and with SnapBridge I can get the results of the converted JPEGs I have made over to a tablet I have and show folks the selected photos (I do my cropping on the tablet because those selections are too blunt on my D500, and I'm presuming on the D850 too). SnapBridge isn't available on my D800, where my shots stay Raw until I get them on to my computer because frankly the rear LCD screen is a poor viewing platform, so that's another thing I'm looking forward to having on my D850.

Okay, the camera arrived today. I just did a quick and "dirty" comparison (ISO 64 on the D850, but the ISO was accidently left set at 200 on the D800 from a previous use -- for the purposes of what I wanted to look at right now those ISO settings had practically no bearing on the outcome):

It should be self-evident that the D850 crops are on the left, re-sized (for my own convenience) to match the D800 crops on the right. I can see a marginal, but clearly noticeable improvement in the resolution using my Nikon 85mm f/2.8 micro (not PC-E, but practically as good). I have a lot of configuring to do to get the D850 set up the way I want it (not to mention having a life), so the tests I will be doing are going to take some time.

BTW, I'm having some issues with viewing stuff using Google Chrome. It seems somehow related to my recent acquisition of a new graphics card and the three (cheap, but okay) monitors I have set up. Anyway, feel free to download the file if you are having issues like I am, if you care.

What file?

I tried UniWB for a while but explaining the green color while shooting to clients proved a no-go while the penalty of less-than-ideal exposure was non-existent; for my use at least; I guess Iliah thinks different :-).

Sorry for any confusion. I was referring to the file of the crops.

I should say here that the camera came from B&H here in the United States. If you told me this copy was mint I wouldn't argue about it, I haven't detected a mark on it.

would be a no go for me as well. as i shoot live studio monitors and client selects images while shooting. also for my out door portrait sessions i also use 7inch live monitors atached to my tripods and the clietn selects the images on the go.

you can get some great bargins. my used mint a7r2 7,000 clicks and my used a6300 13,000.

I forgot that my Tamron 150-600mm VC g2 requires fine-tuning to each camera. I saw I was having some issues and I just set a quick AF fine-tune in the D850 to adjust for what I was seeing at around 500mm:

So one more thing on my to-do list with this camera will be to get out the Tamron dock and make the fifteen adjustments for this lens, along with three each for my Tamron 45mm f/1.8 VC and 85mm f/1.8 VC.

I feel I have the workflow mostly dialed in, though it's always subject to change. For now I just applied my D500 defaults in NX-D, applied Topaz NR to three other files just like the one above (ISO 6400 and heavily cropped makes for a bit of noise that I wanted dealt with), and then I set a tonal curve in a luminance layer, and saved the work as a JPEG. The end results were coming out of my computer in under a minute per file.