DPReview’s “hands-on preview” of the D800

36 megapixels is a lot. One thing that doesn’t seem to get mentioned much in all the online discussion about megapixels is the fact that increasing your camera’s resolution increases its demands on the rest of the system surrounding it. Some people mention the need for more computing power and hard drive space to deal with the files, but that’s not what I’m talking about, really. I’ve found that when I’ve upgraded to higher resolution cameras (from 6 to 10 and then from 10 to 16MP) that I’ve had to address weaknesses in my lenses, my tripods, and most importantly my own technique in order to really see the increased resolution in my photos.

In short, if you’re looking at one of these but don’t have top-notch glass to put in front of it, you might be better off getting one of the D700s that are due to flood the used market soon, and putting the money you saved toward some nicer lenses. That said, there are plenty of folks who can put all those pixels to good use, and I’m sure they’re thrilled right now. In the right hands, the D800 (especially the “E” version without an antialiasing filter) looks like a killer camera. I’ll be interested to see the sample shots when they start popping up.