D850 vs D780

[flyguy]

Attached are two shots of the same subject. One shot was taken with a D850 and 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor manual focus prime, hand held; the other shot was taken with a D780 and 28mm f/2.8 Nikkor manual focus prime, using a tripod. I feel the D850 image is slightly sharper than the D780 image; could this be a function of the difference in the sensors, one being 46mp and the other 24mp? The D780 image has more color saturation; it was taken late afternoon a couple of days ago.

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[Pistnbroke]

This is joke yes ? these were not taken at the same time as the shadows on the bottom one are sharp but the top one fuzzy. Not a good test for us to comment on. You need to check the picture control settings on both cameras and make sure they match as well as upping the sharpness to +9.
Using different lenses and different MP cameras is bound to show a difference.
Did you have the fine focus adjust spot on ?

 

[jeffnles1]

Flyguy,
Interesting test. However it would be better if the same lens was used on both cameras and as Pistnbroke above suggested to take both images at the same time of day (preferably just seconds apart). It would offer a better comparison since so much of the image quality does indeed come from the lens.

Looking forward to what others say and for some more comparisons.

 

[flyguy]

To rephrase and simplify this post: eliminating as many variables as I can, and using the same lens on both the D780 and D850, under nearly identical shooting conditions....which sensor yields the better sharpness straight out of the camera??? The D850 has a reputation for excellent images straight out of camera; I have seen plenty of those images. I am comparing out of camera JPEGs now, not post processed RAW files. A variable I have a challenge controlling is in camera processing resulting in the JPEG image. The menus appear to be similar; I could trying pushing both sharpness sliders all the way to the right, to +9 and check images then.

 

[Steve]

To rephrase and simplify this post: eliminating as many variables as I can, and using the same lens on both the D780 and D850, under nearly identical shooting conditions....which sensor yields the better sharpness straight out of the camera??? The D850 has a reputation for excellent images straight out of camera; I have seen plenty of those images. I am comparing out of camera JPEGs now, not post processed RAW files. A variable I have a challenge controlling is in camera processing resulting in the JPEG image. The menus appear to be similar; I could trying pushing both sharpness sliders all the way to the right, to +9 and check images then.

I think you're trying to mix sharpness and detail. Both should show roughly equal sharpness (the D850 may have an edge since it lacks an AA filter). The D850 however is capable of showing greater detail since there are more pixels on the subject.

 

[flyguy]

I do pixel peep regularly, to check more for operator error than anything because I shoot a lot hand held. I have not pushed the sharpness slider on any Nikon DSLR to the max, +9, not yet at least. I leave those sliders at factory defaults, or, if anything have moved them to the right one incremental value only.

 

[Steve]

I do pixel peep regularly, to check more for operator error than anything because I shoot a lot hand held. I have not pushed the sharpness slider on any Nikon DSLR to the max, +9, not yet at least. I leave those sliders at factory defaults, or, if anything have moved them to the right one incremental value only.

Note that will only affect Jpegs and Tiff files and not RAWs. Capture NX-D will add that sharpening parameter, but other programs will not. In addition, it will be added to the embedded Jpegs in the RAW file, but I urge caution - it can give you a false sense of critical sharpness. As it is, sometimes I think I have a nice sharp image on the back of the camera only to find out it's not so great on the computer when looking at the RAW file - and that's with standard sharpening.

 

[flyguy]

This is good stuff, Steve. Thanks!

As for mixing sharpness and detail, I would think the two would go hand in hand? Long time ago I got a shot of an elephant's face, at a local zoo; when I checked the shot on my computer I was amazed at the detail of her eye, her lashes were as sharp as could be.

 

[Steve]

This is good stuff, Steve. Thanks!

As for mixing sharpness and detail, I would think the two would go hand in hand? Long time ago I got a shot of an elephant's face, at a local zoo; when I checked the shot on my computer I was amazed at the detail of her eye, her lashes were as sharp as could be.

They are certainly related, much the same way depth of field and sharpness are related but not quite the same thing.

The thing is, you can have absolute maximum sharpness on a 24MP sensor and that same sharpness on a 46MP sensor, but you'll see more details with the 46MP sensor. That doesn't mean it's any sharper (after all, sharpness comes from the lens and if you're using the same lens, the sharpness didn't change), it's just that the higher res sensor can show you more detail.

 

[Pistnbroke]

When I got my D850 I was very disappointed as I followed Rockwells advice to set sharpness to +7. Not until I pushed it up to +9,as I had done with all my D810s,D800 etc did the picture get sharp. I have shot tens of thousands of pictures at +9 with never a client complaint.

 

[Robin]

On moving to Nikon D500 from Canon I set the sharpness at zero thinking I would set the amount in post.
I took JPEGs as I couldn’t edit the Raw images, net result absolute crap images.
It very nearly put me off Nikon until I realised it was my fault.