Tech Talk Tuesday: Nikon D810 Review

Earlier this month, we received a Nikon D810 DSLR with an 18 – 140 mm lens to take out and test. After several weeks of going around and capturing some interesting images around town, I can safely say that the D810 is a great camera for the novice or the more experienced photographer. It has intuitive controls, handles switching between different modes and environments very well, and has a smooth learning curve.

First, though, let’s talk specs. The Nikon D810 has a 36.3 megapixel sensor measuring 35.9 mm x 24 mm. Excellent auto focusing and image stabilization built-in to the camera, and can capture continuous 5 frames per second for still images. It has the standard SD slot as well as a CF slot, can connect to a computer via a USB cable, can be set for low or high lighting environments with an ISO sensitivity running from ISO 64 – 12,800. It comes with a plethora of modes including portrait, landscape, nighttime, indoor, and action modes to let you flip between settings quickly and easily. The tech specs on the D810 are nothing to sneeze at — it’s one of Nikon’s best new full-frame DSLRs to date.

However, technical specifications only tell a small part of the story when it comes to this camera. The real story comes with using it. The controls, as said earlier, are extremely intuitive. You may need to consult the manual for some of the more advanced features and menus but, for the most part, you can pick up this camera, charge the battery and insert it, and start taking photos quickly. Even switching into manual and adjusting the ISO, aperture, and shutter settings is easy. Once you get the hang of it, you can take some rather stunning photos even if, like me, you’re a complete novice at photography.

Another great thing is the ability to quickly and easily switch between modes and automated settings and then flip back to manual and dial in the more detailed settings without having to start over again. Some cameras will punt you straight back to your previous manual settings. The D810 doesn’t do that though — if you change the mode from portrait to landscape and then go to manual, it keeps the settings from default landscape so you can make tweaks to the settings from there. This is an absolute gift if you’re doing outdoor photography since you will wind up spending a lot of time adjusting the white balance and ISO to get the exact effects you want. Or, at least you’ll do that if you’re as picky as I am.

One annoyance I ran into, though, is taking photos in a shaded area with the sun out. Frequently, I had to move around to get enough light even with low light settings dialed in. The D810, like many other cameras, had a hard time figuring out what to do when I was standing in a lit area but shooting into a shaded area in the woods. However, much of that can probably be put down to photographer error because, otherwise, the camera frequently seemed to read my mind when on Auto Mode.

Lastly, this camera has an nice and easy learning curve. Within three hours, I felt like I had a really good handle on most of the modes and settings on the D810. True, there are probably many more things I have to learn. The manual has come in handy for showing me some things I’ve missed but, overall, I am quite happy with this camera and have plans to add it to my Wish List for Christmas.