Nikon D4 Performance

Generally excellent speed for a pro SLR, though autofocus is somewhat sluggish for its class.

Startup and shutdown times were fast, difficult to measure. Buffer clearing time depends on the image size and quality, burst length and the speed of memory card used, but was generally pretty good with a 100MB/s CompactFlash card. Using a faster 125MB/s XQD card reduced buffer clearing times by almost a third, and also increased burst length slightly.

Mode switching was quite fast.

In terms of the Nikon D4's ability to determine that it's properly focused when shooting the same target multiple times (with no change of focus setting between iteration, to remove the impact of lens AF speed), its speed was a little slow for professional model. The D4 required 0.208 second using single-area center AF mode, and 51-point Auto Area AF lag measured 0.254 second. Some consumer SLRs are actually faster in this test.

In Continuous autofocus mode with release priority, shutter lag was extremely fast, at only 43 milliseconds. We measured the same lag when manually focused, or prefocused, which is very good.

As expected, the Nikon D4's Live View mode adds considerable AF shutter lag. We measured 1.497 seconds for full autofocus which is pretty slow, though faster than previous models. Nikon has eliminated the faster "Hand-held" phase-detect AF mode found on older models, relying on contrast detection (or face detection) autofocus in Live View mode.

Once prefocused, shutter lag in Live View mode was 0.197 second, which is pretty good but still quite a bit slower than using the optical viewfinder.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance. We also use the same Sigma 70mm f/2.8 macro with every camera (on all platforms except Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds and Nikon consumer models lacking an in-body focus motor), to further reduce variation, and because our tests showed that focus-determination time with this lens was close to the fastest, across multiple camera bodies from different manufacturers. Being an older design with a non-ultrasonic motor, it wouldn't be the fastest at slewing from one focus setting to another, but that's exactly the reason we measure focus determination speed, which is primarily a function of the camera body, vs focus adjustment speed, which is primarily a function of the lens.

Single-shot cycle time performance was good for a pro SLR model, at about 0.4 second per frame no matter the file type.

Continuous Hi-speed modes were very fast. We measured a consistent 11.1 frames per second, a little better than Nikon's 11 fps spec. Note, though, that AF and AE are locked from the first frame in a burst in this mode. Nikon claims up to 10 fps with AF and AE, however we didn't test that as our target is static.

Buffer depths were excellent. While we didn't keep testing to see what the buffer limits were for just JPEG or RAW files, with worst-case RAW + best quality JPEG frames, we got 59 frames before the camera began to slow with a 100MB/s CompactFlash card. This increased slightly to 62 frames with a Sony 125MB/s XQD card. Buffer clearing can be lengthy with such deep buffers, though. We measured 29 seconds after the maximum length RAW + JPEG burst with our 100MB/s CompactFlash card. This reduced to 20 seconds after 62 frames with our 125MB/s XQD card. Like other recent pro-level SLRs, the Nikon D4 makes good use of very fast memory cards.

Download speeds were quite fast, fast enough that you probably won't feel the need for a separate card reader.


Bottom line, the Nikon D4 is extremely fast in most respects, with very fast frame rates, deep buffers for long bursts, and very low shutter lag. Full autofocus speed was slower than average for a professional model, though. Keep in mind however that our AF tests are with static subjects, and we have no way of objectively testing the D4's autofocus acquisition and tracking performance with real-world subjects. Despite the slower-than-average full AF test results, we strongly suspect the D4 performs very well shooting active subjects and sports in the field, as previous Nikon professional models have shown.

Battery Life

Excellent battery life for a professional SLR.

The Nikon D4 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and charger. The CIPA rated 2,600 shots per charge using the optical viewfinder is excellent for a pro SLR, but keep in mind the D4 does not have a built-in flash which is normally fired for 50% of shots when tested using the CIPA standard. Unfortunately, Nikon does not seem to publish battery life results for when Live View mode is used, but it's a safe bet that it's considerably shorter.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of on fully-charged battery, based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))