Nikon D810 sample gallery: 24 new real-world images from one seriously high-res, full-frame DSLR

It's been a bit of a frustrating week here in Knoxville, Tennessee, but my fortune has finally changed! The reason for my frustration was pretty simple: I've had the Nikon D810 sitting on my desk, just begging me to go out and do some shooting -- but every time I've been free to do so, the weather hasn't been playing ball. And then finally, despite a weather forecast that was the most ominous all week, the sun peeked through the clouds yesterday afternoon.

I wasted no time grabbing the D810 and a couple of lenses, and heading for my car. With the changeable weather we've been having lately, I wasn't sure how long the sun would last, but it turned out that I got in a good couple of hours shooting before dark clouds appeared once more: Plenty of time to familiarize myself with Nikon's incredibly high-res DSLR, and to get some nice, real-world Nikon D810 sample photos that will accompany my first Shooter's Report. (That should be landing later this week, incidentally.)

 

 

For my initial batch of shots, I wanted to get a feel for the Nikon D810's fine detail capture, so I stuck at around the sweet spot for the lenses I had to hand -- f/5.6 with both the AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G. And man, is there ever a lot of detail in some of these shots! Rendering also looks very nice, and the D810's metering system seems uncannily accurate so far, with very few shots indeed needing any exposure compensation.

Weather permitting -- and it's looking promising right now -- I'll be heading out with the D810 again tonight for another round of shooting, this time in low light, both low-sensitivity long exposures, and some high sensitivity shots as well. If you have any requests for features you'd like me to test, leave them in the comments below!

 

 

For all 24 new images in both JPEG and .NEF raw formats -- as well as a raft more shots taken a couple of weeks ago by my colleagues Rob Murray and Dave Pardue -- check out our updated Nikon D810 gallery! While you're waiting for our low-light gallery images, you can also get an idea of performance across the entire ISO sensitivity range from our Nikon D810 lab test images. And don't forget to check back for the first section of our Nikon D810 Shooter's Report, coming soon!