Nikon D850 vs. D800E high ISO comparison

7 years ago
Categories: Nikon D800, Nikon D850

Here is another Nikon D850 vs. D800E high ISO comparison by Borut Furlan:

I was using 85/1.8 lens, aperture priority automatic, f/5.6, Live view, available light in my room, no exposure compensation, Adobe RGB color space, Gitzo tripod, remote trigger. I didn’t pay attention to other picture settings (sharpening, color, contrast). I have noticed that D850 pictures are a bit darker, although there was no exposure compensation on any camera.

Click on pictures for larger view:

ISO 800:

ISO 1,600:

ISO 3,200:

ISO 6,400:

ISO 12,800:

ISO 25,600:

ISO 51,200:

ISO 102,400:

Updates from Borut:

I had borrowed the camera only for a couple of hours so I didn’t have time to make “in-depth” test. This is why I was working quickly and had cameras set on Auto.
Distance between camera and subject was absolutely the same for both cameras (about 8 meters). Published pictures are 100% crops. Since D850 has 12% greater linear resolution (square root from 45/36), and crops have the same pixel dimensions (900 x 700), we get about 12% less with D850 (but in 12% greater resolution).
Both cameras were set on auto WB, matrix metering and aperture priority automatics, without exposure compensation. I don’t know how sharpening and other picture parameters were set on the borrowed D850. And yes, I was also surprised, that camera meters are so much apart (about 0.7 f-stop, as I’ve found later from EXIF), but didn’t have time to repeat the test.
I have JPG and RAW images, but Lightroom doesn’t support D850’s RAW files so far.
I did this test strictly for my personal information (to buy this camera or not), but since results were quite surprising to me, i decided to share them