Nikon D800 & D800E Now Official, Sport 36MP Full-Frame Sensor

The Nikon D800 rumors turned out to be true, since earlier today the Japanese company has made official this DSLR camera, which sports a whipping 36.3MP resolution image sensor, the highest resolution sensor to be installed in a full-frame digital camera.

Nikon’s latest professional camera will actually be available in two versions. One is the regular D800, while the other is the D800E, which is actually the same DSLR but with its anti-aliasing filter removed. 

This gives the D800E the ability to take sharper images when paired together with exceptional lenses, but has the downside of adding extra moire to the image.

The good news however is that Nikon says this can be removed, thanks to a new setting in the Capture NX2 software, which doesn’t degrade the overall sharpness of the image.

The new high-res image sensor installed in the D800 forced Nikon to limit the noise sensitivity of its full-frame DSLR to ISO 6400 (25,600 in Hi2 extended mode), but otherwise the D800 adopts many of the features of the D4.

These include the same Advanced Scene Recognition System with 91k-pixel 3D Color Matrix Metering III, 51 point AF, 1080/30p HD video shooting, uncompressed HDMI output, and the special two-shot HDR mode.

All these are packed in a case that is significantly smaller than that of the D4, actually similar in size to the D700.

“Whatever the project, visionaries need a tool that is going to help them stay on-time and on-task,” said Bo Kajiwara, director of marketing, Nikon Inc. 

"The D800 is the right tool for today's creative image makers, affording photographers, filmmakers and videographers a versatile option for capturing the ultimate in still image quality or full HD content, with maximum control."

The Nikon D800 will be available in late March for the suggested retail price of $2999.95 (about 2,289 EUR), while the special D800E will be available in mid April 2012 for a suggested retail price of $3,299.95 (2,518 EUR).