Nikon D4 Studio Sample Photos

Nikon sent me a D4 for review last week and you’ll find a full set of high-res studio sample photos shot at all ISO settings, below. I’ve used it just enough to get a feel for it and I am impressed. I shot a whole bunch of low light family stuff on Easter and I think the photos look great. The studio sample photos confirm my initial impressions. I think the D4 is useable up to ISO 6400 and I wouldn’t hesitate to go up to ISO 12,800 if I needed to. It does start to get a bit gritty above ISO 6400, though. And of course, beauty and quality are in the eye of the beholder. I shoot sports and events where some noise is acceptable, depending on the conditions. Wedding and landscape photographers might not want to go over ISO 3200, where noise starts to get noticeable if you look closely.

I’m including a couple of real world family photos along with the studio samples. They were both shot with the camera in aperture priority with auto ISO and I am really pleased with both of them – especially the ISO 7000 image of my wife Jenni decorating the Easter egg.

Nikon D4 ISO 7200 Portrait

Nikon D4 ISO 12,800 Candid Photo

I don’t have studio samples from the Nikon D800 yet but it will be interesting to compare the two cameras when I do. We do have Nikon D3s studio samples from a couple of years ago, though. I took a close look at the sample images from the D3s and the D4 and the D4 is definitely better at high ISO. The D3s images start to get soft and noisy at ISO 3200 and I think the D4 images look good up to ISO 6400. Plus, the D4’s 30% higher resolution is going to mean even better image quality when images are displayed at normal sizes on the Web or in print.

I noticed that Nikon has changed their in-camera processing a bit. The Nikon D4 noise looks sharper and a bit more obvious than the D3s. I think this is a new strategy that started with the D7000. It delivers more detail and sharper images. Viewed at 100% the noise can appear harsh but at normal outputs (not pixel peeping), you don’t notice the noise and the images look very good. The bottom line – the D4’s image quality is at least one stop better than the D3s. Whether or not that improvement matters is a personal judgment call. For action photographers or photographers who habitually shoot in low light, it could make a real difference.

The Nikon D4 studio sample photos below were shot RAW in aperture priority at f/8, from ISO 100 all the way up to ISO 204,800 (H4). The lens used was the Nikkor AF-S 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VR zoom. The photos were converted to 16-bit TIFF files in Lightroom 4, using the default settings. No additional noise reduction, sharpening or exposure correction was done. The graybar, logo and text were added in Photoshop and the photos were then resaved as maximum quality JPEGs. Feel free to pixel-peep, download, print and compare as you please.

Warning: these files are HUGE – be patient while they download.