Monday was my first day shooting photos and video with the Nikon D4. Coming from the Nikon D700 for the past three years to this, I expected it to be pretty much the same, just faster. Man was I wrong.

First off, the colors this camera reproduces is seriously incredible. The detail, wow.

If a photo looks bad coming from this camera, it’s because the guy shooting it screwed up. No way it’s the camera. Not at this level. Human error, yes. Camera error? Hell no.

The focusing engine is fast. MUCH faster than I expected it to be. I new it’d be quick, I’d seen the commercials and this is after all a sports camera, the industry’s fastest focusing camera. That said, HOLY SHIT THIS IS FAST.

In the mail today after shooting Bryci, my 32 gig XQD card came. The D4 comes with a 16 gig which is great but when shooting raw, that’s around 450 pix and I will use that quickly so i figured I’d grab another 32 gig card, perhaps two in the future.

I’m sure you’re saying… XQD? what in the… well, XQD is the new format for memory cards. Before it was SD cards.. then SDHC, SDXC etc.. XQD is the future. Fast? Yes, the fastest possible. Insanely fast would be more like it. Sony were the first to make them, Sandisk and others are now making them moving forward along side Sony.

Video wise, no on board image stabilization for the D4 means tripod or GTFO. It has a crop factor as well of 2.7. This means if you’re using a 100mm lens, it becomes a 270 mm lens. This is because the sensor is much larger than the 1920×1080 hd requires so rather than waste the extra space, it doesn’t use it at all.. allowing the camera to focus it’s power in the smaller area, allowing the lens to increase. This doesn’t make much sense to me either, in fact it sounds stupid as a bag of hammers but it works. I was using my trusty 24-70 today and blamo.. hello zoomed goodness.

I’ll put some pix out shortly, they are of B and if you’ve ever known a lady, you know she choses the photos she likes and if you want to stay in her good graces, you don’t question this. You smile, you nod, you agree.

Trust in this though, this camera, holy fack. Worth every darn penny. I can’t wait to see the trouble I can get into with this.

I ordered my Nikon D4 in the start of January when Nikon announced it. I sold my Nikon D700 right away to a buddy looking to get into the game, and then later Nikon delayed the release of the D4 from January to March. Yes, it was the suck. I had no camera to shoot with.

Ah well, the day has come and the D4 has arrived. unboxing time.

Nikon included a 16 gig XQD card and card reader. XQD is the future for cards for cameras, as in.. you know that SD card or CF card you have now in your camera? Next year’s model of that camera, or the year after depending on your camera and how up to date they are.. will all be XQD. XQD is the fastest card possible, and they can go all the way up to 4 gig currently. The ones for sale stop at 32 gigs right now, but this is changing as well.

Being that I am in Canada, my Nikon has two manuals, one in English, in French.

Right out of the box, I am blown away with how light this is. All I had read in reviews was “what a tank it is” and what not. I am thinking the reviewers shoot with small compact cameras or smaller dlsrs without pro grip/extra batteries. That makes sense to me anyway.

This is lighter than a D700 with pro grip and extra battery. I weighed mine before selling it, this is 1.1 pounds lighter then D700, pro grip, extra battery in pro grip. That might not seem like much, but it adds up.

Holy shit.. TWO battery charger included! Nice!

Breaks down how much time you have shooting. this is cool.

The battery that comes with it is said to be good for 2600 shots. I’d like a second battery as a back up me thinks.

So there you have it, I have not started to shoot with it yet, I just started to play with the menus. The LCD screen on the back, wow. The resolution looks like an iphone 4s, so clear, almost like a video game.

The two card slot set up, you can have it write in overflow meaning one card is full, it writes to second card. You can set it for back up so it writes to one, then copies to other.. or you can write in raw / jpeg so it is putting raw pix on card A, jpegs on card b.

Seriously, in the ten minutes I have played with this camera, I can tell you one thing. My game has changed.

B and I are shooting Friday or Saturday for next week’s update.. wish me luck!

My new Nikkor lens just arrived. It’s the AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G

This lens will become one of my go to lenses for my work I think. Right now I love the 70-200mm 2.8G but it’s a huge heavy lens, needing a mono pod or tripod almost always. This lens will offer amazing bokeh me thinks.

Unboxing time! (these pix shot with an iphone 4s so no hating)

My Nikon D4 doesn’t arrive until March 15-18th area so watch for new pix shortly thereafter.

March 15th cannot come soon enough as my Nikon D4 will be released into my hands. Then I get to start shooting Bryci again.. and all the world will be right.

A cut away for the geeks

Magnesium alloy shell for strength and lightness

The countdown is on.