@heradicattor
What do you mean with "Mosaic"?

@ahbleza
interesting, I didn't know about it yet. Thx

it is very good for stills, but ok for video. diglloyd has an informative review (pay version). a hacked gh2 is a better option for me for video apps

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I used one on Maui and while it wasn't quite up to GH2 spec for video it was very nice, the full frame look, but much sharper than a Canon, no Aliasing that bothered me.

I own a D800 and I'm very happy about the video!! That DR is awesome!!!!

The lens mount distance to tripod mount isn't what you want. Lens mount distance is an arbitrary amount chosen by the camera manufacturer. For example, Canon uses a different flange distance than Nikon for FF cameras. I think the distance from the sensor is a better measurement to start from and then calculate the lens's nodal point from there (and it will vary from lens to lens). Here is a fairly decent and simple explanation of the panorama "parallax" problem: http://www.panoguide.com/howto/panoramas/parallax.jsp

Nikon D800 body will be $2799.95 after $200 instant savings

Wish I had the budget for a D800. @Vitaliy_Kiselev, that deal is really good for the D800, THX. It's a great combo cam. The level of Video and Photo that camera is capable of is sick. Especially the photo side. Since I do events where I need both top notch photo and video it's a serious consideration.

As for the video i'm more of a DR guy than ultimate detail. So long as the detail is high enough to be credible and not at the softness level of the Canons, then I think DR is very much the next most important thing for me. The D800 has really good DR and that's what I think puts it in the same high quality range as the GH line. I also do a lot of posters for clients and the D800 would be a very strong tool for that purpose. D800 just isn't a low budget tool. Bigger Lens investment and for me I think the D800 really shines with an Atomos Ninja, so that also adds to the cost. Man I need some big jobs :)

I assume you mean the vertical distance. It looks to be 49.5mm from lens center to base.

@Aria it seems to me that the DR of the D800 is bigger than GH2's. It just my first impression, I had no time to test it in detail and probably it would need to be tested with several good patches on the GH2. But I am sure there are some good tests meanwhile. Possibly the upcoming Sony FF NEX could use the same sensor as the D800 and hopefully it will be in your budget, though D800 is not expensive for such a camera.

Here's more on the D800 shooting on Dexter. They seem quite taken with the quality, even compressed with factory settings. Here's a quote:

"We used the Alexa as a baseline and had the D800 recording to an outboard recorder uncompressed and to an internal memory card at H.264 compressed," says Fletcher. "We also tested a Canon C300 with a Cooke lens on it—a $40,000 setup—running alongside the $4,000 Nikon D800 setup. The Canon footage had what you might call an over-smooth look to it. But the D800 uncompressed footage blew us away."

There are some interesting comments on the Nikkor lenses they used too. They also describe the workflow and rigging.

"The team set a primary look for the second-unit D800 that toned down the sharpening, contrast, color and saturation to flatten the image and make it more pliable in post. "The image out of the box is very naturalistic, but if we baked in a crunchy look, we could only get crunchier. We need that flatness to be able to throw a look at it in post and go." "

Here's the link: http://www.studiodaily.com/2013/01/nikons-d800-gets-down-and-dirty-for-dexter/

Read more on NikonRumors.com: http://nikonrumors.com/2013/01/10/nikon-d800-shooting-dexter.aspx

@hay, From what i've seen the D800 had more than a stop of DR over the GH2. The Sensor in the D800 has a DR on the photo side of 14 and from the testing i've read on the video side it's 12 Stops!!! Overall the Sensor in the D800 is far superior to the GH2 sensor from a purely technical standpoint. It's amazing how good the GH2 looks given the wide gap between the two sensors.

I think the D800 is going to be at it's best when using the HDMI output. Using the 4:2:2 HDMI output from what i've seen tests show that the D800 handles highlights better than the GH2 as well as shadows. The D800 also does in fact look better using the 4:2:2 HDMI output versus the internal codec and tweaking in an NLE. The difference in sharpness between the HDMI and Internal recording is not what I would call a huge one but it does improve slightly using the HDMI output. Just based on the technical stats the GH2 and D800 are very close in terms of detail. I also have read that detail improves even more using the Mosaic Anti Aliasing Filter. That's how I would use a D800 if I were to buy one.

I think it's a tough call between deciding amongst the D800/Ninja/Mosaic Filter, GH2/3 or a BMC. Each has it's strengths and value. I think the BMC does have it's RAW 2.5K shooting strengths. Meanwhile the D800/Ninja/Mosaic combo has it's strengths being a top flight Photo Cam with FF video look, near BMC DR at a lower cost overall since it's not RAW recording and processing. The GH2/3 is such a complete tool with the absolute BEST cost to Performance Ratio of any camera.