Unlike the initial constrained availability of the popular D800 and D800E, the new Nikon D810 has actually shipped in relatively generous quantities. As you can see, we've had to hire a guard to fend off customers wanting to pick one up a day early!
We are actually able to fulfill our pre-orders and even have a small number left to sell. If you want a D810 quickly, then do not hesitate to call and reserve one today since you'll be able to pick it up tomorrow! They will be selling for $3,499…
I had a quick look at the D810 that will be going into our rental dept. and my initial feedback is positive. The new, quieter and smoother shutter and mirror mechanism are truly a huge step up, making the camera sound and feel much more refined. Also, quiet mode is now actually much quieter too, so if you are trying to be unobtrusive, the new D810 might just be the quietest pro DSLR on the market today. The camera not only shoots faster, it also has substantially larger raw and/or jpeg buffers and its UI is more responsive in many ways.
Despite some reports to the contrary, I did find low-light live-view to be significantly improved compared to the D800, especially since you can now just push the Pv button (depth-of-field preview) while in live-view and force the camera to open its lens up wide from whatever your set working aperture. Press Pv a second time and the aperture closes down again, or just take a shot. On the D800, you'd be doing a lot of scroll wheel spinning to open and close the aperture while doing low-light live-view work. Also, the zoomed in resolution of the D810 seems a fair bit higher, making it easier to accurately focus manually in all light levels.
Those are just a few quick first impressions: look for a more detailed review in the coming weeks where I plan on comparing its image quality to a D800, checking out the small-RAW to see how effective it really is and more...
