D800, done it, anybody else??

[Raid]

Me too! I'm planning a computer upgrade soon too, so I don't expect any problems from the increased pixel count. (Going from i7 950 3.0ghz + 24 GB RAM to Xeon E5-1620 3.6ghz, 64 GB RAM, plus upgrading from 8-disk RAID-50 to 24-disk RAID-50 -- keeping the 256 GB SSD)

Is this a DIY array or off the shelf?

[Dr Croubie]

PS: The reason why I first went Canon was the glass, the IQ from Canon is streets ahead.

Although the range is a bit split, they've both got some the other side doesn't.
Nikon has the 200-400 (canon has a piece of paper), and the 14-24 (canon's stuck with primes or sigma).
But then canon's got the 1200/5.6L (because we can all afford one of them), the TS-Es and the MP-E.
Nikon's got some nice macro bellows like the PB-6 with swing-control, but then, canon can use them too via adapter.

I think the best part about canon is that you can use more nikon lenses via adapter than nikons themselves can use (ever seen that big lens/camera compatibility matrix at Ken Rockwell?)

[Daniel Browning]

You've got me thinking, Daniel. But switch, I'd have to sell the following canon lenses: 16-35 f/2.8 II, 70-200 f/2.8 IS II, 24-105 f/4 IS, 35 f/1.4, 50 f/1.4, 65 MP-E, 85 f/1.2 II, 100 f/2.8 IS macro, and 135 f/2.

Plus flashes. It's a big hassle and expense. I only had 4 lenses and 2 flashes but it still takes forever.

, but Nikon glass is not cheap.

You can say that again, although Canon has been catching up to them in price on some lenses (e.g. 70-200 II).

(24 disk raid? Sounds excessive to me, but I guess I'm a lightweight... )

Yeah, I do video at least as much as photo, lots of 30-50 MB/s that I record direct from uncompressed 1080p off my XH-A1, and at the current 16 TB I'm running out of space. I'm looking forward to the uncompressed HDMI out on the D800.

[Daniel Browning]

Is this a DIY array or off the shelf?

DIY. Planning a Norco 24-bay case, Supermicro board with five 8x PCIe 3.0 slots, and 3 8-port LSI 2008 controllers. Intel supposedly "launched" their $300 E5-1620 processors over two weeks ago, but for some mysterious reason (*cough* profit) the only processors that are actually available are the DP variety that cost three times as much.

For software, I'm planning VMWare vSphere 5 with PCIe passthrough, but I'm still waffling between ZFS on FreeBSD or mdadm+LVM on CentOS 6. Right now leaning toward the latter.

I'm glad the hard drive prices have finally come down to reasonably sane levels. Although I certainly wouldn't mind if they dropped back to pre-flood levels before I end up buying a huge stack of them.

[Steve U]

Aghhhhhh, nooooo.
You better not stop posting here, Daniel.

[Daniel Browning]

Aghhhhhh, nooooo.
You better not stop posting here, Daniel.

Definitely not. The only difference is that now all of my posts will consist of Canon bashing and Nikon fanboyism.

[HDNitehawk]

Definitely not. The only difference is that now all of my posts will consist of Canon bashing and Nikon fanboyism.

That cracked me up. I guess the more things change the more they stay the same.

Congratz on the new camera.

I hope you can find a friend who has the 5D III so you can give us a side by side comparison.
I think what you will miss the most is the Canon glass. Overall IMO the glass really plays a bigger part than the body.

[Sheiky]

Good luck Daniel! An old forum-member, Rodger, converted to Nikon with a D700 a while back. At that time there was no 5D3 in the picture and to be honest, the D700 did attract me as well It's a big step to take though. I hope you can find your way in the Nikon way. I'm looking forward to some Canon bashing(wasn't that already the case in a lot of your posts?) and most definitely the Nikon fanboyism What's gonna happen with the bar stories now?

[Steve U]

Healthy rivallry, fanboyism, bring it on, this is gunna be good.

[bouwy]

I wonder how my new Canon S100 stackes up against the New Nikon D800?.