It will be interesting to see your D800 gallery Andy
I must say I find that wildlife in particular often needs cropping and it was seeing what a fellow photographer on a wildlife holiday could do with his D800E crop wise that so impressed me.
I have occasional bouts of temptation regards a Canon 5D III but despite what a Canon rep told me at a show I have never been completely convinced how well it would crop down. To crop to the same size as my 7D it would have in effect 8-9 mp before probably needing yet more cropping so the idea of more mp to play with is appealing but that seems to have it's own downsides. That is why I am so interested in your experience against the day Canon may bring out an equivalent camera.

I'm not sure about the cropping argument either. Taking 36mp and cropping down to give the same lens multiplication factor as your 7D APS-C sensor reduces the effective pixel count to 14mp v the 18mp of the 7D...

Or put it another way with a 300mm lens on full frame, cropping to give an effective 600mm lens leaves you with only 9mp :eek: With the same 300mm lens on the 7D the native crop immediately makes it equivalent to 480mm lens so cropping to give an effective 600mm leaves you with 14mp :)

For wildlife photography, I think crop sensors have got to be the way to go unless you've got very deep pockets for very long (& heavy) lenses.

I am sure your maths is right as far as the D800 is concerned but I am comparing my 7D against the Canon 5D III which is far worse pixel count wise, the reps argument being that the better quality and dynamic range of each pixel in the 5D III would result in a higher quality photograph despite far less pixels over the subject.
I am just not sufficiently convinced to spend roughly £2K on a 5D III in the hope she was right! So 7D it remains until the 7D II comes out depending what that costs and offers.
For wildlife I have not got deep enough pockets or sufficient stamina for those very long and heavy lenses.

Well folks I have been busy and there are now some extra shots in the Smug Mug D800 Gallery. Apart from my local which is highly recommended if you are in the area. There are now shots from a little Church at a place called Llanasa. There is a window of medieval stained glass which came from Basingwerk Abbey near Holywell and the start of some shots from the village itself. I am starting to find the detail in the original size shots outstanding. There is a picture of a memorial garden and the midges over the pond are clearly visible!

Thanks Andy, nice shots and bags of detail. TFS

By the way you do have a dust bug showing in shot no.3 in the blue sky a little way in from the left hand side towards the top.

Isn't that flare?

Not the bit I was looking at using the original file size. It is a round dark slightly out of focus fuzzy blob. Hopefully either the sensor cleaning of the camera will dislodge it automatically or a quick puff of air from a blower deal with it.

Actually they are poorly done clone stamps where I removed some birds from the distance.

Ooops, sorry Andy!

I must admit I was rather surprised to see what I took to be a dust bunny, they are rather unusual these days.

Mike, I agree; what is starting to amaze me is the detail from the beast. Bear in mind that the Smug Mug shots are not actually the full file size originals. I have to reduce them in size for Smug Mug. The slightest error in cloning stands out like a sore thumb. I am finding it a steep learning curve and am having to tighten up my years of sloppy technique - but it is great fun :D