D800 D800E image comparison

I was very interested what is the difference between D800 and D800E sensor images (D800 is new Nikon camera and D800E is the same camera with modificated low pass filter, which gives better sharpness to images but this advantage is compensated by disadvantage of predisposition of aliasing effect known as color moire).

I have found the press launch video of Nikon D800 on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCfP-2B7Kng&feature=related

in which there is one image of that comparison (11:01 in the video).

Even though I know, that it is completely irelevant because:

  • image resolution changed multiple times
  • poor video compression added with the visible artifacts
  • image picked from video using only screenshot
  • result saved in animated gif with color space looses and dithering added

I have made small experiment (which has the result I haven't expected in the described conditions). I opened the screenshot in Photoshop, made the rectangular selection of D800 version of image, placed it to the new layer and applied, Unsharp mask filter. I tried to set it up so, that the D800 image is as much simillar to D800E version as possible. Resulting values (but as I said it is absolutely irrelevant for the real D800 image in full resolution) are: Amount 250%, Radius 3px, Treshold 1. 

As you can see, the result realy IS very simillar to the D800E version of image.  

The conclusion for those, who are in two minds if to choose D800 or D800E is: It is much easier to create D800E sharpness in Photoshop on the rare number of photos that need it, than to remove the moire effect (which is nearly impossible even with the new software tools in Nikon Capture).