d850

Dave Etchells has a background in chip science and finally had the very rare opportunity to visit Nikon’s sensor design labs. It’s long been the perception in the photographic and filmmaking community that Nikon leans heavily on Sony for off-the-shelf sensors and is handed down parts. It’s led to opinions like “why would Sony give their best sensor to rival Nikon?” being quite common on camera sites and forums.

The answer, in actual fact, is that Nikon can beat Sony at their own game, with the 46MP full frame sensor in the D850 proof of the pudding. It does better 4K video quality than the A7R III at a higher megapixel count and edges it for stills quality too. Now let’s hear about some of the science behind it.