The D4S ($6,499.95, body only) is the biggest, baddest Nikon camera that you can buy. The body is huge, thanks in part to an integrated vertical shooting grip, and it can rattle off shots at a little under 11 frames per second, even with tracking focus enabled. Its full-frame sensor is as big as 35mm film, with a low-resolution 16-megapixel design that allows you to push the ISO as high as you need to get a shot. Some shooters may want more resolution—Nikon covers the needs of studio and landscape photographers with the 36-megapixel D810 ($1,599.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) —but if you’re shooting fast action, this is the Nikon SLR to get. Its performance is impeccable, and it earns Editors’ Choice honors.

Design and Controls
A big, heavy camera, the D4S ($4,799.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window)  measures 6.2 by 6.3 by 3.6 inches (HWD) and weighs in at 2.7 pounds. Its design is similar to Canon’s fast-shooting EOS-1D X (6.4 by 6.2 by 3.3 inches, 3.4 pounds); both build the vertical shooting grip into the camera. The body is built like a tank, with a magnesium alloy chassis and extensive protection against dust and moisture. We don’t recommend using it to hammer nails, but it certainly feels like you could do so without any ill effects. Unlike some other Nikon full-frame bodies, including the D750 ($1,699.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) and the D810, the D4S doesn’t include an on-board flash.

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4.0

Excellent

Canon EOS-1D X

 

 

 

Read Our Canon EOS-1D X Review

4.5

Outstanding

Nikon D750

$1,699.95

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4.5

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Nikon D810

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The camera is rife with physical controls—it puts almost every function imaginable at your fingertips. The front plate includes Pv (depth of field preview) and Fn controls, as well as two front control dials and a switch-button combination that controls the autofocus mode. On the top plate you’ll find a dial to adjust the drive mode along with buttons to set the flash mode, metering pattern, and bracketing options, all to the left of the optical viewfinder. To its right there’s a monochrome information LCD, the Mode button, a Record button for movies, an Exposure Compensation button, and the integrated power switch and shutter release.

There’s another shutter release at the bottom right corner of the camera, part of the vertical shooting grip. It’s surrounded by a switch that enables or disables controls on the grip, and an unlabeled button that is used to lock exposure. The rear plate houses playback and delete controls running down the left side. The right rear houses two controls wheels (one at the top, the other at the bottom), two small joystick, a directional pad with a center select button, and two AF-ON buttons to activate the focus system. Each rear joystick moves the active focus point around; the directional pad does the same when shooting, but it alone is used to navigate through menus. Many of the D4S’s control buttons can be remapped via the menu system, so you can configure the camera to suit your shooting style.

The integrated grip design offers an advantage over the add-on grips used by other full-frame models like the Canon EOS 5D Mark III ($1,539.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . There’s room for additional rear controls, below the rear LCD. These include a monochrome rear information display that shows the ISO, image quality setting, and white balance, as well as controls to adjust them. There’s also a button to record voice memos, and a small microphone, which is helpful for making quick notes on an image. Finally there’s a toggle switch to change between video and still recording mode, as well as a button that switches to Live View mode.

The rear LCD is a 3.2-inch panel with a 921k-dot resolution. It’s quite sharp, so you’ll have no issues confirming focus of shots in the field. It’s also suitable for confirming focus when shooting still or video in Live View mode, although you’ll want to magnify the portion of the frame on which you’re focusing. There’s no plastic protector as there is for the D810, and the screen doesn’t tilt like the one on the D750. The LCD didn’t pick up any scratches as it moved in and out of camera bags during my test period, but you may want to add a protector if you feel that your D4S is going to live a rough life.

The D4S is a full-frame camera, and its viewfinder dwarfs those found in SLRs with smaller APS-C image sensors. It’s a 0.7x magnification finder that covers 100 percent of the frame, equaling the quality of other current full-frame Nikon models. Canon uses a slightly higher magnification prism (0.76x) in the EOS-1D X, but unless you’re looking at them side-by-side it would be tough to tell the difference.

It’s designed with autofocus performance in mind, however, and doesn’t support changeable focus screens. Don’t expect the same manual focus experience that you’ll get with an old 35mm F3—if you’re shooting with wide-aperture manual focus primes like the Zeiss Otus 1.4/85 ($4,490.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) you’ll want to use Live View if you want to perfectly nail focus at f/1.4. At narrower apertures the camera’s electronic rangefinder—a small green dot in the viewfinder that indicates a focus lock—is a more reliable indicator of a properly focused image.

Features and Autofocus

Features and Autofocus
The camera has a number of features that move beyond standard image capture with an intervalometer, which allows it to capture images at preset intervals. Up to 89,991 images can be captured automatically—assuming you have enough power and storage space to do so—at intervals of anywhere from 1 second to 24 hours apart, and you have the option of activating exposure smoothing to keep exposure consistent from shot to shot. You’ll be able to combine the images together in a video editing application to create a time lapse movie. If you don’t want to go through that hassle, and are happy with a maximum 8-hour time lapse, you can create a time lapse video of up to 1080p60 quality in-camera, but you’ll lose the resolution advantage that capturing 16-megapixel frames provides.

There’s no integrated Wi-Fi or GPS, but add-on accessories are available for both. The GP-1A GPS Unit(Opens in a new window) ($312) is a pricey add-on, but it adds location data to your images. For wireless file transfer there’s the WT-5A(Opens in a new window) ($877), which connects directly to the D4S’s Gigabit Ethernet port. Its main functionality is to transmit images to a computer running an FTP server, but it also works with iOS devices. When installed it makes it possible to use your iPad or iPhone to remotely control the D4S in still or video mode.

One of the reasons that you’ll want the D4S is for its burst capabilities. They’d be for naught if the autofocus system wasn’t able to keep up, but the 51-point focus system is one of the best that you’ll find in a full-frame camera. It’s quick to start, focus, and fire, doing so in just 0.3-second. In bright light the camera locks focus and fires in less than 0.05-second, and it does the same in about 0.4-second in very dim conditions. Live View focus is also fairly speedy; 0.6-second in bright light and 0.7-second in very dim conditions.  You’ve got some control over how the focus system works. If you want to remain in control you can manually select a point (or a group of five points), but there’s also a 3D tracking mode that automatically follows subjects. The D4S is able to utilize face detection when using the optical finder, which improves tracking accuracy when photographing people.

See How We Test Digital Cameras

Nikon rates the D4S at 11 frames per second, but I was only able to eke 10.4fps out of it in lab tests, which isn’t shabby at all when you consider the camera reacquires focus and exposure between each shot. It can keep that pace for 48 Raw+JPG, 62 Raw, or 200 JPG shots before the buffer fills. I tested the camera with a 160MBps SanDisk CompactFlash card, which required about 15.5 seconds to clear the buffer entirely for Raw+JPG, 12.4 seconds for Raw, and 9.9 seconds for JPG. You can start shooting again for more limited durations as files are committed to the memory card.

The Canon EOS-1D X is capable of shooting faster with locked focus and exposure—13.9 frames per second—but it can only keep that pace for 56 shots. In its standard burst shooting mode, which reacquires focus and exposure for each shot like the D4S, it is a bit faster at 11.8fps, but it can only capture 17 Raw+JPG, 32 Raw, or 85 JPG shots before slowing down. We tested the 1D X with a slower 90MBs CF card, but found that it required about 8 seconds to clear its smaller shooting buffer regardless of file format. The D4S has a second card slot that supports XQD memory, a card format that supports 350MBps write speeds, but we didn’t have an XQD memory card on to see how much that cuts down write times.

Performance and Conclusions

Image Quality and Conclusions
The D4S has one of the lowest resolution sensors that you’ll find on a full-frame camera—of current models, only the Sony Alpha 7S ($2,498.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is lower at 12 megapixels, and the Nikon Df uses the same 16-megapixel imager as the D4S. It’s still plenty of pixels to make prints, but if you’re looking to heavily crop or simply want to capture as much fine detail as possible, the 36-megapixel D810 is a better fit. Putting fewer pixels on a large sensor does give it an advantage; each pixel is physically larger, which provides  an advantage for shooting at high ISO, as you’re likely to do in low light.

I used Imatest(Opens in a new window) to check just how the D4S performs at high ISOs. When shooting JPGs at default noise reduction settings it keeps noise under 1.5 percent through ISO 25600. More importantly, images are still fairly detailed at that setting. Close examination of photos on a calibrated NEC MultiSync PA271W($999.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) shows that, while there’s some evidence of noise reduction, the fine lines in our ISO test scene are still visible. At ISO 12800 that’s less of an issue—detail is strong—and it’s even better at ISO 6400 and above. Going the other direction, I would not hesitate to shoot JPGs at ISO 51200 when the shot called for it, but image quality does suffer more noticeably when pushing the camera to ISO 102400. You can also shoot at ISO 208400, but detail is bad here, and images are a total blur at the top ISO 409600 sensitivity. The Canon EOS-1D X uses an 18-megapixel image sensor, but its high ISO output lags behind the D4S by about a stop; images from the Nikon shot at ISO 102400 look as good as those from the Canon at ISO 51200.

If you prefer to capture images with a bit more grain, but also more detail, at high ISOs you can set High ISO NR to Low or Off via the menu; if your tastes run in the opposite direction, you can move it away from the default Normal setting and set it to High. You also have the option of capturing images in an uncompressed Raw format and processing photos in the converter of your choice. We use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom here in the PCMag Labs as a Raw converter, and have included pixel-level crops of Raw images from our ISO test scene in the slideshow that accompanies this review. I’d not hesitate to use the D4S through ISO 51200 when shooting Raw, as image detail is still crisp, even through there’s a bit of noise that give images a grainy appearance. Noise becomes more of an issue at ISO 102400, but details are still there when shooting Raw. You can still see detail at ISO 204800, but there’s a lot of grain. Looking at a Raw file shot at ISO 409600 shows you why the JPG output is so poor at that sensitivity—the Raw is a big blur of noise and jagged grain. But being able to capture useable images through ISO 102400 can’t be discounted—that’s just incredible.

The D4S also packs some formidable video features. It can capture footage at up to 1080p60 quality—even though it was released earlier this year, it did come to market before 4K-capable cameras like Sony Alpha 7S and Samsung NX1 ($1,499.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) were announced. Footage can be recorded to a memory card in QuickTime format, or you can connect an external field recorder via HDMI—the D4S outputs an uncompressed signal via HDMI. Lower frame rates, including 30p, 25p, and 24p, are also supported. When shooting at these frame rates you have the choice of using the entirety of the sensor, or a 2.7x crop mode that matches the actual resolution of 1080p video.

The D4S has an internal microphone for recording video, but there’s also a standard 3.5mm connection for an external mic, a headphone jack for monitoring audio when rolling footage, and in-camera audio level control so you can make sure that the sound isn’t too low or too high. Other connections include the aforementioned HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet ports, a standard mini USB connector, a PC sync socket, a port for the optional GPS accessory, a connector for a wired remote control, and a hot shoe. The dual memory card slots—one for XQD and a second for CompactFlash—are housed in a compartment on the right rear. You must lift a flap to push the button that opens it, so there’s very little chance that you’ll accidentally open the door when shooting. The D4S ships with a huge battery that’s rated by CIPA to capture more than 3,000 images per charge; if you opt to buy additional batteries, you’ll be happy to know that the charger that Nikon includes is capable of charging two batteries simultaneously.

The Nikon D4S is the full-frame speed demon in the company’s strong pro camera lineup. And, if you ask this reviewer, it’s the SLR to get if you need to capture images at high bursts rate or have the desire to shoot in very little light. Photographers with a heavy investment in Canon glass, or those who are simply more comfortable with Canon ergonomics, will undoubtedly prefer the EOS-1D X—it can shoot at a faster rate, but not for as long, and its image quality isn’t quite as good as the D4S when the ISO is pushed into the stratosphere.

Not everybody needs a camera that shoots this fast, and some photographers prefer a body without a vertical grip. If you’re after the D4S’s low-light image quality, but want something smaller and lighter, consider the Nikon Df—it’s autofocus system isn’t as good (it struggles in low light) and it lacks video recording support, but it’s a lot less expensive. There’s also the high-resolution Nikon D810 and the semi-pro body in the 24-megapixel D750, both of which have earned Editors’ Choice honors in their own right. The D810 is a bit of a niche body, aimed at photographers who want the most resolution possible, while the D750 is more of an all-arounder that is sure to win the hearts of event and wedding shooters. The D4S also deserves to be called Editors’ Choice; it occupies a very different niche than the D810. The D4S joins them in that regard; it occupies a different niche than the D810, especially if you’ve got the photographic chops to, say, get a sideline assignment at an NFL game.