I have both cameras and I must say that I regret buying the D800. The D800E is in another league. Even at A3 size prints you can see the difference. There are also significant edge effects between bright and dark in high contrast areas with the D800.
Hi,
From another post by you on LuLa it appears that your sharpening workflow is causing artifacts. If that is indeed the cause (hard to say without an example/crop) then a re-evaluation is in order. An earlier analysis of the two models showed only a marginal (1%) resolution difference before sharpening, if any. After proper sharpening the only real difference would be the higher risk of aliasing and false color artifacts of the D800E.
There
can be a small benefit for the D800E when
only shooting subjects that will not give rise to moiré and jagged edges/lines, and of very low contrast at the micro-detail level. Also, poor lens quality, or shooting with diffraction generating narrow apertures, or defocus, will act as a low-pass filter to reduce visible aliasing tendencies of the D800E.
I have not yet after 2 months seen any problems with moiré with the D800E.
Not everybody is as sensitive to the artifacts, and not all subjects are as critical in causing them. The main question becomes, how do you think you can remove the artifacts when they do ruin an image? I'm sure that the risk is too high for many people who shoot once in a lifetime events and especially when time constraints prohibit long postprocessing efforts to mitigate some of the (avoidable) damage.
Cheers,
Bart