Nikon D700
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| Most excellent! 22/08/2010 I am a novice and even I have produced some GOOD images with my d700/14-24 lens combo. Ive even done some good close-up photos with bokeh (at f2.8) and without a tripod! I was undecided between the d700 and the canon 5d2, but as I`d read that the d700 produces good A1 prints, I bought it and have no regrets since, despite the smaller amount of pixels (which turns out not to be an issue anyway). When you unbox it, although the buttons and menus are daunting at first (its my first dslr), over time it becomes easy to use and I get the shots I want, even in manual mode. Any crap shots are my fault, not the cameras. Having said that though, I did get some noise in low light conditions, but I`d guess that those lighting conditions would pose problems for ANY camera Buying this camera had led to a very expensive problem - I now need the 24-70, 70-200, and 105 macro lenses!!!!! By andy e t | ||||||
| The Fabulous D700!! 20/08/2010 In short.. I decided to upgrade from a D60 to a D700 after becoming more proficient in photography and wanting to take things to the next level. I read alot of reviews about this model and heard good things by word of mouth. Basically it's all true and lives up to the 5 star rating!! This camera is worth every penny and an absolute pleasure to use. By Ms. N. Hussein London | ||||||
| It's low light performance is breathtaking! 11/07/2010 I compared the Canon 5D MkII/24-105mm f4 with the D700/24-70mm f2.8 & came very, very close to buying the 5D which would have meant sticking with Canon, not having to buy a RAW converter & complimenting my G10 with possibility of sharing flash guns. It was very close - I had to leave the shop & think over my choice. I ended up reading a couple of mags that reviewed both cameras & stuck to my original idea of the best low light performance I could afford - the D700 & 24-70mm f2.8. I also bought the fastest 16G CF card I could get my hands on (a 90MB/s Sandisk card) & a Hoya Pro1 77mm UV filter. This combo got soaked in snow back in January so I can confirm the sealing on both D700 & lens is up to professional standards. I've also used both in very heavy rain with confidence. I did prefer the position & feel of the 5D MkII's shutter but have got used to that on the D700. This is neither a light nor small DSLR but its handling is good. I have not tried the battery grip that makes it even bigger than a D3. Once I removed the tripod mount of the 70-200mm f2.8 VRII, I consider this particular combination perfectly viable to hand-hold. My least favourite aspect of D700 is the 95% coverage through the viewfinder - limited by the addition of vibration dust removal mechanism & not the highly useful built-in flashgun, I've read. Although it's possible to customise virtually very aspect of this camera, I'm not entirely sold on Nikon's method. There are two banks of four memories but none will reset to their respective originally customised settings when powering back the camera. So if you inadvertently or deliberately change a setting which you then forget, this setting will still be active when switching the camera back on. You can save these settings to the CF card but it just seems a clumsy way on arranging the memories. I would like to see half the memory positions being reset on powering the camera back on without having to recall from the card. I would also like a two stop max increment on AEB instead of a max of just one - perfect for HDR sequences. Although I've been more critical than most, there's no getting away from the fact this is just one hell of a camera when combined with the best glass possible. The viewfinder is bright & the fifty one focus points means tracking moving objects renders this camera perfect for sports & photojournalism, particularly in low light. I'll quite happily use ISO1600 & upwards though ISO25600 looses a lot of definition but still gives useful results though I stick to ISO12800 which gives undreamt-of results! No review of a Nikon is complete without some mention of the Nikon Creative Lighting System. The D700 can be set to Command mode that will control the firing of an external flashgun such as the SB900 set to slave. The D700 can set four groups of flash guns to different levels of power when set to iTTL mode. This works by the command flash firing off a pulse-code of pre-flashs. If the minimum of delay between firing the flash after pressing the shutter release has been set, use another flash mode. This camera is capable of sync'ing the shutter well above the normal speed by firing off a sequence of flashes as the shutter blades transit across the frame, albeit at lower maximum flash power. I very rarely use either live view modes - I find setting them up too cumbersome but most DSLRs are poor in this area. This camera has a built-in level but I rarely use it despite never having been able to hold any camera particularly straight - my ideal solution would be an audible change of tone! One aspect worth mentioning is the ability to set both the shutter & aperture to manual & let the exposure system determine the ISO - nice one Nikon! Although not mentioned more than in passing, Nikon's Scene Recognition System means the camera can focus on faces. I use 14 bit lossless RAW exclusively. Although my photo-editing software will open the resulting NEF files, I reluctantly forked out a King's Ransom for Nikon's Capture NX2 that should, IMO come free with the D300 & above. The bundled RAW converter will not allow any useful editing such as exposure compensation. Capture NX2 will allow two stops either way - try that with jpgs! Using Capture NX2 will allow the in-camera level of noise reduction, vignetting, colour balance etc to be applied - vignetting being the most important one to me. Capture NX2 will supposedly allow consequent edits to be saved along with the original without bloating the file size by saving the pixels plus the editing as instructions - I've not tried this yet but some people consider Capture NX2 to be a very powerful tool even for those owners who use jpgs exclusively. I've had 12x18" prints made from this camera from both the 24-70mm & 16-35mm F4 VR lenses I own. A magnifying glass won't show lack of resolution so if you have managed to convince yourselves that 12.1 mega pixels aren't enough, I invite you to think again! I'm also very pleased ith the built-in flash with or without the SB900 & its fast recycling times! By Mr. P. A. Busby SE UK | ||||||
| It's got all I expected 01/07/2010 I will keep this camera for long. It is the master of darkness and works very well in almost every respect also in daylight. I am very pleased with myself to have bought it. By CF Sweden | ||||||
| Worthy Upgrade to my D200.... 12/02/2010 Some of the other reviewers have given far better in-depth reviews than I can, but wanted to share my thoughts. Received this beauty yesterday after a couple of years on my faithful D200 - which I loved and had taken some great shots with. The D700 was a BIG investment for a non-pro (I had got my D200 second hand for about £400), although I did save a little by ordering off amazon.com while on a trip to the US. However, it was worth it. The depth of field with to the FX sensor is fantastic, and the big screen shows the pictures great. The D300 never offered enough extra to justify upgrading - but this camera definitely did for me. UPDATE: I've been using this camera for a few months now and really like it. I bought a used Nikon 105mm lens for about £300 on eBay and the depth of field for potraits is really impressive. The other thing that's really impressed me is the picture quality at high ISO levels - its dramatically better than my old D200. I rarely have to use a flash these day - even indoors in the evening! By DF London | ||||||
