light & (darkly)

The D700 Meta-review. (Spoiler: It’s awesome.)

3,000 photos and 3 weeks later, I feel ready to say how I really feel about the camera…

The Nikon D700 is (nearly) everything you could possibly want in a camera. It is full frame, ISO25k capable, rugged, weather sealed, and takes gorgeous photos. The sound of its mirror slap and shutter can only be compared with the singing of angels. Images turn out so sharp they look more real than real life. Sometimes, I just turn it up to ISO 25600 and use it as night vision. As far as I’m concerned, this is the Chuck Norris of cameras.

I could go on and on, but I could never do it the full justice of professional reviewers.

So here’s the quick meta-review:

• DCResource
  • “The D700 is truly amazing at high ISOs — easily the best results I’ve ever seen… I never thought I’d say this, but the ISO 12,800 shot is still very usable. In fact, if you clean up the ISO 25,600 shot with NeatImage and run it through the Unsharp Mask filter, even that photo can be printed.”⁽¹⁾
  • “If you’ll allow just this one baseball metaphor: Nikon has hit one out of the park with the D700.”
  • “It’s a rare day indeed when I review a camera that makes me want to sell all my gear and ‘switch brands’, but the Nikon D700 may just be that camera. I can highly recommend it, without hesitation…”
• PhotographyBLOG
  • 4.5/5 stars
  • “…it comes across as a kind of ‘greatest hits’ of Nikon DSLRs.”
• Imaging Resource
  • “The Nikon D700′s list of pluses is overwhelming.”
  • “The Nikon D700 earns a five-star Dave’s Pick, as one of the finest digital SLR cameras ever produced.”
• Thom Hogan
  • 20/20 stars. “Highly recommended.”
  • “It’s not just high ISO that’s good, the dynamic range is the best of the Nikon DSLRs, the acuity is excellent, white balance is better than ever, and, once mastered, the Picture Controls do give you plenty of control.”
• DPReview
  • 56/60 points. “Highly recommended.”
  • “The D700 offers an enormous, almost five stop RAW headroom that allows you to even pull back highlight detail that has been blown out beyond recognition.”
  • “In conclusion the Nikon D700 is an excellent camera that is extremely versatile and performs well both in the studio and on location. No doubt it sets a benchmark in the ‘compact’ pro bracket of the market.”

Now that we’ve established the awesome that is the Nikon D700⁽²⁾ there are some problems I have with it…

• A popup flash? Seriously? At first, I thought this would be a plus, but no. This thing is built like a brick and the popup flash is undoubtedly the weakest point here. I would have rather spared the flash and had one less thing to worry about breaking.
• The CF door is stupid. I understand they needed to change it to make room for more buttons, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid. Just stupid. I’ve accidentally opened it countless times.
• The rubber door is way too loose for a pro-grade camera. You might as well have etched “Rainwater: Enter Here.” on the outside of it.
• 95% coverage is kind of annoying in macro photography. I’m used to 95% shooting because of the D80, but things are really different when you are shooting 1:1 photos. Now, if you’re serious about macro shots, you should be using liveview to focus anyways, but for on-the-fly closeups, this can get annoying in a hurry.⁽³⁾⁽⁴⁾
• The strap is hideous. Not kidding — it’s seriously hideous. I was going to put it up on eBay but I wouldn’t wish that kind of ugliness upon my worst enemies.
• The white balance gets confused. Not anymore than my D80 did, but still — I guess I just expected magic to happen.⁽⁵⁾
• I really wish it had at least one “scene mode.” I miss being able to just click a button and hand my camera over for a non-dSLR user to use. As of now, you have to switch it to P mode, switch the AF mode and changing my metering. Lame.

Obviously, I’m nitpicking with that list and half of that stuff is a serious stretch to look for something wrong. Also, you should know that the move up to a full-frame camera causes some serious strain on your lenses. Make sure you get only the best optics if you move up and make sure you account for that in your camera budget. Personally, I’m using the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, 20mm f/2.8, and 105 f/2.8 VR Micro and can fully attest to each one’s awesomeness.⁽⁶⁾

The current price of the D700 is hovering around $2500 on Amazon. Honestly, worth every penny.

About the photo.

That was one of three photos I took that night in the freezing cold without a tripod. Definitely not the best work I’ve ever done but it’s just meant to show how sharp the camera is capable of producing. I can almost see what is on the TV in some of those rooms.

I’ll put up “real” skyline shots when I have more time (and a tripod).

1. Daytime high ISO test. [↩]
2. Click here for pictures I’ve taken with this camera. [↩]
3. Btw, if you’re wondering, it is 5% loss to the left of the image and 5% loss to the top of the image. So if you’re composing a shot, you know you have more give on the left and top that you can use later. [↩]
4. Also, liveview is 100%. [↩]
5. I shoot 14-bit, compressed RAW so I can fix it later but its still annoying. [↩]
6. Full reviews on the way. [↩]