Nikon D700 Review.
Is the D700 a highly specified D300 or a down spec D3? Actually it’s both...........
When Nikon announced the D3 and the new FX sensor, Canon were rocked back onto their heels as outwith the 1DS mkIII, Nikon had at a stroke, bettered both the Canon 1D mkIII for frame rate, thus appealing to the photojournalists and sports shooter and also the 5D in terms of high ISO noise and in outright resolving power (albeit marginal - although as we now know Canon had a new 5DII in the wings – more on that later).
It was always the industry’s worst kept secret, however the D700 arrived a little earlier than some might have expected, partly in fact (we think) do the recently announced 5DII.
So is this camera a down spec D3? In many ways it is. If we look at the differences, we can start to get a picture of where the D700 fits between the D300 and D3.
Differences:
1. Smaller body and lighter – D3=1240g D700=995g (both without battery).
2. The D3 shutter is good for 300k actuations, the D700 150k. Interestingly there have been issues of oil blobs on D3 sensors that have come from the shutter assembly – we have witnessed this at first hand and fixing this is a wet swab job!
3. Viewfinder on the D700 is 95% compared to 100% on D3.
4. Slower burst rate, although fitting the MB-D10 grip raises the D700 burst to 8fps.
5. No rear LCD panel on the D700 – there is simply no room for it.
6. No dual CF card operation – for some this is maybe a deal breaker as having the option to back up in camera is very reassuring!
7. No 5:4 ratio option.
8. Memory card door on D700 is non sealed against dust etc and is rather flimsy to be honest.
Gains:
1. The D700 sports the same sensor cleaning system on the D300. Nothing on the D3.
2. A built in flash is provided – ok for snaps we suppose.
3. Weight advantage with the option of the MB-D10 for higher frame rate.
4. New info display on rear panel.
5. Virtual horizon live view overlay – extremely useful.
It is not all bad news, especially when you consider the cost savings – UK street price on D3 is around £2600 or so and D700 is in the region of £1670 (at time of writing). Are the losses v the D3 really worth the price difference? That is only a question you can answer, equally what price on snob value? There are some that just have to be seen with the top of the range camera, others where it’s all about image quality and we feel that is where the D700 offers an advantage. Not that the image quality is better than the D3 – it is exactly the same and it is for this reason with the £1000 price difference that the D700 really is sensational value for money.
Let us put this into some context. Currently a 3 year old (in technology terms anyway) 5D will set you back £1300 roughly, so for another £300, you get a better body, better ISO performance, better specification (autofocus is in a different league) and handling – and arguably access to one of the best quality zooms on the market, the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8. In fact it is no bad reflection on the 5D, as it has taken Nikon 3 years to come up with something that is better! And although it now looks as if Canon has moved the goalposts on again with the 5DII, the jury is still out on the image quality (most samples have been more than a little soft) and the price will be around £500 - £600 more than the D700. We feel however the threat for the two biggest photographic brands will come from Sony. The newly announced A900 offers nearly 25MP for around £1800 – right in between the prices of both 5DII and D700 cameras and offering some pretty decent spec into the bargain. (We will be carrying out a head to head with both of these cameras next month, so watch this space.)
Picking up the D700 for the first time and you realise that it is not at all different from the D300. The only give away that it is not, is the larger prism housing on the top of the camera. It is a bit heavier though and despite the flimsy card door (the pro spec catch on the D300 and D3 was removed to allow the fitting of the new info button) the camera feels very well made indeed. The oversize buttons will help those that end up shooting with gloves on and anyone buying one, moving up from any of the other Nikon DSLR range, will feel immediately at home with both the button layout and the excellent menu system.
The camera sports the outstanding Multicam 3500 - 51 point focusing system and it is simply the class leader in many respects. The 3D colour matrix metering is also very impressive and shooting in any semi-auto or for that matter auto mode produces excellent and consistent results. In fact some months back, we were commissioned to provide images for an exhibition on the Fish Processing Industry in Scotland and used a D3 (same metering) in aperture priority with almost perfect exposures in very difficult lighting conditions. The D700 metering in our tests performed exactly the same as the D3 in terms of metering.
If you are a photojournalist or someone who shoots sports for a living, then you may think that the D3 is your only choice as 5fps by today’s standards is hardly likely to set the heather on fire and if it did, you may miss some of the best heather on fire shots due to the lower frame rate on the D700. This can be improved somewhat with the addition of the MB-D10 grip, which will increase the capture rate to a very respectable 8fps. This comes at a price however and £170, plus the need for the D3 EN-EL4a battery (the standard EN-EL3e battery does not give the higher frame rate when using the grip). So the battery and grip set you back another £250, at which point you are creeping slowly towards the D3 price and with used D3’s fetching around £2100 on e-bay, the gap gets even smaller.
One area that may tempt you to choose the D700 over the D3 is the sensor cleaning system. Without question, it is our biggest moan with the D3 – it is a veritable dust magnet and we have spent silly amounts of time cloning dust from fine art landscape images. So far, we have not seen a single dust spot on the D700 images! A dust system that works? Take heed Canon.
A rather interesting feature on the D700 is the ability to shoot time lapse photography, without the requirement for an external programmable shutter release. In fact the D700 is a breeze to use in this regard and very quickly you can put together an interesting short video. A word of caution, bear in mind that if you want a video to run at 24fps and you capture at 1 frame every 10 seconds or so, then to produce 10 seconds of video you will need to shoot 240 frames over 40 minutes. 100 seconds equating to 400 minutes of shooting and 2400 frames! It is a lot of fun and the results can be simply breathtaking – have a look at the following short video:
This was captured using a D3, however the technique in the D700 is identical – if that does not make you want to get out and have a go at this, nothing will!
One interesting observation on the Virtual Horizon feature. In principle, it is fantastic, negating the requirement for a spirit level - right? Well in practice, we have had issues with it not being that accurate, which kind of defeats the purpose. Nikon should provide a fine tuning option to make this feature actually useable.
Image Quality
Anyone who has looked at D3 samples will already know what to expect, they are truly excellent. The FX sensor cameras offer superb dynamic range, excellent colours that have become synonymies with Nikon images and a High ISO performance that pretty much makes noise testing up to 1600ISO redundant.
Nothing really prepares you for the quality that this camera can achieve – even 19” x 13” prints that were originally shot at 3200ISO display virtually no noise at all. In fact referring back to our fish processing exhibition, we displayed 3200 ISO shots that were enlarged to 30” x 20” and no one who attended the opening night (a lot of critical photographers were present) could point them out – staggering.
The D700 is not just a one trick ISO pony. Using 14-bit capture (write times are longer and burst rate drops) in RAW, you can now start to realise how close to the subtlety of film, digital has become. In fact this also improves shadow noise performance and reduces the risk of banding in smother tonal areas as quite simply more information is available.
Anyone who has printed a large format print of 30” x 20” or larger will testify to the smooth tones and outstanding colours this camera can produce.
The camera also comes bundled with a trial version of Capture NX2. It is not a bad program, but a bit stingy of Nikon to ask us to pay for it, when they gave NX away free previously. We did use it to compare image detail against Lightroom2 and in all honesty at pixel level, we could see no difference. Those who like using ‘active D-Lighting’ and other features may prefer to process their RAW files in NX2, however Lightroom 2 offers everything and more in a much more user friendly package.
Also worthy of note is the 3.0” LCD screen that is one of the highest resolution models currently available. Image review and zooming shows a very bright hi res image. This makes it very easy to check front to back sharpness where a large depth of field is required and then re-shoot if necessary. Equally good (making full use of this screen) is live view. Using the zoom function (10x), it is a breeze to focus exactly where you require using the manual focus option. You can also autofocus in Live View, using the AF-ON button on the rear of the camera. This activates the contrast detection AF, which is similar to that found on digital compacts and is not something you would use for that decisive moment!
Verdict.
In many ways and for most people it is the ultimate all round DSLR, high burst rate when you need it, great colours and smooth tonal gradations and the current class leader in high ISO performance. High resolution is not everything and although the new 5DII offers 21MP v 12MP, the jury will be out until we get the opportunity to shoot both side by side to see who really is the king of kings!
Until then (and until our A900 vD700 test ) In our opinion, the D700 is probably the best value for money DSLR you can currently buy. Its not cheap, but it does seem to offer something for everyone, including being the ISO specialist that was always lacking in the D2x(s) cameras that came before it. Make no mistake here, hook it up with the equally impressive 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor and you will be very impressed at what that little combination can produce.
Build Quality
Extremely well made and definitely from the Nikon stable of construction. The only let down is the memory card door, which is inexcusable on a camera of this price.
9/10
Ease Of Use
Nikon are the current masters of ergonomics, the info screen is easy to use and the intuitive menu info system makes understanding all the settings so much easier.
9/10
Quality Of Results
Currently, nothing matches the stellar ISO performance or the resolving power of the FX sensor and new crop of Nikon lenses.
10/10
Value For Money
As we stated in the review , £1600 is no bargain basement, however it is £1000 less that the identical output from the D3.
10/10
Full Res Image files including Hi ISO examples will be posted here in the next few days.