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Nikon D700

Digital Camera Review

This review is organized into 15 pages

Next: Page 1

Physical Tour
Nikon D700

Section The Good The Bad



Tour


Clear, clean layout with easily accessible controls


Size and shape will discourage the forearm-impaired


Testing/Performance


Exemplary low-noise images, good color and resolution


Subpar white balance and auto noise score


Components


Beautiful LCD, well-placed flash

Live View still slow and clumsy to use

Design/Layout


Big but well balanced, menus nicely organized and customizable


Lots of buttons to learn before you can shoot fluidly

Modes


Fast burst rate, effective image review system


Limited in-camera editing, no image presets


Control Options


Full manual control available for all aspects of shooting


Takes a 400-plus-page manual to explain it all


Image Parameters


Shoots JPEG, RAW and TIFF


Image effects preview limited

Connectivity/Extras


High-def video output, long battery life


Mediocre software bundle

Is it rational to call a $3000 camera a bargain? It is when it delivers nearly all the features of the company’s revered $5000 pro model, which is precisely the case with the Nikon D700. Basically the D700 takes the best parts of two established cameras and blends them seamlessly. The $5000 Nikon D3 contributes a full-frame image sensor with low-noise performance that makes previously impossible photos as simple as pressing the shutter. From the Nikon D300 comes a nearly unchanged body that’s hefty but nicely balanced, tightly sealed against the elements and nearly 20% lighter than the D3.

What exactly is a full-frame sensor, and why do you care if your camera has one? Back in the days when men were men and cameras used film, lenses and bodies were designed to take pictures on 35mm film. Most lenses (though admittedly not all) are still built in a shape and size to illuminate a 35mm film frame but, on most digital cameras, the actual sensor that’s capturing the light is much smaller. The result is the apparent magnification effect (ordinarily 1.5x) you see when mounting a lens on a digital SLR. In other words, a 100mm lens on most digital SLRs is going to produce an image similar to a 150mm lens on a 35mm camera. Sometimes that’s great – more telephoto lens with less bulk to carry. Sometimes it’s a pain – that 28mm lens that produces lovely wide-angle shots on a 35mm camera is suddenly shooting like a 42mm lens, producing photos that look roughly like what you'd see with the naked eye instead of breathtaking panoramas. What’s happening is that only the middle of the lens is actually being used – the light captured by the remaining glass falls outside the sensor area and is lost. With a full-frame sensor, though, the camera behaves optically like a 35mm film camera, squeezing all the goodness out of the lenses you carry.

In the case of the Nikon D3 and D700, the larger sensor also means larger light receptors on the sensor surface. Sure, you'll find tiny cameras that shoot at 12 megapixels, but the light receptors on the sensor surface are very small and crammed together very closely. The result? Lower light sensitivity (the receptors just don’t have enough surface area to see very many photons) and higher image noise caused by electronic crosstalk among components. Take that same 12-megapixel specification, spread it across a 24mm x 36mm chip and you have a camera that loves the dark and laughs at grainy photographs – in short, the Nikon D700.

 

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Nikon D700
Digital Camera Review

This review is organized into 15 pages

Previous: Page 1

Physical Tour
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