Review: Nikon D700

Written by: Tiffany Joyce

In my quest for finding my next camera body I rented the Nikon D700 from ProPhotoRental.

This camera did not disappoint.  I was expecting to not love it.  I was expecting to find it to be very much like the D300.  I was wrong.  I really liked it.  

1. Within five minutes of taking the camera out of the box have I taken a picture?  
Yes.  This camera was pretty easy to figure out.  No pretty picture settings but it was easy to use.

2. Camera weight and the scale of sturdiness
I joked on my personal blog that I loved the weight of this camera and about how I could just tape lead weights to my Nikon D40x and immediately be happier.  But that’s not true.  It’s in the feel.  It was very comfortable to hold and I have pretty small hands – which got me to thinking that even with big man hands this camera would feel comfortable so then I proceeded to have men that I see (ie The UPS man, the guy that delivers the 5 gallon water jugs) hold the camera and I noted that I was right.

3. Test shots at different Apertures
This camera gave my lenses a workout.  I must have taken 50 shots of toys littered on the floor and I did this without flash and just a really high ISO (which this camera has an incredible range of sensitivity).  I felt like the focus bracketing was very easy to use and this shot would have had a LOT of noise if I shot it on my D40x.  Isn’t that such a happy model?

4. Test shots with External Flash
I used my external flash on this camera during a bath time photo shoot and the skin tones were so creamy I could have melted.   The catchlights in this shot are a little distracting because I can see myself .

5. White Balance review of Auto vs Custom vs Settings
So I took this shot while holding Lexi and this is her reflection in the mirror.  I took the White Balance off of the towel – I really liked how on this camera you can tweak the balance in another direction.  I had a lot of fun playing around with that but didn’t end up loving any of the shots that I did this custom coloration with so in the end a good custom white balance read was the way to go.

6. Shooting in low light test shots
I was putting stuff on Lexi’s high chair to try to capture her little pincher action but she wasn’t having that documented on SLR so when I snuck around back she turned and gave me this face.  Low light here and I think you’ll agree that for low light we don’t have a lot of noise here at all.

The only downside keeping me from running to Amazon to buy this Nikon D700beauty is….the price tag.  Ouch.  It’s a pricey camera body.  Worth it?  Yes if you’re making money with your camera….if you’re not though this would be a tough line item in a recessionary budget.  Do you think there is a place in the stimulus package for me to buy this camera?  

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