My flirtation with the D700

Oscar Levant said:
I would never buy anything with the intention of "trying it to see if I like it", and then returning it.

I would only return something if it had a manufacturing defect.

You might not agree with me, but I don't think it's ethical to "rent" or "try out" equipment this way. I'd feel lousy returning it, but that's just me.

These modern times are odd.
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The intent was to keep it and not to "try out". Every business is different and there are some local places here that don't allow to return at all, which is fine. On the other hand, the folks at this particular store understand that not all cameras/lenses/etc "work" for the person who purchased it. I've spent plenty of $ with this particular vendor and I've kept (cameras, lenses, bags, etc...) more than what I've returned (D700).
I do understand what you mean though... & trust me there was that slight feeling of guilt... :(
 
I like my cameras heavy... because my hands and grip aren't too firm when I use lighter bodies (like the Canonet). Hence my preference for Leicas (heavy gear, compared to other cameras), and my enjoyment when using my Nikons F100 and F5. The D700 feels a lot like the F100 body. Even the layout is similar.
 
Thardy said:
A friend of mine bought one a couple of months ago. At a casual get together, shooting in subdued light (I assume high ISO) for a few minutes, he reverted back to blasting away with his SB-900 flash. I've seen people here and on flickr shoot in the same conditions with ISO 1600 film with really good results.

I would think that using the camera in available light would yield much more artistic results. But then, some people seemed disturbed by even a tiny bit or grain/noise these days.
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Perhaps he just likes using flash. I've only used the inbuilt flash for fill in, which I have to say works brilliantly. My usual way is to just shoot without and let the auto iso do it's thing with my preferred aperture. The images from the D700 are superb for me at even the highest iso settings. The only issue for me is that it makes me lazy with regard to focus and exposure settings however the amount of keepers is much higher than with film. I do look at some of my film images taken with various kit and yes they do have something different, not better, just different. On the whole i'm completely happy with my D700. Colour photography is so much nicer with it and for black and white i'm using Exposure which I think does a very nice job.
 
The D700 is a lot less sharp than the Kodak 14n or SLR/n due to the AA filter, but the high ISO performance is astonishing.

This is the first camera I've had that will literally correctly expose a usable frame of anything you can see with your eye.
 
Oscar Levant said:
This is the first camera I've had that will literally correctly expose a usable frame of anything you can see with your eye.
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Oscar,
It's funny you mention this as I was thinking the exact same thing (mind you I only shot approx 40 frames with it so it hasn't been truly tested)...
On my D90, old D300 I've had to use compensation a lot more to get the result I've envisioned.
 
For a digital camera I like the D700 very much because I can use all my old AIS lenses on it. However, I took it with me on a trip last year and then switched back to rangefinders. There's something a bit preposterous about wandering round with that massive thing round my neck as opposed to stealthy little RFs. I'll keep the D700 for the occasional commissions I get but for my own photography I not only prefer using the RFs, I like the look of scanned film -- whether HP5 or Ektar -- compared to the output from the Nikon. No doubt someone much cleverer than I can make them all look the same but for me film scans have a particular character that I enjoy.
 
I didn't say to throw away your other cameras, but when I do use the D700 I like it very much.

The downsides for me is that it is big and heavy, and in some cases it tends to overexposure. When usinng manual focus lenses I dial down exposure compensation to -7 or so.
 
I have a D200 almost the same size. A really nice rig but when my wife calls me to take a photo of something interesting I always grab the ZI. Proofs in the pudding.
 
jky said:
I purchased a D700 a week ago to use with my few Nikkor prime lenses. What a camera - that viewfinder is spectacular and my what a low light beast...!
Beautiful files at all ISO with quite the dynamic range. Fit the hand nicely and quite compact (for a DSLR of this caliber) with a 35mm f2 prime.

Today I returned it.

I'll be the first to sing its praises, but the camera just was not for me; not for the way I use my cameras. I'll revisit FX again when it arrives in a smaller, lighter body...
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Shooting JPGs I was a bit disappointed by image quality after a while. The auto contrast feature, which was always active in the background, even when set to zero, produced washed out grey where there should have been blacks. And it was no metering issue.

I just shot some rolls of slides over the weekend and those were spot on. As easy and "cheap" digital may be, chromes still look better to me.
 
Oscar Levant said:
I didn't say to throw away your other cameras, but when I do use the D700 I like it very much.

The downsides for me is that it is big and heavy, and in some cases it tends to overexposure. When usinng manual focus lenses I dial down exposure compensation to -7 or so.
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It's -0.7 isn't it? Otherwise you are doing something wrong.
 
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