New Camera!
Friday, 19. September 2008, 01:49:20
As part of my ongoing journey of photographic discovery, I found myself becoming more and more limited by my D70s camera.
Actually that's a lie, I could do what I wanted with it, but I was desperately eager to get some new hardware. I had settled on Nikon's stunning D300, and was just about to get it when they announced the D700. It's Nikon's 2nd-best camera at the moment, and it's got something I have wanted for a long time: a full-frame sensor. Full frame changes a lot of things, but it offers two things I really wanted: quality and width.
Quality:
I won't bore you with the technical details, but a side effect of making things smaller is decreasing the quality. The D700's larger sensor means that each light-collecting element is larger, and the end result is a camera with better final output than a comparable camera with a smaller sensor. If you know anything about digital cameras you'll know that high-ISO images tend to be very noisy, with lots of visible grain and coloured spots. The D70s did not produce pleasing images above ISO 800, and maxed out at ISO 1600. The D700 offers better results at an astonishing 3200 ISO than the D70s did at 800! Check out this 100% crop of ISO 3200 on the D700.
Width:
For simple reasons of geometry, the D700 makes all my lenses 'wider'. Most DSLR users know to multiply their lens by a 'crop factor' to get the effective width. A 50mm lens on the D70s was effectively a 75mm, which I found annoyingly narrow. On the full-frame D700 it's actually 50mm, which is a very useful length. My Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye lens was as wide at 17mm on the D700 as it was at 10mm on the D70s!!
It's got a magnesium alloy body instead of plastic, it has a faster framerate (8fps instead of 3.5), a larger viewfinder and a billion other sexy features besides. It wasn't cheap though: it set me back some 265,000円.
Now that I've paid for and received it I can't shake the feeling that it's a better camera than I am a photographer. It has so many new or different features that I'm having a hard time making pictures as good as I was with the D70s... But it's only four days old, and my fervent hope is that this new camera will allow me to do bigger and better things once I learn the new rules.
Here's a pic I took with it the day I got it:
Click for larger
Actually that's a lie, I could do what I wanted with it, but I was desperately eager to get some new hardware. I had settled on Nikon's stunning D300, and was just about to get it when they announced the D700. It's Nikon's 2nd-best camera at the moment, and it's got something I have wanted for a long time: a full-frame sensor. Full frame changes a lot of things, but it offers two things I really wanted: quality and width.
Quality:
I won't bore you with the technical details, but a side effect of making things smaller is decreasing the quality. The D700's larger sensor means that each light-collecting element is larger, and the end result is a camera with better final output than a comparable camera with a smaller sensor. If you know anything about digital cameras you'll know that high-ISO images tend to be very noisy, with lots of visible grain and coloured spots. The D70s did not produce pleasing images above ISO 800, and maxed out at ISO 1600. The D700 offers better results at an astonishing 3200 ISO than the D70s did at 800! Check out this 100% crop of ISO 3200 on the D700.
Width:
For simple reasons of geometry, the D700 makes all my lenses 'wider'. Most DSLR users know to multiply their lens by a 'crop factor' to get the effective width. A 50mm lens on the D70s was effectively a 75mm, which I found annoyingly narrow. On the full-frame D700 it's actually 50mm, which is a very useful length. My Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye lens was as wide at 17mm on the D700 as it was at 10mm on the D70s!!
It's got a magnesium alloy body instead of plastic, it has a faster framerate (8fps instead of 3.5), a larger viewfinder and a billion other sexy features besides. It wasn't cheap though: it set me back some 265,000円.
Now that I've paid for and received it I can't shake the feeling that it's a better camera than I am a photographer. It has so many new or different features that I'm having a hard time making pictures as good as I was with the D70s... But it's only four days old, and my fervent hope is that this new camera will allow me to do bigger and better things once I learn the new rules.
Here's a pic I took with it the day I got it:
WIDGETIZE
Ramunas # 19. September 2008, 12:12
NFGman # 19. September 2008, 13:31
I can get up to 1/320 with the D700, best I could get with the D70s was 1/400 or 1/500, which isn't hugely different. The increase in framerate (8fps), focus speed, quality and resolution make up for any loss in flash sync speed, I think.
I should play with my Microsync and see what kind of speeds I can get with it... I'll keep you posted. =)
Ramunas # 19. September 2008, 14:51
NFGman # 21. September 2008, 21:58
It's a good thing _everything_ else on the D700 is far, far better. I did a photoshoot with a girl yesterday and I'm having trouble finding BAD shots: the camera just kicked ass, all day. =)
Words # 15. November 2008, 18:28
SqueakeyCat # 19. November 2008, 02:10