Metering and Exposure
What about metering and exposure accuracy? While the Nikon D700 features the older 1,005-pixel RGB metering sensor, which has now been replaced by the new 2,016-pixel RGB sensor found on the D7000, I personally like it better than the new one. As I have described in my Nikon D7000 review, the new 2,016-pixel RGB sensor can be tricky to work with, especially if you are used to the 1,005-pixel RGB sensor. The new face recognition patterns, along with the new complex sensor system seem to prioritize skin tones more, often resulting in over-exposure. I mainly shoot in 3D Matrix metering mode (about 90+% of the time) and occasionally in spot and center-weighted metering modes. All three have given me great exposures on the D700 in normal lighting conditions. When the light is tricky, I usually use exposure compensation to get the result I need. There are times when I dial +1 EV and shoot like that for a while and there are times when I dial -1 to -2 for the best exposure. But that does not happen very often – the metering sensor on the D700 is usually very accurate.
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Shooting Speed (FPS) and Battery Life
Without the MB-D10 battery grip, the Nikon D700 is capable of shooting 5 fps (frames per second). In comparison, the Nikon D300s shoots 6 fps (in JPEG and 12-bit RAW mode) and Nikon D3/D3s/D3x shoot 9 fps. The 5 fps speed is plenty for most photography needs, but wildlife and sports photographers have the option to purchase the MB-D10 battery grip to increase the speed of the D700 to a whopping 8 fps – almost as fast as the top-of-the-line D3/D3s/D3x cameras. To get to 8 fps, however, you will unfortunately need to either use alkaline batteries, or purchase an additional BL-3 chamber cover with an EN-EL4a battery that is used by D3/D3s/D3x cameras. Another $150 worth of extra expenses. Unfortunately, the MB-D10 does not come with the BL-3 chamber cover.
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The Nikon D700 is juiced by the EN-EL3e battery, which is almost twice smaller and twice lighter than the EN-EL4a. Unfortunately, it is also four times less efficient – the Nikon EN-EL4a can get up to 4300 shots on a single charge, while the EN-EL3e is rated at 1000 shots max. Starting from the Nikon D7000, the EN-EL3e is now replaced by the more efficient and compact EN-EL15 battery, so the D700 replacement will most likely have the same EN-EL15 battery. The MB-D10 battery grip has also been replaced by the MB-D11 battery grip that takes EN-EL15 batteries. The larger EN-EL4a won’t fit inside the MB-D11 though, so I am not sure if Nikon is planning to provide faster performance with this battery grip on the upcoming D700 update.
Dynamic Range
The dynamic range on the D700 is excellent. If you expose your subject correctly, you can recover a lot of details from both the bright and the shadow areas. Many of my landscape images were corrected using simple tools like Fill Light and Graduated Neutral Density filter in Lightroom and I was able to recover a lot of information, especially out of 14-bit RAW files. DxOMark claims the D700 to have 12.2 EVs of dynamic range, which is higher than the dynamic range of the Nikon D3s and any of the Canon DSLRs. The site also claims that the new 16.2 MP DX sensor on the D5100/D7000 has higher dynamic range than any previous Nikon DSLR, putting it second on the list of all cameras tested by DxOMark (including medium format). While the latter sounds too good to be true, I will not argue with DxOMark’s tests, since they have lab data to back up their information.
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My field tests have proven that shooting between ISO 200 and 800 is quite acceptable without much loss of dynamic range. Anything beyond ISO 800 will decrease dynamic range dramatically, especially beyond ISO 1600. So when I shoot landscapes (often hand-held), I try to stay below ISO 800. When photographing people and wildlife, on the other hand, I do not hesitate to crank up ISO all the way to 3200 and sometimes even to 6400. There is some loss of detail at ISO 6400 though.
See the next page to see more examples of D700’s ISO performance, along with comparisons against Nikon D300 and D3s.
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