Product Review: Nikon D700

Nikon has become a household name, and is a big competitor to other famous camera brands such as Canon and Fuji. With an impressive line of point and shoot, Prosumer, and DSLR digital camera spanning over a decade, Nikon is known for their high-quality cameras,features, and price. Many professionals and hobbyist alike use Nikon's for their shooting, and many recommend the cameras as their first choice. One of Nikon's newest digital cameras is the D700. The D700 digital camera is a DSLR aimed at professionals and advanced users. It is priced at $3000 - any camera that costs this much should have extensive features and quality that most photographers only dream about. Luckily, the Nikon does offer these features, and more. Read on to find out if the Nikon D700 is worth the price.

Features

The Nikon D700 has a 12 megapixel CMOS sensor, and uses Nikon's EXPEED technology to processor the pictures. The camera features an ISO range from a low 100 to a whopping 25,600 - you will hard-pressed to find a situation this camera cannot handle. Other features include continuous shooting up to five photos per second, a 3"-LCD with 920k-dot VGA reso, 51 point auto focus, 3D tracking, scene recognition, and active d-lighting.

There is a normal digital viewfinder for those who hate framing with the LCD, and it has accurate positioning, even after zooming. There is no data displayed on the viewfinder, making easier to see exactly what you're taking a picture of.

Body

The body of the Nikon D700 resembles that of Nikon's past DSLR's - it has the classic design that is instantly recognized as Nikon's. It is easy to hold, with a carefully made ergonomic grip. The buttons are laid out like other Nikon DSLR's, and are easy to use and navigate through quickly. The turn dial is especially welcomed - simply click a button with your left thumb and scroll with your right to get the settings just right.

Storage

Unfortunately, this camera only takes compact flash cards. This is good for now, as SDHC cards still aren't fast enough or high-enough in capacity to store the data at a reasonable time. As time goes on, however, and SDHC cards start taking over as the next medium, this camera won't be able to take them.

Image Quality

At an ISO of 256000, one might image that picture would be quite impossible to use - most camera's start getting iffy at 400ISO. Well, there's a reason this camera costs as much as a used car, and that's image quality. Lower ISOs show no relevant noise at all. Once you creep up to the 12k+ and 25k+ range, the noise is definitely noticeable, but far less than that of the your average P&S. The pictures are certainly usable.

Other than that, the rest of the image quality is as you would expect with such as expensive camera from Nikon - high quality and breathtaking. The detail is captured down to the finest detail, the colors are highly saturated and accurate, blurs are non-existent, and unsightly lens issues are rarely every present.

Conclusion

If you have the money to purchase this camera, then do so - you won't be disappointed in anyway with this camera. The photo quality is amazing, the manual controls are numerous, and the build-quality is excellent.