Shiny new Nikon D700

Nikon are apparently winding down manufacture of the D700 in favour of the supremely expensive D800 and the rumoured-this-autumn full-frame D600. My D300 suffered further creeping death with the failure of the on-board flash: pop up the flash and the camera freezes. Otherwise, it’s still a supremely useful camera for gigs portraits and on-camera and tethered speedlight.

I’ve had an itch to go full-frame for a while and snoozed and losed when John Lewis had a batch for £1500 and I missed it. A couple of weeks later, I wandered again onto the John Lewis site and they had two in stock. No, wait, only one. I bought it. Just got to figure out how to get £75 back on their price match promise.

The thing about the Nikon D700 is that while people are being most about the D800, the D700 is the same camera it was when it first came out and people were moist about that. It’s full-frame and has a couple of stops of low-light more than the D300. That’ll do for me. I have two AF FF-capable lenses, and a crop 80-200 which will continue to do fine for gigs and portraits.

I took it out today while we were wandering about viewing the London Festival of Photography and mainly have this observation: it’s just the D300 on steroids. It’s got pretty much the same functions as the D300 with some extra goodies like a horizon measure.

I’ve got the “My Menu” set up with my shortcuts again. The wheel under the thumb has a nice positive click. Otherwise, all in all, a good solid purchase. Hopefully I’ll get a good solid five years out of it.