I am thinking of trading one of my D700's for a D800. I shot mostly high school sports. What do you think?

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High school sports entails a TON of things. Baseball, swimming, tennis, volleyball, wrestling, soccer... All have unique needs.

I am currently having this discussion in a thread in the sports section. Head over there and join in.

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Absolutely. Isn't a D700 and a D800 clearly better than two D700s? What possible drawback could there be?

It would have you covered several ways. No fps problem with the D700, 100 percent viewfinder with the D800. (this actually bothers some people.)

Personally I am undaunted by 4fps, given I used to get good sports photos with a manual wind Honeywell Pentax SP1,000.

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>Isn't a D700 and a D800 clearly better than two
>D700s? What possible drawback could there be?

One fails on a paid shoot.


>Personally I am undaunted by 4fps, given I used to get good
>sports photos with a manual wind Honeywell Pentax SP1,000.

PREACH!

I was shooting football for years on an AE-1/AE-1 Program. Upgraded to a T-70 which shot at a BLISTERING 0.7fps! I still have that camera (bought it in 1986) and it still works. Put new AA batteries in it last year for the first time since about 1988 and it fired right up.

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I don't understand the failure comment. Two cameras are two cameras. A failure of one on a paid shoot still leaves one working. What am I missing?

Btw, the Honeywell was used when I was photographer for the (small) town paper which I shot photos for while in high school. It had a 50 mm Tukamar lense, and a Clunky flash, all manual. It required setting the shutter, aperture, flash and focus, aimed at a spot under the basketball net. And by God I got a workable shot every game.

Anyway, a d700 and a d800 seem a perfect combination at that price point. I would much rather have one of each than than two of one.

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>I don't understand the failure comment. Two cameras are two
>cameras. A failure of one on a paid shoot still leaves one
>working. What am I missing?

If you are using the two camra in an interchangeable way, you're not missing a thing. If you are actually IN NEED of the 36MP, then having the D800 fail would be problematic. Or if you are IN NEED of the 8fps then having the D700 would be problematic.

I suppose it's like me being on a shoot and having my 300/2.8 fail. My shoot is OVER if that happens. That's why I have a backup for every piece of critical gear when I shoot.

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Best question you can ask yourself: what is it about the D800 that would get you better pictures/more keepers than what you currently have? What I'm thinking, personally, as I go through this process is that I'll wait and rent one for a week and see if it *really* helps me or if it's just something I want.

That's a very good question. In truth I don't need a DSLR at all.

The camers has long surpassed my ability to shoot, and even further surpassed my abilities with Photoshop.

But photography is one of my favorite hobbies, and I enjoy experiencing each improvement and incremental feature that comes out..

It seems like having an 800 and a 700 would automatically be better than just 2 700s for a guy who feels a need for 2 dslrs.

I would understand the question better if it were about moving from D700 toD800.

D800 seems way more flexible in resolution, delivering more dx resolution that the d300 has at all. Allowing continued smaller file sizes as an option. The 2card drives, and movie mode are considerable feature enhancements too.

OP .... Why are you unsure of this decision? Don't mean to ask as a challenge, rather to understand better.

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This is an interesting topic. I have a D700 and a D7000 and am eagerly awaiting the D300s replacement. However, as I research the D800 further then perhaps it's may be worthwhile trading the D7000 for the D800 if test results reveal that using the DX crop on my 35mm lenses will provide sharp images when e.g. cropped to 100%+. The reason I say this is because a French interview on this forum has revealed that the noise the D800 provides equivalent IQ than the D700 at every ISO. Although a fps rate of the D700 and certainly the D7000 are desirable, maybe the slower fps rate of the D800 is not so much a show stopper if noise reduction is as good as the D700.

I would have to be convinced that the D800 Dx crops are as sharp as the D700 Fx images. That's going to take some time though.

Richard

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Are DX crops not just a smaller slice of the full frame sensor?

My belief, opinion, is that the DX output of the D800 is just the data from the DX-sized portion of the FX frame.

If that is true, and the D800 has equal or better sharpness compared to D700, then I would expect the DX output of the D800 to be just as sharp or better than the FX output of the D700.


It will be fun to see how these discussions evolve when the first photos of kitty cats, etc. are produced from the first batch of camera that is shipped.

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>I am thinking of trading one of my D700's for a D800. I shot
>mostly high school sports. What do you think?

If I had two D700s, I certainly would, no question.

Tom
D5000IR, V1, Oly OM-D E-M5
Nikkor Zooms: AF-S 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 VR, VR, AF-S 18-135 f/3.5-5.6
Nikkor primes: 24 f/2.8Ai-S, 28 f/2.8D, Micro 60 f/2.8, 85 f/1.4D, Nikkor-C 500 f/8 Refl.
Nikon 1 lenses: 10mm f/2.8, 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 VR, 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6.
Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4, Sigma 70-300 Macro f/3.5-5.6.
Oly 12-42mm f/3.5-5.6, 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3, 12mm f/2.0, 45mm f/1.8, 75mm f/1.8.
Lumix 20mm f/1.7, 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8, 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6
Gitzo GT3541L, Manfrotto MT293A4, MP 680B
Markins M-20, RRS BH-25 Pro

If you can afford it, why not? It's newer with some improved features. If not, your D700 should still serve you well for a long time. You win either way.

Dan L.
http://www.danlarussophotography.com/

Same awesome AF as the D4 , crop to DX & my 70-200 becomes 105-300 compared to the D700 with the same lens.
Much improved dynamic range , probable better high ISO from what I've seen so far on the web.
You lose on frame rate of course assuming you have the battery grip &
if your PC is old processing the large files is going to be painful , you will probably need to buy more CF & SD cards & larger hard drives as well.
I'm buying the D800 haven't decided on selling both my D700 & D7000 cameras or possibly keeping one of them.