Thanks to all those who were patient enough to answer my silly questions about the Nikon D700. I just ordered mine online, from us1photo. It seems they're having something like a pre-TNXgiving offer and threw a 2-day shipping in for free until today, Nov 8, at midnight.

All things considered, they have a good price, a confortable timeframe for returns (in case there's a problem, 15 days), and good comments in resellersratings.com.

BTW, I paid just one penny below $2500. I am assuming I'll have it sometime next week.

Time to work and get distracted...

I'll keep you posted!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

congratulations Francisco. remember there are no stupid questions. I expect mine to arrive tomorrow or Monday. I bought mine through an AEFEX (military) link to Ritz Camera where I was able to take advantage of the Nikon promotion and the standing 10% discount for military and paid $2429.96 with free shipping and no sales tax (legal). If I had wanted to get a Star credit card, which I did not, I could have used it the first time for another 10% off. I think you got a good civilian price.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

Well my D700 arrived today from Ritz Camera Gov't sales. While I did not run a rigerous test, I did mount every lens I had and shot a few images of mundane things around the house and outside. This is a list of lenses I tried on the camera:

17-35 AFS f/2.8 zoom -17 mm is really WIDE on a D700

12-24 f/4 AFS DX- I was surprised at how nicely this lens works on the D700 form 18-24 mm. If you try to use it at a wider setting you get rounded corners. I also looked at it in DX mode, but have now set my D700 to not automatically detect a DX lens as this is the only one I own and it will mostly be used on my D200.

24 mm f/2.8 AI'd MF lens- This is a pleasure to use on this camera. I noted that on close focus with all my MF lenses the focus dot which is better than the one on my d200 had a bit of trouble showing final focus, but it is easy to do on big bright screen. At greater distances this did not seem to be an issue.

50 mm f/1.4 AI'd MF Lens - same comments as 24 mm. Bokeh looks good on this and the 24 mm.

55 mm f/2.8 AIS Micro Nikkor -same issue with focus dot at close focus.

35-105 mm AIS f/3.5-4.5 MF. I really don't use this lens any more, but it does work with the D700 and is light and small.

35-70 AFD f/2.8 Zoom - Seems to focus a bit faster on the D700 than the D200.

70-200 f/2.8 VR Zoom- works great on the D700

200mm AFD f/4 Micro Nikkor - works fine, same issue with focus dot in close focusing.

300 mm f/4.5 AI'd MF - works great.

I am waiting for an adapter for my DR6 so I could not test that.

I did try Live view, but think its main use for me will probably be Macro's

The view finder is a joy, nice and bright, just like my old F3 was. The heft of the d700 is perfect and balances well with my lens collection. Tried some high ISO settings but did not engage NR, at the higfhest settings noise is evident, but it appeared with my quick look that 1600-2400 looks great.

I will spend the next day or so setting up all the settings like I have them on my D200.

In summary I am very satisfied with my purchase. so if you are waiting to pull the trigger the currrent low prices are hard to beat.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

Congratulations Francisco!! I think you will be VERY pleased with your selection Post some when you are ready.

Sorry guys, BH Photo: $2250 this morning. I may pull the trigger myself. Richard

Go ahead... make my day!

D700 should land here on Thursday, Nov 13th.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Where at the B&H site is that D700 for $2,250?

________________
Paco Romero
(website|blog| RSS|Facebook|gallery)

Yes, where is it that cheap. Great price.

I'm a little mystified. I was checking the price and when I put the D700 in my cart there was an alert box that the price was $2250 even though it was listed as $2,999. There was a $300 rebate shown under the price but the extra reduction was a surprise to me. I went back about an hour later and bought one. When I got your e-mail, Paco, I went back to check the price,the reduction was gone. I can't check with B&H until Monday now. So I'm not sure if they sold me used, grey market, or just gave me a great deal. I sure wasn't planning on buying used or grey market and I've ordered from B&H many times before so I know their ordering system. Their tracking system shows a D700 on its way to my house and at that price. I'll post my experience on Nikonians when I know what happened. Richard

Great price, but i don't feel so bad as my purchase via an AEFEX link means I am not breaking CA law by not paying sales tax. But I am not surprised as with this recession, many things will be on sale, most likely just after I buy it for more.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

Before purchasing I had cameras in carts in different stores. In fact, I felt like ordering from B&H at one point... but then I did some debt analysis and, in the end, and in the long run, it was more cost effective to order from us1photo. I got it at $2499.99 (yeah, a bargain) but had to update the shipping cost today, as I wanted to have it on Thursday, Nov 13.

BTW, it's a USA model. And, BTW, I don't think B&H sells gray market dSLRs. They may sell or used to sell grey film SLRs (I bought one from them), though, but that's another matter.

BTW, what's the use of a RRS L-plate? I am puzzled here...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

As a NAPP member, shipping is free from B&H. Most of the cost in my membership this year was recouped by the free shipping. An L-plate allows you to mount the camera either horizontally or vertically. I should get my D700 by Thursday too. Just in time for basketball.

I am a NAPP member also and I have saved a lot on shipping from B&H and also the 15% I get from Adobe. it more than makes up for the annual fee.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

I was able to pick up a D700 two weeks ago from Canoga Camera for $2374. I just checked their site and I noticed it has crept back up to $2434. I noticed a lot of price fluctuation on this body lately.

>Great price, but i don't feel so bad as my purchase via an
>AEFEX link means I am not breaking CA law by not paying sales
>tax. But I am not surprised as with this recession, many
>things will be on sale, most likely just after I buy it for
>more.

Just to clarify, you are NOT violating any laws if you buy something out of state from a company that doesn't charge you tax and isn't located in your state...

Actually California law says that any internet sales are to be reported on your return, even if that company does not have a store in the state as I understand it. In any case I had the opportunity to get an even lower price than I paid, but I just didn't want another credit card that I would never use. I would have paid $2187 if I had signed up for an AEFEX Star card and used it for the purchase of my D700.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

Must rectify price: I paid $2,449.99 for my D700, and, according to the UPS site, it's coming... tomorrow!!!

I placed the order on Thursday night. On Friday, I had to call to confirm the order and then, since they said they'd ship the following Monday, I upgraded the shipping to 2-day, so that it'd arrive on Thursday. I checked the status of the order on Monday... and it was, supposedly, in "Warehouse, Being Packed." All Monday long...

Tuesday morning I called to cancel my order, because at this rate the camera, shipped on Tuesday, will probably make it here on Friday, a bit late for my evil purpose of getting acquainted with it well enough to take it to Galena IL on Saturday. I explained this to the Customer Service representative in us1photo.com, and he said that they usually upgrade the shipping so as to get the item to the customer the day they want it. Besides, I already had paid for 2-day shipping...

Some hours later, I got a note with a tracking number and a link to UPS. According to the UPS site, the camera is on a Next-Day plan, and on its way to be delivered on Nov. 12.

I'm elated... one day early!

Gotta give them good reviews...

Will keep you posted!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

I can feel your excitement through my keyboard! Good luck, if you have had a D200 or D300 the learning curve is not too steep. My only issues so far are the close focusing not triggering the green dot and for some reason trouble focusing on birds in flight.

Bob Baldassano
My Nikonians Gallery

"Nikonians membership - My most important photographic investment, after the
camera"

Retirement is a gift of time - Don't waste it!

The camera came about 30 minutes ago. I've been getting acquainted with it all this long... The battery was half full, but I had purchased another earlier, and that one was fine. I also have the MB-D10 with Nim batteries, that make the camera particularly bulky.

It seems to be a lot of fun... Will keep you posted, but right now, I'm going to scope some joints!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

>Thanks to all those who were patient enough to answer my
>silly questions about the Nikon D700. I just ordered mine
>online, from us1photo. It seems they're having something like
>a pre-TNXgiving offer and threw a 2-day shipping in for free
>until today, Nov 8, at midnight.
>
>All things considered, they have a good price, a confortable
>timeframe for returns (in case there's a problem, 15 days),
>and good comments in resellersratings.com.
>
>BTW, I paid just one penny below $2500. I am assuming I'll
>have it sometime next week.
>
>Time to work and get distracted...
>
>I'll keep you posted!

did the same thing... mine arrived yesterday so this canonite is learning a whole new system and software (nx2, viewnx,nikon transfer) went with b and h and the instant rebate. lovin' the 24-70 wow very sharp!

Happy Nikon convert from Canon...
D700
24-70 f2.8
70-200vr f2.8

Is there any way to understand Nikon View? I set it so that it jumps when it reads Nikon files... and it scared the bejesus out of me when I saw it literally jump in the screen.

It just has a strange vocabulary...

Thanks a lot! I posted some photos in my flicker already.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francisco
Recovering Nikonian in Illinois
My Nikon D700 Blog

Visit my Nikonians gallery.