NIKON D700 REVIEW
The
never ending game of engineering and marketing "chess"
between the top digital single-lens-reflex manufacturers can
now add a King, Queen and Crown Prince line-up from Nikon.
The
king would be the Nikon D3, while the prince can be the D300.
Comfortably nestled between the two is the queen – the
newly announced D700. She gets that title because she's capable
of making practically all the moves of the rest of the line-up
and she's arguably the most versatile of the bunch.
-
If
price was a deal-killer, Nikon has sweetened their new DSLR
line-up by producing a camera that shaves nearly $2000 off
the king's price while absorbing the best of features from
the D3 and the D300.
Judging
from the first 24 hours of posts in the brand new Nikonians
D700 Users Group forum, it looks like Nikon's engineers
have managed to please both professionals and serious enthusiasts
with the new D700.
Smaller
in price and size (almost)
The D700 offers a boat-load
of features previously the exclusive domain of the D3 and
D300 cameras and manages to pack it all in a D300-style body
with a $2,000 savings added as incentive.
Nikonian David Dalziel (dave58)
sums up the impact of the price break, noting: "I've
been waiting for a 'Full Frame' but the D3 was just too much
for my budget. The D700 although still expensive is almost
within my reach and I would imagine many other people who
have held off for the same reason. I'll still wait a few months
to let the price settle & then add it to my kit bag along
with my D200. I honestly thought I'd be waiting another year
for an 'affordable' FX body so I'm happy. Thank you Nikon."
The lower price is not the
only reduction offered by D700. At 2.19lb (995g)
without battery, memory card, body cap or LCD monitor cover,
it comes in lighter than the D3's 2.7lb
(1,240 g) by half a pound.
The flip-side is that once
you add the optional MB-D10 Multi-Power Battery Pack you've
just added three pounds to the D700 (not counting the batteries).
The battery pack also adds an additional $235 USD (average
in the USA) to your purchase price, but it is a very popular
option for photographers requiring plenty of juice and the
ability to take the D700 up to its advertised eight frames
per second.
Without
the pack you can expect five fps. That pack by the way was
surely an influencing factor in the D700's remarkable similarity
in body style to the D300. The original design of the MB-D10
was matched to the D300.
In
an
interview with the design staff behind the pack, Ms. Michiyo
Ogasawara of Nikon's Product Design Department explained:
"Since this device was to be used as an attachment to
the D300, it would have been tempting to think only of producing
clean lines that matched the camera itself. However, we were
also aiming to make use of the standard battery holder used
on the F6 camera, in order to allow an EN-EL4a to be used,
and I had a hard time getting the shape of the battery pack
to conform." Now, with the pack already in production
and key shape and size conformity to the camera body this
critical, the close physical resemblance between the D700
and D300 is a natural progression. Of course Nikon also factored
in the cost-saving benefits of using hardware already in production.
Both the battery pack and the camera share durable magnesium
allow protection.
