Nikon D700

Full review

For those who don't need the indestructibility or built-in vertical grip of a traditional pro dSLR such as the Nikon D3 or the Canon EOS-1D Mark III -- and that's quite a chunk of the pro market -- smaller, lighter and cheaper full-frame models such as the Nikon D700, the Canon EOS 5D and the 5D Mark II are the real workhorses. Plus, their (relatively) lower prices put full-frame shooting in the hands of deep-pocketed amateur photographers.

The D700 comes in two configurations: body only or in a kit with a lens, such as the veteran AF-S VR 24-120mm f3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens featured here. With the kit version you end up paying about £250 for a lens (£1,850 total) that sells independently for about £400. When you're paying more than £1,500 for a camera body, opting for the somewhat middling lens seems rather foolish. On the other hand, it's relatively compact, and replacing it with something superior would require multiple, larger and more expensive lenses.

Though one normally doesn't consider a body weight of 1kg an asset, it comes up a lightweight compared with 1.4kg-plus models such as the D3 or Canon EOS-1D line. However, it's still a tad heavier than full-frame competitors such as the Sony Alpha DSLR-A900 (950g) and the Canon EOS 5D series (about 800g). The magnesium-alloy body feels like a Hummer and it's better sealed than the Nikon D300, but it's not up to the dust and weatherproofing standards of the D3.

Design
The body design clearly has more in common with the D300 than the D3, and is pretty Nikon-conventional. Almost all settings are adjusted via combinations of buttons and the front or rear dials. On the top left you've got the quality, white balance and ISO buttons, plus a locked wheel that selects among drive modes (single shot, continuous low, and continuous high), Live View, self timer and mirror lock-up. This does make Live View operation a bit clunkier than it needs to be.

Newer models have a dedicated button for popping into the mode, which makes it faster and a bit easier to use. On the top right, the power switch surrounds the shutter release, plus there are buttons for exposure compensation and exposure mode selection (PASM). Nikon provides a traditional status LCD, which displays slightly different information than the viewfinder: it doesn't show metering mode or ISO speed.

On the front left side of the body sits a switch for focus mode (single, continuous and manual), flash pop-up and compensation buttons, and ports for a wired remote and flash sync cable. There's a programmable function button between the grip and the lens that you press with your right-hand ring finger -- you can assign it from a variety of options, but our favourite is probably the virtual horizon, which uses the exposure compensation readout to display off-horizontal tilt. You can also reassign the depth-of-field preview button, which sits higher between the grip and the lens.

One of our favourite aspects of the D700's design -- common to all Nikon's midrange and above dSLRs -- is the use of switches for directly selecting metering mode (1.5 per cent spot, centreweighted, evaluative) and AF area mode (single point, dynamic area and auto area). You then use the eight-way multiselector to pick your focus point in the viewfinder. It's the same navigation control as on the D3, and while it's quite convenient, we find the switch itself -- which you also use to scroll through photos and information displays during playback -- just a little too jumpy when we're moving fast. Still, it beats the alternatives.

Other controls on the back include separate AF activation and AF/AE lock buttons, as well as the usual assortment of playback, delete, info, menu and so on. As is typical of Nikons dSLRs, the D700 has a two-button format (delete plus mode) and reset (quality plus exposure compensation).

Features
Like the D3 and D300, the D700 provides lots of customisation capabilities, including two banks of savable settings with four slots each and a user-definable menu page. As with the D300, your dynamic area options are 9-, 21-, or 51-point AF areas plus 51-point 3D tracking. Also like the D300, they're unfortunately buried in the menus. We also like the ability to choose the size of the centre for centre-weighted average metering. (There are too many options to cover here, so download the PDF manual for the details.)

The 5D Mark II, with its movie-capture mode and high-resolution 21-megapixel sensor, overshadows the D700's relatively low-resolution 12-megapixel CMOS -- the same as the D3's. But its bread-and-butter feature set is more than enough for any pro. Like its Nikon siblings, it's especially suited for HDR work, with bracketing options of up to nine shots at ±5EV in third-, half-, or full-stop increments.

Other notables include the now-common Picture Controls for adjusting and saving contrast, brightness, sharpness, saturation and hue, Active D-Lighting; Vignette control, a rather annoying multiple exposure option that resets to Off after every batch and requires a trip into the menu system to turn back on, and raw file options of 12- or 14-bit with lossy compressed, lossless compressed and uncompressed variations. Like the D3, the D700 has a DX crop mode to match DX lenses. 

Performance
As long as you don't need pro-sport-speed continuous-shooting performance, the D700 is quite fast -- just slightly slower than the D3 on occasion. From power on to first shot takes less than 0.2 seconds. To autofocus and shoot in good light takes 0.3 seconds, and in dim light only 0.6. Shared with the D3, that's class-leading performance. Two sequential shots take about 0.5 seconds, even with flash, like the D300. The one aspect that the D700 cedes to the competition is its 4.9fps burst rate, though it's more than adequate for most situations. If necessary, you can splash out on the MB-D10 battery grip -- it uses many of the same accessories as the D300 -- to bump that to a rated 8fps, which essentially turns the camera into an almost-D3.

Furthermore, with the same AF system as the D300, the D700 delivers fast, accurate focus, even in low light. Disappointingly, though, the viewfinder delivers only 95 per cent coverage -- this is odd, given that both the D3 and D300 both provide 100 per cent visibility. The D700 also lacks interchangeable focusing screens, which many of its competitors offer.

Unsurprisingly, the D700 delivers great photo quality. With a really good lens the photos are very sharp, and the camera renders excellent exposures and a broad dynamic range. Both visually and by the numbers it exhibits first-rate colour accuracy, though it seems to have somewhat glitchy automatic white balance under tungsten lights. It has a robust noise profile as well -- photos show no degradation until about ISO 6,400, and are still quite usable up to ISO 12,800, depending upon subject matter. As for ISO 25,600, they're not as bad as the Canon EOS 50D's at that level, but it's very much an emergency-only option.

The only possibly significant drawback to the Nikon D700 is its resolution. If you ascribe to the no-scaling school of printing, then the largest 300dpi print you can get out of its 12-megapixel files is a 360x240mm, and moving up to 280x400 requires 15.8 megapixels (though on an Epson at 240dpi you can cover 280x400 at 12 megapixels). Also, at that resolution, its prime competitor is the veteran and now less expensive Canon EOS 5D (so old we don't have comparative performance data for it), which is still widely available despite being dropped from Canon's official product line.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Smaller bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Raw shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim light)

Shutter lag (typical)

Nikon D3

0.1 

0.3 

0.6 

0.3 

Nikon D700

0.2 

0.5 

0.6 

0.3 

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

0.1 

0.5 

1.1 

0.4 

Sony Alpha DSLR-A900

0.3 

0.5 

1.2 

0.4 

Nikon D300

0.1 

0.5 

0.9 

0.5 

Conclusion
Compared with the 5D, the D700 has greater latitude, a better AF system, and a more modern feature set. On the other hand, Canon arguably has a more comprehensive full-frame lens lineup with more options at midrange prices. And, of course, if you want the movie capture, your full-frame options are limited to the 5D Mark II at the moment. Otherwise, the D700 is a great full-frame camera for professionals and prosumers.

Additional editing by Cristina Psomadakis