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Planning to upgrade D700


raihan_malik1

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Hi Everyone,

 

I've been doing wedding photography for more than 5 years now, mostly Indian. I own a D7000 and D7100 with 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 17-55mm and 80-200mm (and nikon speedlights). Regardless of having all the Nikon equipment s I'm not happy with my image qualities, I always find my images are not as sharp as others!! Yes I know about tripod, shooting in RAW, sweet spot, exposure, post process etc yet I found it somehow my images are not crisp! (or who knows may be it's my psychology)

 

I always wanted to buy a FX and after all my homework, I decided to try a D700 with my 50/85 and 80-200 combo and see if things get any better. Found few old bodies less than 40k clicks for $600/700 Canadian.

 

So kindly advise if this upgrade is worthy? Would it be wise to buy a 700 in 2019?

 

Thanks a Lot and appreciate all comments. Raihan.

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The D7000 and especially the D7100 are pretty good cameras. The D700 is FX, but otherwise it is actually older, without a 100% viewfinder and dual memory cards. Its AF module is similar to that on the D7100 and superior to that on the D7000.

 

If you are unable to get excellent images using the D7100, I would check other factors such as lighting, camera settings, etc. I really doubt that switching to the D700 would benefit you much.

 

If you would like to switch to FX, I would go for something with dual memory cards such as the D750 for weddings.

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Agreed with Shun, I'm curious why you think you'll get sharper images with a D700. All other things being held equal—same lenses, same technique, etc.—D700 images have less resolution than D7100 or even D7000 ones.

 

Now, it is true that the lower resolution of the D700 may result in less apparent blur than what you're seeing in your D7x00 images. This is because the fatter pixels of the D700 will tend to hide very small departures from perfect focus, perfect stillness, perfect optical quality, etc. But emphasis must be placed on very small. The width of one D700 pixel is 8.45 microns, versus 3.92 for the D7100. Say you're taking pictures of the night sky with exposure settings that would result in the light from each star impinging on exactly one pixel on the sensor, if the image is perfectly focused. In this ideal case of perfect focus, each star in the D7100 image would be about half the width of the stars in the D700 image, due to the latter's almost-twice-as-big pixels. So, in some sense, the D7100 image would be sharper.

 

Now assume that instead of perfect focus, you have a focus error that causes the image of each star to be slightly blurred, with a blur radius of about 2 microns. In this case, the light from each star would not "fit" into a single pixel on the D7100 sensor, but instead would impinge on neighboring pixels, too. This would result in a blurry image, as the camera's image processor interpolates each blocky star image into a smooth but blurry one. On the D700 sensor on other hand, the blurred starlight would still fit into a single (much larger) pixel. The D700 image processor would not need to interpolate these star images, and the result would be an image free of blur—despite the slight focus error.

 

If you have a collection of poorly-corrected lenses that don't produce pin-sharp images, the above argument could be a reason to prefer the low-resolution D700 over the high-resolution D7100. However, the same argument could justify getting better lenses instead. Or, if your lenses are good ones, you might need to improve your technique in order to produce sharper images.

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Do you always use autofocus or are your manual focus images also "not as sharp as others"? If it is autofocus only, perhaps your camera is front focusing or back focusing.

 

You may wish to read this article and download the focus charts to test your camera/lens combinations.

 

Jeffrey's Autofocus Test Chart

 

If you use Lightroom, you may wish to download this add-on to see where your focus point really is:

 

Show Focus Points Plugin for Lightroom

 

It not only shows you where your are focusing, but gives other information like DOF. I thought I had a problem (I did, it was me) with a lens. I thought my subjects eyes were not sharp enough; they weren't. The add-in showed I was focusing on the end of my subjects nose with a very short DOF. BTW, the nose was in focus.

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My D7200 is definitely capable of better resolution than my D700 ever was, and will go to a higher ISO without getting the blues or showing banding and highlight-streaking. So IMO the 12 megapixel D700 would be a decided downgrade.

 

OTOH, my D800 gives cleaner results SOOC beyond 800 ISO than the D7200, and even comparing both at 100 ISO has a discernible 'something' better about its image quality.

 

But if you're not getting sharp results from your D7100 at base ISO, then something's amiss apart from the camera body.

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Agreed with the others. Is a D700 a nice body to own? Absolutely. Especially if you want the subject isolation from using f/1.4 primes, which are hard to match in smaller formats. Will it give you sharper images than a D7x00? I'd be astonished. The resolution is lower, the AA filter on a D700 is very strong (the pixels themselves look soft), and the dynamic range is way behind the DX bodies. Especially for weddings, the D7x00 bodies are the right things to use unless you want to step up to a D8x0 body.

 

Of course, this assumes you want sharpness. If you decide you just want the DoF control and like dreamy images, you might find it useful. But that doesn't sound like your problem.

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Would it be wise to buy a 700 in 2019?

 

Not really. Not because of any consideration about image quality, as most above pointed out, you will not make gains there really.

The key point is: the last D700s were produced in the end of 2012 more or less. So, it's 7 years old at the most positive, which practically means its reliability will start going worse and the risk of failure increases (and no, shutter counts do *not* tell the full story). Buying 2nd hand, you simply will not know the full history of the camera either, how it's been treated and what kind of use it has seen. Too much unknowns. This is a business tool; betting your business on something that is inherently increasingly unreliable simply isn't smart.

 

For a hobbyist, wanting a solid build full frame camera, the D700 still has its place, but as a professional tool, I'd only keep it as backup body if I'd know its full history, and certainly no longer spend any money on it.

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Buying 2nd hand, you simply will not know the full history of the camera either, how it's been treated and what kind of use it has seen

Spot on! If this hypothetical D700 has been used with the MB-D10 grip to get you to 8fps rather than it's naked 5fps, it's shutter and mirror mechanism will have had a real hammering; 75K machine-gun frames is bound to be more mechanically 'painful' than 75K frames of gentle copystand work.

 

It always was the 'poor-persons' D3 and many of them were used as such.

 

I had a D700 with grip for ~100K frames for horse eventing and it got quite a work out with 3>4K per day not unusual. It never missed a beat, but after nearly 1/5 million total frames you start to loose faith, maybe unfairly, but risk:reward starts mounting up.

 

A used D750 or if funds are tight, a D610 would give you a more modern body with more pixels (than a D700), but sharpness..... who knows?

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Thanks once again for the valuable comments. My image quality gets better after i got the nikkor 17-55 last year, replacing the Sigma yet i'm not just 100% happy, and to answer "bgelfand", i use auto focus always and use the single manual focus point. I'll try out the chart n plugins.

 

And by nature 80-200 gives a bit softer images compared with 70-200 I believe, that might be another reason coz none of my fellow photographers use 80-200 and some of their 70-200 images comes tack sharp. Anyway, down the road if necessary I'd probably go for a D7200 or 7500. Have a great day everyone. Raihan.

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Hi Raihan.

 

For what it's worth, I was generally disappointed with the 80-200 f/2.8 AF-D (mk 3) I had; I hear better things about the optics of the 80-200 AF-S, just in case that's the one you mean. I found it lost sharpness at short range/telephoto, but it also drifts farther from the default focus calibration (and more significantly than most lenses), with the result that I rarely trusted it above f/5.6 indoors - which is, sadly, when the f/2.8 tends to be more useful. I found the 70-200 VR II a significant improvement (except for focus breathing), and now find the 70-200 FL to be another step up (I'm now more or less happy shooting at f/2.8). The appearance of the FL does mean the 70-200 VR II has got cheaper, although if you're not worried about spare parts, the mk1 70-200 VR is by all accounts very good so long as you don't try to use it at 200mm on an FX body (the corners go mushy outside the DX crop). The Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 G2 has relatively rave reviews, too, and supports a dock which would let you adjust the focus for your bodies.

 

That said, many seem to have used the 80-200 lenses happily for a long time and got good results, so I'm not going to claim you can always blame the equipment - it's easy to throw money at the wrong problem.

 

Do you feel like sharing a 1:1 crop of an image (ideally with the EXIF data intact) that you feel isn't sharp? We might be able to make a suggestion.

 

I hope that helps.

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And by nature 80-200 gives a bit softer images compared with 70-200 I believe, that might be another reason coz none of my fellow photographers use 80-200 and some of their 70-200 images comes tack sharp.

 

If you are friendly with one of the photographers with a 70-200, get together with him/her and borrow the 70-200 for a few hours. Shoot the same subject with both lenses on your bodies under the same controlled conditions (same range, same lighting, same zoom setting (excluding 70mm of course). Then compare the results. Any difference would be due to the lens.

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There are four different Nikkor AF 80-200mm/f2.8. AF is likely slower with any one of the first three versions, which use screwdriver AF. The AF-S should give you pretty good AF speed but its main drawback is the lack of VR, which can make a different when you try to shoot a wedding under low light, 1/30 to 1/60 sec type situation.
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Raihan, may I ask what don't you like about those two images?

 

To me, the couple looks fine (although some may prefer to have the couple look more towards the camera), but for my preference, there is too much flash in the image with the two ladies. However, your preference may be different. One way or another, I doubt that a D700 will solve any issue you may have with those images because those are more composition and lighting issues.

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hi ShunCheung,

the couple picture looks a bit soft i found, the 2nd image is ok in terms of sharpness, both are unedited and for the 2nd image, if i'm not mistaken, my flash was bounced but right on top of them, there were few LED bulbs hanging to create discotech type ambiance. So as i mentioned earlier i found my images not tack sharp and from all the comments I kind of aware that buying a D700 won't solve the problem, so it might be my lens. But if an experts like yourself says it's looks ok in terms of sharpness, that probably give me some self confidence or moral boost and i really appreciate that!!

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for both event i used 80-200

The couple image is actually taken with a 17-55 at 55mm on a D7100; f/2.8, 1/200s, ISO 250

The two women are at 100mm (80-200/2.8), f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 400.

 

If I can trust the info on the active AF point used that breezebrowser shows me, then for the two women, focus was on the head scarf between the two at about the height of the mouth of the women in the right of the picture (topmost AF point on the centerline); this should be close enough. For the couple, it's the same AF point that - because of the camera being rotated - not sits just below the armpit of the man - and hence nowhere near the focus plane that should contain the eyes of the female; this would explain the softness of the image.

 

Given the equipment you are using now, I would not consider the D700 an upgrade at all. The money would definitely be better spent on, for example, the first version of the 70-200/2.8 VR (which is fine on a DX body and handles a lot better than the 80-200 two-ring (which is quite front heavy)).

Edited by Dieter Schaefer
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+1 to Shun's comments. I'll note that the image from the D7100 looks the tiniest bit soft. It's clear the available light was dim, so, without checking metadata, I wonder if there's some camera shake involved, or where the actual focus point was placed? I shoot the D7100 extensively and even with kit lenses like the 18-105 I'm very happy with the results. For example:

StrikeThree-sml.thumb.jpg.806e4edc7138e85e10227626f15a9da1.jpg

Here's a 100% crop from the above.

Steeeeerike-0066-crop100.thumb.jpg.4c91664b856cd4fd201d58a8255416c1.jpg

This was shot with the D7100, ISO 320, 1/1600s, f/9, with the Nikkor AF-S 70-300/4.5-5.6 G VR.

You should be able to obtain the results you're looking for. It may well be a nuance of how you are using the tools at hand.

 

I just saw Dieter's comments. +1 to his points.

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Anybody else see a sharpness issue?

Nope - but unlike the first and second, the last one is at f/6.3 (135mm) - and according to breezebrowser the active AF area is on his chest - close enough.

 

AF fine tune is on on both cameras and both lenses show rather large correction values (+10 for the 17-55 on the D7100, -15 for the 80-200 on the D7000); have you verified that these values are indeed correct?

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Raihan, The D700 is dated at this point, now over 10 years old and will be more difficult to maintain. Even the D750 is over 4 years old but still in production or at least available new. I would go with a more current d750 body used or new not because I believe that you can take better photographs with it but because it will last longer. The 17-55 is your only crop sensor lens, but I would have faith in all of the lenses you own. I examined the data associated with your images and would consider bumping up the ISO to as high as 1200, stopping down one or two stops to improve depth of field and a shooting a little faster relative to the reciprocal of the focal length of the respective lens. Or any combination there of. Make sure the focus point is exactly on the eyes. Correct what you can in post processing. I think the gear your shooting with is fine and your composition and subjects are stunning. Stay frosty.
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For any image with multiple people, I would be careful to use a large aperture such as f2.8 or faster. Unless your multiple people are perfectly lined up to have the same distance from the camera, focusing could be challenging and it is hard to get them both sharp. I would stop down to f5.6 or so to gain some depth of field.

 

I can delete all images on this thread after we are done with the discussion. Raihan please just let me know.

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