D700 Somewhat Disappointing

A few years ago, Mike Reichman claimed that a 35mm-style Canon FF DSLR could compete with a scanned

transparency from a 6x7cm film camera. Since then, I've longed for the day when I could make a 16x20 print from an

image shot with a not-absurdly-overpriced Nikon DSLR that would look as good as a scanned image from a 6x7cm

piece of film, thereby allowing me to sell off my MF gear and have only one camera system. From testing the D700,

I'm afraid that day hasn't come.

 

 

Currently, for 35mm-style cameras, I have two D200s. When the D700s arrived in my store, I had two hopes: 1) to

again be able to use my 28mm and 85mm f/1.4 AFD Nikkors at the angle of view God intended; and 2) to get

dramatically better resolution than is possible with the D200s.

 

 

I'd shot some images with the D700 over the last two weeks, and the results weren't blowing my skirt up. Thinking I

was missing something, yesterday I shot the same image with the D200 and D700 (see alley photo). I set both

cameras to lowest ISO: 100 for the D200; 200 for the D700. I used a 12-24mm f/4.0 at 16mm, f/8.0 on the D200 and

a 24-70mm f/2.8 at 24mm, f/8.0 on the D700. Both lenses delivered outstanding sharpness and contrast.

 

 

Then, I made 12x18 inch prints from each camera’s image. Neither camera's image held together particularly well at

12x18 inches, which I expected from the D200, but not from the D700.

 

 

The big disappointment was resolution. Without any uprezzing, the D200 delivered a resolution of 215 pixels/inch at

12x18 inches- no suprise. However, the D700 only produced resolution of 236 pixels/inch at 12x18 inches. With the

considerably larger sensor and higher sensor pixel count, I really expected the D700 to have dramatically better

resolution than the D200. Neither camera compared favorably with a print I could make scanning film from my

Mamiya 7IIs.

 

 

I'm not going to post sections of the images. Differences in quality between the two cameras' images aren't

particularly noticeable in 12x18 prints, and are less noticeable on-screen at 100%.

 

 

Let me give the D700 its due:

 

 

1. The D700 image is a little more contrasty, apparently owing to its larger sensor.

 

 

2. If you look really, really close, the D700 print is a hair sharper than the D200 print.

 

 

3. ISO-wise, the D700 produces a little better image at its low ISO (200) than the D200 produces at its low ISO (100).

 

 

That having been said, for me to dump my D200s, grips and 12-24mm and 17-55mm DX lenses and replace them

with a pair of D700s, grips and a 24-70mm f/2.8 would cost me $5-6K. I've decided it isn't anywhere near worth the

price (though when bonus time comes at the end of the year, who knows how foolish I'll be).<div></div>

And ...<div></div>

I'd like to know a bit more about what your settings were and how the photos were processed and printed.

 

One of the things we get out of larger format media is better rendering of tonal range, as well as not needing to enlarge for the same print size.

 

By the way God's preferred format is measured in tetra-lightyears not millimeters and pixels

You are not going to see huge differences in daylight images. Try the D700 in some indoor, dim light situations at

ISO 3200 and 6400. There is where the D3 and D700 shine. The following image is a D700, ISO 6400 example with

the 14-24mm/f2.8 at 14mm:

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<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/7924312-md.jpg">

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I have printed some of my wedding images from the D2X to 20x30" and at least I am quite happy with the results. I

am sure the D700 would do a little better.

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I know Eric likes to buy two identical cameras, but I am afraid that is not a good strategy in the digital era. You'll

simply have two cameras depreciating rapidly. I personally have never owned two copies of any Nikon camera. The

closest I had was an FE and FE2. At least for me, switching among the D3, D700, D300, D2X, D200 and even a Contax 645 is not an issue.

As far is IQ, 10mp vs 13mp represents an insignificant increase in resolution. Even if the D700 was 24mp, you

would not see a significant difference in resolution.

 

I find with any new body I use it takes time to figure out the optimal settings. Oddly, you would think the

larger sensor would give you better IQ even at lower ISOs. As you (and I) have discovered, it does not. It

obviously helps at higher ISOs.

 

If you don't need the larger viewfinder of the D700 over DX cameras or shoot above ISO 1600 often, you may not

need it. Now wanting it is another story!

Did you apply any sharpening in post processing?

 

When the D3 first came out there were tons of comparisons between it and the original Canon 5D which was much older. Most people thought the 5D was sharper often times much sharper. Over the next month the discussion turned to the D3 having a much stronger anti alias filter and that the D3 image could be sharpened in post processing much more than people thought without creating oversharpening artifacts.

Ellis, as I didn't have a program in place to convert the D700 Raw files, I used Fine JPEGs from both cameras. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would not effect either camera's gross resolution- i.e. I made the same print from an uncompressed D200 Raw file, which yielded the same number of pixels per inch.

 

 

Also, I thought I had the D700 set on Auto White Balance, but I may have had it set on Flash, which could account for the difference in color balance. But again, the point of my excercise was not color rendition.

 

 

Shun, when shooting event-type stuff, I have been using the Gary Fong Lightsphere. As such, I'm usually shooting at ISO 400-800 in larger rooms. So, I appreciate the enhanced high-ISO performance of the D700- though the D200 is pretty good- i.e. I haven't felt the need to run D200 images shot at ISO 800 through Neat Image. But yes, I'm more interested in what the D700 can do at ISO 200 than at ISO 3200.

 

 

Elliot, if I had $5-6K burning a hole in my pocket, I'd switch to the D700s today, despite the D700 not being vastly better than the D200. My wants always exceed my needs.

 

 

Again, I'm not slagging the D700. It appears to be somewhat better than the D200 in pretty much every way. Its just that I was expecting the FX sensor from a body at about the same quality level in Nikon's line (comparing a hundred-series body to a hundred-series body) to be dramatically better than a one-generation-older DX sensor.

Walt, I turned the sharpening off in both cameras. I did capture sharpening and output sharpening of both images I printed with PhotoKit Sharpener. Neither print lacked sharpness, per se, but both looked a little under-rezzed at only 200+ pixels/inch.

At least in my case, the D3 and D700 simply change the way I shoot events. Now I use a lot less flash as a result. Additionally, the D700 (or D300) should be able to give you much better AF under dim light, but as we have discussed lately, the way the 15 cross-type AF points in the Multi-CAM 3500 are placed is optimized for sports instead of event photography.

 

Another reason to get an FX body is for wide angle work. Now the 14-24mm/f2.8 and 24mm PC-E are much more useful in FX.

 

If you neither need high ISO results nor super wide results, perhaps the D200 and the DX format are just fine for you.

I shoot digital, too, but I'm not about to part with my Mamiya 7. But I will buy a D700 because of the high ISO capabilities. That is one area where digital trumps film.

A white balance comment.

 

Eric

What was your white balance setting. I am assuming auto, and I am surprised that the d200 and d700 are so different. The d700 seems more accurate to me, the d200 seems too blue.

 

Shun

Your white balance seems off to me, too yellow. My d200 in auto white balance does a good job most of the time but not in incandescent situations. I have found that a custom white balance is needed in these situation and works much better. I have no experience with the d700.

Eric,

 

You said:

 

"With the considerably larger sensor and higher sensor pixel count, I really expected the D700 to have dramatically better resolution than the D200."

 

The resolution is already defined in advance of any test or experiment. The D200 is a 10 MP camera and the D700 is a 12 MP camera and so the D700 will have a resolution of sqrt(12/10) or about 9.5 percent better than the D200. The size of the sensor does not affect the resolution of the camera at all. This 9.5 percent is about the same as the ratio 236:215 which you quoted as the pixels per inch in the two 18x12 prints. It is all as expected.

 

The main gain of the D700 will be lower noise at high ISO and greater dynamic range not extra resolution.

My white balance is probably off, but that place is very dim and their lights are indeed yellow.

I kind of like this effect myself.

 

I don't remember the exact setting I used. Auto white balance tends to work less well with tungsten.

As Elliot says, the difference in resolution between 10 and 12 megapixels is negligible. If you put a 12-megapixel back on your MF body (assuming such a thing existed), that wouldn't hold up, either.

 

There are plenty of reasons to like the D700 over the DX bodies, but high resolution isn't one of them. You can get the same resolution for much less money in a D300.

<i>Mike Reichman claimed that a 35mm-style Canon FF DSLR could compete with a scanned transparency from a 6x7cm

film camera. </i>

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Therein lies your first problem: he thought the D30 was better than 35mm film ... you have to assess the

believability of each person and not take things written by "names" as gospel.

<p>

I am extremely happy with my 12 MP Nikon FX cameras. That said, no way is the detail from these cameras at base

ISO going to match slow 6x7 film. Michael didn't do anyone a service by saying what he did, no matter how much he

"wanted" it to be true.

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As far as the aging of DSLRs goes, to me the future developments of DSLRs became largely immaterial when Nikon

introduced the D3. It (and the D700) does what I need from a camera; excellent image quality for general

photography, especially for people photography in low light; it supports a vast range of specialty lenses and has

a nice viewfinder. I was never happy with Nikon's DX cameras - a lot had to do with the fact that I prefer to use

prime lenses and Nikon didn't support DX with a set of dedicated primes - but also the fact that I want to see

the focus well in the viewfinder and use fast glass at wide apertures - which didn't, in general, result in good

results on DX cameras, with the exception of telephoto lenses. To me, DX is a special-purpose format for

telephoto shooters.

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I sometimes print a 13x19 from my FX Nikons and the results are "ok". However, I recognize that small-format

DSLRs aren't the ideal tool for making huge prints of landscapes, city scapes and so on - for broad city views I

use my Mamiya 7. Large landscape prints aren't central to me so I am happy with 12 MP FX. Even when it goes to

20+MP in the future, FX will never really compete with 6x7 in terms of detail, especially at the corners of the

image, I am afraid. I've looked carefully at 21 MP images from Canon's DSLRs, printed them and none of the sample

images I've been able to download have critical sharpness in the edges, especially when wide angles are used. To

me this is a serious flaw in this kind of an application and therefore I think that a dedicated large/medium

format film or digital camera is necessary for wall size print applications of landscapes and broad city views.

For people photography, I think 12 MP FX does very well.

Phil, I thought I had both cameras set to Auto White Balance, but the D700 may have been set to Flash. I have taken other images with the D700 on AWB, and the AWB on the D700 is swell.

 

 

Richard, I'm so bad at math, I became a lawyer. I thought with a 50% bigger sensor and a higher MP count, the D700 would yield more than 9.5% higher resolution than the D200. If you'd asked me to guess in advance, I would have guessed the D700 would yield about 300 p.p.i. at 12x18 inches. But again, you wouldn't want to hire me to balance your checkbook.

Ilkka, my dream is one 35mm-style DSLR system for prints from wallet-size to 16x20 inches. It may be an unlikely dream, but its my dream.

 

 

Also, what hasn't improved at all since my D100s is dynamic range. I'd like an image from a DSLR that would yield a seven-stop- or more- dynamic range without my having to go to the Pshop Highlight/Shadow sliders. Certainly, the image from the D700 is no better than the image from the D200 in dynamic range.

 

 

And someone will say, "(w)hat about the Fuji S cameras built on the Nikon platforms." Setting aside their so-so maximum resolution, I've see bunches of prints from these cameras and I don't believe they have the same dynamic range as color print film.

Eric,

 

The maths isn't so bad going the other way. For 300 ppi at 18x12 inches you'd need:-

 

18x300x12x300 = 19440000 pixels or 19.4 MP.

Eric, this post and your efforts are both interesting and informative. Perhaps you have a larger issue at hand: photographing alleys and wearing a skirt and all... :>)

"To me, DX is a special-purpose format for telephoto shooters"

 

One of best I've seen from Ilkka in a while.

 

I'm almost sorry I bought the 55mm f3.5 Micro Auto-PC.<div></div>

It isn't exactly like everybody who does not shoot telephotos can just go out and spend $2700+ on a D700, D3, Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 1Ds III or Sony A900.

What calls my attention is the awaited "dramatically" improvement of gear, release after release. I see improvements (IMHO some are big) from the D200 to the D300 and to the D3 and D700. Many users are dissapointed in this topic.

 

Technology is fast but not as fast as we would like. It`s not magic, thought.

BW, be very glad I didn't turn the camera around 180 degrees- not a pretty sight.

 

 

Richard and Jose, I guess I kinda did think that the 50% larger sensor- FX v. DX- would produce a greater change in resolution than the difference of 2 Megapixels between the two sensors.

Eric, do you remember my car analogy? If you only drive from home to your local supermarket within a 25 MPH zone, you are not going to see the difference between a $100K Porsche and a $15K Toyota Corolla. In fact, the Toyota may have more room for your grocery. But we don't write major headlines that "an expensive Porsche is no better than a cheap Toyota" based on such "test results."

 

If you want to see the D700's advantages, you need to compare it against the D200 at ISO 1600 and 3200. Or you attach an MB-D10 onto the D700 with an EN-El4e inside so that the D700 can go to 8 frames/sec. Now you shoot some sports or birds in flight with a fast AF-S lens and see whether you see any difference.

 

For the Porsche, ask Walter (Schroeder) to test drive it on the Autobahn. :-)

The D3 gives 300 dpi on a regular image (i.e., Fine .jpg, Large or Medium setting,) so may one ask how you got to the 236 pixel setting? I've made up to 16x20 and 'poster' prints from .jpg D3 files, no problem from doing so. My customers were happy.