D700 vs D7000 Autofocus and Mirror Slap

<p>I figured this was recent topic so I would add my 2 cents and ramble on for a few.</p>

<p>I recently bought a D700 and have been shooting with it. Just came back from a studio shoot and as far as the auto-focus goes, the D700 is superior to the D7000. Its more than just the number of focus points. With the D700 my in focus percentage is around 95%. My d7000 in the same studio with the same glass and that rate drops to about 85%. But please don't get me wrong, I still love my D7000 and for the money I would totally still recommend it. Its way way better than my D90. But the semi-pro body on the D700 just has a better auto-focus system. I've never had a D300 or D300s, so I can only imagine those are as good as the D700 at focusing.</p>

<p>So why would I ever shoot with a D7000 when I have a D700? Its DX, lightweight, I can get 1.5x magnification on my glass and the shutter is a LOT quieter. I shot an Orchestra during rehearsal back in October with my D7000 and that went very well except that I only pushed it to about ISO 1600. I did a similar shoot with my D700 and I could safely go to ISO 3200 or more but the shutter noise was an issue even for a rehearsal. Since it was no flash I was only able to use stage lighting. Next time I need quiet, I'm going for my D7000. I'm also thinking blimps, but I'll save that for another thread.</p>

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<p>Hi Stephen, <br>

for church concerts and so on I grab the D7000 too - I'd rather deal with the slightly worse high-ISO-performance compared to D700 or D3 than with angry concert-goers or musicians. If I shoot from a tripod I set up everything and place a scarf or a sweater over the camera body to damp down the shutter noise.<br>

If I had to shoot classical concerts on a regular basis I would think about getting a mirrorless-system.<br>

For everyday use I prefer the D700/D3s over the D7000 by a wide margin, the finder alone is so much better at the FX-cameras.</p>

<p>The D7000 is an exceptionally quiet DSLR. Looking back, my initial reaction was perhaps a bit extreme, but when I first got my D7000, once I was shooting outdoors and even not in the quiet mode, I was wondering whether the shutter had fired or not. After a few days, I gradually got used to how quiet the D7000 is.</p>

<p>Besides using a mirrorless system, you can also use the D7000 in the live view mode to skip the mirror slap. For classical concerts, you are probably using a tripod and long lens from the back anyway. From the D7000 and on, Nikon DSLR's mirror does not slap in the live view mode any more. On the D700, the mirror still slaps in live view.</p>

<p>Concerning AF, we have discussed the differences between the Multi-CAM 3500 (D700) and Multi-CAM 4800 (D7000) quite a bit in this current thread: <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00aT6J">Is D7000 really that bad?</A><br>

I think it is quite clear to everybody that the D700 "has better AF": there are more AF points (51 vs. 39) and especially more cross-type AF points (15 vs. 9), and the D700 seems to have a more powerful AF motor. However, I think the Multi-CAM 4800 is quite close. I use mostly AF-S lenses so that the in-body AF motor doesn't matter.</p>

<p>Under dim light with low contrast, the center cross-type AF points on both cameras are a lot more sensitive. By their nature, the outside line-type AF points are sensitive to contrast only in one direction. Therefore, if you have to use a line-type AF point, you need to find something that it is sensitive to for AF to work well.</p>

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Under dim light with low contrast, the center cross-type AF points on both cameras are a lot more sensitive. By their nature, the outside line-type AF points are sensitive to contrast only in one direction. Therefore, if you have to use a line-type AF point, you need to find something that it is sensitive to for AF to work well.

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P.S. If you use live view on the D7000, its contrast-detect AF is also quite good, or you simply focus manually with the live view. And since the D7000 has 16MP, if you can down sample a bit, high-ISO results also improves.

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<p>Thanks for the info. I still get some sort of shutter actuation on my D7000 even with Live view so not sure if I'm just missing something.</p>

<p>The d7000 is going to be my go-to camera for the next concert I do. I'll take the D700 as a backup as opposed to the other way round. I'm much better off taking more photos with lower ISO then I am taking less photos at better high ISO.</p>

<p><em> I still get some sort of shutter actuation on my D7000 even with Live view so not sure if I'm just missing something.</em></p>

<p>The shutter and aperture do their rounds if you take shots in LV mode (click-click), but the mirror fortunately stays up. It's not ideal for quiet shooting; a mirrorless camera will just give a simple shutter sound, some (Nikon J1) give no sound if shooting wide open.</p>