nikon D700 for portraits

over the past year, i've been using my Nikon D200 for my portraits work. i tend to print the images for my

clients on paper up to A3+... sometimes A2.

 

although the images appear to be acceptable sharp when printed, im not 100% satisfied.

 

wondering whether investing in the D700 would give me a much improved image quality to print to that size. please

advice.

 

the lenses i use are all excellent. the 80-200.. the 17-35 the 85mm etc. so its not an issue with lenses i dont

believe.

 

the d200 is a 10mp camera while the d700 is a 12mp camera - will i see a massive difference in printed images?

You will not see a massive difference between 10 and twelve megapixels with these two or similar cameras.

 

What you will see between these two cameras , if you shoot NEFS , with the D700 is a larger dynamic range

particularly int he highlights, and a lower (better) noise to signal ratio -- increasingly better as you go up

the ISO scale.

 

As far as appearance of "sharpness". Better sharpening technique utilizing capture, creative, and output stages

instead of a USM approach will yield better results. see http://www.pixelgenius .com for the Photokit Sharpener.

if you go to the Epson print Academy Seminars this year ( http://www.epsonprintacademy.com) you'll learn some

other ways to bring outthe inherent quality in your photos, particualrly from a guy named Mac Holbert.

 

Knowing what you are doing with lighting always helps too.

ellis, thanks for that. i was actually just looking at the epson print academy before reading your post - had never heard of it before, is it held annually? i will definately look at getting to one of the dates/cities.

 

while im at it, do you know of any reputable courses/workshops/teachers etc that specialize in Portraiture? im looking into findiing something on that , as my work has mostly been that - creative portraits for private clients and would like to update myself with a worthwhile course.. if any do exist.

 

thanks

I am the owner of a D700 for the past two weeks and a D200 before that. There is some difference at base ISO. As the ISO gets greater, the difference is more and more dramatic.

 

My tests indicate 3200 D700 DX crop mode is similar to 800 on the D200. It is a simply wonderful camera.

 

http://www.photo.net/digital-camera-shopping-forum/00RPhT

 

I put up four samples at different ISO with a D3, DX crop mode, which is basically the same camera.

 

Full frame is even better. This was part of my shopping experience.

ronald, i have heard about the improved quality in the D700 and the D3 at higher ISOs... but will i gain sharper images, considering its a full-frame? so when i print at A2 or A3.... will i notice significant difference? worth the investment....? to upgrade from the D200?

The D700 is nice but you will not be seeing a dramatic different in image sharpness. You will see a lot of improvement in

image quality. You can almost always trace image sharpness back to lighting. The more light you have the sharper the

image. Set the aperture at f8.0 and shutter speed as high as possible (which is limited in flash portraiture because the sync

speed is limited). So if you are using the long end of the 200 mm zoom you are looking at a tripod to keep the camera

steady.

With the D200 10mp at A2 size prints you only have around 160-170 pixel per inch of resolution. Thats assuming you even caputure 10 mp of detail in the first place if in reality you maybe only get manage to capture 8 mp of real image data then you have even less. I would think that the d700 would give you a better chance of making higher quality a2 size prints but you could have other problems if the lenses are not sharp at the edges.

 

With portraits I find my D80 holds up quite though. I would expect after printing some crops to test that an a2 image would look something like this comparison I have uploaded. This was a holiday snap shot shot as jpg not raw so a RAW file would give a bit better quality. The lens was the tamron 28-70 2.8 wide open.<div></div>