At a glance

• 12.1 megapixel full-frame sensor.
  Enough MP for almost everything, prints of 14.1″ x 9.4″ for 300dpi and 21.2″ x 14.1″ for 200dpi. Only in case you really want to print huge prints you better try more expensive gear like Nikon D3X, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Hasselblad H4D or Mamiya DM56 or just buy a traditional medium-format film-base camera. Cheaper and better quality.
• Image Sensor Cleaning (vibration)
  This is a really convenient feature. Usually technical service don’t ask too much for cleaning the sensor but it’s really annoying to find a dirty dark point in our pictures and realize that you are not able to do anything to clean it up in that moment. Some cleaning sets come in hand for those situations. But I strongly discourage to use them, only in case you really know what you are doing.
• ISO from 200 to 6400 and forcing until 25600 to 100:
  This is one of the greatest thing of the D700. The sensibility is just amazing. Almost no noise even at 6400 ISO. Check bellow for some examples.
• Don’t threw away your DX lenses!!
  They are supported. The resolution will drop to 5MP but you can still use them. Check examples bellow
• 51-point focus sensor:
  Forget about previous problems to focus with the D200 and some old lenses. D700 auto focus just works even for wide apertures.
• Active D-Lighting:
  This system increases the dynamic range. Check examples bellow
• Magnesium body and buttons are sealed against moisture and dust.

ISO

This is my most important feature, because I realize mainly many pictures in low light conditions. The ISO of the D700 is just awesome.
The FX format opens many new possibilities about light sensibility. Noise reduction is the first thing that receive a positive impact due the bigger size of the CMOS sensor.
Check the images bellow. Click each of them, they will open in a new window in full resolution:

Click on the image to see in full resulution

D700 ISO 1600	D700 ISO 3200	D700 ISO 6400	D700 ISO 25600

D200 ISO 1600	D200 ISO 3200

Just compare, ISO 6400 on the D700 has less noise than the ISO 1600 on the D200!!
I suggest to shot from ISO 200 to 1600 for best low noise performance. Anyway at 3200 it still just works fine.
Higher ISO level will increase a lot the noise. Usually I prefer to shot in black and white for those huge ISO level pictures. Colors get drained and details get lost.

What to do with my DX lenses?

Don’t worry! Your DX lenses will work just fine. The only thing is a reduction in resolution. It just drops to 5MP.
Advantages of DX format is that you can get a 127mm/1.8F lens for the price of a 85mm/1.8F lens. The DX format applies a crop factor of 1.5. This means that all your non DX lenses need to be multiplied by this factor. So a normal 50mm lens will become a 75mm lens. DX format cameras, for example a Nikon D200, have a smaller CMOS and that means more noise at high ISO but you can get more megapixels for that cropped image. For example a Nikon D200 have a DX sensor and a resolution of 10MP. That means that for a smaller surface compared to D700 FX format we have just 2MP less. Because DX lenses match perfectly with this format, we have an effective 10MP image.
If we use the DX lens on a FX format, the sensor is bigger but the lens project the effective image over a smaller surface. Remember that a DX lens was designed only for DX format cameras so the projected image will fit a DX format area over a bigger FX format area. Of course in this process we lose some resolution. That’s why using a DX lens in a D700 we have only 5MP instead of the 10MP of the Nikon D200.
For example if we use a Nikon D3X instead of a D700 and a DX lens, the cropped image will have 10MP instead. Just because the D3X has more megapixels than the D700.

Check these images for a better understanding:

If we don’t apply the AUTO DX crop on the D700 this is what actually a DX lens projects to the focal plane. Lens: AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm DX

After apply the DX AUTO Crop on the D700 settings, we can use any DX lenses. Remember that we are actually using only some portion of the CMOS sensor corresponding with only 5MP.

Same lens used on the D200.

Batteries

You can use the same batteries as the Nikon D200 and D300 EN-EL3e. The performance is great if you don’t make a extensive use of the flash. I just can use one battery for the whole day. Anyway, a second replacement battery is a must to just be safe. Only in case you need a frame rate bigger than 5fps the battery grip (same as D300) will come in handy. If you are happy with 5fps you can just same money and keep only one more battery in your pocked. The MB-D10 battery grip is expensive and add an extra weight to the camera.

Things that I really love of the D700

It’s robust and well made. The camera is really strong and you can notice that you don’t have a crappy piece of plastic in your hands.

Nikon improved the accessibility and it has more buttons near my right hand. So with just one hand I can access even more options compared with the D200. It also have the info button. Really useful!! Check the pic bellow:

The virtual horizon! I have already one in my tripod but having one integrated in the camera is just a great idea!

Live View! This is one more option that I can’t live without. I usually don’t like to see what I’m about to shot in a screen. I prefer to see through a viewfinder. Anyway for some situations the live view is really useful. Now I don’t have to lay down in the ground to shot in a weird angle. It also helps for some “discrete” photos so people don’t realize that actually you are taking a picture :-) it also helps for manual focus under low light environments. The live view lets me zoom in the actual view and see exactly how focused the image is.

You can also use the virtual horizon in the same live view!

Advantages of FX format

With the FX format the era of cropping factors comes to an end. You have the same format as a traditional 35mm camera with the advantage that all the old Nikon f-mount lenses will work exactly in the way they where supposed to. It also has the advantage to obtain real focal length for prime lenses.
FX format will improve the ISO as well. The CMOS surface is bigger and it allocate the same number of pixels than an equivalent DX format reducing electronic interference when a high ISO is applied and, therefore, reducing the noise at high ISO.

50mm prime lens on D700 FX format

Same 50mm lens on D200 DX format.

Now a fisheye

Fisheye AF Nikkor 16mm/2.8F on D700 FX format

Same lens on a D200 DX format

Remember that for Nikon digital, only D700, D3, D3s, D3X are full format. Other cameras, will have the same behavior as the D200 examples above.

Active D-lighting! Increase the dynamic range. This helps a lot in situations where the image is composed by very different exposure levels. For example, you want to shot a room with an open window. If we want to see the image outside the window, we have to adjust the exposure, but at the same time we cannot see the interior of the room because it will be dark. If we adjust exposure for the room, we will see a white square instead of a window. Usually HDR is the digital solution for this scenario. Anyway, Active D-Lighting will help increasing the dynamic range of the image and, therefore, showing an image closer to the one we are seeing with our on eyes.

Check the examples bellow:

No Active D-Lighting system.

Look at the grass in the bottom. It’s over exposed. Anyway we can see what is about under the tree.

Active D-Lighting system

Now the grass is not over exposed and we can still see what is about under the tree. This image is closer with the one I saw with my own eyes.

Who should buy this camera

The D700 is more expensive than the D300 but the extra price is totally worth paying. Anyway if you never, or just in rare occasions, need to take pictures under low light environment and you are not able to do any long exposure, maybe a D700 is not the best choice. In this case maybe a D300 is better for you.
If you want to shot people in movement in low light environments like parties, close locals, concerts and so forth, this is the camera for you!!

In case you are not a night images hunter, think about the advantages of a FX format when using prime lenses or old Nikon lenses. You get the real no cropped area as with a 35mm camera.

That simple! The main advantage of the D700 is the high ISO performance and the FX format. The rest is almost the same as a D300.

If you are a D200 or D300 user, you can save money reusing many accessories. Remote cord control, batteries, the grip (only for the D300) and so forth.

Until now these are some of the pictures I took with the D700, more are coming :-)

For example do this simple experiment:

With one hand close one eye and put your finger just in front of you but don’t cover the background, just move it a little bit to the right or left side, depending on which eye you had closed.
Now focus on your finger, just look at it and, don’t move your view from it! Try to see the background without moving your view from the eye. You can see that it’s blurred and your finger focused.
Now try the opposite, focus on the background and see at your finger without moving your view from the background. It should be blurred.
You have two fast prime lenses in your head! :)

We are used to see the world through our eyes, which behave approximately like a fast 50mm lens. That means that when we see a picture with a good bokeh our attention will point immediately to the subject and then we have the opportunity to admire the soft and nice texture of a blurred background.
Think about it, we are not able to see that background with our own eyes. Well, actually we are, but we cannot see it directly, we can only perceive it from the external borders or our vision.

To understand the technical details of the Bokeh, you need to understand the depth of field. For a technical explanation check the wiki. Anyway you don’t need to understand to go so deep into technical explanations to be able to use it. Let’s discuss here the practical (and funny) part of it.

The depth of field is directly related with the aperture. That is the amount of light that your lens let pass through it. The wider the aperture, and the bigger the blur. The narrower the aperture, the smaller the blur. Don’t get confused with the f/stop number. Check out the aperture controls in your camera.

Left: Wide aperture Right: Narrowed aperture

The number used to indicate the aperture is called the f-number or f/stop. There is not a concrete definition of the term stop in this context. Think about it as an attempt to say “something that stops light to enter!”. If we narrow the aperture, in some way we are stopping light to enter. The lack of a concrete context for the term “stops” could lead some confusion. Let’s focus on the practical matter: the f-number has a direct relationship with the diameter of the circle that we saw in the previous pics. Remember a big f-number indicates a narrowed aperture and a small f-number indicates a wide aperture. So don’t get confused. If somebody tells you “increase the aperture!!” what do you understand by that? Increase the f-number, “stops” light to enter or increase the diameter of the diaphragm?

Remember:

The smaller the number, the wider the aperture and the bigger the amount of light that will enter through the lens.

To obtain a good bokeh we need a wide aperture, that means a small f-number.
The best lenses to obtain this are the fast prime lens, the most common ones are the 50mm and 85mm at 1.2, 1.4 or 1.8F. Anyway, any lens that could be set to an aperture less than 2 or 2.5 is enough.

With this kind of photography we have to be specially careful of two things:

- It’s really hard to focus with such a small depth of field. We cannot rely 100% on the autofocus. Sometimes it’s necessary to deal directly with manual focus.

- In well illuminated environments we have the camera to shot at a huge speed. Depending on the equipment, sometimes the camera cannot afford the required speed. In such cases we can use an ND filter

ND FILTER (Neutral Density)

Check these three pictures that will show the meaning of the depth of field

If we narrow the aperture, the depth of field also changes and the sharped zone increases as well.

Also, the depth of field could be used to bring to focus the subject that we are interested to show. For example, in these two pictures, the second one shows the doll in the back giving a sense of depth. If we compare the second pic with the first one, we can see how we increase that sense of depth focusing subjects that are not in the first plane.

In this video, you have the depth of field in action.

Direct link here

The depth of field is a powerful concept that we can use for many different creative purposes. From a basic understanding, it’s used to put in evidence a particular subject and to catch our attention to the sharp point. From a generic point of view, depth of field is just an art, so let’s talk about it a later post.

Check some bokeh in Flickr

I bought one for 3000 yen ($33) in a shop in Akihabara (Techno district of Tokyo) that sells junk stuff. The glass is in perfect conditions and the big aperture plus the good ISO performance of the Pentax K-X makes a good combination for nocturne urban photography.

The lens started to be manufactured in 1962, based on the data in this database. It uses the old but popular M42 mount. Basically it’s just has a screw and you have to turn it until it got fixed into the camera body. In fact it’s not practical, it takes some time to change lenses. Actual Pentax K-X and other models don’t use that mount system anymore but there are adapters for them. I used an adapter that cost me the same as the lens!

This is the lens mounted on the Pentax K-X

I love the retro fashion of the lens :)

It’s not so big. Anyway it’s a little bit odd to see that lens in a new camera. When I see it, remembers me to see an old lady dressed as a teenager…

I love the bokeh and quality of this lens. It has a finest and soft bokeh, much better than the 50mm 1.4F for example. The aperture is manual and it’s better to use it in manual, because the camera automatic settings will get confused with no aperture control. When you use it in manual, changing the aperture and the focus, reminds me of a time where all those automatic capabilities was just science fiction. Changing manually the aperture and the focus, for some reason makes me feel a Leica experience. I just have to worry about few settings and I need an understanding of those settings as if they was part of myself. Just set the aperture, speed, focus and shot.

Don’t worry to buy old lenses. Just keep in mind that you maybe need to use only manual settings. It’s important to check carefully the lens, anyway. Scratches, malfunctioning or humidity could be there, hidden for an inexperienced eye, so if you still have no experience with this stuff, try to go to the shop with a friend that could advise you.
Soon I will publish a post about who to check the quality of used lenses.

I was riding my bike all around Tokyo, until Odaiba. In these days the weather is really cold here but the air is clean and there is no humidity at all. Perfect for night long exposure shots.
The main problem is to find a place with no vibrations. I didn’t have a tripod this time, but even with that it’s really hard to have a perfectly sharp image. The main reason is because Tokyo is a city with hundreds of subterranean trains, it’s in a seismic country and has a huge amount of traffic. It’s almost impossible to have a vibration zero zone.
The best place is in the top of a big building that absorbs almost all vibrations, and it’s specially made to resist earthquakes, so minimum earth movements remain almost unnoticed.

This place is near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. I just stopped with my bike and took this pic.
The water gets no replacement… so I really don’t want to imagine to dive into it…

View from one of the bridges that connects Tokyo to Odaiba (an artificial zone made with recycled trash).

Cropped version :)

I like to desaturate certain zones of a photograph to express the feelings representing the desaturated and the colored zone. I didn’t want to continue because I already ride too many up and down bridges after a long day riding my bicycle.

It doesn’t mean that only a great job could be accomplished with effort, and suffering, neither with primitive tools but the condition of “I have nothing more than this to do what I want to do; and what I want to do is going to exceed beyond the possibilities of my tools” is the condition that set our minds to start with the creative process to achieve what actually seems unachievable.

The camera in the iPhone is a crap, everybody knows that, but the challenge to do a great picture with it shots our imagination beyond the machine and its limitations, allowing the photographer to express, maybe easily, his/her talent.

It happened in the past when cameras were far away from the quality of our days and when digital photography was just science fiction. With very limited tools, photographers did a great job. Today to accomplish something similar we need some kind of limitation in our gear. The iPhone, just imposes that limitation and forces us to use our imagination to find the moment, the right composition and a plus: to use our imagination to combine several tools to edit our pics.

The only difference is that before the post processing happened in the dark room playing with time, mixture of chemicals, light, filters and so on. Now we have to do that using software. Anyway, at the end, the result is the same: improving our creativity and going always beyond limitations.

These are some pictures I took these last 6 months. I still need to get used to my iPhone camera.

Taking pictures with the iPhone force me to think different. I have to think about the limitations of its camera and how to show what I want to show. It’s interesting to have this kind of challenge, it’s a way to train myself in different scenarios where this crap of camera is all what I have :)

What do you think about mobile phone pictures?
The quality is not good? Do they force us to stimulate our imagination?

This is not a pro camera, it’s an entry level one. But to be honest, you can have the same performance as many pro equipments. This camera has really full set of options, a big manual to read and a really huge menu to configure almost anything. BUT the great thing is that Pentax K-X has options for people that don’t know anything about photography as well. It’s possible to use it in automatic and never enter in the menu. This is a great thing and a big challenge at the same time: “How to make a camera that will make a pro feel comfortable and an amateur feel that an DSRL is not hard to use.”

Before introducing the details, here you have a quick description.

Good: Pentax K-X is good for night photography, it has a wonderful ISO competitive with high end pro cameras. It’s fast to focus, is light and easy to carry. It has a nice design, it takes the advantage of doing video with a DSRL, it’s compatible with almost all Pentax lenses, even the very old ones. It’s completely configurable and, at the same time, extremely easy to use. It’s good for pro and amateur. It has a really good price!!

Bad: It’s noisy, the plastic is good, strong but cheap. The menu design is ugly but at least really functional. It lacks of video and HDMI output.

The design is unique! You can choose from several colors combination. If I have to be honest with you, I confess that I never was interested in these things, but having something that is not only good for its purpose but also nice, helped to set my mind in a more creative and funny attitude.

It’s equipped with a High resolution 12.4 megapixel CMOS image sensor. K-X also features sensor-shift Shake Reduction for stabilized image and video capture up to 4 stops max! I tried it and I could really notice the difference! Specially when I was carrying the 300mm lens. I usually use that lens in the night, so helped by the darkness and the distance, I could have a discrete photowalk ;-)

The LCD is large up to 2.7 inches, featuring Live View with contrast, phase difference, and Face Detection autofocus. The quality is really good and the image is almost the same in a real monitor.

It also performs a widescreen HD video capture in full 720p resolution (1280×720) at 24 FPS cinematic framerate. It can use any PENTAX 35mm lens giving the possibility to experiment a huge range of angles. I will upload a video that I’m preparing to show the quality of the video with this camera later on.

I usually process my pictures in Lightroom but for those that love to do on-the-fly processing, like changing colors or applying special filters, this camera has a huge set of effects as many compact cameras do.

It has a fast 4.7 FPS capture speed and 1/6000 second maximum shutter speed. Specially for sport or nature pictures. I also use this option to shot people expressions in events. This is something I learned from my friend Jim Grisanzio. Just a little change in the muscles of the face makes a huge difference in the final expression. In portraits the subject knows that he/she is going to be photographed but in events, people is not usually aware of this, and photographers take advantage of this situation to catch natural expressions. It’s hard to catch that moment, specially for moving subjects. In this case a good FPS capture ration helps a lot. Check Jim’s pictures in flickr, to understand what a really natural expression means :)

The focus is fast!! It’s noisy, but fast. A responsive 11 point wide angle SAFOX VIII autofocus system helps for this purpose and can easily track moving subjects.

One more great thing is that it uses common universally available and easy-to-find AA lithium batteries (also compatible with AA NiMH rechargeable and alkaline batteries). I already tried using just one charge for the whole day and I didn’t even see the battery low signal.

Let’s talk about the lenses. I got the combo with the 18-55mm that also matches the color of the camera and a 300mm.
The performance and quality is really good. Some of the pictures bellow can be downloaded in full resolution.

The ISO is just GREAT! For that price I have a 6400 ISO with a really low level of noise!
Just to compare the ISO and the differences with older cameras and a new Canon G11 check this pictures at different ISO’s.
Speed 1/100 and 5F for all pictures.

Pentax ISO 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Nikon D200: ISO 400, 800, 1600, 2000, 3200. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Canon G11: ISO 400, 800. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

Nikon D70: ISO 400, 800. Click the images to see the original full resolution, it’s huge!

One more example using the Pentax K-X with ISO 1600 in the night of Shinjuku (Tokyo), click to enlarge full size:

These are some pictures that I took with Pentax K-X during these days. I’m still getting used to it :)

Do you feel dizzy? I really feel dizzy when I look at this picture…

Do you like the colors?
Do you feel uncomfortable to carry a colored full camera with you?

I think that other makers should think about this possibility. The color does not change the quality of the camera. I would like to see a Nikon D3s in red or blue! why not! Don’t you?

The main advantages I find in this camera are the size, the low weight and the great functionality in such a small thing. It has the right size, not too big not too small. The weight is enough to keep the camera steady.

The 10.0 Megapixel CCD sensor is enough. I don’t want more Megapixels for a compact camera. The reduction of Mp in the G11 improved the light sensitivity compared to the previous model, the Canon G10 that was equipped with a 14.7Mp sensor.

The 5x wide-angle (28-140mm equivalent) zoom lens with optical image stabilizer really works in any situation. I shot at 1/20 sec and the image got quite well stabilized, almost no blurred. The only thing I miss is the possibility to create huge bokeh as I’m used to with lenses of 1.4F or 1.8F/stops.

I don’t care too much about the LCD screen. It has a 2.8” tilt/swivel LCD (461k dot resolution) It’s really enough to check the results. Compared to the G10 model, Canon made the LCD movable and this makes life a lot easier specially because this concept matches with the idea of a “combat field” compact camera. It’s perfect to catch moments and don’t get noticed, like this:

I never used RAW image recording for compact cameras. In this case I have to think twice due to the quality. In good conditions the G11 can match the same quality as many DSRL where a RAW format makes more sense for post processing. Also the decrease in price of the storage, makes it easy to save in RAW.

For those that don’t want to think too much about the controls, the G11 have 26 shooting modes with manual control and custom settings to match almost any situation. Anyway all controls can be set manually becoming a good choice also for pro or advance amateur photographers.

The video quality didn’t change too much from its predecessor the G10, VGA movies, 30fps. Just be careful with the memory card. If it’s a normal slow one, the video gets some delays creating some jumps like in this one:

It also has a great while balance control. Specially I love the on site average white balance calculations. It determines pretty well the real colors in hard situations.

Personally I don’t like the strap it comes with. It’s too small and the camera weight is not enough to make the strap steady around your neck. So I prefer to use a hand-strap that also gives me the versatility to hide the camera easily in my bag or in my pockect, in situations where photographers are not welcomed :)

It has two memory banks you can select. For example, create a configuration in the menu and then save it in one of the two memories, C1 or C2. Every time you switch to one of those, the settings will be automatically set. I use it to have a black and white configuration, so anytime I need it, I don’t have to waste time looking through the menu settings. I just set the C1 memory and that’s it.

The optical view finder is useless, but sometimes I use it because I’m used to DSRL cameras more than compact ones. It does not represent the real view and there are no indicators inside. The viewfinder do not reflect the input from the lens as well, it’s just a glass that provides some approximate references about what we are going to shot.

The Macro is pretty good, in fact is one of the best things of this camera. See some examples:

The battery is powerful enough to stay one entire day of non-stop-shooting.

You can find this cameras for a reasonable price at Amazon and if you live in Japan don’t forget to check kakaku.com

Did you tried this camera already?
Feel free to comment your feedback.

It has the guaranty until august 2010 bought at Yodobashi Camera. I have the case and all accessories and many of them like cables and the instructions book are still inside the original plastic bags, I never used them.

I also gift the Lowepro bag to carry and protect the camera. It perfectly fit with its size.

The price is 10.000 yen, it’s less than half the original price, I have also the Yodobashi Camera ticket.
There are no scratches in the surface, the camera has not been almost used.

Why I want to sell this camera?

I’m a DSRL guy and I wanted to carry a lighter gear so I thought about this camera. The quality of its pictures is really good, see an example, here and here.
Anyway I missed my Nikon D200 and my lenses so that’s the reason I’m almost not using this camera anymore. Instead of keeping it in the bag with no use, let’s sell it for a reasonable price and take some money to buy new accessories for my Nikon D200 ^^;

If you are interested you can contact me using several methods:

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I create this collection, from links I found in twitter following @dannychoo, @stevenagata, @FrankieBit Google and Youtube.

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