My first full frame camera, the Nikon D700
About five years ago I took some interest in photography, to document life, family, and travels. It has been a good ride, different cameras, different brands, different experiences, some analog, some digital, indeed, within budget and patience I have collected more than enough camera gears. But never have I owned or tried a full frame camera, mostly because I have been learning through reading and watching Youtube videos that a bigger sensor doesn't necessarily translate in better photos.
Having said that, for the past year I have gone back and forth for reasons to justify a full frame camera. In hindsight my approach in research had been wrong, it wasn't not about finding a full frame camera to replace the features and functions of my current Fujifilm and Pentax crop sensor setup. So many brands, so many choices: Canon, NIkon, Sony, even Pentax. They were either beyond my budget, or beyond my needs. It just didn't make sense to me… until recently, when this pandemic hit the world and locked us all in our homes when the idea hit me. I wasn't looking for specs, or better technology, or faster autofocus, I was looking all along for the same thing that interested me about film, I was looking for a look, the promise of a different look, what a dear friend of mine coined as the "full frame look".
From that moment on, I couldn't justify not caring about full frame. I admit, I was hooked, and after panning through some old arguments the choice became very clear to me: a full frame camera with big, dense pixels, well take care of, cheap and compatible with some of my current lenses. That was the Nikon D700, a 12 year old camera, with 12MP, and a chunky body. Found one on eBay Japan at a price I couldn't resist, oh man, it came with its original packaging and everything, minty, around 14,000 clicks, I just couldn't believe, it was a BEAST. True, I had the lowest of expectations from a device that old, but I was WRONG!!! I turned that camera on and it performed like a speed demon, with a strong shutter sound, and a LCD resolution that mimic, immediately, that full frame quasi-film-like look I had wished for.
Coupled with a Nikkor 50mm 1.4g, the camera produced some beautiful files I could work with. Photos had a sense of depth, an imperfect look, not as digitally polished as newer cameras, but more organic, more natural, unprocessed, and for some reason when looking at those pictures, you feel compelled to look from a distance, you feel like pixel peeping is unethical, and to my biggest surprise, those 12MP are more than enough. Let me put this in another way… it is ENOUGH. I understood long before it was not about the amount of pixels, but always felt deep inside that good quality pictures required at least 16MP. Believe me, I have been bamboozled, I feel I am losing nothing with a 12MP file. And the raw file weight around 10MB!!! Even the raw files from my Fuji X-T1 weight three times that, and that's a crop sensor 16MP camera.
How does it compare to a Fujifilm photo? Below, to your left the Nikon D700 file, to you right a Fujifilm X-T1 file. You can hardly notice a thing, but I tell you, not only you recover better quality image from the shadows with the D700, but cannot help noticing how sharper the Fuji X-trans sensor is. It is like vinyl vs CD, the sound is there, the quality is there, but the feeling is different. A note to the curious, shooting at high ISO, noise looks similar between them two, but details look better and more natural on the D700. On the Fujis you can tell the processor pushes the rendering to its limit, sacrificing detail to control noise, this is my opinion.
I have to keep in mind this is a 12 year old full frame camera. I say this because it doesn't feel like this. Sure, it doesn't have eye autofocus, or its dependent on contrast detect autofocus makes the lens to hunt at times to nail focus, or that is soooo heavy, that it uses one CF card, and that you can shoot 4 frames per second, while the buffer fills pretty quickly. To me, this is a camera for moments, a camera for special occasions, a required tool when the demand for a specific look means that film-like feeling full frame look, it is a camera required to produce not only prints, but also feelings, nostalgic, evocative, sentimental, moody feelings. I am sure the Nikon D700 in the hands of a professional can produce the best pictures possible. I don't shoot professional, I like to keep it simple, I like to rely on the camera, the lens, and the light, as much as possible. I am loving the oldness of this D700.
One last thing, dynamic range. Check it out! It is impressive and expected of a full frame sensor. Even after pulling the shadows, I see noise is well controlled and natural looking. There is good detail in the highlights, and I can only but wonder the kinds of file the newer Nikon D850 produces, but honestly, I just don't need 45MP file.
In conclusion, these are my first impressions of my first full frame camera. Honestly, I still prefer Fujifilm for the streets, and mostly everything else, but this camera is a keeper. True, I am selling my X-100T to justify purchasing this full frame camera, and I think it is a fair exchange to grow as a photographer. Being locked-up I could not have done this review without the help of my boys. They are the best. God bless them.
