Another new camera - D700
I did it! Got a D700. Love these - remember really wanting one back in the day when I shot portraits on a D7200 (it was old already then, but still expensive!).
Picked it up with 30k clicks, which seems okay, in excellent condition from MPB. I also got a lens for it - one I've had before. The sigma 85mm 1.4 ex dg hsm (what a mouthful). I used that on my D7200 and loved it. This was a cheap lens - well under £200 as it has a great gouge into the front element, right in the middle. Doesn't seem to affect images to my eye, mind, but maybe it'll flare a bit more or lose contrast in the sun?
Thrilled. Short term thoughts - it's huge, it's heavy, it's a brick. Not processed any shots yet but taking it out to a beer festival tomorrow with the 85mm and a manual focus 24mm Tamron adaptall I really like.
It's very fast - autofocus is definitely faster and more... Decisive? Than it was with the d7200. Accurate, too, but with only 12mp there is a bit less demand on the lens. The d7200, being aps-c 24mp, was extremely demanding and a tiny bit out of focus was very obvious.
It's very solid feeling. Ergonomics are excellent despite my tiny hands!
Ah the thrill of buying a camera you've always had a hankering for. Have fun!
And that Sigma 85mm f1.4...... I'd love to try/own that lens. It's a unicorn in Pentax mount. That's one nice thing about having Nikon or Canon is the abundance of used lenses which, in my observation are cheaper than the equivalents in PK mount.
Make sure you post your thoughts after the beer festival 😉
If you want cheap lenses on good digital cameras, it's got to be Sony alpha mount.
It's bananas. There are 70-200 2.8s from sigma and Tamron that are great and can be had for a couple of hundred quid. Okay, not "cheap" but half the price of canikon version of same lenses. I see sigma 105mm macros for a bit over £100 and the fine 35-70mm f4 minolta is cheap as chips, as is the matching 70-210mm. They're old, but pretty good.
I think pentax is very... Devoted in their fan base, which is maybe why lenses are a bit pricey?
I love this 85. I loved it years ago - it's a short, stout lens. Loads of heavy vignetting wide open on 35mm, but in a nice way - as in, saves me adding in post. Plenty sharp and autofocus is pretty quick, given the size of the thing (still a fair bit smaller than the newer art lens, though less sharp and without the software dock thing).
I do remember my old one would not focus in live view. This one, no idea - d700 doesn't do that live view af, it slaps the mirror back down! But sigma could upgrade firmware to allow that... Not something I care about.
Congrats!
Nikon cameras and lenses are so underrated, I think.
Which is weird to say about one of the most (if not the most) famous brands for decades.
If there is anything positive to be said about Nikon is it is an endless sea of compatibility especially with those.
The D700 is supposed to render really nice in camera Jpegs.
If you don't mind manual focus there are a lot of great AI-S lenses that would be compatible with either camera. You can buy the 80-200mm f4 or f4.5 for stupid cheap. I posted about mine in the film era lens forum.
I would get a 50mm f1.8 AI-S or maybe a AF D series. That's a no brainer. The internet seems to like the E-series especially the pancake 50mm. I thought the E-series were crap. You do you.
135mm f2.8 or 3.5. I don't have one but I tried one out. A beautiful lens. The 105mm "Afghan Girl" lens too.
I have a. bunch of old 70's and 80's film cameras from various manufacturers in front of me right now and the visual build quality of Nikkor's look a 100 times better. Truly nice pieces of gear.
That said, I can't remember where I got it but the 28-80 f3.3 G was a kit lens for the AF SLRs at the time. It looks uber cheesy kind of like the 18-55mm kit lens of today. But like the latter actually perform pretty well.
24-85mm $250. excellent at KEH.
You could spend all day. Talking like 50 years of compatibility.
Quote from KankRat on July 11, 2022, 10:28 pmIf there is anything positive to be said about Nikon is it is an endless sea of compatibility especially with those.
The D700 is supposed to render really nice in camera Jpegs.
If you don't mind manual focus there are a lot of great AI-S lenses that would be compatible with either camera. You can buy the 80-200mm f4 or f4.5 for stupid cheap. I posted about mine in the film era lens forum.
I would get a 50mm f1.8 AI-S or maybe a AF D series. That's a no brainer. The internet seems to like the E-series especially the pancake 50mm. I thought the E-series were crap. You do you.
135mm f2.8 or 3.5. I don't have one but I tried one out. A beautiful lens. The 105mm "Afghan Girl" lens too.
I have a. bunch of old 70's and 80's film cameras from various manufacturers in front of me right now and the visual build quality of Nikkor's look a 100 times better. Truly nice pieces of gear.
That said, I can't remember where I got it but the 28-80 f3.3 G was a kit lens for the AF SLRs at the time. It looks uber cheesy kind of like the 18-55mm kit lens of today. But like the latter actually perform pretty well.
24-85mm $250. excellent at KEH.
You could spend all day. Talking like 50 years of compatibility.
I will vouch for that 28-85 F3.3 kit lens, it's tack sharp. Works just fine for my Df and Z7, it sits at home on Fujifilm Finepix Pro S2 as well. And my 135 F3.5 AiS is a bokeh beast!
Quote from SpruceBruce on July 11, 2022, 11:45 pmQuote from KankRat on July 11, 2022, 10:28 pmIf there is anything positive to be said about Nikon is it is an endless sea of compatibility especially with those.
The D700 is supposed to render really nice in camera Jpegs.
If you don't mind manual focus there are a lot of great AI-S lenses that would be compatible with either camera. You can buy the 80-200mm f4 or f4.5 for stupid cheap. I posted about mine in the film era lens forum.
I would get a 50mm f1.8 AI-S or maybe a AF D series. That's a no brainer. The internet seems to like the E-series especially the pancake 50mm. I thought the E-series were crap. You do you.
135mm f2.8 or 3.5. I don't have one but I tried one out. A beautiful lens. The 105mm "Afghan Girl" lens too.
I have a. bunch of old 70's and 80's film cameras from various manufacturers in front of me right now and the visual build quality of Nikkor's look a 100 times better. Truly nice pieces of gear.
That said, I can't remember where I got it but the 28-80 f3.3 G was a kit lens for the AF SLRs at the time. It looks uber cheesy kind of like the 18-55mm kit lens of today. But like the latter actually perform pretty well.
24-85mm $250. excellent at KEH.
You could spend all day. Talking like 50 years of compatibility.
I will vouch for that 28-85 F3.3 kit lens, it's tack sharp. Works just fine for my Df and Z7, it sits at home on Fujifilm Finepix Pro S2 as well.
Right??!! >>>> and it looks like one crappiest lenses ever made.
Right??!! >>>> and it looks like one crappiest lenses ever made.
Great info! I'm going to be shooting some professional work soon, so I'll probably grab a heavily used Tamron 24-70 and 70-200 2.8. They're not exactly exciting but they do great work!
For fun stuff, I love the 50mm 1.8 af-d. They're all the same really - super sharp, even wide open, but with a bit of haziness. Stop down to 2.8 and it's nuts, even on a crop sensor.
I might try to get a 135mm lens - it's my favourite portrait focal length, but they hold value quite well, so I'll likely just use the 70-200mm for that.
The d700 is phenomenal. It's so... Right? Nothing in the way.
I sold the utterly brilliant X100T because I kept accidentally putting it into video modes. There were loads of buttons on it but they were small and fiddly, and too many - because of all the functions someone might want to map. This, though, has all the right buttons in all the right places. I would like a more angled thumb-nubby bit on the back but that's mostly my small hands...
Autofocus is crazy accurate and fast, and the images are great. Apologies for the cat pic!
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So. The Pentax K-r I had purchased and was waiting on. Gone. Disappeared. Sooooooo I picked up today a D700 🙂 The massive bonus. It came with a Nikkor 50mm and....the battery grip. No mention in the advert so when I turned up to get it I was surprised to find these two bonuses in the bag with the D700 body. Batteries are charging and I can't wait to take some shots.
