D700 to Arrive today

according to my local camera vendor

By tomorrow I'll be able to report if it fits in an Ikelite D300 housing. Doubt it from what I've read but empiric data is best.

SD

Picking mine up at noon; boy you'd think my wife was having a baby.

Picking mine up at noon; boy you'd think my wife was having a baby.

Couldn't get there at lunch. I'm not letting my wife know.

I have my new toy, with the 24-70 and the MD-10 drive. The credit card melted.

It's pretty sweet, so I'll have to put it through it's paces this weekend.

Just a quick one of the gathering storm HDR merged for fun in Photomatrix.

Darn it, I'm even tempted to get one and the 14-24 and SB900. Nikon TTL is so much better than Canon's crappy system. I miss having TTL that gets it right topside.

Darn it, I'm even tempted to get one and the 14-24 and SB900. Nikon TTL is so much better than Canon's crappy system. I miss having TTL that gets it right topside.

Yeah. I played with the 14-24 and SB900 at the store today. It's a nice strobe with really wide coverage.

But as I said, the card had already melted. I am really tempted by the 24mm PC lens........

Yeah. I played with the 14-24 and SB900 at the store today. It's a nice strobe with really wide coverage.

But as I said, the card had already melted. I am really tempted by the 24mm PC lens........

What was your impression of the 900 vs the 800? I see it has a commander mod built in and the head looks mas grande compared to the 800.

And the 700... nice HDR. Can't wait for an informal report from you.

The credit card melted.

My credit card has a much lower melting point - it fried after I bought the D300 last month.

I need one like yours with a higher melting point.

Have fun with the new toy. I'm not the slightest bit jealous.

What was your impression of the 900 vs the 800? I see it has a commander mod built in and the head looks mas grande compared to the 800.

And the 700... nice HDR. Can't wait for an informal report from you.

The thing that impressed me about the 900 was the wide coverage; seemed to cover the 14 end of the 14-24, I'm not sure if the specs even show it to be that wide.

What was your impression of the 900 vs the 800? ... and the head looks mas grande compared to the 800.

I think that's why Drew Loftus bought the 900...

Picking mine up at noon; boy you'd think my wife was having a baby.

Actually the camera, the lenses, the housing, the larger hard drives needed probably makes having a child a less expensive proposition

Enjoy the new little one...

No go on fitting into the Ikelite D300 housing.

Jeff the SB900 covers 12-17 with the WA panel down and 17-200 normal. The specs are better than the 14-105 coverage of the Canon EX580II. The WA aspect isn't a problem since I shoot with diffusers like a lightsphere The Canon doesn't even come with a diffuser box or gels but it is cheaper . Primarily, the iTTL I've found to be more accurate to use with using exp compensation. The canon eTTL works but you have to fiddle with it more.

I think the D700+SB900 with a 14-24 and 35 or 50 1.4 is a great lens for my needs, namely a functions portrait snapper.

Jeff the SB900 covers 12-17 with the WA panel down and 17-200 normal. The specs are better than the 14-105 coverage of the Canon EX580II. The WA aspect isn't a problem since I shoot with diffusers like a lightsphere The Canon doesn't even come with a diffuser box or gels but it is cheaper . Primarily, the iTTL I've found to be more accurate to use with using exp compensation. The canon eTTL works but you have to fiddle with it more.

I think the D700+SB900 with a 14-24 and 35 or 50 1.4 is a great lens for my needs, namely a functions portrait snapper.

I think that there is a pretty good consensus even amongst Canon shooters, including the Florida Canon rep I met recently, that the Nikon strobe system is pretty sweet, particularly using multiple strobes on iTTL etc. and much better than Canon's. There is a gallery somewhere of photos done in the antarctic with the Speedlight system that is very cool, but I can't find it.

I have a Canon Powershot with the 580EX at my office for digital capture of my surgery images - not only have I found the eTTL to be very unpredictable so that I just use manual now, I have also had numerous failures of the strobes requiring repairs. The only reason I have not changed to Nikon is because the proprietary software is only set up for live capture with Canon.

There is a great review and comparison of the SB900 vs the SB800 on the strobist website here: http://strobist.blogspot.com/

This guy really knows ligthing. Lots of good general info there.

I think I'll add an SB900 at Christmastime. A D700 is on the christmas list. I think it would makle a nice primary strobe and on-camera commander for my SB800s and SB600. The price is pretty steep though. I'll also want to check out if it makes more sense to get a commander and another SB800. The price is the same.

Also saw a review this morning for the SB900 on Thom's website at www.bythom.com

Of course he has rave reviews for it :-( I guess I'll be getting it too @ another $500. It sure looks sweet along with the D700 and 14-24!

I just got a D700 on Monday. Wow. I'm in awe of this camera. It is a dream to operate and produces just stunningly clean and sharp images. I have never owned a Nikon and within 24 hours I felt like I knew my way around. The 3D continuous auto-focus is amazing. I shot our company softball game yesterday and was really pleased with the results I got with folks running the bases.

I was equally thrilled to get the Lightroom 2.0 update with the new camera profiles last night. The color matching in the new profiles is excellent - particularly the yellows, reds and oranges. I was worried as I love Lightroom and the Nikon color rendering in 1.x wasn't so good on the Adobe defaults. The new Nikon-specific profiles are great.

Not sure I'll ever house this thing for U/W use, but I'm in heaven ... I haven't owned an SLR since the 80's and I'm just loving shooting the 50MM 1.4 in low light.

I can get pretty much the same results noise-wise out of ISO 3200 on the D700 as I get at ISO 80 on my G9.

Now for lenses ... this is gonna get expensive ... I have the 24-120 VR (not terribly sharp or fast) and the 50 1.4. I used my friends 24-70 yesterday and that's a nice lens. I kinda wish I had that instead of the 24-120.

I'm thinking, in order of priority:

** 105 VR Macro

** 24 or 20 1.8

** 45 tilt/shift

Kinda always been a lover of prime lenses ... and for telephoto and zooms I may just rent as needed for the time being.

I just got a D700 on Monday. Wow. I'm in awe of this camera. It is a dream to operate and produces just stunningly clean and sharp images. I have never owned a Nikon and within 24 hours I felt like I knew my way around. The 3D continuous auto-focus is amazing. I shot our company softball game yesterday and was really pleased with the results I got with folks running the bases.

 

I was equally thrilled to get the Lightroom 2.0 update with the new camera profiles last night. The color matching in the new profiles is excellent - particularly the yellows, reds and oranges. I was worried as I love Lightroom and the Nikon color rendering in 1.x wasn't so good on the Adobe defaults. The new Nikon-specific profiles are great.

 

Not sure I'll ever house this thing for U/W use, but I'm in heaven ... I haven't owned an SLR since the 80's and I'm just loving shooting the 50MM 1.4 in low light.

 

I can get pretty much the same results noise-wise out of ISO 3200 on the D700 as I get at ISO 80 on my G9.

 

Now for lenses ... this is gonna get expensive ... I have the 24-120 VR (not terribly sharp or fast) and the 50 1.4. I used my friends 24-70 yesterday and that's a nice lens. I kinda wish I had that instead of the 24-120.

 

I'm thinking, in order of priority:

 

** 105 VR Macro

** 24 or 20 1.8

** 45 tilt/shift

 

Kinda always been a lover of prime lenses ... and for telephoto and zooms I may just rent as needed for the time being.

What are you planning to use the 45PC for? I have my eye on a PC for landscape etc, but I was thinking of the 24PC

What are you planning to use the 45PC for? I have my eye on a PC for landscape etc, but I was thinking of the 24PC

I have been playing around with "fake" tilt shift images in CS3 to achieve the "fake miniture" look ... quite the flickr fad. I figured I would try my hand with a real tilt-shift lens.

As all the images I've worked with so far came from my G9 with 35mm (equiv) and above, I figured the 45MM would suit ... but I'll give that some thought. Guess it all depends on the subject matter.

Here are some examples:

Here's a link to my blog where I did a little tutorial on the photoshop technique ... this tutorial has legs ... it gets about 15-25 hits a day from all around the world.

Photoshop "fake" tilt/shift tutorial

My idea for tilt shift was actually for improving depth of focus in the image. For the type of thing you're doing why don't you just buy a Lens Baby/ A whole lot cheaper for playing with.