d600 or d700?

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vcheewei

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Hi all, I currently owned a d300 since 2008 and I've been noticing the benefit of a FF and have been wanting to upgrade.

I've seen many nice photos (high IQ, low noise) taken with the d700 even at very high ISO (which is something the d300 couldn't cope with).

Should I be getting the d600 or the d700 and invest in better lenses?

thanks
 
i have same headache now too... :) i leaning towards D700 as it's still superb camera. pro body. superb AF.
 
Search, this has been discussed/argued about loads of times.
 
Latest/pixels/consumer = D600
Proven/solid/prosumer = D700
 
Both will give you a better image quality (specially at higher ISO) than your D300.

As mention above the D700 has better built quality (similar to the D300) and better auto focus. You will be able to use the same battery and vertical grip. Also its the cheaper out of the two.

The D600 on the other hand, is still well built but not up there with the pro models and has a decent enough auto focus system. You will get better dynamic range, more resolution, better ISO, 100% view finder coverage, dual card slots, video, better live view.

So if built quality, better auto focus system and cheaper price tag are very important to you then a D700 is the way to go other wise just get a D600
 
As architectfadi said, the D700 also has 1/8000 shutter if you shoot fast lenses.
 
Moving from the D300, the D700 will feel instantly familiar as the control layout is near enough identical. The D600 controls are laid out more like a D7000.
 
Was in a similar situation myself.

For the record for D600 money you can get a D3 with a very low number of actuations. Was the sensible choice for me.
 
Although switched back to Canon (just moe used to it and intuitive for me) I loved both the D3 and D700 and these are still top cameras.
 
d700 has better auto focusing? even though it was launched 5 years before d600?

In what way is the d700 more superior than the d600's focusing? With my d300, the problem I faced at times when shooting in dim area, the camera couldn't focus on the subject but the background.


Another issue with my d300 is that it performs poorly in high ISOs compared to other cameras, so how much better d600 could handle higher ISO compared to d700?
 
vcheewei said:
d700 has better auto focusing? even though it was launched 5 years before d600?

In what way is the d700 more superior than the d600's focusing? With my d300, the problem I faced at times when shooting in dim area, the camera couldn't focus on the subject but the background.

Another issue with my d300 is that it performs poorly in high ISOs compared to other cameras, so how much better d600 could handle higher ISO compared to d700?
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Yes, AF is faster, more accurate in dim light when the D600 wont lock, more points, points are better positioned.

What ISO are you using?
 
twist said:
Yes, AF is faster, more accurate in dim light when the D600 wont lock, more points, points are better positioned.

What ISO are you using?
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I've always try to stay below 800 anything from 800 seems to be very noisy.

Even fuji's x100s could perform better without processing.
 
Consider borrowing / hiring each model before making the investment?
 
For the record, i bought a D600 and sent it back, feels cheap, plasticy and toy like compared the the D700 and the AF was terrible in comparisson
 
I bought a D600 last week so now I have both D700 & D600.

I actually like the build of the D600. It doesn't feel as rugged as the D700 but it still feels solid enough. It's a bit more discrete than the D700.

The AF is noticably worse though than the D700's. Shooting at a concert on Sunday the D600 often was hunting for focus but the D700 never missed at all.

High ISO is a little better on the D600 but there's not that much in it. Having 24MP to crop helps.

I do like the comfort of having two slots and the addition of quiet mode is good for me at weddings where I am always conscious of the mirror slap from the D700.

The 1/4000th limit doesn't fuss me too much as I rarely shoot at that speed but the 1/200th flash sync does annoy me perhaps more than it should.

The AF points are not as wide as the D700's but I don't think it's as bad as some people make out.

Oh and don't forget the D600 does video whereas the D700 does not.

At the end of the day I'd say price up what you can get either for. A low milage D700 in mint condition are selling for just under a grand on the classifieds here and a D600 around £1300 from Amazon.

Work out what's important and if the D600 is worth the £300-400 more.
 
Having recently upgraded from D700 to D600 I consider D600 as significantly better camera in many important aspects.

Things like working live-view implementation, combination of shutter delay/MLU mode, option for cheap ML-L3 infra remote (wireless remote is not really wirless on D700), smart auto-ISO, switchable settings banks, ability to set auto-ISO without having to go to menu, easy ISO setting, 100% viewfinder, switching of AF patterns without having to go to menu, 2 more stops of dynamic range, twice as many pixels, f/8 focusing, video capture, dual memory card slots, ability to bake RAW in camera, less bulk and weight, much softer shutter sound with quiet option, less blackout time when shooting, warm-tones auto WB setting, etc. is something I wouldn't want to live without any more.

It wasn't love at first sight for me, mostly due to more plastic feel of D600, but I am happy I switched and consider D700 -> D600 as significant upgrade almost as big as upgrade from my D50 to D300 a few years ago.

D800 wasn't an option for me as I consider it as specialized camera and don't want to upgrade my computer now. These huge files would kill my workflow (try to edit 36mp file with a few layers in Photoshop on anything but 8core, 16GB RAM machine). Nikon really needs to implement smaller RAW option (pixel binning ot at least something equivalent to Canon sRAW) and slightly faster framerate for people like us.

I couldn't care less about 1/8000 shutter speed (espcially when the base ISO is one stop slower now) or 1/200 dumb flash sync. I cried when they removed 1/500 speed back in my D70/D50 days. 1/250 or 1/200 is no difference for me.
 
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And finally. 12 extra AF points is something I would love to have on my D600.

However, I found absolutely no difference in the way I focus on my D700 and D600. The area covered by AF point is just 10% bigger if not the same (don't forget that viewfinder coverage on D700 is smaller and the actual AF point size - the actual sensor not the indicator in the viewfinder - is slightly bigger on D600). Unfortunatelly you need to focus and recompose on any fullframe camera these days if you want to have the composition right. No fullframe has AF points in golden third areas where they should be. Only way to improve upon that is to go back to DX (or use liveview).
 
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mpe said:
D800 wasn't an option for me as I consider it as specialized camera and don't want to upgrade my computer now. These huge files would kill my workflow (try to edit 36mp file with a few layers in Photoshop on anything but 8core, 16GB RAM machine). Nikon really needs to implement smaller RAW option (pixel binning ot at least something equivalent to Canon sRAW) and slightly faster framerate for people like us.
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If consumers can afford a 2k camera body only, they should have a half decent machine to edit on by now. i7 8 core and 16gb can be built/bought for £500. Faster frame rate would mean less MP. Whats wrong with the FPS unless you shoot sport, fast moving? Most never use solid 6+ FPS bursts.
 
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comparing d600 and d700's noise control on dpreview, they seem pretty close, was expecting d600 to be way better due to their 5 years gap.

d800 is noticeable way better of course but the 36mp is way too big for my needs and i'm soon gonna face storage issues.
 
mpe said:
The area covered by AF point is just 10% bigger if not the same (don't forget that viewfinder coverage on D700 is smaller and the actual AF point size - the actual sensor not the indicator in the viewfinder - is slightly bigger on D600).
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Sorry mate, don't quite get you here, are you saying that the AF point in the viewfinder doesn't cover the actual 100% of the view? and the d600 does?
 
vcheewei said:
Sorry mate, don't quite get you here, are you saying that the AF point in the viewfinder doesn't cover the actual 100% of the view? and the d600 does?
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I think he is saying that the focus point coverage on the D700 seems to cover a bigger area in the viewfinder because its only showing you 95% of the final image.
 
There are two things

1) In D700 you see 95% of the scene only in the viewfinder. There are 5% of the scene that is in the picture but you don't see it in the viewfinder (it has higher magnification). D600 has 100% coverage so what you see is what you get. This means that any object projected on the focusing screen (like AF object) appears slightly bigger on the D700.

2) The shape of an AF point is very different compared to how you see it in the viewfinder. It is not rectangle, it rather line or cross. And it is sensitive quite far beyond AF rectangle displayed in the viewfinder. My experience is that D600 line is slightly bigger overlap over AF area than D700. I can easily get the focus on the detail quite far beyond focal point on the D600.

This two things together mean, that despite the fact that AF sensors on the D600 seems to be packed more towards the centre of the frame, the practical difference to D700 is not that big.
 
mpe said:
AF sensors on the D600 seems to be packed more towards the centre of the frame, the practical difference to D700 is not that big.
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Not seem to be, are packed too close together, and the practical difference is massive when you consider how many AF points there in total and how many are of the cross type (15 compared to 9), there is probably little noticeable difference shooting static subjects in good light but drop the lighting and the D600 struggles to get a lock on let alone maintain it on a static subject without serious hunting, throw a moving subject into the mix in poor light and the D600 AF system screams "get me out of here"
 
twist said:
If consumers can afford a 2k camera body only, they should have a half decent machine to edit on by now. i7 8 core and 16gb can be built/bought for £500. Faster frame rate would mean less MP. Whats wrong with the FPS unless you shoot sport, fast moving? Most never use solid 6+ FPS bursts.
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I am not a pro. I love my two years old Macbook Pro and don't feel a real need to upgrade it. Processing these 36mp files would be my only reason to upgrade the computer and I just don't want it. Also it is not just the computer, consider memory cards, backup and archive solutions, wtc.

Actually if I would be on the market for 8-core computer, I would certainly buy more expensive machine that £500. Together with displays, storage, etc. expenses can easily go far beyond cost of D800 body. I would be more happy to spent these money on better lenses, travel, etc.

The problem with resolution is that unless you need the resolution Nikon doesn't give you any choice (unless you spent a small fortune on D4 or shoot JPEG). It would be great if we have a choice to shoot smaller RAWs. I would be perfectly fine with 24mp. 36mp gives me only very modest print size increase (the difference is much smaller than 12 vs 24) and I still have to pay the cost in twice as big files over 24mp, compromised framerate, and noticeably inferior low-light performance.
 
Gary Coyle said:
Not seem to be, are packed too close together, and the practical difference is massive when you consider how many AF points there in total and how many are of the cross type (15 compared to 9), there is probably little noticeable difference shooting static subjects in good light but drop the lighting and the D600 struggles to get a lock on let alone maintain it on a static subject without serious hunting, throw a moving subject into the mix in poor light and the D600 AF system screams "get me out of here"
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Actually, the biggest limitation of having AF points packed in the center is for shooting static scenes and macro or when you camera is on tripod and recomposition technique is not convenient.

If you shoot moving subject, like sports or wildlife you almost always want to us the central focus point (as initial AF acquisition point). I am wildlife photographer and I several times tried to use the other points on my D700, but never had consistent results with these. I believe that most action photographers are locked on central AF point in AF-C mode (and either 9 or 21 point dynamic area pattern).

As I said, there is a big step down from DX cameras, like D300 in this respect. On the other hand, there is a very small actual difference between D600 and D700. Having used my D600, I actually think that AF is better on D600 as several points are more sensitive now (and that's why there is now f/8 AF capability) and focusing algorithms were tweaked to get the best from D4. Initial acquisition on D600 is definitely faster on D600.

That's why Nikon markets D600 AF as "Advanced MultiCAM 4800FX" compared to just Multicam 4800DX on D7000, Advanced Multicam 3500FX on D800/D4 and just Multicam 3500FX on D700.
 
mpe said:
D800 wasn't an option for me as I consider it as specialized camera and don't want to upgrade my computer now. These huge files would kill my workflow (try to edit 36mp file with a few layers in Photoshop on anything but 8core, 16GB RAM machine). Nikon really needs to implement smaller RAW option (pixel binning it at least something equivalent to Canon sRAW) and slightly faster framerate for people like us.
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How crap is your computer? I sent some D800 RAW files to someone on here who had a 6 or 7 year old Acer laptop.. forget the processor now, but probably only a Core 2 Duo, with 4gig of RAM and he was able to work with them easily enough. According to him, it was a bit sluggish, but perfectly workable.

You do NOT need an 8 core processor at all. That's a ludicrous suggestion.


I've edited files from my D800... in photoshop as 16bit TIFFs with multiple layers on my wife's 6 year old Nehalem based PC with 8GB of RAM with absolutely no problem whatsoever. You can build a i5 based rig for a few hundred quid that will easily cope with any still imaging editing you care to throw at it.

Anyone who dismisses the D800 if they want one, based on the fact they MAY have to upgrade their PC is just missing the point. You're prepared to sink £2k into a body, but not £400 on a PC?
 
Point well made! Inbuilt graphics have come a long way also so i3/i5 with hd4000 is very affordable. Just a shame a 512GB SSD is £280 :)
 
mpe said:
. I believe that most action photographers are locked on central AF point in AF-C mode (and either 9 or 21 point dynamic area pattern).
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Try capturing a player/animal running across your frame with the D600 and you'll seriously struggle because at some point it will move out of the tiny clustered AF area of the D600 then you'll be focusing on the background :lol:, the D700 doesn't have this problem because they're so widespread and like i said 15 are the highly sensitive cross type, im an action photographer and use centre AF to lock but all 51 to track, nothing rarely stays centre frame for me so i make use of what the system provides, why limit yourself to just 9 surrounding points, if your subject moves out of the area those 9 points cover then you're shooting OOF again

Ive used the D600 and D700 side by side and to be honest saying the D600 locks on faster is a bit of a blanket statement, the initial lock on depends on several factors, available light, to me both are as good as each other in good light but the D700 tracks massively better, in poor light there's absolutely only one winner, the D700

Then there's the lenses, a 70-200mm f/2.8 is always going to be faster to focus than an 18-55mm kit lens

To be fair though, they're 2 different cameras produced for 2 different uses and users
 
Pookeyhead said:
How crap is your computer? I sent some D800 RAW files to someone on here who had a 6 or 7 year old Acer laptop.. forget the processor now, but probably only a Core 2 Duo, with 4gig of RAM and he was able to work with them easily enough. According to him, it was a bit sluggish, but perfectly workable.
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Well, I am not sure how are you familiar with computers. The problem is that TIFF file from 36megapixel camera is approx. 216 MB (TIFF CMYK 48bit/pixel) with no layers. If you start to add layers, the sizes increases dramatically.

The 12mb camera produces 72MB. That's three times less. Therefore in order to get the exactly same apparent processing speed, loading speed, batch-processing speed, latency, etc. you need to triple the performance of your computer.

The problem is that CPUs don't have triple as much cores or frequency than they had three years ago. The harddrives/SSD don't have three times more capacity/transfer speeds than three years ago, our home NAS backup storages don't have three times bigger capacity (in fact harddrives are more expensive than they were three years ago thanks to floodings in Thailand) internet speeds are not three times faster, etc. In the best case they achieved something like 20-50% in last three years, while some speeds like I/O remains roughly the same. And you are putting 300% or more load to them...

You might be fine with speed of yout PC, but no matter how fast computer you'll have to sacrifice some performance. At the same time the 36mp resolution is not three times better than 12mp (resolution != megapixels), so we are paying that cost without having all the benefits.

I have 2011 Macbook Pro Core i5, 8GB RAM with SSD (which is still a decent machine even at today's standards) and don't consider the 36mp RAW processing speed as pleasant experience. 24mp is significantly better. Obviously, it depends how exactly you are processing your pictures, if all you do is RAW demosaicing, white-balance tuning, sharpening and producing small JPEG, then you'll might be fine. If you start editing/retouching, planorama/HDR stitching, you will be hit... Thrue, I could built cheaper PC with more horsepower (but not 300% better), but I just don't want.
 
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So basically, the D600 is suited better to your requirements.
 
Gary Coyle said:
Try capturing a player/animal running across your frame with the D600 and you'll seriously struggle because at some point it will move out of the tiny clustered AF area of the D600 then you'll be focusing on the background :lol:,
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Well, I did that. As I already mentioned. In the worst case, the area covered by AF points on D600 is 10% smaller than on D700 (and most likely the difference is even smaller given by magnigication difference). Therefore if you can't hold your moving subject in the frame on D600 you'll not be able to do that on D700 either. The only cameras that have noticeably wider AF area are D300/D7000/D7100.

Just to be sure, you don't try to use 51/39 3D tracking mode, do you? All action photographers I know use initial central point + dynamic-area 9/21 point with AF-ON and medium/short lockon speed. Then it is only a matter of experience to be able to keep your subject in your frame, 10% bigger area and 12 additional points won't save you....

My in-focus picture rate with D600 is roughly the same as D700. There is definitely a difference as D600 seems to have different algorithms and behaves slightly differently than D700, but it is for sure not inferior. Actually, I think it is slightly better thanks to faster initial AF acquistion and lower frame black-out time and significantly better with slower lenses.
 
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twist said:
So basically, the D600 is suited better to your requirements.
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Yes it is. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one.

Unfortunatelly, D600 has lower build quality than D800 and the only other alternative to get all-around body with reasonable resolution is 5dMkIII...
 
mpe said:
Yes it is. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one.

Unfortunatelly, D600 has lower build quality than D800 and the only other alternative to get all-around body with reasonable resolution is 5dMkIII...
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I dont think its just the build quality that makes the D800 superior tbh. In your case perhaps.
 
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mpe said:
Just to be sure, you don't try to use 51/39 3D tracking mode, do you? All action photographers I know use initial central point + dynamic-area 9/21 point with AF-ON and medium/short lockon speed. Then it is only a matter of experience to be able to keep your subject in your frame, 10% bigger area and 12 additional points won't save you....
lenses.
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FFS, You do know the term about teaching to try suck eggs. :bang:
 
mpe said:
Yes it is. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one.

Unfortunatelly, D600 has lower build quality than D800 and the only other alternative to get all-around body with reasonable resolution is 5dMkIII...
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Whats all this reasonable resolution garbage, ive had photos of mine from a D700 printed at 40ft x 10ft and was more than happy to print A3 from a 4mp Canon 1d
 
very informative thus far, clearly based on nikon's road map d600 is an entry FF camera vs d700.

Btw, if I were to look at getting a d700, what sort of actuation range should I be looking at?
 
I'd worry more about the condition as shutters can fail at any time, the body rubbers are prone to come away if they are heavily used and not pampered. I just acquired a 30k + model that is in excellent condition, looks like it's done less than 10k.
 
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