Or how I parted from my Nikon D700.
Finally after 11years of a fulfilling relationship I am letting him go. If you read this blog regularly you probably wonder where this camera has been all that time because I don’t think it appears in a single post over the last 4 or 5 years. Actually checking my papers, I realized I had it service 5 years ago and did not used it much since.
I have carried this guy all over Asia and took so many pictures that it is difficult to pic some to illustrate what looks like a eulogy. Mind you with 42000 actuations, it has not been abused and his new owner can make a few shots with it.
The D700 has been a beast of its own kind, the first and last, prosumer camera, which could handle most of Nikon lenses. It supported the road well and gives confidence that whenever you press the shutter something at least acceptable will go out.
Of course I lugged around big amounts of heavy glass, this is what you get using a DSLR, and spare battery and multiple cards.
The D700 was quickly outdated though, the usable ISO range was limited to 3200, which by today’s standard is pretty low and the noise or banding in low light was not always nice. Hence the purchase of fast glass, 50mmF1.8, 85mmF1.8, and so on. Ok I must say my current digital camera has the same max ISO so that criteria has not worked much for me.
So why did I stop using such a nice camera? Well first I have started shooting more film over the years, and falling in the rangefinder trap, I purchased a digital M 5 years ago and here we are. I must say I do not shoot that much with the digital M outside of travels, events or parties (so not much recently). I generally shoot film for my casual street photography. The M is in no way technically superior to the D700, they are from the same technological generation, but if you are not a pro the experience and the results are more fulfilling.
So over the last period the D700 has been used only to shoot events which now are becoming fewer and fewer so I came to a point where I had the choice to let it rot in the its box or part from it.
So I managed to find the original box with all the cables doc and everything and even the original bag from the shop, and here in the beautiful gold box goes the D700, 2 batteries, 7 card, and the 50F1.8D in its own gold box. I have already sold last year the 80-200F1.8D, the 17-35F2.8D and the 85F1.8D, all boxed. I only have 2 gold boxes left, one for SB600 flash, that is compatible with the M and one for the 50mmF1.4AIS that I use on the Nikon F3. Don’t worry I also have some AI lenses around a F3 and F bodies, so I did not let Nikon go completely.
Waex99 PhotoBlog 