jasoncallen Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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The D2H was the first DSLR I owned that didn't have clumsy controls that stood between me and the photos. My D700 closely followed that camera with speed, AF responsiveness, and intuitive usage. It truly is a photographer's camera, engineered for fast action, and excelling at anything you put in front of your lens.
I rented a D600 to decide if it was the right upgrade for me - I need video capabilities for my work, and the D700 does not have that. The D600's AF point distribution I found tremendously limiting for my style of framing. My D700's AF is set up as a widely distributed 11-point layout, identical to my D2H before it. I regularly use the outside focus points for subject framing, as focus & recompose method leads to shifts in focus - which will cause you out-of-focus shots on narrow depth of focus shots... The D600 simply doesn't have the AF point coverage I want and need.
That said, the shots I took with the rented D600 had noticeable improvements in dynamic range and resolution over the D700... but also noticeable was the slower RAW file handling on my Macbook Pro. 24 megapixels is much more demanding than the D700's 12mp, and I'll never print large enough to see the difference in fine detail.
If I were deciding between the D700 and D600 and sports were what I'm shooting, no question I'd get the D700 + MBD10 for speed. If I were shooting events, and the client needed fast turnaround on their shots (say, next day), I'd get the D700 for the more manageable file size. If I were doing HEAVY post processing to the shots, and speed/file size wasn't a concern, the D600 would be my choice for superior image quality (dynamic range and resolution).
In the end, I decided I wanted the best of both worlds - the AF of the D700, the resolution and dynamic range of the D600, and the best video mode on a Nikon DSLR available. I just put my money where my mouth is on a D800.
You'll be happy with a D600, D700, or D800. It's really a matter of splitting hairs on a task by task basis to say if one is substantially better than the other. All are professionally usable in even the dimmest amount of light, with the fastest moving subjects, and with the finest minute details in front of quality glass.
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