Nikon D700 Performance

Excellent speeds for a semi-pro digital SLR.

Slower startup than the D3, but faster shutdown. Buffer clearing times are about the same, suggesting it's card write speeds that limit the process, rather than the camera's CPU capability. (The D3 has two EXPEED processors, the D700 has one, but both clear the buffer about as fast.)

Mode switching times are very good: Interestingly, play to record and time to display large/fine images are somewhat faster than equivalent times on the D3.

Shutter response is good at 0.20 second, albeit not quite as blazing as the D3's (to be expected, given the difference in price and general camera design). "Prefocusing" the camera by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure results in a lag time of only 0.045 second, very close to the D3's figure. Lag times in Live View mode are a bit slower than those for the D3, but generally fairly decent. NOTE though, that the figure shown for Live View "Tripod Mode" (contrast-detect autofocus) doesn't include the time spent focusing, which can be quite long in that mode. Focusing in Tripod mode is triggered by pressing the AF-On button, rather than by pressing the shutter button, so measuring the time required is a little tricky, and the results will be less precise than using our normal method. Even a casual observation shows why Nikon chose to call the D700's contrast-detect AF "Tripod" mode: Even with a lens having a fast focus motor, AF times can be quite long. Using the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens as an exemplary fast lens, the D700 required a bit over a second to come to focus when the lens started out already being focused on the subject. (The contrast-detect AF needs to adjust the lens slightly out of focus first, then back in again, to be able to tell that it's achieved proper focus.) When the lens started out set to infinity, it took roughly 3.5 seconds for the camera to rack down to the ~10 foot setting required for our test target.

Shot-to-shot cycle times in single-shot mode were quite fast, at only 0.36 second for RAW + large/fine JPEGs, which is very impressive. Large/fine JPEGs by themselves averaged out to 0.38 second per shot, while 14-bit RAW-only shots could be fired off at intervals of about 0.31 second. We questioned the slight differences between modes, as we'd normally expect RAW+JPEG to take longer than JPEG alone, but for whatever reason, there was a lot of variation in the cycle times for the RAW+JPEG case, giving a standard deviation of +/- 0.09 second, or 24.5%. We also hit some significant slowdowns after 17 shots of our very hard-to-compress noise target, indicating a worst-case buffer capacity of 17 shots for RAW+JPEG mode. In JPEG-only and RAW-only modes, the camera captured a full run of 20 shots without having to slow for buffer clearing.

Continuous speeds are also very good, our measured speeds coming in just over the camera's rated 5 frames/second. (The D700 actually managed just shy of 5.1 frames/second in most modes.) Measured buffer depths were 15 frames for 14-bit RAW+JPEG mode, 17 frames for 14-bit RAW-only, 18 frames for 12-bit RAW-only, and more than 20 frames for large/fine JPEGs. (Note that in our cycle time testing we shoot a target consisting of a fine-grained digital noise pattern, designed to be very hard to compress. This gives us worst-case buffer capacity numbers: You're likely to see greater buffer capacity when shooting more normal subjects.)

The flash took under 3 seconds to recharge after a full-power pulse, also quite fast. Excellent performance here.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, download speeds are very fast.

Bottom line, while not (nearly) rising to the heights of its predecessor the D3, the Nikon D700 is pretty fast in just about every aspect of its operation. Continuous modes are fast enough for most moving subjects, and shutter lag and cycle times are pretty fast as well. The camera does run into trouble when its AF system operates in conjunction with a forced flash firing, which may result in some missed opportunities, but overall excellent performance.

Battery
Excellent battery life for a lithium-ion design.

The Nikon D700 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Although battery life is quite good, we recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on a fully-charged rechargeable battery), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The Nikon D700 accepts CompactFlash memory cards, and does not ship with a card.

The chart above shows how many FX format images can be stored on a 1GB card at various size/quality settings, as well as the approximate compression ratio. (RAW was 14-bit uncompressed and JPEGs used the "Size Priority" setting.) We strongly recommend buying a large capacity CompactFlash memory card at least a 1GB card, preferably a 4GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings, especially if you plan on doing a lot of RAW shooting. (Check the shopping link above, cards are really cheap these days, so no reason to skimp.)