Spent some time last night going back through camera hardware blogs and the forums at Nikonians -  a really great resource, by the way.  Interesting to note that last summer, all the blogs were saying that the D700 replacement appeared imminent.  Obviously that didn’t happen.  Will there be a D700s in 2010?  A D800?  Rumors are still flying, no one knows anything for certain.  If I stick with my current camera body and upgrade my lenses, the consensus seems to be that the lenses I have now are “amateur” lenses and I could consider “professional” lenses – especially zoom lenses like the 24-70mm 2.8 or 70-200mm 2.8 (which is a huge beast of a lens and costs as much as the D700 body).   The 24-70 is looking enticing – not the largest range and also relatively heavy, but supposedly very sharp.   Or just continue walking around with my 35mm 1.8?

But in the meantime, couple of links to share that might be of interest.

From Photocrati, a nice concise write-up of the differences between DX and FX sensors and the pros and cons of each.

From the same blog, a comparison between the Nikon D700, Canon EOS 5D Mk II, Sony a900.  There is no clear winner, though the D700 comes out on top in terms of high ISO performance.  The author of the post concedes in the comments that he bought the Canon – because he already owned Canon lenses.

From Ken Rockwell, a comparison of high ISO performance between the Nikon D3, D700 and D300.  As expected, the D3 and D700 shots look virtually identical. There is a huge and unsubtle drop-off with the D300.

DP Review has a 33 page review of the D700 online and one page of that review compares high ISO performance from the D700 and the D300.  The larger sensor size and larger pixels on the sensor clearly don’t make for any visible quality difference at ISO 200 but a huge difference as you start to go up.

This is the D700 at 6400 ISO:

This is the D300 at 6400 ISO:

Anyway, over at Thom Hogan, a nice essay on Nikon zoom lenses and recommendations for which ones should be in your kit, DX or FX, “amateur” or “pro.”  And another article there called Rationalizing Lenses, which goes deeper into the same topic.  “the 24-70mm is a remarkably good lens in every respect,” he writes.  He also mentions adding a Nikon tele-converter to your kit.

I’m not pulling any triggers yet.  Hell, don’t think I’m even making it out the front door today!

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