Equipped with the the legend that is the Nikon D700, on this, day five of the last month of 2025, I ventured out in the heavy torrential rain that has been flooding the city for the last two days. Mounted with the equally legendary 85mm ƒ/1.8, I wanted to test, once again, the magical quality of the images that the D700 uniquely can produce and I was not let down.

After owning one since 2011, given my massive experience with the amazing quality of the images it produces, I was once more and yet again blown away by the incredible filmic quality of this singular sensor. An absolute joy to see and eternally one of the rare DSLRs that I genuinely love. There is a visceral joy in the solidity and reliability of this camera. Yes it weighs a kilogram, yes it is noisy, but damn if it does not feel just right sitting in the hand. The layout of it is logical and intuitive, it provides you with everything you need to shoot, compatible with a huge array of lenses too. I personally use only prime lenses by Nikkor, some of which go back to the 70s when the glass was supreme and lenses had individual characters that you could get to know and love with use. I have almost a personal even intimate relationship with my 105mm or 50mm lenses, gained through decades of use. It is telling that I only in the last month got my first autofocus lens: this very 85mm in fact…

Honestly given that this camera came out in 2008, I challenge any contemporary camera to produce the depth of richness that the D700, legendarily can produce.

Kudos.

As much as I love my D750, the 700 is forever going to have a very special place in my heart as a first class piece of equipment. I know for a fact that many photographers out there still think of the DSLR as the supreme machine for quality, as wells as the sheer pleasure of using an analogue viewfinder and hearing that magnificent clack of the mirror as you fire the shutter. Also from what I hear the mirrorless cameras still have something of a delay in recording the shot…

I don’t know but I am simply not remotely interested in mirrorless cameras, and also I don’t care about all the bells and whistles that they now provide. I think it speaks volumes to how crazy technology can get when even in the most advanced cameras, people still need settings to make their digital images look and feel like film shots. Go figure!