Did anyone else catch this from DPreview's detailed review of the D700:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond700/page20.asp
dpreview wrote:
The D700's measured dynamic range is up to a stop lower than that of other cameras near the top of the market (and more than 1.5 stops lower than what we measured on the Sony A900). The application of a steeper tone curve means you are getting more consumer-friendly, 'punchier' out-of-cam images but also highlights are clipping a little earlier. It is a little surprising that Nikon chose to apply such a steep tone curve but as you'll find out in the RAW section below, shooting RAW and some processing will get you a much more impressive result.
The D700's measured dynamic range is up to a stop lower than that of other cameras near the top of the market (and more than 1.5 stops lower than what we measured on the Sony A900). The application of a steeper tone curve means you are getting more consumer-friendly, 'punchier' out-of-cam images but also highlights are clipping a little earlier. It is a little surprising that Nikon chose to apply such a steep tone curve but as you'll find out in the RAW section below, shooting RAW and some processing will get you a much more impressive result.
I haven't used a D700 extensively, but I find this kind of surprising, esp compared to the D3. It also seems to suggest that the A900 could make a great low iso landscape type camera.
On, the other hand, they go on to say that the D700 has more than typical RAW headroom (similar to the D3, better than the 1DsIII and significantly better than the 5D).
dpreview wrote:
As we've mentioned above the D700 offers significantly more than the usual stop of RAW headroom. When you flatten the tone curve and make proper use of the large pixels' light gathering capabilities you get just under 2 extra stops. Just as on the D3 the ability to pull back both shadow and highlight detail is incredibly impressive, as demonstrated by the examples below. No doubt the D700's performance is in the same ballpark as the D3's and with some careful processing you can get an impressive amount of additional highlight and shadow detail in your images.
There is surprisingly little channel clipping here and as a result you're not being troubled by color casts in recovered highlight areas. At the dark end of the tone scale (lifting shadows to deal with under exposure) you'll also get pretty good results at lower ISO settings. Having said that though, underexposing very high ISO shots will introduce a lot of noise and possibly banding if you apply too much positive digital exposure compensation.
As we've mentioned above the D700 offers significantly more than the usual stop of RAW headroom. When you flatten the tone curve and make proper use of the large pixels' light gathering capabilities you get just under 2 extra stops. Just as on the D3 the ability to pull back both shadow and highlight detail is incredibly impressive, as demonstrated by the examples below. No doubt the D700's performance is in the same ballpark as the D3's and with some careful processing you can get an impressive amount of additional highlight and shadow detail in your images.
There is surprisingly little channel clipping here and as a result you're not being troubled by color casts in recovered highlight areas. At the dark end of the tone scale (lifting shadows to deal with under exposure) you'll also get pretty good results at lower ISO settings. Having said that though, underexposing very high ISO shots will introduce a lot of noise and possibly banding if you apply too much positive digital exposure compensation.
Anyway, I just thought this was sort of interesting. Certainly something to consider for jpeg shooters. It will be interesting to see if the 5DII is significantly different than the 1DsIII and how it will compare (in terms of RAW headroom) to the D3/D700.
