D200 vs. D700, lens musings...

[Lisa]

The D700 sounds like the camera I've always wanted (I was most impressed by the high-ISO images I've seen from the same sensor in the D3), except...

When I'm hiking or traveling, I really want only a single lens to carry around with me all day. With my D200, that's Nikon's 18-200mm DX VR lens (that's 27-300mm full-frame equivalent). It's a very, very good lens in a small, lightweight package, with VR to boot. However, going to the D700, with its larger sensor, what do I do lens-wise? Nikon doesn't make a 28-300, or even a 28-200. Sigma and Tamron make some reasonably small ones, but the bits & pieces I can find on them seem to indicate that they aren't nearly as good as my Nikon 18-200 in terms of image quality.

I understand that DX lenses are going to be smaller and lighter than full-frame lenses, but I'd probably be willing to get a slightly-to-somewhat larger lens and/or cut my zoom range down to about 30-150mm in return for the better high-ISO capabilities of the D700 - as long as the image quality isn't much worse than my current lens.

Does the lens I'm looking for exist anywhere??? (If not, I'll be happy to buy someone's slightly used D300 after they replace it with a D700.)

Lisa

 

[Terry]

Lisa,
I am going for the D700 and have already put my slightly used D300 on the buy/sell forum at a very good price. The lens with the longest range starting wide (that I know of) is the 24-120. I've heard mixed on this lens with a fair amount of sample variation. I am not going to get this lens as I have the new 24-70 and I have the 70-300. Neither are small or light but these along with the 50 f1.8 will be my D700 kit for the immediate future.

The D700 sounds like the camera I've always wanted (I was most impressed by the high-ISO images I've seen from the same sensor in the D3), except...

When I'm hiking or traveling, I really want only a single lens to carry around with me all day. With my D200, that's Nikon's 18-200mm DX VR lens (that's 27-300mm full-frame equivalent). It's a very, very good lens in a small, lightweight package, with VR to boot. However, going to the D700, with its larger sensor, what do I do lens-wise? Nikon doesn't make a 28-300, or even a 28-200. Sigma and Tamron make some reasonably small ones, but the bits & pieces I can find on them seem to indicate that they aren't nearly as good as my Nikon 18-200 in terms of image quality.

I understand that DX lenses are going to be smaller and lighter than full-frame lenses, but I'd probably be willing to get a slightly-to-somewhat larger lens and/or cut my zoom range down to about 30-150mm in return for the better high-ISO capabilities of the D700 - as long as the image quality isn't much worse than my current lens.

Does the lens I'm looking for exist anywhere??? (If not, I'll be happy to buy someone's slightly used D300 after they replace it with a D700.)

Lisa

 

[harmsr]

Lisa,

Unfortunately, I don't think the lens you want exists yet for full frame.

As Terry states, the 24-120VR is not a very good lens. It was the first lens that I bought to go with a Nikon digital back in the D70 days. Mine was soft and went back to Nikon. They wanted the body also, so that they could tune the lens to the body. It improved, but was still nothing stellar.

What you are asking for is what everyone is mentioning in the "holes in Nikon's lens lineup" for some slower, but high quality travel type zooms.

Hopefully something, will still be announced prior to Photokina.

Best,

Ray

 

[Lisa]

When I looked through the list of Nikkor lenses available at Nikon's web site, an awful lot of them seemed to be DX lenses (inappropriate for the D700). Has anyone heard anything from Nikon on whether they plan to introduce more FX lenses in the near future for D3 & D700 users? I would think they'd be stupid not to do so. It's possible that if I just hang onto what I have for a year or so, the lens I'm looking for might appear. Has anyone heard anything from any Nikon PR on future lenses???

Lisa

P.S. Terry, I'll keep your D300 in mind; thanks. Right now I'm considering whether to get a D300 or to wait for more lenses to appear on the market. (With a D300, I'd convert my D200 to IR to replace my IR D70, which doesn't have quite the number of MP I'd like.) In any event, I'll wait for Photokina before making any final decisions.