D700 Experience Report - Motocross

As the D700 is a new camera, I decided to take it along to a recent "Leukemia Busters" charity motocross event at Matterley Bowl, near Winchester in Hampshire, UK. This wasn't a professional gig, so I was restricted to the usual spectator's area, but it gave me a good chance to try out the D700's focus tracking and medium-ISO capabilities. The main lens I took along for the ride was the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 ED-IF AF-S VR ZOOM-NIKKOR. For some shots I combined it with a Kenko Teleplus 1.4x Pro 300 Teleconverter - mainly because 200m wasn't long enough to reach much of the track from the only places I could stand. In fact, 200mm was far too short - I used DX mode quite extensively. (This is where I wish Nikon would make some smaller long teles with AF-S, such as a 400/4 or 400/5.6. Canon have a clear lead here.) I used the MB-D10 battery grip with eight 2600mAh AA NiMH Fujicell batteries installed, which enabled me to shoot in continuous high speed at 8fps. This was probably overkill - 5fps and better timing would have sufficed - but useful.The weather, as befits a British summer, was awful. Overcast and gloomy, raining more often than not - though with a few breaks in the cloud cover here and there. This, therefore, is probably quite a test of a camera system; fast-moving objects, often in view for only brief periods, and thus requiring high shutter speeds and ISOs. Those Group A riders can really shift!Over the course of the afternoon I shot around 1,100 frames in various autofocus and metering modes. Auto-ISO was a godsend, enabling me to keep a fixed shutter speed and aperture without having to be overly concerned about the exposure. It's only recently (with the newer D3 firmware and the D700) that Nikon have started allowing minimum shutter speeds for auto ISO shorter than 1/250s - an obvious oversight, one that was mentioned by many a sports shooter, and one that has now been corrected. Amazingly, after those 1,100 frames, with quite a lot of chimping, the battery level was still reading "full". Now, I realize that the reported battery level for AAs isn't going to be anywhere near as accurate as for EN-EL3e's or EN-EL4's, but it shows that you can probably go through a full, hard day's shooting without worrying about power. This is an excellent performance. Remember that even after the AAs were depleted, I could still have carried on (at 5fps) with the internal EN-EL3e. I did find the battery pack somewhat bulky. The extra joystick was useful, but I do prefer the integrated grip of my D3, both in size and feel. That's something to consider if you're likely to be shooting with the grip more often than not, especially for extended periods.

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