The Nikon D700 creates images as perfect as can be, which is why I’m selling mine.

I love the way the D700 focuses lightning fast, all the time, in any conditions. I love how the images are noise-free way up to ISO 6400 and beyond. I love that I can strap a flash on it and get perfectly lit shots every time. It’s all so perfect. If an image isn’t perfect, I can twiddle a few dials in Capture One and make it perfect.

It’s kind of boring.

I get caught up in the quest for image quality all the time. By that I mean technical quality. The internet makes this easy. Just visit any online forum and you’ll find an endless stream of people comparing 100% crops. “By god that lens is so sharp all the way to the corners!” “I prefer the higher contrast and bokeh of the 3rd version.” Then I’m all I GOTTA HAVE IT! It gets to the point that any photo that isn’t technically perfect is crap.

Chuck Norris, who must use a D700 or something close to it, (probably) once said, “If your camera takes a photo of a coffee mug and my camera takes a photo of a coffee mug, my photo is better than yours.” Of course he misses the point that it’s still just a photo of a coffee mug. Unless you’re doing brochure shots for a local coffee house, who cares?

For non-professionals, the quest for technical perfection in photography is a distraction.

Avoiding the technical quality rat-race is one reason I enjoy shooting film. Film cameras are never going to be any better than they were 10 years ago. Film and film processing are not going to change much either. What we’re left with is working with what we’ve got. I sometimes forget how helpful that can be, creatively. Constraints and all that. I sometimes appear to be trying to getting around that loophole by buying all kinds of different cameras. However, I don’t do that in a search for better image quality, but rather for handling or specific interesting features.

Shooting a 36-exposure roll of film usually yields 3 or 4 decent shots for me. Even the best of them still show some signs of grain. in other words, none of them are perfect. I love those shots, imperfect as they may be. Shooting with the D700 I’ll bring home a card with 400 or 500 shots on it, 300 of which are technically pretty close to perfect. Who wants to sort through all those and keep track of them forever? I’m ultimately happier with my 3 or 4 crappy film shots.