• I had borrowed a Nikon 25mm PC-E lens for this trip. My intention was to capture those adobe buildings (Architecture) with least distortion. I also wanted to take panoramic shots with the special horizontal panning option available with these lenses. I am happy to say that both of these worked well. Some of my early shots suffered due to my in-experience with using the lens and proper use of tilt adjustments.
• New Mexico (NM) is pretty much a dry state.  It was quite windy and dusty all over the scenic locations. A few time when I did change lenses, dust crept into the camera (I found out about these later in the evening). The built-in dust removal option (D700) and the rocket blower did not help much. I wish I had brought along a wet cleaning kit for the road.
• NM being quite sunny most of the year, The one thing I was not used to was the glare. I have some pretty bad glare in a few photos, and could gladly live without them. I found out about these sadly in post processing later in the evening after a days’s worth of shooting. One can do little to fix them in post processing.  While glare is not very visible from the viewfinder – it is always a good idea to shade the lens (Yes, you can get glare despite a lens hood) either with your hand or a hat/cap.
• While my style normally is not to use a tripod, and the fact that NM had plenty of sun shine, I still used the tripod quite a bit. More than what I normally do. I found that this helped me a bit more in terms of taking the time to compose the images, and slowing down the process of shooting.
• Did I say that NM had plenty of sun? On most days, it was quite difficult to judge the image on the camera LCD. Shading the LCD with your hands was no good either. I eventually went down to a local camera store and got myself a Hoodman Loupe. This turned to be a great investment – and I found myself using this almost religiously for every shot.
• When I got back home, I found the 2000+ images a bit over-whelming to process. Especially with my ancient G5 computer running OSX Tiger. I found that the HDR panoramic shots i wanted to process almost always killed the computer (often found out the next morning from an overnight batch process).

So, I got myself a new iMac Core i7 27″ computer with 8GB RAM. My initial impressions are “Wow!”.

• The monitor calibration went smooth with ColorMunki, and I was able to calibrate and  reduce the luminosity down to 110cd/m². I had to use a small freeware product called “Shades” in order to fine tune for this value (Read my update in the bottom of the post).
• The Migration Assistant tool worked perfectly in moving my settings and junk from the old computer. I used SuperDuper! on the old computer to clone the hard disk on to a firewire disk, then mounted the disk via USB on the new iMac. It worked flawlessly. It appears that the new iMacs only come with one Firewire 800 port, and the external disk I have uses a Firewire 400 port. Luckily, USB port worked just well.
• Most of my applications worked great right after its first reboot. Some needed upgrading – and a few of my photoshop plugins have failed to work after migration. I had to fix these manually.
• Finally, I have a computer that can process the HDR panoramic shots I have been waiting to process for a long time. My first 360 degree little planet photographs are out here - The actual files are ~10GB and i think they print 8×10 feet!

One of the advantages of my new computer had been the option to try out the new Lightroom 3 beta software. Here are my first impressions:

• I moved in a sample set of images from my recent NM trip to the new catalog in LR3. The images normally retain the same look and processing capabilities if they have been processed with an earlier version of LR (2.6). I saw no differences.
• When in Library mode, You can select all images, and batch upgrade their “Process versions”. This lets one use the latest algorithms implemented in LR3. The results are simply amazing. I am quite impressed with the ability of the LR to pull out details. This software is now in the same league as that of Capture One and possibly PerfectRAW (although I have not done any real comparisons).
• I am quite happy with what I am seeing already.  Although I recreated a new profile to use, it was unnecessary, since I was already happy with the skin tones from my earlier version of the profiles. As before, the new profiles has linear curve and adjusted mid tones.

One new addition to my collection is the Canon G11 camera. Ever since I sold off my Canon G9, I had been wanting to fill its space with a new one. I had contemplated with a Panasonic LX3, Canon S90 or a G11. I had not considered the Micro 4/3 cameras only because I am not looking for an another DSLR.

Based on my recent trip to the NYC, and my few days of use with the camera, here are my thoughts:

• LR3 already recognizes the RAW format for this camera. The built in camera profiles available in LR3 are pretty good – as good as the custom profile for color accuracy (I have created a custom profile as well, but have found no need for it).
• Despite a lot of talk about how good the Noise control is – I have found it excessive beyond ISO 400. Maybe I am spoiled by D700.
• The Sharpness in JPEG mode is not sufficient. I found the need to bump it by one more notch for it to be good.
• The camera feels more responsive – quicker menus, faster shutter button compared to my G9 camera. My old G3 had a swivel LCD, and I liked it.
• The jog wheel is very sensitive and I have thus far accidentally triggered the Flash, Manual Focus and Macro modes several times.  This is one area that the Canon folks screwed up- They should have let the special custom button activate and lock the jog wheel. Ergonomically speaking – It is no different from the G9, but the G9 never had this issue.
• I noticed a bit of barrel distortion at its widest end (Which i found i use more than the tele end).
• In all – I am quite happy with the camera’s results.

Update:

Based on advice from experts – I have stopped using Shades. Read this post on how to fine tune the built-in sliders to reduce luminosity.

It all started (back in 2006 I think) when someone started complaining about how the histogram in the back of your cameras don’t really reflect the RAW capture, but that of a JPEG (Yes, RAW images have JPEG embedded inside them as well). So, technically speaking – the histogram you see on the back of your camera is not reflecting the captured image by the sensor.  Study the links in the references…they are excellent sources of info on this topic.

So, why is this important?

1. To ensure that your exposure is accurate
2. To make sure that you don’t clip the red and blue channels (Note that there are twice the amount of green photo receptors compared to red and blue…which is why, green is usually very well captured and controlled).
3. To use the technique of ETTR (expose to the right) to get the most out of your RAW capture. This  technique requires you pushing the levels in the histogram to the right side as much as possible, without clipping the highlights.
4. For HDR photography, so that you know exactly what is being captured in your camera and to determine what additional exposures are needed in order to capture the full dynamic range of the scene.

So, the story is that – a few intellects decided to fool the camera into creating this embedded JPEG with a linear gamma (just as the sensor sees it). There are a few ways to do this – One method is to use in-camera curves (I had custom tone curves back when i had the D70). There is an another option – and is easier to use in the field.

The technique is described as below:

1. Take a dark frame shot (Manual exposure with lens cap on).
2. Apply the WB setting from this for all your future shots. In the Nikon D300/700/D3 you can select Preset WB – slot d-1 through d-3, and set the WB to specific image of your choice. In this case – set it to the dark frame shot.

That is there to it.  Now, every time you shoot with this PRE WB (d-1 on my PRE setting), you will create an embedded JPEG with neutralized WB (which kinda looks ugly with a green color cast), but gives you a pretty accurate histogram of the RAW image capture.

Of course, when you import the image with your RAW converter of choice – You may need to re-adjust the white balance (WB) to your preference. You can optionally shoot a gray card as your first frame every time you use this technique…to nail that WB in post processing.

Let me elaborate a bit on its use in HDR photography. Regardless of how you shoot your +/- exposures (auto bracketing or manual) – you will need to rely on your camera’s meter to get that best average reading (middle shot). This is where UniWB is important. The UniWB setting allows one to get a good ETTR shot for this middle exposure. From here – the +/- shots pretty much capture the details outside of this “best” shot, giving you the best images to work with for your extending the dynamic range.

Take a look at the few images below:

• Image 1 is a screen capture that compares the WB multipliers b/w the white saturated frame and a dark frame. In my case – they are identical, and very close to 1.0. The way i captured the white frame is by exposing a solux lamp from about 1 feet with f2.8, 30 seconds. The resulting image was pretty much a white frame. The black frame was shot in a dark room, with lens cap on with exposure of f22, 1/8000 second. The resulting image was a good dark shot. As you can see from dcraw results, the WB multipliers are identical and close to 1.0
• Image 2 and Image 3 are the “before” and “after” shots. The before is how the image appears when you shoot an image with UniWB. The “after” shot is after processing the image in Lightroom (LR). The image is pretty accurate in terms of its color rendition.
• Image 4 is an example of where HDR is needed. If you look at the sliders for histogram and exposure (-4) – this is everything that the RAW was capable of capturing. There simply is not enough Dynamic Range in the camera to capture the blown highlights (which is quite easily visible from the white spots towards the bottom left side of the image). This can be only corrected by an another shot that is over exposed by 4EV (which would have enough DR to capture the details only in the highlights).  A blending/merging process would then be necessary.
• Image 5 and 6 are just example images that were shot with UniWB and processed with my skin tones technique.

References:

1. http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=37853&hl=
2. http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22250
3. http://www.guillermoluijk.com/tutorial/uniwb/index_en.htm
4. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=485349&page=6
5. http://www.roesand.com/blog-posts/173-nailing-exposure-with-uniwb-for-the-nikon-d700
6. http://manishbansal.wordpress.com/2007/12/15/making-your-dslr-show-linear-histogram/
7. http://www.malch.com/nikon/UniWB.html
8. https://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml
9. http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf

This article is about the usability and practicality of Dynamic Range of a DSLR (D700 for example), and some tips on shooting for HDR.

The DXO Mark list D700’s (or D3) reference dynamic range of 12 stops (1 stop = 1 Ev) at ISO 200. So, what does this number mean? This is the maximum dynamic range that the sensor is capable of capturing in a 14 bit RAW image. For all practical purposes, lets assume that really good RAW processing wizards are able to extract about 10 stops of dynamic range from these RAW images. Default settings of most RAW converters (ACR and NX) can get you about 7-8 stops dynamic range in an image.

Technically speaking – the sensor captures plenty DR. More than what typical output devices (printer, monitor etc) can address at this time. In fact, if someone is really very good at RAW processing, one only need to capture an additional +/- 6EV ( D700 already automatically allows one to capture +/- 4EV when using Auto Bracketing with 9 frames) to give a combined 24 EV range. This amount of dynamic range is very close to human eye’s dynamic range!

But then again, there are several limitations on the practicality of this much DR. There are no means to either display or print such high dynamic range images at the moment. So, one pretty much resorts to compressing the tonal range to fit into the medium currently supported. In the process of doing so, we end up exagerrating the details in the shadow and highlights more than what the human eyes can actually see (Thus the “ugly” grungy looking HDRs prevalent on the Flickr! and other popular websites).

Hold on! Lets step back a minute – So, the camera already has the ability to provide 8-10 stops of DR! AND Most  post-processed (a.k.a Tone mapped HDR) images also has the same amount of DR!   So, whats the difference? Why do we need to get into the circus of shooting 3+ images and end up with all that mess with alignment, tone-mapping etc. and still end up with the same amount of dynamic range?

Answer: Whats different between the two is the tonal characteristics of the image.  The ability to play with and change the default curves (ACR, camera curves, EXPEED, BIONZ, DIGIC etc)  is what gives us these variations in tonality (and dynamic range). It is for this reason that shooting RAW and processing the image yourself gives one the edge (defining “the style”).

Fortunately, this above result does not really require one to shoot multiple exposures and merging them using Photomatix. There are several other ways to get to the same results. People have demonstrated this with use of creative use of Photoshop (for example: Andrej Dragan), use of 3rd party filters/add-ons (such as Topaz or Lucis) and several other alternative HDR processing/tone mapping software available (some  free software as well). In any case, extracting the full capabilities of the RAW image can also be accomplished with the use of a very good RAW processor as well. I had a post earlier comparing some good RAW processors here.

In any case,  here are some hows and whys on shooting HDRs without getting very technical (See references for tech speak):

• A sensor is normally configured by the factory to work in the visible spectrum range only.
• The RAW file format just captures the data as the sensor sees with very minimal processing.
• The dynamic range of a typical scene is about 25-30 Ev.
• The sensor’s dynamic range limit is about 12 Ev.
• The exposure values determine which part of the spectrum is captured (and how the scene is compressed).

So, here is how you can capture a 24 Ev dynamic range scene:

• Configure your camera to shoot the highest quality RAW (14 bit NEF in D700).
• Use Manual exposure; Mount camera on tripod. Measure scene exposure using spot/average, and set exposure in camera.
• Set White balance and any other parameters you wish (optional, not necessary).
• Expose one image at average exposure, shoot 2 other images 8 Ev apart. So, that means – if your average scene exposure at ISO 200, f8 was 1/500th sec, the two other exposures would be 1/80 and 1/3200 seconds. (based on the chart here). Note that the -8EV would get very tricky (needing long exposures and associated issues to go with this)  if your average exposure is low to start with (happens if the light conditions of your scene is low). In this case – you will have to bump up the ISO to higher values so that your average exposure is usable and in the 1/250-1/500 range.
• Once the images are shot and ready to be processed – Import them with your favorite RAW converter – and zero in all the settings for sharpness, linear gamma curve (if you don’t know what this is – just make sure your tone curve is a straight line going across diagonally at 45 degree angle). In Lightroom, you can create a preset with these options and apply them upon import or in batch.
• Save the individually exposed images as TIFF images (The file actually contains RAW data as well – but is vendor independent). The only reason one would do this is to bypass the generic RAW conversion process available within the HDR tool (such as Photomatix).
• Import the images in a HDR tool (such as Photomatix or Enfuse) – and have fun creating the HDR image.

I am pretty sure there are advantages to shooting more than 3 shots to cover the same dynamic range of 24 Ev. The benefits/downsides of doing that as compared to capturing just 3 images are the following:

• More images to merge results in less noise in the final image.
• More images to merge results in smoother transitions between colors & luminosity in the final image.
• More images to merge will have more alignment issues.
• More images to merge requires a higher quality computer to process images (and more time to generate HDR).

I have personally not seen a significant visible difference b/w merging 3 images and merging 9 images to capture the same dynamic range.

Update: Sep 13, 2009:

It appears that there is a bit (or plenty) of critisim on this post on some forums. Like i said before at the beginning of this post, This post is not a tutorial. Creating a tutorial does not require one to know the whys and hows of HDR, and the algorithms involved. I urge people to study these instead of coming up with an yet another “Here is my HDR tutorial”. The post is intended to stimulate thinking and foster some insight and generate discussion into whys and hows of the HDR.

What most people see in Flickr! is not really the true definition and intent of HDR. They are generally looking at ugly, tone-mapped versions of grungy looking grossly distorted, misrepresented unrealistic images. However, I understand and accept that there are several people out there that do this in the interest of Art or Fad. Nothing wrong with it. Just that, this is neither creative nor original these days. It was “original” and creative about 2 years ago when it all started.

Anyways – For those people who consider themselves “experts” on HDR (after reading several books on the topic, or after having done several gallery shows or having run several thousand images through photomatix),  here are a few things for you:

• I agree (and use it myself) that Photomatix is a good tool to generate HDRs. However, it is its user that makes or breaks an image. The controls within Photomatix is flexible and supports a wide degree of applications – from Forensic to Art to everything in-between.  Photomatix is very unique in its capabilities and generally works better the more pictures you throw at it. In that sense, a 9 frame, 1EV exposure apart stack of images will yield a better results when (only when) using Photomatix. There are other tools out there that don’t work like this, and don’t need so many source images to work with. The reference below provides a link to the list of several HDR programs out there.
• I urge people to review the links in the references for Zero Noise Photography. This guy (Guillermo Luijk: link to his site is in the references below) is doing some radical development in not only RAW conversion, but also changing the way HDR images have been thought thus far.
• The best tool out there to produce “real world HDR” is based on an alternative algorithm called “exposure fusion” (see white paper below on this) – and is implemented in Enfuse/Tufuse applications. Generally speaking, these have been providing the “best” realistic looking images. This is very well suited for interior and architectural photography.
• One of the only books on the topic i recommend is the”HDRI Handbook” by Christian Bloch. This is a very technical book, and is the reference standard. All others are just “tutorials” in my world.  No better than this.

References:

1. http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/ferwerda/publications/EGSR05-hdr.pdf (Tone mapping white paper)
2. http://research.edm.uhasselt.be/~tmertens/papers/exposure_fusion_reduced.pdf (Exposure blending -Enfuse algorithm).
3. http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html (HDR FAQ from Photomatix guys).
4. http://www.maxmax.com/hot_rod_visible.htm
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing_filter
6. http://www.maxmax.com/nikon_d700_study.htm
7. http://www.naturfotograf.com/D3/D3_rev05IR.html
8. http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/009/009XXU-19705684.pdf
9. http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17775
10. http://www.guillermoluijk.com/article/nonoise/index_en.htm
11. http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=37060&hl=photomatix
12. http://www.hdrlabs.com/tools/links.html

So, here are a few thoughts on that aspect:

• My DSLR preference has always been a Nikon. My P&S preference has always been a Canon. Here is  why – A long time ago when i first chose an SLR in the film days, it was a Yashica, then a Canon. Most likely because of its availability and my budget. When the Digital SLRs rolled out – I chose the Nikon because it felt nice holding it. Its ergonomics were great and the camera felt “right” when i held it up to my eyes. The ergonomics was important to me, because I knew that I will be hand holding the camera a lot and needed to shoot a lot of pictures! If I were to select a camera now, I would still not change the brand for this one reason. For P&S cameras, Nikon has never made a small camera that fit the needs of an advanced photographer. Until recently, all their P&S models had pretty much catered to a casual consumer photog. Canon has offered an advanced P&S for several years now (Since G1) – and i have owned most of their G series models for this very reason.
• Shopping for a camera these days is no different to shopping for anything else – say a car for example. Most new cars are pretty much “state of the art”, they have all the things one would need for comfortable driving.  The same applies to cameras. Pretty much, most modern cameras (both P&S and DSLRS) can meet the needs of most advanced photographers. Even the entry DSLR cameras these days have more than sufficient functionality to meet the needs of most challenging situations. If someone is not limited by a set of legacy lenses, I would just suggest to go ahead and choose a camera that feels right to your hands and pocket.
• The folks at Hefger Media has come out with a new set of third- party “Original” inks for the HP series printers. I am test driving these inks (Thanks to a courtesy sampler from Simon) and will report back shortly on how it goes.

Times has however changed. We see use of Computers & Software – blur the lines, along with the use of digital cameras. Computers have in fact become indispensable to the generation of images. In fact, a typical digital camera is in fact a computer by itself!

So, where does this leave the images that were created by scanning objects using a flat bed scanner, or those that involved the use of a Inkjet printer for printing on non-paper materials, or even those generated completely by the software (Painting using corel draw, fractals, etc) . Is it acceptable for such art to being presented alongside Photographs (Most of them already manipulated with Photoshop and other similar tools).

I believe the line between these alternative forms of art – and Photography is blurring – very fast. The concept of a traditional “camera” in the purest sense (a lens with a film to capture light) when compared to the modern day camera (a high-tech digital computer) are completely different things altogether. Although the process of taking a picture  (both technical aspects as well the asthetic/compositional aspects are equivalent) has not changed much, I am starting to question the basics of what is Photography these days? Or to better yet – what has Photography become these days?

One typically goes through their personal details revealing their innermost details on how they got started in photography, what they would like to do with this, and what they would like to learn from the workshop etc. I have often felt that people are very honest in these self introductions.

I am not exactly sure why, but i have been honest with my self introduction as well. The one thing that has often had me confused is the answer to the question about “What kind of photographer am I?” – Well, technically speaking – one can be a Journalist (whose main subjects are for the news he/she covers), Wedding, Studio/Portrait, Sports – and possibly “Art” for everything else…(are there any other kinds?)

I am not sure what kind i am – I might be a “Technical photographer”…one who uses excessive technology to come up with unique pieces of images, In some way – this could be considered “Art” – but maybe not (Art, in a non-traditional sense that is – perhaps that could be considered “Fine Art”…).

I recall a while ago blurting out that i am a “Fine Art” photographer…and was asked “What exactly is that?”

I however admit I have never been happy with ACR’s (LR) conversion of NEF images -  especially when it comes to skin tones. In my quest to find a better conversion for my new D700 – I recently tried several converters – RAW converter, dcraw, Perfect RAW, Capture One, View NX/Capture NX2 & RAW therapee (via Parallels on Mac).

There are several factors that contribute to how the images are converted. On cameras that have the Bayer filter array, a specific process is followed in order to reconstruct the image. The part that differs between the various converters is the actual algorithms used for the de-mosaicing, de-noising, auto white balance determination, highlight recovery and tonal curves.

The differences in the final output is actually quite small – only the most dis-concerning eye can spot them…when you are specifically looking for these differences. Normal people – non purist types, non perfectionists & non-photographers will often not detect these differences. In fact, it is quite surprising how evolved the latest crop of RAW converters are and are all of them are perfectly suitable and do a very good job.

The below differences are based on the fact that i was specifically looking for these differences and fascinate me from a technical aspect, plus the fact that i am a purist.

So, here is a summary of my findings (All of my notes are with respect to the “Skin” tonality of the converter – not its general processing capability (artifacts, noise, sharpening etc…):

• PerfectRAW - This product is still in development (alpha stages). I found this application as possibly one of best RAW converters available. Unfortunately – this is in very early stages of development, and the version available today does not even allow one to save images. You can only view the images at this time.Perfect RAW is based on DCRAW. It improves on it – by implementing a custom demosaicing algorithm (called AFD), provides a full GUI with histograms etc. While it produces skin tones wonderfully. In fact DCRAW produces wondeful skin tones as well. DCRAW is available only via command line (limits its usefulness for most people), and while the others are GUI based, are not in the same league as commercial programs. The several derivates of DCRAW such as  RAW Therapee, RAW Converter, UFRAW, and a few others in the same boat. While each of these products process RAW with a slightly variant algorithm – they are almost similar to most people (except for those of the pixel peepers tribes). Based on my analysis, i believe while the demosaicing results are variable betweeen these applications – they all use similar/same highlight recovery algorithms and linear tone curves  – which may be the reason why the skin tones are very good.
• Capture One from PhaseOne is arguably my 2nd best converter of choice for Skin tones. It uses camera profiles from its very early days and the tonal characterstics of this converter is top notch. As a practical applicability in a workflow situation – I will have to weigh its usability. The question i keep asking is – is the conversion worth a round trip from my DAM application of choice (Lightroom)?  Since Version 2.x of LR – i have found that LR has caught up and a round trip via Capture One is not efficient use of time.
• Capture NX2 obviously is the reference standard for NEF conversion. It obviously is the only RAW converter that can read every bit of the NEF format. Fact of the matter is that while the tool itself is excellent (control points is amazing), i am not thrilled by the default skin tone rendition of this tool as well. It is very slow, takes too much memory and clunky.
• Lightroom’s normal conversion is not bad for most of the images. In fact, the latest version (ver 2.4 at the time of writing) – is infact as good as it can get. With the use of DNG profiles – you can even custom tweak these settings. I do have several such profiles myself.  In fact, i recommend every LR user to create custom camera profiles. Nevertheless, When it comes to skin tones – start with “Zeroed” settings & use “Neutral” profile as the starting point. If you create your own camera profiles – save the profile with a Linear tonal curve – and recover the highlights yourself via contrast curves within LR. These will provide the best skin tones (matches the PerfectRAW).

So, my conclusion was that I could benefit from a larger sensor…..Hence the new Camera!

Here is my evaluation of the the Nikon D700:

• I am really surprised that a FX sensor can bring in such a difference over a DX sensor. The images are smooth and cleaner than what i had expected.. Even at ISO 200!
• Somehow, all portraits are starting to look like Medium Format like quality. I guess it can be attributed to the extremely low SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). The SNR of D700 @ISO 200 (according to dxomark) is comparable to Phase One P65’s ISO 50 (Native ISO for each respective cameras). The dynamic ranges at this ISO is comparable as well. Of course, there is a big difference in the resolution, pixel pitch and other things. I am in no way saying that the pictures from these two cameras are comparable for large sized prints, but for 8×10 sized prints – i am pretty sure our eyes can find no difference between the two.
• NX2 continues to be the best RAW processor for NEF files. LR2 has some pretty strong color casts despite customized color calibration and such. ACR is good for most cases, but requires some degree of tweaking/tinkering to get good skin tones. I am actually surprised by the quality of PerfectRAW though. Seems like a pretty good RAW engine!
• Among other things, I find the Horizon display is an extremely useful tool – thanks to Nikon for making this available in this camera (If you activate this from the menu tool, it activates the graphical compass like display on the back LCD , However, if you assign a function key – it only activates the bar on the top LCD). I found very little differences between the menu options and/or layouts compared to the D300 camera.  All my lenses were spot -on and required no AF tuning. I am yet to test the exposure calibration – but i think it is acceptable as-is. The viewfinder door is nifty, but i may never use it. The shutter sound is different from the D300 – it is somewhat “hollow”, sounds less solid as compared.
• I may need to get a GCS LCD protector or the Invisible shield thingy. Also – the D300 remote shutter cord works as expected.  I am stick with the view screen as-is (no katz eye for now). The D300 Markins arca swiss quick release plate is not a good fit for the D700. I found that the D70s works OK (the included plastic LCD protector prevents a tight fit though).
• I had the camera up and running with all my personalized settings within 1 hour. The menu is identical to D300. I now have customized all controls and saved a copy on the CF as well.
• I was pleasantly surprised with the FOV. Having gotten used to the DX crop for my lenses (full frame old lenses). For example, On the D300 – i knew exactly what part of the building i would get from across the street with a 35mm lens (equivalent to 50mm FOV). On the D700 – it being a full 35mm FOV – the same lens was suddenly a wide angle lens (it covered the full building!). I had identical shots of the Clinton Red mill from across the street with the same lens – and now somehow, i need a different lens to cover the same FOV!
• I may have to get used to the View finder not being 100% – The D300 covered 100%. If one is used to composing images in-camera – this may be a small issue.
• The batter life is exceptional – I went through a whole 8GB card – with probably a drop in just one battery bar. After a while of carrying the camera around – it feels quite heavy. Heavier than the D300 (it is actually heavier).