Nikon coolpix b700 (1 Viewer)

Every few years I buy a Nikon to try out, this time instead of an slr its the turn of a B700.

I am impressed by a lot, it is smaller and lighter than I imagined, but is straightforward to hand hold at maximum optical zoom in overcast and focussed faster and more accurately than expected (it is a few years since I last purchased a superzoom).

The evf seems a bit dated, but useable.

For insect and wild flower use the macro seems a bit limited, however, it may be me being unfamiliar with it on this camera.

So far in the winds, overcast and rain, the only birds I have seen have been rear views of the vast number of wrens that seem to have hatched this year and anyone who has managed to photograph a wren diving into a hedge at full pelt has my admiration.

Size and weight are important since my core system is OMD based and the B700 body is very close in size to say an E-M5 II, the P900 is somewhat bigger and heavier so is a bit retrograde for me, though may well help holding the longer lens. Weight depends on the lens fitted of course.

I have high hopes for this camera as it is already performing better than expected, despite only 24hrs of owning it.

It is of course coloured dark red as I now buy all 'fun/non-core system' cameras in some garish colour as it seems to upset a fair number of 'serious' photographers for some reason. This policy did backfire when I got an e-mail from Olympus asking if I wanted to join a group of women photographers after buying a white E-PL8! Happy to oblige but it might damage their all female credibility.

I cannot hold it steady at full digital zoom without support, the plan is that it may be mated with a lightweight monopod on occasion, but other than for any lens testing type use a tripod seems to defeat the point of owning this.
N.B. A full digital zoom shot, indoors, of a small clock face, using flash was again far better than I expected (I perhaps have low expectations from some things tested in the past!), but suggested that it would be useable for identification purposes.

This euphoria may not last another 24hrs or however long it takes the weather to improve for serious testing, but
I am quite encouraged so far. Its wi-fi and video capability are of no interest to me currently.

Glad to see this thread resurected at a good time from my point of view.

J

From what i understand its basically a P610 with raw added,i got on very well with my P610, a link to my P610 album.
I am thinking of getting the B700 so encourage me with your results :t:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7239177@N07/albums/72157654284291275/with/19360827199/

I bought a Nikon B700 last week. I have limited time to get out right now, but I spent an hour at a local wildlife sanctuary yesterday shooting some birds. I am a rank amateur, but I was thrilled with my results. All are hand held. Here is a link to a Flickr album of yesterday's results.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4LojHU

Some great results there. Particularly like the Sparrow.

Rich

MrPerfect said:

I bought a Nikon B700 last week. I have limited time to get out right now, but I spent an hour at a local wildlife sanctuary yesterday shooting some birds. I am a rank amateur, but I was thrilled with my results. All are hand held. Here is a link to a Flickr album of yesterday's results.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4LojHU

Click to expand...

Nice set of images some at full zoom i see,looks like Nikon got it right again.

Started birding in January 2017.

I have had the B700 since July.

Prior to this I was using an Olympus of a similar body style with a 15X zoom and 12 MP chip that we have had for years. Love the Olympus for general tourist and snap shooting. Now I was using it for quick shots to help identify birds. I was also using a Cannon Elph with a 12X zoom and a 16 mp chip. Again, very nice pocket and snap shoot camera but I wanted a longer zoom.

Back in the 80s I had a Cannon AE-1 35 mm with several lenses. So I have been down that path. I knew that I was more interested in the convenience of a superzoom over the flexibility of a DSLR with a bag of lenses.

My wife has trouble walking so we typically drive to a location and do our birding from the parking area. We sit in the car or set chairs near the car and see what we can from there. Surprisingly we see a lot. I logged 107 ebird reports and 72 species this year.

The 60X zoom lets me capture shots of birds at a distance so before they fly away. As an upgrade from the two cameras above it has been great. Zoom in , capture 5-10 shots then use the rear screen and digital zoom to compare the birds to the books or apps. Or look at them on the bigger screen at home.

I am not a serious photographer by any stretch of the imagination. I don't make use of the wide array of control features and I don't edit raw, at least not yet. But, for what I use it for it has been great! And we have captured some impressive shots.


I am quite surprised at how well you can shoot at full zoom, 1440 mm equivalent, holding freehand. Not all of the shots are razon sharp but I am not surprised by that when I am shooting this long. The image stabilization works very well but I can tell you that, from using binoculars, my hold is not rock steady. I am considering getting a monopod. I have 3 tripods but that would be too restrictive.

Overall the light weight and long zoom make this a great camera for my purpose. I do most of my shooting on automatic though I am starting to explore the aperture and shutter priority features and the rapid sequence shooting. I shoot some video but mostly stills.

We went to Cape May NJ for a 4 day birding convention in October. I got hundreds of shots of all kinds of birds that we don't normally see on Long Island, NY. I also captured a number of videos of several minutes long. If the camera had been bigger and heavier it would not have gotten as much use.

I took some photography classes while I was there and it was clear that the "serious" photographers were not using superzoom cameras. I didn't care. The B700 does what I want it to do.

The one thing I got out of those classes was to "shoot away". Expect 90% of the shots to be crap. You are looking for that 10% that have merit and the 2% that may actually be good. This advice was coming from the guy with the $5000 camera body and the $3000 lens who runs tours around the world to photograph birds. This is not like the old days of 24 shots on a roll of film to be developed so you can see the photos a week later. SHOOT!

If you are a serious photographer you may be able to get great results with this camera but I am not the person to report on that. For the advanced snap shooter who does not want to mess with interchangeable lenses or a camera budget in the thousands, this can be a great option.

I got it as part of a package with 2 extra batteries. I have never had to change batteries within a day of shooting. But having a second battery is recommended so that you don't have to worry about it, especially if you might forget to recharge for the next day's shooting.

I also have 2 32 GB cards. Again, I have never even approached filling a card in a day but I can see someone shooting raw or 4K video needing a larger card. Having the second card as a back-up is my goal, just in case. They are cheap so why not?

The camera has wireless connectivity capability that can connect it to my phone to transfer shots immediately to the cloud. I don't use this feature and likely never will.

I am a very happy Nikon B700 customer who is shooting away, enjoying the birds and having a great time. There is so much to see and so much I have missed over the years. The B700 is helping me see so much more than I did before.

Hope someone finds that useful.

Hi,
any new opinions on B700? Especially from those using it for some time? Considering about buying it but still not sure whether the lack of AF-C and relatively slow AF(am I right?) enables to take at least average pictures of birds in flight which is important for me. If not maybe you can suggest me other superzoom cameras with similar price (fast AF, decent zoom, RAWs are not necessary, mainly for documenting rare birds) ?
So far I've been using digiscoping set with Nikon p6000 so I guess abilities of any bridge camera will impress me now.

I have been using mine since July 2017. So far I am very happy with it. I am not an accomplished photographer and I use it mostly for long range photos for bird ID. For that it works quite well.

Others will have to tell you about advanced features.