Nikon D700 and the 70-200 f2.8 VR- At the Haliburton Wolf Centre

All images here were taken at ISO6400 through one-way glass in a controlled environment.

Sunday rolled around and I was just itching to see what this camera could do. Remnants of Hurricane Ike had been hitting us with dark, overcast days and rain showers so it made for an ideal low-light situation. I decided for a trial-by-fire and went up to the Haliburton Wolf Centre, located near West Guilford, Ontario. The location only provided one enclosure to view the wolves from and most of the viewing area was encompassed by moderate canopy cover.

My relevant gear:

- Induro 3 series tripod
- Acrotech GV2 ballhead with quick release plate
- Nikon D700 (with D80 backup)
- 70-200mm 2.8 VR Nikkor

The Camera
I was lucky and the western timberwolves were out near the enclosure. Due to the light available, I needed to up the speed to ISO6400 and shot at wide-0pen most of the time. The images are OUTSTANDING and very comparable to ISO 800 on my D80, the only difference being the colour is much richer out of the Nikon EXPEED chip (good article here by LetsGoDigital). The grain visible can easily be workable in a noise-reduction program such as Noise Ninja. This wasn't what impressed me the most though.

The AF on this baby is jaw-dropping. Nikon's scene recognition system quickly focused on individual moving wolves and it was able to keep tracking through dense foliage. It was easy to keep a focus lock by depressing the available AE-L/AF-L button whenever needed.

The menus were very similar to the D300, though I did find them annoying. I guess when there are so many options available, you're going to need room to put them all. It will take a while to really understand where all the menus are. One thing is for sure though, read the manual thoroughly as some of the most important settings are only available through the custom menus.

The Lens
There's really not much new to write about with this lens as most everything has been examined by others more qualified than me. I will say though, that this lens lives up to all the hype. It produces sharp images that are rich in colour at f2.8 and also creates terrific out-of-focus backgrounds. The VR is a godsend as it will afford you 1-2 stops better than the 80-200 f2.8. One thing that was glaringly apparent was the need for a teleconverter as the 200mm on a FX sensor really lacked the reach that the 200mm would have had on a DX sensor. For my money though, image quality is more important, and the D700 gives you that.