Hello! I have gone through some very unscientific testing of the low light high ISO for the Nikon D700 for you. Below you will see a series of shots taken with the Nikkor 50 1.8 D @ f/3.5 in some very low tungsten lighting... a bit of a realistic setup of the kind of low light you will probably find yourself using the D700 in.
These were all un-touched and taken in NEF RAW. Only converted and resized to jpeg.
ISO 1600
ISO 2000
ISO 2500
ISO 3200
ISO 4000
ISO 5000
ISO 6400
ISO 8000
ISO 10K
ISO 12.8K
ISO 25.6K
As you can see I feel that everything up to about 8K is pretty usable with no noise reduction unless its a critical photo.
The following are the same shots with some noise reduction applied in Light Room 3. I only applied Noise Reduction to ISO shots 8000 and higher. Everything up to 6400 I think is perfectly fine with no touching up.
ISO 8000
ISO 10K
ISO 12.8K
ISO 25.6K
As you can see here just about anything printing wise you can do up to 12.8K with some noise reduction. All of these samples could be printed small and/or in newspapers with no issues. Highly impressive results, plus this camera is coming on three years old in design!
