Both Nikon D300 and Nikon D700 have 12.0 MP resolution sensors but Nikon D300's sensor is APS-C (23.6 x 15.8 mm ) and Nikon D700's sensor is Full frame (36 x 24 mm ).
Since Nikon D700's has a larger sensor area with the same resolution, this means that it also has a larger pixel area hence better light collecting capacity for a given aperture compared to Nikon D300.
Below you can see the D300 and D700 sensor size comparison.
As seen above, Nikon D700 has a 2.3x Larger sensor area than Nikon D300. Larger sensors give photographer more control on the depth of field and blurry background compared to smaller sensor when shot in same focal length and aperture.
DxOMark Sensor Scores
DxOMark is a benchmark that scientifically assesses image quality of camera sensors. It scores camera sensors for color depth (DXO Portrait), dynamic range (DXO Landscape) and low-light sensitivity (DXO Sports), and also gives them an overall score. Nikon D300 and Nikon D700 sensors have been tested by DxO and the results show that D700 has a better overall score of 80, 13 points higher compared to D300's score of 67.
Model |
Overall |
Color Depth |
Dynamic Range |
Low-light ISO |
Nikon D300 |
67 |
22.1 bits |
12.0 Evs |
679 ISO |
Nikon D700 |
80 |
23.5 bits |
12.2 Evs |
2303 ISO |