Until recently, our Nikon DSLRs have used a 12-bit color depth to contain the red, green, and blue (RGB) colors of the subject. Twelve bits allows us to have 4,096 levels of color for each of the three color channels in our image. That means there can be 4,096 levels of red, 4,096 levels of green, and 4,096 levels of blue.

Once you switch the camera to 14-bit mode in NEF (RAW) recording on the Shooting Menu, your D700 will now record four times more data in each color channel, or 16,384 levels for each of the red, green, and blue channels. That will necessarily make the image’s file size increase, since each image has 64 times more color information.

What do you gain from shooting in 14-bit mode? Better images, mainly. You won’t see a tremendous difference in normal images. However, the image can contain finer color gradations, better shadow details, and a wider dynamic range since there is significantly more color data being stored for each channel.

Even if some of today’s software can’t fully take advantage of the additional color levels, maybe improved software in the future will. For my type of shooting, I’d much rather have the 14 bits of data than the 12 bits of data.