Looking To Purchase A Second Body

newfoundlander61

I am currently shooting with a Nikon D50 and the the older 80-400vr lense for bird photograph mostly. My plan is to get a 2nd body and use the same lense with faster FPS and aprox double the pixels from 5 to around 10 or so for prints . Regardless of price what would be the best upgrade to get and still use the older 80-400vr lense. An auto focus motor in the body would be preferred and similar colous/results as the D50. A little better lower light capabilities would also be preferred. Thanks for any input, will keep the D50 to shoot with the 5mm F1.8 for the odd non zoom shots.

Update: DX Body.

Ironheart

The D90, D300s, or the D7000/7100 in that order depending on budget which you didn't specify.

newfoundlander61

No budget.

Ironheart

Then a D4 is your best choice :-) Until the mythical D400 arrives, the D300s is the fastest DX fps shooter

spraynpray

No budget or no limit? If no budget then D7100 which has 24MP but less good buffer and AF than the D300s. Your similar colours question sounds like a whole new can o' worms. There is a thread here that discusses some issues with colour going from an old body to a new one, and it concerns the raw/jpeg question as well because you don't say which one you shoot:

http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/1422/upgraded-i-think-from-the-d40-to-the-d7000#Item_29

newfoundlander61

I shoot JPEG as I didn't see any difference overall with RAW on my D50. Of course I am open to try shooting RAW with the new body. When I mentioned the same colours as my D50, its hard to beat the colours on it they generally look great.

Golf007sd

@newfoundlander61: Welcome, there are number of topic on our forum started by other where by they too were in the same position as you. Please have a look at them and see if some of out inputs can guide you.

Going from a D50 to the newer lines of Nikon DSLR is going to change your photography world. Given your budget (which I like), would you like to stay in DX or move over to FX?

Golf007sd

@PitchBlack: I agree with you...the 1.5x factor is a very nice bonus with DX bodies. The D7100 is one to consider for sure. But the crop factor of some FX sure come in to play as well. :P

As you and I both know very well, both DX & FX have their pro's & con's. It was simply a question for the OP to see which sensor he or she was thinking to go with...so that we could give our input vs going back and for. Just, trying to shorten the body option to consider.

Lastly, I do not recall seeing an images from a D50 lately to fully understand what the OP is asking us to consider...i.e "similar color/results as the D50." If you recall this topic, where Genopher was upgrading from a D40 and presented us with the same request. That is to say, color & JPG results.

These other discussion might shed some light on your path.

Topic 1
Topic 2
Topic 3
Topic 4
Topic 5

donaldejose

I think you have basically two choices (in a few months you may have 3 if the D400 comes out so wait a bit) a D7100 (DX like the D50) or a D800 (FX - you will like it more than you realize now, especially with the 50mm 1.8 lens in low light). Why the FX D800? Because you can crop extensively and still maintain a 10 mp size for printing. Think of it this way, if you could crop put about half of an image shot with your current D50 and still have 10 mp would you like to be able to do that? You can with a D800. Yes, the D7100 gives you a 1.5 crop factor but the D800's 36 mp can give you the same thing by cropping the image taken and it also gives you the benefits of an FX sensor for when you want to shoot in low light or normal to wide angle. As to colors, the newer generation of Nikon bodies has Picture Controls which allows you to adjust the colors so you should be able to duplicate the colors you like with any of the newer Nikon bodies. I think Picture Controls started back with the D90 body if I remember correctly.

newfoundlander61

My plan was to stay with DX, mind you I just looked up the 89-400vr I currently have and the specs indicate it will work on either Dx or FX bodies. I have looked at images from the D7000 line and the colours seem over done, too bright and not natural looking. May be the shooters settings.

PB_PM

My plan was to stay with DX, mind you I just looked up the 89-400vr I currently have and the specs indicate it will work on either Dx or FX bodies. I have looked at images from the D7000 line and the colours seem over done, too bright and not natural looking. May be the shooters settings.

The colour from the newer cameras will look different. That happened when Nikon changed two things, picture controls and sensor types. The colour from the D50 was very nice right out of the camera, but with some tweaking you can achieve the same thing with the newer bodies.

donaldejose

Yes, the D7100 will be an enormous upgrade to a person using a D50. And also less than half the price of a D800 it is by far the best bang for the buck. Once either are tried he won't want to shoot anything with the D50 anymore other than something which won't be printed larger than 4x6 inches or will be displayed only on a cellphone.
I have been to newfoundland. It has lots of open treeless areas, grand scenics where the 36mp in a D800 would shine. That is why I mentioned it as an alternative choice. But if you are just interested in photographing birds a DX sensor such as the one in the D7100 is the best Nikon has to offer at this time.

Photobug

Right now recommend the D7100. When the new D4x is introduced you are going to have to decide if a new or factory refurbished D4 would be better than the D7100 body.

Lots of good suggestions, but some direction on FX or DX would help.

newfoundlander61

Great input, next step is to go to the store and try some out. Here is an example of how my D50 shoots with my current lense in P mode. Sometimes a manual adj of exposure is needed.

donaldejose

Note: fps. I just looked them up. Your D50 is 2.5 fps. The D7100 is 6 fps but in the D7100 1.3x crop mode the fps increases to 7fps and you still have 15 mp which is more than twice the 6 mp of the D50. A D7100 should meet all your needs and wants and actually exceed them.

tcole1983

I would think both the D7000 and D7100 would be great upgrades. If cost is a factor a refurbished D7000 is fairly cheap now. If cost isn't a factor then I say shoot for the D7100.

heartyfisher

@newfoundlander61 Nice picture! As I mention in the other thread - "upgraded-i-think-from-the-d40-to-the-d7000", the colors will seem a bit weird, going from the CCD to the CMOS sensors. The D7100 colors are a bit better than the previous models.

As mentioned by others, going raw will help a lot .. I recommend the software "RawTherepee" it does get rid of that Glowing Florescent look( That nobody seems to notice but us old CCD users do) however the Nikon ViewNX software is better at removing the purple fringing you sometimes get with high contrast shots like sparkling sunlight on water.

The camera you want is the D400 but it does not exist.. so the suggestion of the D7100 is the best I think. But consider this. When the D300S was introduced many were very impressed with the performance boost it gave to the 80-400VR that you have. Because of the high powered focus motor and better focus capability of the D300 the 80-400 performed like a new lens! fast enough for some Bird in flight shots. I don't know if the D7100 has that capability but i would think that it would be better than the D50 by a lot. I guess what I am saying is you may want to consider waiting for the D400( I have given up on that myself ;-) ) because of your lense.

PS: In terms of Screwdriver Focus speeds, I found some comments on the web to say that the D7100 is a bit better than the D90 but not as good as the D200 and i know that the D300S is better than the D200.
The other choice is to go with the D800 which has the high powered motor and excellent focus system. In DX mode its FPS is double the D50.

newfoundlander61

Thanks heartyfisher for the excellent and detailed feedback, very much appreciated. I may be able to find a D300S. The reason I had thought about staying in DX land is that to shoot with a FX body you needed to use very high end expensive lenses IE: F4 or F2.8 types to get the best out of the FX body.

proudgeek

Not necessarily. I think you'll find your 80-400 would produce some pretty nice images with a D600 or D800 (or even a used D700)

donaldejose

No, you don't need f4 or f2.8 lenses to get the best out of FX, people just usually want the fast optics to produce bokeh for portraits or to shoot in low light. Since you are shooting birds outdoors in good light you can stay at f5.6 and f8 where even the less expensive lenses are generally quite sharp. Also, the D800 with your current lens will be "knock your socks off" sharp compared to your current D50 when you start to enlarge your picture looking for details. A D800 image usually contains more detail than you can see displayed on your computer monitor when it is displaying the entire image. Perhaps you could take your lens and two SD cards into a camera store and try a few shots of the same distant subject with both a D7100 and a D800. That way you can directly compare focus speed and image quality. Just be sure the picture controls of both bodies are set to the same setting: try the standard, vivid and landscape settings. Then you can also compare colors from both bodies. Or if someone lives near you and has both bodies as to borrow them for a few test shots.

heartyfisher

Thanks heartyfisher for the excellent and detailed feedback, very much appreciated. I may be able to find a D300S. The reason I had thought about staying in DX land is that to shoot with a FX body you needed to use very high end expensive lenses IE: F4 or F2.8 types to get the best out of the FX body.

Not really.. in fact its the opposite.. FX is actually more forgiving of lens sharpness. This is bec the pixels are larger with FX sensors compared to DX sensors. ie a lens will look sharper on FX compared to DX due to the higher pixel density of DX. Put another way, any lens weaknesses will be magnified by the DX sensor.

newfoundlander61

I appreciate yor knowledge. Well that means I'll try a FX body as well.

haroldp

If budget is not an issue, the D800 gives you a 36mp FX camera and a 15.7 mp DX camera in one body thereby avoiding decision anxiety.

I set my function button to switch FX /DX modes quickly.

Shooting 36mp FX and rtesizing to 12mp in post gives very clean ISO 6400 as well.

With the exception of D4 speeds, the D800 is a superset of all other Nikon bodies.

Regards ... H