Too Many Choices

snorbo

With the new cameras popping up makes a new body a tougher choice. I have not owned a Nikon body for a couple years now. That being said I have been shooting Sony. I was looking to get back into a Nikon body with the release of the D750. But decided to wait for a bit. My shooting style seems to be outdoor sports and indoor concerts lately. I was also looking real hard at the Sony A7ii that was released this year. I dont need an FX vs DX debate. This new D500 might be what im looking for. Thoughts?

heartyfisher

I would normally advice a canon user to stay with canon and the same goes with a sony user.. I use Nikon and Fujifilm and will stay with them. once the System is decided the choices are between models and features .. and YOUR REQUIREMENTS ...

Mine Requirements seem to point to the D500.. I have been waiting for the last 8 years afterall LOL !!

So what are your requirements ? what subjects do you shoot what lighting equipment and environment do you use? etc ...

snorbo

Im pretty much a novice shooter but....my subjects require a good body/lenses...sports(motocross/baseball/indoor court) and poor light conditions for concerts. I'm not heavily invested in lenses for my current Sony and if i did go with another Sony it would mean a lens change anyway.

NSXTypeR

I think we should start off with a budget from you, as we can't help you without money.

Indoor sports photography is tough- you have bad lighting conditions and you probably need faster lenses. I think FX would be the way to go with that, but you're going to need a big budget. I would say easily $5,000, as you probably may want to go with a 70-200, at least the F4 version if not the 2.8 one. You could skimp on the body and get a D610, but that's still around $4,000.

snorbo

budget would be around 2500 for a body....I can add a couple of cheaper primes after. I was just wondering if the D500 would be better then the D750 for my uses.

heartyfisher

I am thinking you have made up your mind :-)

I would take a deep breath and rethink :-) A nice bottle of Port may also help :-) You may come to the same conclusion as you have now but you can be more confident that it was not an "Impulse buy" :-)

Sports

Both bodies will do both jobs nicely, I'm sure. The D500 will definitely be better for sports, while the D750 is most likely superior for those indoor concerts. So which of the two areas are you most passionate about?
In Europe, the D500 initial price is much higher than that of the D750, and if you'll be using both memory card slots, the D500 will force you to buy at least one expensive XQD card.

spraynpray

I would have said D500 to gain focal length but with the new 200-500 lens for indoor sports and the great hi ISO of the D750, the choice is less clear. The huge buffer on the D500 I think swings it back towards the DX, but I would wait until I could do some low light comparison shots before deciding if I were you.

If you just have to do something soon, I doubt you will be disappointed with either though.

snorbo

Im thinking better low light but i want to see how this new sensor on the D500 is in low light before i commit

heartyfisher

Im thinking better low light but i want to see how this new sensor on the D500 is in low light before i commit

Low light performance is only one factor in choosing a camera. if you look at DXO sensor ratings .. almost all the FX sensors have a significant advantage over DX sensors. The conventional thought is one EV advantage. and that is the case with sensors of the same generation. However, because Dx technology cycles at a faster rate in effect you get about half to 2/3 EV advantage. in the past this FX advantage was significant eg range of 200-800 ISO vs 200-1600 iso. these days its much less significant. eg with the D500 vs D5 we a range of 100-51200(1,600,000) vs 100-104000(3,200,000)
or the previous generation 100-25600(d7200) vs 64-51200(D810). The next D5xxx and D7xxx range DSLR will probably equal the D500 high ISO and have 28MP.

if High ISO is really really important then FX is the way to go .. but I think its really only a really minor consideration when choosing a camera.

snorbo

hmmm, good points but i think that makes it worse. I then have to ask myself then why not the D7200 or the Sony a77ii (just cause i have some lenses) if dx is good enough. The sony's have some great features.

snorbo

The biggest complaint with my a77 is the low light performance.

Ironheart

You're okay with battery life and AF capability on the alpha?

safyre

Snorbo,

If Low Light performance is your main priority, go with Full Frame and never look back. I used to own a D90 (which has a similar ISO performance to an A77) and that camera was useless past ISO800. A year ago, I switched to a full frame D700 and noticed an almost 2 Stop improvement, the ISO3200 of the D700 looked just as good as the ISO800 of the D90.

Now, half a year ago, I bought a D750 also, and that is almost a one stop improvement over the D700. I'm gonna go as far as to say, ISO6400 on the D750 will look as good if not better than ISO800 on your A77.

While Nikon DX has improved over the past 7-8 years, it has only improved about a half a stop from the D90 to the D7200. The D750 is still about 2 stops better at high ISO in real world use than the D7200. Very significant indeed.

I seriously doubt the D500 will be that much better at high ISO than the D7200; 1/3rd of a stop improvement would already be an accomplishment. How am I sure? Like I said look at the history, DX iso improvement has only improved by half a stop over the past 3 generations. It's not gonna make a huge jump in this upcoming one.

The FX advantage is real and worth the money if you need it. I definitely don't regret spending the extra money to go to FX and in fact I regret not making the jump earlier.

Pistnbroke

D500 not enough pixels

Ironheart

Snorbo,
While Nikon DX has improved over the past 7-8 years, it has only improved about a half a stop from the D90 to the D7200. The D750 is still about 2 stops better at high ISO in real world use than the D7200. Very significant indeed.

I seriously doubt the D500 will be that much better at high ISO than the D7200; 1/3rd of a stop improvement would already be an accomplishment. How am I sure? Like I said look at the history, DX iso improvement has only improved by half a stop over the past 3 generations. It's not gonna make a huge jump in this upcoming one.

Can you quote your sources here? For example, DxO shows a 1 stop difference between the D750 and the D7200, and if the D500 is a stop better than the D7200 (not out of the realm of possibility) then it would be on-par with the D750.

Also comparing ISO noise without looking at resolution or MP is not realistic either. The D90 is half the resolution of the D7200. If you normalized the resolution to 12MP, the D7200 would have a clear real-world advantage.

Pistnbroke

You quote using primes ..for stage work really ??? 1 person on stage to 25 and you don't need a zoom ???? ..Huge crops from 20 MP ?

heartyfisher

The biggest complaint with my a77 is the low light performance.

My apologies for not appreciating where you were coming from.. I guess I am a bit spoilt by the great sensors from Nikon DX. Just looked up the a77ii and I can understand your reluctance to go to it as an option (and keep your lenses)

To me Any current DSLR will give better HI ISO performance compared to the A77ii its just the nature of the beast. However, like I said High ISO is not the main or best criteria to judge a camera. At normal ISO its a great camera and has the 12fps which may be useful for sports.

It sounds to me that sports photography is your main interest. The D5 was made for sports photography. the D500 inherits that DNA from the D5 in terms of the AF and lower MP high FPS. I think for you the D500 will be a Mega huge jump in all areas of photography for your interest in "sports" photography. I envy and emphatise with your "OMG!" when you get your hands on one :-) !! Tell us about it when you get one and I will celebrate it with a glass of port !

Sports

My brother has an old Sony A-mount A33, and we looked at the A77ii as an upgrade, but at the end of the day, he bought a lens instead. (In his shoes, I would have bought the body!)
The A77ii is a good general purpose package and a pretty good sports camera with pretty good AF for outdoor sports - better than all their new E-mount bodies. But it's no king of low light, even though it's much better than "old" DX bodies like D300 or D90.
To me, it sounds like you'll like an FX like the D750 more. Or a D7200 for its price.

spraynpray

@safyre: "While Nikon DX has improved over the past 7-8 years, it has only improved about a half a stop from the D90 to the D7200. The D750 is still about 2 stops better at high ISO in real world use than the D7200. Very significant indeed."

That is not my experience of owning most of those bodies. One of my main genres is night photography so low light performance is very important to me and something I watch closely. The D90 was a good all round body in good light but an absolute dinosaur past ISO 800. The D7000 was better by a stop but the D7100 blew that into the weeds by 2 stops. I have not had a D7200, but I understand that Nikons magic sauce firmware and expeed 4 improved that sensor a bit more again. My D750 is fully one stop better than my D7100 in my experience. I am comparing the amount and quality of noise in those real-world figures above.

Having said that, there is low light and low light. If you're shooting in dim theatres and need to stop movement without flash, that's tricky. Photographing nightscapes on moonless and near moonless nights is also tricky. More light than either of those two scenarios is currently fairly easy.

@Pistnbroke: It isn't so long since we had a 16Mp DX sensor which was said to be 'enough' at the time but now 20Mp isn't? We don't know what the OP is doing with the images so how can we say that? 24Mp isn't a lot more than 20...

Pistnbroke

You must ask why Nikon made it 20 MP ..for pro press photographers who don't need great detail for mag images ,need fast processing ,high FPS etc but I just point out to the OP is 20 enough FOR HIM if he needs to crop ? I personally would not want to go backwards from 24, We are not sure what lens he proposes to use other than "prime" In my old film days at plays it was a 50mm on one body and 135 on the other and iso 3200 film but I could stand anywhere I wanted in the auditorium . Best go for a D810 ..$2000 grey market, best MP count and best sensitivity. or wait for whatever is on its way.

Msmoto

How I go about making camera decisions is to first list my priorities....e.g., subject, shooting conditions, and of course, budget. The other aspect of decision making involves looking carefully at my own limitations and personal preferences in a piece of equipment.

Once I have written down the above, and I try to be fairly detailed about this, I look at a piece of equipment and assess whether it will meet my needs.