D600 or D7100 for Wildlife & Motor Sports

Ironheart

The auto focus doesn't freeze after the first shot in AF-C mode, AFAICT.

obajoba

Like Msmoto said, the scenario I was trying to convey was multiple short bursts, but what I found with the D7000 shooting RAW was that it couldn't keep up in many sporting situations. Also, it is exaggerating to say this, but if I wanted to shoot jpeg I wouldn't own a DSLR.

AF-C, on every recent Nikon I have used, is continuous tracking. You need to adjust your refocus delay accordingly, but it tracks the best it can, and when I say AF speed, this is what I am referring to. If I'm taking stills then I'm not typically worried about how fast it initially locks on. The D7000 can't keep up with a football player at 200mm and 5fps, I would get 2-3 keepers out of a 5 shot burst, whereas at 4fps I would typically get 3-4 keepers depending on my shutter speed.

DaveyJ

I have looked over this whole thread and think bland's advice is awfully good. I have shot action stuff with medium and even large format and one thing we are finding is a D7000 video can contain pretty good stills. One of the biggest penalties for speed in shooting in terms of a camera buffer is RAW. I rarely use is as none of our newspaper's or magazines ask for it. But if you aren't close with JPEG fine, large in terms of exposure you are going to regret your faulty camera settings. The camera I have had the best luck with in terms of just putting down the hammer on JPEG is the D300. The D700 was pretty good there as well. The D7100 not having a AA low pass filter is a bridge I will have to cross when i get my camera about the end of March? Right now we rely on the D7000 a lot. We are using the D300 and even a D200 but D90 also cannot be used for serious video so those rigs are out for a lot of stuff we are doing now. I do think Thom Hogan's prediction is that a revised D600 looks very probable sooner than the ordinary refresh.

PB_PM

Lets not turn this into a RAW vs JPG debate, I think we have a thread for that already, but for the sake of the buffer issue I throw a few thoughts out there. I've talked to numerous pro sports shooters and they are mixed on the subject. In good light they do tend to shoot JPEG, unless the light changes a lot from one area to another. In poor light, RAW all the time. Many of the pro sports shooters I talked with don't even worry about it, since they work for large agencies. and don't even edit their own photos. They make a crop or two in Lightroom and email files off to the editors.

For myself, I shoot RAW 90% of the time, I want to get the most out of my files. Frankly I find JPEG files to be flat and boring. They lack the colour and feel that edited RAW files can have. It has nothing to do with messing up the exposure. Why does everyone who advocates for JPEG shooting come back with this same old, lame duck argument, that if you shoot RAW it's because you are a poor photographer and cannot get your exposures right? I guess Joe McNally, Moose Peterson and numerous other pros who shoot RAW are poor photographer who cannot get their exposures right?

bland

All I know is when I have shot fps in motorsports, the only one that comes out is the first one. Whether it's the camera/lens not being able to keep up with fps or it only focuses on the first image, it just doesn't work well. Maybe a D4 or D300s does but not the D7000.

I remember when the D90 came out with that 3D tracking AF mode to resolve this problem, it was worse than the AF-C. I'm sure there are sports venue that the AF-C using fps will work fine depending on the venue. But when I go shooting fast action sports it doesn't work well for me.

As far as the jpeg vs raw deal. Pro Photogs who shoot for the AP normally shoot in jpeg so they can get the shot sent out fast, normally poor quality because good quality isn't needed for a website picture. When the Pro Photogs shoot for the racers themselves, they shoot in raw for quality. Lots of track photographers shoot in jpeg but their efforts are poor and are just trying to make a quick $15 off of the drivers, which normally they don't get because their work is repetitive junk.

SquamishPhoto

Bland, are you using your AF-ON button or your shutter release to activate your AF?

bland

Bland, are you using your AF-ON button or your shutter release to activate your AF?

I use my shutter release. Should I be holding the AF-ON button down?

I just looked at my menu and there's a "Focus Tracking With Lock On" function. It's set on normal 3 (default), I think turning it off completely might help. Does that sound right?

SquamishPhoto

The focus tracking with lock is about the direction that the subject is moving in, but you can find lots more help on that with a little searching. As to the AF-ON button, yes, but you first have to change your AF-C priority selection in the AF menu and set it to "release". Then when you want to focus you depress your AF-ON and then activate your shutter release. If one is shooting a bird in flight or fast action sports one can simply choose a subject and hold down the AF-ON and track the subject in focus continually and only fire a shot when it suits the shooter.

bland

Thanks, Squamish. I got some drag races to shoot tomorrow and I'll try that out.

TriShooter

I would get the D7100 for the reasons that have been well explained by many above with a fast SDXC memory card.

I am totally underwhelmed with the specs of the D7100 with regard to ISO and FPS. I would have gladly traded in the 24MP for 16MP to get these two features. High FPS probably cannot be appreciated completely until it is experienced in a situation that requires it; but once you have it is addictive.

Playing with my little V1s has given me a whole new perspective on how fantastic it is to have a high frame rate when shooting a moving target. The V1 is sufficiently fast for me to correct the position of a bif in the frame while shooting when the bird turns in flight, and it allows me track the bird longer. I will wait for Nikon to come up with a significant improvement over the D300 and the D7000 before buying again, and keep playing with my V1s which are fun, when the subjects do not require a high ISO, or remote flashes.

I would not hesitate to buy the D7100 if I did not already have the D7000, and was unaware of all the quality issues Nikon has recently. I've used NIkon since Mamiya stopped making 35mm cameras so obviously like them but feeling a little gun shy at the moment, and somewhat disappointed in their support of the APS-C format.

MikeFrewer

Well this is going to be a learning curve for me. I'm used to my D40 with its massive 2.5 fps, and it will be a lot more comfortable in my hands than the "smallest dslr ever"

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Product-Archive/Digital-SLR-Cameras/25420/D40.html

Any further advice on memory cards (make and size) would be good. I've read a lot on here that you should use high speed cards with about 8gb of memory so you don't loose many pictures if they go wrong. But I've also seen that some photographers use 64gb cards. So I'm now a little confused. ( maybe they use large cards for the D800 because the files are huge ?). The most popular sd cards seem to be Sandisk and Lexar, but I don't know which is a fast card and which is not.
Sorry if I have mentioned something that has been asked before. I'm still concerned about my 6 year old that split her head open last night and we had to wait 4 1/2 hours in A&E to be seen. She's ok at the moment with her third eye, but I'm still a little concerned.

Alfonso

Just get a Nikon V2 and have 60 fps

heartyfisher

Well this is going to be a learning curve for me. I'm used to my D40 with its massive 2.5 fps, and it will be a lot more comfortable in my hands than the "smallest dslr ever"

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Product-Archive/Digital-SLR-Cameras/25420/D40.html

Any further advice on memory cards (make and size) would be good. I've read a lot on here that you should use high speed cards with about 8gb of memory so you don't loose many pictures if they go wrong. But I've also seen that some photographers use 64gb cards. So I'm now a little confused. ( maybe they use large cards for the D800 because the files are huge ?). The most popular sd cards seem to be Sandisk and Lexar, but I don't know which is a fast card and which is not.
Sorry if I have mentioned something that has been asked before. I'm still concerned about my 6 year old that split her head open last night and we had to wait 4 1/2 hours in A&E to be seen. She's ok at the moment with her third eye, but I'm still a little concerned.

LOL I got one of those at about the same age !.. had 2 stitches now I have a "Z" on my forehead!

Msmoto

Focus tracking..D90, the third or fourth in the sequence...



AF VR Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED at f/8, 80mm....worked with this combo

spraynpray

Great shot Tommie - you can see bits of engine bouncing along the track. That old 80-400 worked just fine.

obajoba

@bland - I described, and squamish went the extra mile, for the settings on the D7000. You need to set the Focus Tracking with Lock On to 'Short' (1?) or Off as well. Otherwise the D7000 won't keep up. My experience was that setting works great when the subject is not really changing distance from you (dance recital, gymanstics, etc.) but for motorsports, football, etc. you need this off or at 'Short' at the very most.

To those points, this is exactly why I bought the D4 and made my original suggestions. I think we beat this horse pretty well in my thread back in mid January, the D600 was not the camera for sports, nor was the D800. D300s, D3s, D4 are the three best choices for sports. However, if you set up a D7100, D7000, D600 correctly I believe that you will do just fine. In the end, don't push the AF system (set it conservatively), minimize your bursts, and you can happily get 2-3fps from any of those cameras.

bland

@obajoba ...... thanks! I'll do that next time I shoot a race. I was going to today but something has come up.

@Tommie .... great shot and proved it'll stay focused shooting fps. Guess I need to find some crow to eat for lunch! ">

Msmoto

@ bland

Well, the only problem is the buffer fills, then one has to wait a second for it to continue. But, the old stuff really does a great job, I actually do remember that on some series of shots it would sometimes just miss entirely. I figured out this was when I pushed the release fully and did not give a second for the lens to focus. It seems to work best if one follows the object, pushes half way down for a half second, then all the way.

But, even the D4 and 400mm f/2.8 will sometimes miss..rarely though.

obajoba

I highly recommend reassigning the AF button and, though I never tried it on my D7000, I wish I had. I'm sure that the D7000 is a much better camera than I made it out to be and that is simply because I was justifying the purchase of a D4 I mean, I've been to hell and back in life and I wanted to spoil myself. Ideally, one would rent or borrow both bodies and shoot them in typical situations to see which felt like the one to purchase. $1200 is a lot of money, $2k is even more, and you don't want to spend that on something that will frustrate you in the long run.

The short of it all, if you can spring for it, I think a D600 is a better option than the D7100 because you can set it up to do just fine for most anything. The D7100, I think, will leave you longing for an FX body as soon as you shoot at ISO3200 in poorly lighted conditions. To me, that's where a D300s (D400 some day?) fills the gap. Speed and buffer are huge but you can work around them unless you're in this for the money. Poor high ISO capability combined with lackluster AF and a shallow buffer forced my upgrade. Though I will admit that testing out the D600 left me feeling as though the AF was less than responsive.

PB_PM

The problem I have with resigning the AF-L/AE-L button is (and I tried this when testing a D7000, to see if it would replace my D300 for sports work), it's poorly positioned for that purpose. The AF-ON button on pro bodies is right beside the rear command dial. On the D7000 (D7100/D600) it is much closer the viewfinder, kind of a stretch to reach. Makes manual shooting a bit of a pain.

Sato

AF-on on the AF/AE Lock button doesn't work for me either, But on the DoF Preview button it's workable on the D600.
Tough I still don't see the need to use it, I'll read some more about it and give it another go in a suitable situation.

kyoshinikon

I am too broke to get a better body so I currently have a D7000 as my primary still even though I have all FX lenses except my fisheye. It is by no means a bad camera but you will want to eventually upgrade as the one huge weakness in the D7000 is the buffer. The Af is pretty good but your opinion of it will drop when you try the pro AF. I use sandisk xtreme cards exclusively too. The lens does matter as much as the body tho. When I used to use the 18-70mm it was much slower then my 2.8's and I eventually wore out the gearing in it as it barely autofocuses now.

Gitzo

If I was in your shoes wanting to do what you want to do, I wouldn't buy either one of those two cameras;
I would either wait for the D 400 to get here, or I would look around for a great deal on a D 300s; (and believe me, there are some GREAT ones out there! )

adamz

@kyoshinikon - I know it's been up but what card You using with Your d7000? regular extreme or extreme pro? if You use the regular ones get a shot on the pro version - the difference is very visible

MikeFrewer

@Gitzo The reason that I would like to purchase a camera now rather than wait is because I have booked tickets for the 90th Le Mans this year. At the moment I have no camera, and the possibility of the D400 appearing before the event is very narrow to non existant. I know that the D300S is a very good camera, but I'm not sure about buying old technology when there is a new camera due to be released soon. My future plans if and when the D400 is released, would be to give the D7100 to either my son or wife (he has a D3000 at present and she has recently shown an interest in photography).