D600 or D7100 for Wildlife & Motor Sports

Msmoto

@ MikeFrewer

What lenses do you have for LeMans? This determines the camera body to some extent. I have shot thousands of motorsports with the D90 and 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6, the early version. (Nikon's first VR lens)

If you had any long lenses, and an old D90, or even try and get a good used one for about $400..or a refurb D90 for about $450, this would be fine, Then, when the D400 comes along, you will not lose too much when you sell the D90. Or, D300, etc.

If you are into night shots..an f/2.8, struggling at from 1/30 to 1/125 sec may be the situation. Panning makes some really nice images, however.

obajoba

@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.

Mike - let's review the questions I think you really need to ask yourself (and no need to answer these in the thread), especially considering how expensive a hobby photography can be (all of this is based on my mediocre knowledge):

1) What is your total budget in the short-term (<6 months) for body and glass? Remember that glass is much more of a long term investment than the body. Bodies come and go, good glass can last for decades. You say you will eventually get the holy trinity set, but think about the timeframe for this.
2) If you're leaning toward making this camera a "hand-me-down", what's the downside to older technology? In truth, many magazine photos have been shot with the D300s and very few have ever claimed the quality to be subpar for those. Also see #6.
3) Continuing from #2, what is your final medium? Web photos? 8x10 prints? Large prints? The D300s, D7000, and D7100 will give you acceptable prints at 16x24 up to ISO1600 with no problems, the D600 can probably handle 24x36 prints at ISO1600. All of the above should give excellent quality web or digital photos at 2560x1600.
4) How much time do you want to spend editing, filtering, processing photos? The downside to using bursts is that you end up with hundreds, and oft times thousands, of photos for a single event. It can be rather painstaking to pare these down to an acceptable number of photos to work with as your "good photos." I've shot my son's football games (competitive league 7th graders) and come home with 900 images, and I've shot wake surfing for an afternoon and come home with 500+ images. It takes a few hours to whittle these down the "keepers" in LR. Not to mention, at 30MB+/ea from a D7000 this begins to eat up disk space at an alarming rate, imagine the D7100 or D600 required disk space.
5) How concerned are you truly with the AF system? And, what is your desired keeper rate? Will you be happy if 3 shots of a 6 shot burst are keepers, and not be upset if you get the shot immediately before, or immediately after: a wreck, Audi and Toyota cross the finish line 1 and 2, or just as someone catches the ball rather than as the ball hits their glove? I think all of the mentioned options will provide you with a great number of fantastic shots that you will keep, share, etc. for many years to come, but a D300s is going to give you more keepers than all of the others, the D7100 more than a D7000 or a D600, however the quality of photos from a D7100 will trump all but the D600 for larger prints and higher ISO (possibly the D300s can compete in higher ISO ranges).
6) The D400 is expected, I think we can all agree on that, and it probably won't be much beyond August at the latest if I had to guess. So, back to budget, are you sure you're ok with compromising glass investment to bequeath a $1200 body to your wife or son? Your other option is to use whatever you purchase now as a second body after you buy a D400, even though your wife or son uses it as a primary body.

In the end you have a tough choice to make. Maybe make a chart with pro's and cons, price for each, and decide how to move forward. Le Mans isn't until late June, but you need to get whatever you are going to get so that you can shoot a few thousand frames and really know the body, make changing settings a second nature reaction/response, and have some initial processing settings ready to go.

I think my choice would be D7000 or D300s since both can be had (used) for less than a D7100, and the D400 would ultimately be preferable to a D600 for motorsports IMHO. That puts your total out of pocket in the long run <$3k for bodies and gives you more money for that holy trinity set.

MikeFrewer

Ok, reality check time.


My current camera is a D40 with a 35mm 1.8. The original kit lens broke when I fell over at last years WRC in France. The D40 is past its sell by date (the focus screen is scratched and it needs a very good clean inside). So I thought that it was time to purchase some new kit. I know quite a bit about photography, but I will never confess to knowing everything that I should by now.
I have read and understood that money is best spent on glass, hence the reason for wanting the holy trinity. Starting with the 70-200. The others will come along when and if I need them.

@ Msmoto
The lens that I buy now, I would like to be able to use on a D400. I have never looked at third party lenses. After reading the thread about it, I was thinking of buying the Sigma 150-500. Or are there any Nikon lenses that you would suggest ?

@ obajoba
To answer my questions that I should of asked myself a while ago.
1/ I suppose my total budget for the short term would be about £2,000.
2/ I'd rather the camera not be a "hand me down". I'd rather it be the second body to my D400.
3/ final medium would mainly be web photos with the ocasional print of 8" x 10".
4/ i definately need to learn more about either LR or PS. To begin with I suppose it would be a learning curve, so I would spend quite a bit of time doing PP.
5/ AF has to be quick and precise. I would not be happy missing "The Shot" that I have waited all weekend for.
6/ hopefully the D400 will be everything that I need. And for a lot of other people as well.

Exactly the reason that I cannot leave it much longer to purchase a camera. As you say. I need to be out there taking pictures and getting used to whatever I buy.

So if I were to buy a second hand D300S for about £500, that would leave me £1,500 for a lens. Would the 70-200 f/2.8 be sufficient for motorsport, or would I need more reach than the 200mm. There is no way I can afford a 400mm Nikon lens which is why I was thinking of the Sigma.

In summing up then. The camera is nearly decided upon. I just need some advice on lenses.

Thanks for all the help.....Mike

PB_PM

If you are looking for a second body to a possible D400, I think the D7100 would be a good choice.

adamz

get 70-200/4 and a TC1.4, You will end up with 420/f5.6 with much higher IQ than from sigma. add to this a used d300s/d7000 and You should be fine with Your budget. You can also get 300/4 af-s instead of the zoom.

sevencrossing

with 51 focus points The D7100 should have quick and precise AF
You could buy D7100 + the 18-105mm VR Lens Kit +the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR
for under £2,000

The D7100 should be much better than a D300s at high ISOs, allowing you to crop, if your subject is not filling the frame
and with the •1.3x crop function, (up to 7 fps)

I would forget the sigma 150 -500

Beware of dreaming about the D400
It might never happen
and even if it does, it might not match you requirement or be out of your price range
at the moment, IMHO, the D7100 is the best Dx Nikon has to offer

Msmoto

@ MikeFrewer

I think Adam said it well. The 70-200mm f/4 and TC1.4 gives you 280mm or on DX 420mm equivalent. Anything longer is a real chore to shoot cars, unless you are on a monopod or tripod. When shooting at LeMans, find a place where the cars are fairly well lighted, begin your following before they enter the lighted area and once in the light, shoot a burst of three or four frames. At 1/125 sec you should get close to half of the shots as very sharp, at 1/250 about 80%.

And have fun...

bland

What Adam said!

JJ_SO

There was one comment saying D7100 is using D300s technique. I don't find that in specs. It has the very same AF module which already is working well in D800.

As for buffer capacity: JPG fine allows 33 pics - should be enough, if the light conditions don't force to NEF 14 bit (and 12 bit allows a bit more buffering).

On March 16th is some kind of delivery date for Sigma 120-300/2.8 S - steep price, but might be worth to be considerd. I just got it wrong with 70-200 and 1.4 converter, thought at first glance it was 2.8 "> but the OP was thinking about the holy trinity 2.8, so my mistake might be understandable. With 70-200/2.8 + converter your not far away from 120-300.

adamz

Nikon D7100 - Multi-CAM 3500DX
Nikon D800 - Multi-CAM 3500FX
Nikon D300s - Multi-CAM 3500DX
from: nikonusa.com
hmm... for me it means that Nikon D7100 and D300s are the same, and if Your read the news correctly Nikon states that the algorithm in AF is the same as in D4/D800 - basically Nikon now supports AF up to f8

adamz

for DX, You don't need the v2 on 70-200/2.8, the old version will work like a charm not to mention size and quality control on sigma. when You get good sample it's spot on, when You don't get a good sample You have to play a little bit with sigma to get it fixed and the size of 120-300/2.8 is far bigger too = sturdier tripod, better handling technique, larger bag for transportation.

donaldejose

The size of the AF area can be a factor. I keep finding my D6000 AF area too small too often. The D7100 looks to have a larger part of the screen covered by AF points, especially at the 1.3 crop setting. If you are using AF and your subject strays out of the narrow AF area in the D600 it won't matter that your unfocused shot was recorded on an FX sensor rather than on a DX sensor because it still is out of focus. Better to have a focused image on a DX sensor than an unfocused image on an FX sensor.

JJ_SO

Nikon D7100 - Multi-CAM 3500DX
Nikon D800 - Multi-CAM 3500FX
Nikon D300s - Multi-CAM 3500DX
from: nikonusa.com
hmm... for me it means that Nikon D7100 and D300s are the same, and if Your read the news correctly Nikon states that the algorithm in AF is the same as in D4/D800 - basically Nikon now supports AF up to f8

You're right. Nikon Switzerland mentions for D 300 S as well the 3500FX as 3500DX (last should be correct, it's in the specs, first is in "highlights". My bad, I didn't notice the difference DX and FX.

Sigma? We talk again about the new 120-300, once they released it. If they improved quality control as they did on the 35, there should be only the problem of availability of this expensive glass.

obajoba

Just looked through the Nikon France D7100 sample images (link on the NR blog front page), the noise control at ISO1600 is actually quite impressive given the 24MP, leaps and bounds above the D7000 at 16MP. I would like to see ISO3200 though... At any rate, with that in mind, the D7100 looks a little more attractive than I previously thought.

VR 70-200/2.8 is a killer DX lens for the $$$. I'll sell you mine which is barely used if you'd like

adamz

@donaldejose - that's a normal situation, as the distance between AF point in DX and FX is almost the same, but... on FX You have much bigger sensor and therefore a lot of screen lacks AF points (You can check this if You turn on DX mode on Your D600)

TriShooter

I am disappointed in the the fps on the D7100, but could live with it, if it had a larger buffer. Just a heads up; experiencing a full buffer too frequently can cause serious medical issues like TMJ for action shooters.

Nevertheless, I have enjoyed using the D7000, and personally would buy the D7100 over the D600 in a heart beat for action shooting, especially at long distances where you need a telephoto lens, given the additional benefits of the APS-C format when buying telephoto lenses. It would be nice to have 24MP sensor, but for 16-20MP with more fire power is what I want, and will buy.

JJ_SO

It might be disappointing, Nikon uses the same frame buffer as they did with D7000. But 10 frames with 16MP need roughly the same space as 7 with 24MP. Maybe they did it to let the D400 shine more, maybe they knew that "machine gun shooters" will go for D4 anyway.
What I find a bit unlucky is why they didn't make use of the second card slot and double the "slow" buffer to store alternating on both cards, but I guess that's simply a feature they only use for pro bodies, if at all, and it would come expensively. It doesn't make it easy to handle the files afterwards, too, because the time stamp of hours, minutes and seconds would not be enough for 12 fps on two different cards.

PB_PM

How could the second slot be used as a slow buffer? All files have to go through the main buffer to reach a card in the first place???

None of the bodies do that as far as I know. You can shot to both cards at the same time, or to one and then overflow to the second, but I've never heard of the feature you are talking about.

JJ_SO

Well, then it's Canon. It's not the additional slot alone. Each shot has to queue until it is written on always the same SD card (or whatever card is used). That's what the buffer is for. If you have the electronics to lead each shot to the next alternating card, you don't need such a big buffer so much than fast cards, and of course, reliable electronics.

PB_PM

Really, I never would have guess that the buffer was meant to store images before they are transfer to the card. 8-| That's common knowledge.

Unless you have some extremely slow cards (200X or slower) I doubt switching back and forth would have a big impact.

JJ_SO

The principle of RAID 0 is, that two HDs work nearly double as fast in writing and reading than one. I don't see a reason why that should not be possible with two memory cards, but after arrogant comments I've not much interest to make a research.

heartyfisher

The RAID 0 format works with HD and throughput is higher but I wouldn't like it on my camera cos it splits the files across 2 storage media and if you take one sd card out you wont have a complete file. there would be a need for some software on the pc to read both sd cards and put the files back together again. also doing raid 0 doubles the chance of failure cos if one sdcard breaks all the data is lost on both cards.

spraynpray

Having been to Le Mans a few times I have to say you will likely be disappointed about how close you cannot get to the action. Pro's with passes can, spectators can't.

All in all, I think the best advice is sevencrossing's as you will need good high ISO and a long lens. I have the 70-300 and find it not long enough, if you go for the 80-400 you will be OK for length, but some say the focus is slower although I have seen some very sharp images from it (Msmoto posted a cracker recently).

Msmoto

The issue of credentials is always a problem and at such a popular venue, no doubt it is very difficult without these to find a good shooting location as Spraynpray has stated. I suppose the real question is what we actually want to photograph. And, when. My guess is that at 4 AM, one might be able to get a position which would allow a 400mm on DX to get at least some acceptable photos. This will require a great deal of effort in my estimation as even at circuits which are far less populated, the ideal photo shots are difficult to get. But, with proper planning it may be possible.

adamz

if You will split the image between two sd cards (possible) You will have problems with getting them to Your computer for further editing. not all of us have 2 SD/CF card slots.