Nikon FX vs DX for wildlife

I currently use an a6000 with a 19mm and 35mm prime with a 55-210mm for zoom. Iv'e recently found myself getting more into wildlife photography but obviously with this setup and only a 55-210mm it's lacking reach. This lens is also noticeably worse in quality at 210mm.

I intend to keep this setup (great for day to day/travel) but was looking into higher end Nikons together with the telephoto lenses including the Sigma 150-600mm. There seems like there's so many pros and cons to full frame vs crop sensor I'm not entirely sure what would be best to go for. The crop sensor gives more zoom but the sensor will be worse at higher ISO's - 800+?. Then there's the higher MP count of the full frame setups allowing for heavier crops which offsets some of the advantage of the crop sensor giving more reach. Is it more down to handling, focus points, focus speed and burst capability as a result? Other purposes of the camera as a secondary consideration to sway it as there is no right answer?

The best Camera you can buy for wildlife is the Nikon D500, wins over the affordable FX camera hands down.

Wildlife mostly comes down to autofocus and pixel density. The problem with FX sensors is they have low pixel density so cropping images from them just doesn't help.You ultimately need the glass, 600mm . There are advantages to FX if you can afford the reach that a 600mm f/4.0 brings, and it does making things like tracking BIF easier when you have a wider viewfinder from which you can choose your DX crop in post, but it is quite an expensive way to go, just throwing away pixels in LR. The other nice advantage of crop cameras is the focus points go much further to the edge, the 1.2x crop mode of the latets nikon DX camera is really exceptional for this. This helps a lot on framing, tracking focus, BiF scenarios.


I use a D800 for my wildlife. I got this when I was still doing a lot of landscape work so I wanted a high resolution, high dynamic range FF sensor. When considering wildlife I was used a D90 with a 12MP sensor to getting a 15.5MP DX crop was a decent step up, and the only other DX camera had 16MP sensor so I really didn't give up anything to have the FX camera. But with the 20 and 24mP DX sensor around now there is no real advantage here.

If you have other uses for the camera, like landscape, architecture, portraits then the D810 is an excellent all rounder. If you want a camera for wildlife, get the D500. If you won the lottery and have muscles like Popeye then buy the D5 and the 800mm f/5.6 (plus 400mm f/2.8 for low light).

The D7200 is also damn good for wildlife on a budget but the D500 is much better focusing.

You'll get excellent results from either but whatever you go for the glass you use is the most critical factor IMO and that is what you should invest the most money in.

I think I'm possibly under estimating the focus speed and extra focus points of something like the d500. Presumably the d810 replacement will gain ground here?

I'd imagine so. The D850 (or whatever they call it) will be a beast of a camera.