Trade up to D750 good deal?

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

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Whilst drunk I decided to get a quote to trade in my D7100 + 2 lenses to a D750 (and pay an extra £600 on top), it'd leave me with a Sigma 150-600 and 35mm 1.4 and I could probably get a used walkabout lens for a couple of hundred at a later date.

I mostly shoot wildlife and landscapes so I'd be losing a 10-20 3.5 in the trade but I can live with that for a while.

Big question is, is it worth the upgrade?
 
Well that's entirely up to you and your uses but for landscape and wildlife I'd probably so not worth it.
The biggest difference would obviously all be around the sensor size so the question is does the additional sensor size work for you? The 2 main reasons for moving from crop to FF are high ISO and depth of field. Do you find any of those are a consideration for when shooting with your D7100?

In terms of resolution you'll get about the same, FPS is about the same, the D750 has a bigger buffer though when in DX mode so would allow you to shoot for longer (good for wildlife) and the DR is better on the D750 which is good for landscapes but not massively better than the D7100. High ISO would also be better and the 35mm you have really belongs on a full frame camera though obviously is fine on crop as well.

Alternatively you could look at a D500 which will give you 10fps, a 200 frame buffer and the best AF on a crop camera which would probably be a massive difference when shooting wildlife.
 
Without knowing what 2 lenses you traded-in its impossible to say.

As Columbo says it isn't an obvious upgrade. The larger sensor could give a small improvement to landscape photography, but you will have to shell out for a new lens like the Tamron 15-30mm so there will be quite a lot of cost involved. The differences will still only be sublte improvements to detail and you will need good lenes to maximize that difference.

For wildlife work I would say it is a step backwards. The larger sensor has a lower pixel density so you are going to end up cropping a lot and the final images will have less detail and resolution as the photos you are currently getting form the D7100, when shot at the same focal length. You d have the sigma 150-600mm which will help mitigate some of the disadvantages but then some subtle issues pop up like if you have the C version of the lens then 600mm is a lot softer than 400-500mm and if you were finding 400-500 the minimal reach on the D7100 you will be all the way out at 600mm, and sometimes hoping for more reach. I have the sigma 150-600mm as well, but I went for the sports version because at 600mm its just that little bit sharper.Its still not quite enough reach for birds though.

A D500 is the way to go for widlife, nothing really comes close. For landscapes the D800 or D810 is also the champ. Because the D800 does have a 36MP sensor you don't give up too much resolution when cropping (16mP DX crop) compared to the D750 (10.5MP DX crop). When I purchased the D800 there were no 24MP DX cameras so i really gave up nothing to have the FF sensor.


Saying that, the D750 will serve fine. The recent existence of 150600mm lenses that actually give decent results changed things a lot. Before then FF was really terrible for wildlife if you coudln't afford an exotic supertele to go with it. You will be able to get good wildlife photos and landscapes with the D750, just don't expect a world of difference when comparing side by side.
 
If it is for tele work,I would say the D7100 has the edge due to the pixel density. For landscape work,I would say the D750,as the 24MP sensor used has fantastic DR and it is exceptional in low light too,at least comparing my D600(which has the same sensor)to friends with D3000/D5000 series cameras which I suspect use a similar sensor to the D7100. Having said that it might be worth looking out for some deals on the D800/D810 too,especially if Nikon refreshes the FX range this year.
 
Gawd, I was hoping for a resounding yes, luckily I waited. The two lenses were a Sigma 17 - 50 2.8 and Sigma 10 - 20 3.5. My main problem is noise even at relatively modest ISO's (e.g. 1600) and I was hoping the 750 would help with that. a used decent nick D500 is a good £300 extra currently so I guess I'll stick with what I have and wait and see what the D7500 brings. Thanks for the advice, saved me 600 quid.
 
Cuchulain said:
Gawd, I was hoping for a resounding yes, luckily I waited. The two lenses were a Sigma 17 - 50 2.8 and Sigma 10 - 20 3.5. My main problem is noise even at relatively modest ISO's (e.g. 1600) and I was hoping the 750 would help with that. a used decent nick D500 is a good £300 extra currently so I guess I'll stick with what I have and wait and see what the D7500 brings. Thanks for the advice, saved me 600 quid.
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Well here is the thing, the D750 will give you about 1 stop extra high ISO performance so if you like ISO 1600 of the D7100 then you will like ISO 3200 on the D750. Where things get complex though is your effective focal length is then shorter, so if you liked 400mm on the D7100 you would have to use 600mm on the D750 to get the same subject size. The major downside is that the Sigma 150-600mm lens is not going to be the same aperture at 600mm as 400mm, although on this lens its about 1/3rd of a stop. Overall you will be slightly better off. Your main difficulty will be that if you are shooting nearer the 500-600mm end of your lens a lot, e.g. for small birds, then you will be taking a step back in resolution.

Also, for landscapes you should be using a decent tripod, mirror lock-up, remote release. ISO doesn't come in to it.


Also, for noise you need to see how it is really effecting you. If you print out an iage do you see it? iff you put a photo on your webpage is it visible? Or do you need to zoom in to 100% crop to see it?
 
Sorry, should've clarified. I don't have any problem with ISO for landscapes as it's always set to 100, it's wildlife mainly where I need to keep the shutter speed up. I think I was hoping a full frame camera was some kind of magic bullet but turns out it's not, at least not to the degree I dreamt it might be. I'll probably stick the cash in to a new walkabout lens to replace the 17 - 50mm 2.8 and start experimenting with different types of photography instead.
 
Sadly the only real option for getting lower ISOs for handheld wildlife is to pay for 600mm f/4.0 lens, which you can hand held for more than a few minutes,. Of course, a decent tripod and gimball head will help the most

Best case scenario going form DX to FX is just over 1 stop improved ISO performance, and that coes with the cost of reduced efective focal length. So you could also just consider sticking with Dx and getting faster lenses but theya re also really expensive. Sigma have a good 120-300mm f/2.8 but that will only be of any use for big wildlife up close. Sigma have a new 500mm f/4.0 which could be really good value, but still friggin expensive
 
Cuchulain said:
Gawd, I was hoping for a resounding yes, luckily I waited. The two lenses were a Sigma 17 - 50 2.8 and Sigma 10 - 20 3.5. My main problem is noise even at relatively modest ISO's (e.g. 1600) and I was hoping the 750 would help with that. a used decent nick D500 is a good £300 extra currently so I guess I'll stick with what I have and wait and see what the D7500 brings. Thanks for the advice, saved me 600 quid.
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I have done airshow work and if the D3000/D5000 series 24MP sensors are anything to go by,I found my D600 seem to do far better in every way once the light started dropping,and they seem to have far more latitude too especially when it came to shadows. The main issue is the reach,but many of the airshows in the UK tend to verge towards crap weather towards the end.

Its the same with some of the landscape stuff I have done while hiking up Snowdonia,etc and at sunset/sunrise when hiking up/down,the D600 I found not only had better DR,but I could use higher ISOs when taking pictures and DR is pretty decent too despite this. This is important as the light can change very quickly and people who tried to wheel out all their tripods,etc usually ended up missing it all. Would a tripod be ideal,probably,but its not always the case you have the time or space to set up one,especially if it is more a general trip,as opposed to a fixed point photographic one.

The thing is though the D600/D610 and D800/D810 have been out for a very long time,and the D750 is basically a newer version of the D600/D610 with probably the same(or a slightly newer version of the same) sensor. I would suspect,Nikon will be updating those lines in the next year or so,so it might be worth seeing what these bring to the table.

They have already updated the APS-C and professional FX sports line,so these are the next models which need to be updated.
 
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