I'm looking at getting a new camera and I'm curious to know others thoughts on the three listed cameras. I currently have a d3000 that I've had for about two years.
I shoot landscape, models, family pics, etc.
Thanks
The D7000 is a DX, so the lenses you have now will work with it. D700 and 800 are FX and will require an investment in lenses to take advantage of the larger sensor.
All three are great cameras. If you have DX lenses, the D7000 obviously spares the expense of needing to buy new FX lenses. It does have excellent DR too. The D700 is an excellent body and frankly a great value at it's current prices. AF is fast, handles well and I thoroughly enjoy mine. The D800 is a fantastic body too; it's very demanding on the user and lenses to get maximum IQ, but does have obvious benefits with it's sensor.
Lens choice and output should pay a large role in what body you pick, IMO. I would never buy a D800 new if all I did was web display at low resolutions. If I needed the epic dynamic range or high resolution for large prints, it would be stellar.
If you don't need the FOV of an FX camera.... the D7000 is a killer camera and will work well for all of the subjects listed. I use a D7000 as my second camera. I just got a D800 - but I came from having a D700 which I used for all of my main shooting. I also am heavily invested in FX lenses only.
It really depends on what you do and the look you're going for. We've shot weddings with a D3100 (the successor to the D3000, which we also own), and we've shot them with D700s. All of the cameras you listed, including the one you have, are great. We got the D700s for the full frame perspective, noise control, and image quality. If those didn't matter to us, we'd have stuck with the D3100 / 3000 setup. So yeah...it depends.
Thanks for the feedback y'all.
I don't have much invested in lenses except a 50mm which is an fx lens.
I recently started printing 24x36 canvass prints and I see some issues in quality.
I really want stellar image quality. Are fx sensors that much better than dx?
The d7000 has 16.1 mp and the d700 has 12.1 mp, so it would seem to me that the d7000 would produce better image quality than the d700 unless the sensor makes that much of a difference.
My main concern is that I buy one and then wish I had got a different one.
it isn't all about the mp in the camera ... but all in the post processing! I printed a 4' wide image once from a 4mp camera.. D2h, and it was processed in Genuine Fractals ... you would never have known it came from a lowly 4mp camera.
I went from 21 mp camer 5d2 to D700 12 mp and could not be happier.
Mega pixels are only a part of the equation.
The D700 is a beast. D800, like other have said, I would imagine ( I have not used one) but your skill set and lenses should really be up to par to probably get the full benefits of such a camera .
Moving from my D70s to D7000 I have noted the increase in quality but at the same time, my D7k punishes sloppy/lazy technique far more than the 6mp D70s which when I nailed focus/exposure and technique always rewarded me. As Tete says; megapixels are only part of the equation as shown in this shot of a young PNG girl celebrating their independence day
Interesting post re the demands of the D800; https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1141626
I love what the good guys are producing with their D800 but will stick with the D7K till I consistently master it
I shoot all 3...for what you plan on shooting I'd opt for a nice used D7K on our B&S for ~$850
and maybe treat yourself to the 85 f1.8G prime (with the money saved over a used D700)
just bought one d7k for $750 ship the price is too hard to resist even though I shoot with D3 and D800. and D70 as IR will update this D7K to IR soon at least the was my plan
The debate now is between the d7k and the d700. I honestly think that the d800 is just too much camera for me now I think I'm leaning toward the d700, my only reservation is the 12.1 mp.
I've been printing some big prints and what I hear is that you have to have at least 16 mp to keep from getti g noise in your prints. Can anyone give any advice on that?
I think you need to filter "what you hear". The difference between 12MP and 16MP? Pfffftt...
I've made large high ISO prints off the 4MP D2H body many times. Trust me, there are TONS of D700 large prints out there that are plain OUTSTANDING. Don't make this any part of your consideration. If you say you crop the heck out of every image, well then make that argument. But the difference between 12MP and 16MP for large prints is negligible.
Besides, the D700 has cleaner files than the D7000 at higher ISO's. That will MORE than cancel off the loss of 4MP to my eyes.
Landscapes - D800
Models - D700/D800
Family pics - anything, you can buy PnS for that
Depends how much you like each of that. D800 gives benefit to everything (yea even family pics, you can create some really good crops from that, if you will have really good lens and light). Downside is, that 36 mpix RAWs are sorta on bigger side and you need a LOT of HDD space. And good PC. And good light as high ISO aint that beautiful on per pixel level (means no tight crops on higher ISO). Actually I dont like per pixel noise at low ISO at all from D700. I guess Im minority, but I think that at base ISO, camera should have squeeky clean image quality.
D700 was and I think still is best bang for bucks. I would go with that as 12 mpix is easy to handle, its very clean on pixel level, have nice colors which degrade only very slowly with higher ISO. Yea and it doesnt make my hand ache. (good ergonomics.. D800 is step in different direction in this) And its sorta "cheap".
Yea and if you prefer high ISO, it doesnt get blue in shadows and doesnt have too much of hot pixels.
Its your call. For me I can say that as step-up from D3000 is D700 good choice.
For what it's worth, I've done prints for a photographer using the D700 at 40x60 that were used for exhibition. When you resize properly, the 12.1 MP D700 will give you plenty of room for large prints.
