D5300 vs D7100

[bribrius]

I love my D5300 but if i had it to do over again I would get the D7100

the 7100 has a built in focus motor, high speed sync, weather proofing, more dials and buttons to make things easier and so on. image quality should be about the same, the D7100 just has more features that I think would be very nice to have.

if you were happy with your D5200 than you will be happy with the D5300, its definitely a nice upgrade but not as much of a upgrade as the D7100 would be, I guess it all depends on if the extra features are something that you are interested in or not.

bahhhhh! I like my 7100 (I guess it works anyway.sorta) but sometimes realy wish that p.o.s had a flip screen! I take my lesser camera shooting and avoid the 7100 sometime. JUST for the articulating screen! Nice choice o.p. on the 5300!

 

[bribrius]

oh the 7100 doesn't date photos either. Least I haven't figured out to make mine do it. so to print date I have to go through and date them. which I haven't done as it doesn't seem to practical and a pita. I think the 5300 dates photos. May seem a small thing but if you do a lot of family shots dates start to become important. I never quite got over that. My thirty dollar point and shoot has a date option. Freakn 7100 doesn't. retarded..

 

[dennybeall]

The D5300 can put the Date or the Date and Time or a Countdown number from a given date on the photo. Has to be set before you shoot and can't be removed in camera after shot.

 

[sashbar]

Sorry to hear your 5200 was stolen, or nicked .. took me a minute to realize it too

Unless Nick stole the D5200, so you could say Nick nicked the bloody camera

No, it was nicked because it was Nikon. If it were Canon it would be canned.

 

[wfooshee]

Having upgraded a couple of years ago from a D5000 to a D7000, basically the same upgrade, I can say without doubt that you want the D7100.

The two control wheels make life WAY easier!!!! In-body focus motor wasn't that big a deal for me, but I HAVE used a couple of borrowed lenses that would have been difficult to use otherwise.

If off-camera flash is ever a consideration, the D7x00's pop-up unit can function as a master in Nikon's CLS system, where the D5x00's cannot.

I didn't upgrade for the 39 AF points, and actually wondered what the heck anybody ever needed so many points for? Then I shot an air show in 3D tracking, 1200 frames with no focus errors. I was amazed.

There is also a pair of settings on the dial, U1 and U2, where you can store your own preferences for EVERYTHING the camera does, like ISO, AF mode, metering mode, exposure compensation, whatever, and select that mode instantly.

The D7x00 has an intervalometer built in, which I've used to shoot frames later assembled on the computer as time-lapse video, or for astrophotography.

I did miss the movable screen. For about a minute and a half.

 

[robbins.photo]

Thank you all. I didn't even think anyone would bother replying but you've been so helpful! And amusing - I definitely meant stolen, not scraped!

I think I'm going to go for the 5300 just now & do some saving for a full frame in the future. I wish I could buy the camera I really want, but then Christmas would be cancelled and my kid would probably starve.

Thanks again everyone.

Ok, Christmas is overrated, and kids? Eh, you can always make another right? Lol

Seriously though, I've shot both the 5200 and the 7100 and I really liked both. The thing about the 7100 is there really isn't so much any one area in which it is a huge improvement over the 5200, however when you put it all together, the better auto white balance, the additional controls for finer, faster manipulation and setup on the fly, the better AF system - well for me at least the 7100 really did give me better results and more importantly made it so I could spend a lot less time post processing and more time shooting. But it's important to keep in mind that my style of shooting is probably much different than your own, I'm normally shooting at uncooperative moving subjects about 90+% of the time.

One other big caveat here - I got almost no use out of the articulating screen on the 5200. I'm a viewfinder geek. So in the end if that is an option you really need/use then the 5300 sounds like it might be a really good investment.

 

[Dana C]

Just thought I'd leave me 2p here.
Having used the D7000 and D7100 I would choose them over the D5300. The thing that swings it for me - the inbuilt AF motor.
It's always about the glass (lens) more than the body. With the AF motor, you can use some stunning older Nikon glass which can be had at a significant discount over the newer lenses. Older lenses tend to be full frame compatible, so you end up building a high quality collection that can be kept if/when you upgrade to FF.
Just thought I'd put it out there!

^^ I agree with above.
You can save a ton of $$ getting older AF-D glass as compared to modern AF-S G glass.
And you can only do AF with the AF motor in the d7x00 models.

Just look at the price of a 50mm AF-S/1.8 vs AF-D 1.8 both used which is about a $100 vs $170
or 85nn/1.8 which is $425 G vs $300
or the 70-200 AFs vs 80-200 AF-D which is about $1200 vs $700

I went with AF-D glass and made the move to FF (and kept my d7000) without any need to buy additional lenses.

That is why I went with a D7000. I wanted to be able to use all the lenses out there and there are some great non AFS lenses that optically are right up there with new lenses. I have a new model 80-200 dual ring which is fantastic. It won't auto focus on any of the 3000 / 5000 camera nor will a ton of great older lenses.

 

[Bebulamar]

The one important thing that the 7100 is better that it has glass pentaprism viewfinder vs the 5300 pentamirror but since you like the screen so I guess you use liveview most of the time then it does not matter then.