D600 or 800?????

D600. Replace the 35mm with the Sigma 24 1.8 and lose the 55-200 for the Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VRII. Get the 85 1.8 as Derrel suggested (or the 105mm for those nifty macro wedding ring shots) and you're pretty much golden in the glass department (3 great prime focal lengths plus a heck of a zoom lens). Running the numbers on this set-up is more than the D800 & grip but you get an upgrade in body and glass. You're going to need good glass to get all the benefits of the D600.

I am definitely getting the 85 1.8. Thanks for that Derrel, the reviews are incredible on that lens.

I think my 50mm will be good glass for this camera. My 55-200 has been on Craigslist for $175 but I see no point in selling it for only $100 ($100 is the best offer I've gotten) and just keeping it for my kids baseball games or something. Not that I'd ever really use it but I don't want to sell it for that cheap! lol. Maybe I'm being stingy...

I'm keeping my 35 until I get the 600 in my hands... then I'll try and sell it on Craigslist too to pay for my 85!!!!

Should I get the Nikon 28mm 1.8 or Sigma 24mm 1.8?......

Oh, and I'm keeping my d7000 too. I LOVE my camera and I'll need a good backup. My 7000 is an incredible camera as well.
 
For my personal uses, my D7000 is serving me very well. In my opinion the D800 vs D600, I think the D600 would be the best choice for anyone not specifically needing 36mp. What other features other than max mp, might make the D800 more desirable than the D600?
 
I have a D700, but just had to have the D800 too. Although I'm sure you'll be pleased with a D600 as well
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The D600 is a better Nikon than 95% of the Nikons that the majority of Nikon shooters on this forum happen to actually own....just sayin'...

Out of the "installed base" of Nikons in the field, the D600 is one of the finest cameras Nikon has ever offered for sale. And yet, sooooo many people try and put it down. I wonder why that might be?
Its hard to put in words.

When I heard about the D600, I thought it would be an impossible to resist offer. Full frame, 24 Megapixels, and all the stats of the D7000. Whow. Just whow.

Now its out, its a great camera - but its just not as completely perfect as I pictured it. Theres just some weaknesses in central things that I didnt expect and that put a dent into the perfect shiny armor, that lowers the overall quality from "OMG its too perfect, how can I possibly resist this" to just "well, its great, but ...".

The D600 is indeed kind of a D7000 with full frame. It even has a bug of the D7000, or so I've heard - you cant change aperture in lifeview mode, so you have to switch back and forth to change it. Well, thats mostly just funny and nothing that makes the camera impossible to use - also you can bypass it by using non-G lenses and hopefully they publish a firmware update to fix that one (well, there is at least some hope they do, anyway), and most of the time I wont use lifeview anyway.

But it has only 1/4000 sec shutter speed max, and a very narrow AF. Okay - it also has some advantages with video I dont care about, and it allows AF at f/8 which is definitely a truely great feat, I absolutely loved that the quiet mode actually works, oh and of course it has more ISO performance and more Megapixels. All very, very nice, but just not as perfect and overpowering as I suspected.

I kind of dont want to lose the advantage of my D5100 to have not many, but a wide field of AF points. AF, as it turned out, is sometimes highly important for me. I would also hate to lose the flip screen (which I absolutely love to have, because I can flip it around and have no annoying monitor at all, there are no controls I can press when viewing through the viewfinder because the controls have been convieniently moved to the right, and because I can flip it in all kind of directions to get all kinds of shots while still being able to see what I'm doing) and the camera would get bigger and heavier and the lenses would get a lot bigger and heavier (I would probably go for 28mm f1.8, 50mm f1.8 and 70-200mm f2.8 VR2).



I'd go for the D800 if I have the $$$, and if I make actual money with my photography, if not, Id go the D600 :p
I would go for the D4 if I had to make money with photography. Well, okay, depends upon the kind of photography; for some types the D800E would be better.
 
I happened to be in a similar situation .. But also had a third option which was D3s.
The D600 feels very much like the D7000 and is smaller then D800. Both are great cameras and I couldn't justify why I should not pay just £300 more and get the D800... If the price difference was higher , then I would had gone for the D600 but the D800 being a better camera and just 300 more, I think it's a better deal.
 
Solarflare said:
The D600 is indeed kind of a D7000 with full frame. It even has a bug of the D7000, or so I've heard - you cant change aperture in lifeview mode, so you have to switch back and forth to change it. Well, thats mostly just funny and nothing that makes the camera impossible to use - also you can bypass it by using non-G lenses and hopefully they publish a firmware update to fix that one (well, there is at least some hope they do, anyway), and most of the time I wont use lifeview anyway.

I can't verify that bug on my D7000 with a Sigma 17-70 nor my Nikkor 35 1.8 G. Liveview on M allows me to change aperture as it should
 
I can't verify that bug on my D7000 with a Sigma 17-70 nor my Nikkor 35 1.8 G. Liveview on M allows me to change aperture as it should
Very interesting. I only got told it was this way *shrug* I once handled a D7000 of a friend, but I didnt used lifeview.

Maybe it was an early bug of the D7000 that they fixed with a firmware update or something. I dont know.
 
plexi32 said:
I can't verify that bug on my D7000 with a Sigma 17-70 nor my Nikkor 35 1.8 G. Liveview on M allows me to change aperture as it should

Solar flare talking about 'bugs' in equipment that he's only ever 'heard' about? Huh, imagine that.
 
There is an issue I haven't seen addressed here. But it is addressed here.

Short synopsis, theoretically it's possible that you could get the same image from a D600 by upsizing in photoshop than you can get with a D800. The theoretical limit of a sensor like the one in the D800 is 35 MP. However, that would require a perfect lens. The authors refer to this as the custom made lens you can't buy in the store anywhere. So the next question becomes , is there any lens made today that can resolve detail at the level the D800 can capture. And the answer is clearly no.

The next question then becomes, well how much detail can a lens produce and what size sensor is adequate to capture it? That question hasn't been answered by the theorists. I have no idea how to transpose MTF data to draw conclusions on sensor utilization. So from my perspective.. it's quite possible that 24 Mp would be enough to achieve maximum detail for any but the absolute best Nikkor lenses. I suspect to take full advantage of a D800 you need to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 8K in lenses just to cover the 12-200mm with zooms and then add a few primes.

So my advice would be... unless you can see yourself paying $2000 plus for a single zoom lens you probably are going to be able to get as much out of a D600 as you are out of a D800.

But I'd really like to see some real world examples to back that up before I'd use it for any kind of a decision. Actually just knowing that you get more detailed images from a D800 than a D600 with any lens would be helpful.

My choice right now would be a D600. Printing to 5 feet wide just isn't in my deck of cards. People say my landscapes look like paintings, and they love them. They look like paintings because I shoot APS-c and blow 120 DPI up to 300 DPI for printing. The images don't look razor sharp, and IMHO and the opinions of those who like my work, they are better for it. I'd have absolutely no problem printing 5 feet wide if asked. When a picture is 5 feet wide people have to stand back further to view it, and the up close detail doesn't have to be as good. From a distance, they look the same. I know people who get good results printing from a D700. I'm not going to get caught up in the MP game, until I can see the benefits. The downside is obvious. More hard drive space, slower processing times in PP and the need for more expensive glass to get the most out of the system. For me, there has to be a proven upside before I look at a D800.
 
Solarflare said:
The D600 is indeed kind of a D7000 with full frame. It even has a bug of the D7000, or so I've heard - you cant change aperture in lifeview mode, so you have to switch back and forth to change it. Well, thats mostly just funny and nothing that makes the camera impossible to use - also you can bypass it by using non-G lenses and hopefully they publish a firmware update to fix that one (well, there is at least some hope they do, anyway), and most of the time I wont use lifeview anyway.

I can't verify that bug on my D7000 with a Sigma 17-70 nor my Nikkor 35 1.8 G. Liveview on M allows me to change aperture as it should

I'm going to have to disagree here. The only way to change aperture in live view, is if you have the aperture ring on the lens.
 
split the difference : used d700 :)

As a Pentax guy (APS-c), if I wanted to try out FF, I'd be seriously tempted to go there first.

It really is a wonderful camera and I love that it doesn't have video. In fact, it's sitting in my lap and I'm petting it like a kitten. In another 3 months the price will drop a few hundo more and I will pick up a second body. I urge all D700 users to sell their perfectly capable cameras now and upgrade and then let me know when you're selling. :mrgreen:
 
I tried both out at the store the other day. Saved the images to an SD to compare at home.

Basically the biggest issue is the operation and internal systems. Honestly the sensor is spectacular and just as capable as the D800.

My biggest issue is the focusing and metering mechanisms. Well, it's not so much an issue as it is the thing that's still making me consider the 800 or 800E. As a casual shooter, I'm not entirely certain I need the metering capabilities or rapid focus of the 800.... But it was so darned nice it's really hard to say 'no'. I preferred the viewfinder on the 800 as well, and, to an extent, the controls.

At the end of the day I'm leaning towards the 600 and hope Nikon really hits one out of the park in a couple years with a d900 or whatever. With a sensor that exceptional on the 600 it's hard for me to justify the advanced operation on the 800 when it would only marginally improve my personal experience at my level.

Lem
 

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