D7000 to D700 upgrade or downgrade

vipgraphx · Apr 3, 2012

Ok I am at a stance and have thought this to pieces weighing the pros and cons on this subject.

I have a D7000 and I was looking to sell it and get the D700. I have been shooting HDR like crazy and I enjoy it. I also like taking portraits of the kids and their sports.
The D7000 thus far has been awesome and great camera however I would like to be able to shoot more bracketed photos in one burst without having to adjust the camera with the various ways I have read how to with the D7000. The D700 will allow this for me and I believe up to 7 AEB. So thats that part. The D7000 has done a great job with sports but with the battery grip on the D700 it supposed to go to 8fps which is 2fps faster than the D700 and with soccer that could make a huge impact on getting the right shot. Portraits I am not worried about either one.

I like the qualities you get with FX lenses such as nano crystal since I like to shoot into the sun. With the DX lenses there really is not a "PRO" UW lens that can holds its own to lets say the 14-24. I do have a great tokina lens but it still has its fair share of ghosting and glare but can't complain to much for what I paid for it.

Now lets move into sports. I love the fact that the 70-200 I have on the D7000 body gets me in closer and acts more like a 105-300 I believe, and you get the sweet spot of the lens (center). I would loose that with the D700 but since I have not shot with a D700 and I am not sure what the distance would look like and if I am over thinking it.

I don't shoot use my D7000 for video as I have a very nice 1080p HD video camera. So that feature is not important to me on either camera. In doing some research some places say going from a D7000 is downgrading a bit on image quality while others say opposite. Going from a 16mp to 12mp is a downgrade but since the D7000 is a smaller sensor really is it? The D700 is a bigger sensor and even though it is older I believe it should have superior image quality sine it is bigger and has more pixels in a given area compared to the D7000 16mp.

Some have said after going from the D7000 to the D700 felt like the image was not as sharp but is that user error or is there truth in that.

I was going thinking about holding out until the D400 is announced to see if it was going to be full frame of DX before I decided but I have someone right now that wants to by my camera and grip for $1300 and Someone is selling a D700 gripped for $1900. I still can sell my tokina and nikon 35mm and get just about the difference so to me its like a trade off. I still will have the 50mm 1.8G and the 70-200 2.8 for the D700 and will buy the 14-24 asap. the 24-70 would be a later purchase as I don't think it is necessity right now for what I shoot.

I don't want a D800 as being around computers and working professional I know those huge files will hit my computer very hard and will most likely have to upgrade. I have three computers. An imac quad-core i5 with 8gigs of ram, a dell workstation dual xeon processors and two scsi hard drives @ 15000rpm and 8g ram very fast graphic card but I do my photo editing on the imace. I also have a HP laptop. The reason I have added these items into the post is that I don't believe rendering HDR will be as fast as it is now with the huge files from a 36mp camera and to add that in shoot in raw with 5-7 exposures..can someone say choke. I think I would need a faster machine than what I have now and could handle that type of size files and not take forever doing it thus why I have no interest in the D800. Just wanted to explain. I think if I try to process as many HDR's as I do now I would fry my computer prematurely.

So there is my problem and I have over thought this and I think its time to get some other perspectives maybe I am missing something. If you could help a brotha out and shed some of your thoughts I would really appreciate it.

Trever1t · Apr 3, 2012

200mm on DX is 200MM on FX, only difference is a narrower FOV, you know that. I can't see a single advantage of the D7000 with one exception, MP. MP might be to your advantage with the D7000 if you enjoy cropping in...for that extra reach.

Robin Usagani · Apr 3, 2012

You lose 6300 Ds

.

I consider D700 a huge upgrade.

2WheelPhoto · Apr 3, 2012

I did that and its a HUGE upgrade. Not just full frame, but build quality, ISO performance is even better, focusing, image quality, viewfinder performance, professional knobs and controls, and at least a hundred other things I'm forgetting.

And in the studio i don't have to back up through walls to shoot models at 85mm nor lose depth of field against the backdrop from backing the $#$% up. I sold my D7000.

And right now they're giving away D700's =)

vipgraphx · Apr 3, 2012

Thanks for your comments.

vipgraphx · Apr 3, 2012

Question for you folks. In order to get 8FPS you need the AA batteries plus the battery in the camera? Just the AA batteries? Or can you still get 8FPS with both rechargeable nikon batteries packs in camera and in grip? Just saw some youtube video saying that you need the AA batteries in the grip to take advantage of 8FPS...

Trever1t · Apr 3, 2012

Either a different battery 9one for D3 if I recall correctly) which then requires you to get another battery charger and end cap or use the grip's included 8-cell AA battery magazine and use Enlopes to get the fast shutter. Using battery supplied with camera doesn't do it.

I only run the grip with rechargeables. Battery in camera is used after you've exhausted the grips reserves.

adichiru · Apr 3, 2012

I own a D7000 and was thinking of getting a D700. I postponed as I could not see how I would justify the difference in cost (double) taken into consideration not such a huge difference in image quality. However, looking into this for a few month and testing a D700, I can't see how you could compare the two cameras. They are different type of camera built for different type of usage.

I consider now the D800 and to be honest, after "testing" it for a few hours, it does not look expensive at all. All that non-sense over the Internet about the sensor requiring higher quality lenses than the one already on the market is really stupid. I used it with the 105mm f/2.8, 35mm DX f/1.8 and Sigma 150-500mm. All of these performed very well. I am not going to even read those lab tests saying all kind of stuff totally irrelevant for real life shooting.

For me, enjoying a lot shooting wildlife, the MP counts, especially going from APS-C to FX (so loosing the FOV a crop camera offers to the an FX lens is not appealing at all).

While I made the decision to buy the D7000 vs D700, D7000 won as it was new technology (sensor, CPU), higher MP and higher burst speed. I would not sell the D7000 just to get a full frame camera, rather keep it as backup or moments when you need higher speed (D800 is slower unfortunately at full quality).

2WheelPhoto · Apr 3, 2012

I didn't sell my D7000 "to get" a D700 back when I upgraded. I sold it because I never used it andy more, and my D80 was backup then as it is now =)

vipgraphx · Apr 3, 2012

Trever1t said:
Either a different battery 9one for D3 if I recall correctly) which then requires you to get another battery charger and end cap or use the grip's included 8-cell AA battery magazine and use Enlopes to get the fast shutter. Using battery supplied with camera doesn't do it.

I only run the grip with rechargeables. Battery in camera is used after you've exhausted the grips reserves.

So two nikon batteries 2 EN-EL3 batteries gets you 8fps?

adichiru said:
I own a D7000 and was thinking of getting a D700. I postponed as I could not see how I would justify the difference in cost (double) taken into consideration not such a huge difference in image quality. However, looking into this for a few month and testing a D700, I can't see how you could compare the two cameras. They are different type of camera built for different type of usage.

I consider now the D800 and to be honest, after "testing" it for a few hours, it does not look expensive at all. All that non-sense over the Internet about the sensor requiring higher quality lenses than the one already on the market is really stupid. I used it with the 105mm f/2.8, 35mm DX f/1.8 and Sigma 150-500mm. All of these performed very well. I am not going to even read those lab tests saying all kind of stuff totally irrelevant for real life shooting.

For me, enjoying a lot shooting wildlife, the MP counts, especially going from APS-C to FX (so loosing the FOV a crop camera offers to the an FX lens is not appealing at all).

While I made the decision to buy the D7000 vs D700, D7000 won as it was new technology (sensor, CPU), higher MP and higher burst speed. I would not sell the D7000 just to get a full frame camera, rather keep it as backup or moments when you need higher speed (D800 is slower unfortunately at full quality).

I enjoy landscape and sports so if I can get up to 8fps with the added batteries and grip that will work. I also love landscapes and HDR so having 7 AEB is a huge for me.

could you explain this please.."(so loosing the FOV a crop camera offers to the an FX lens is not appealing at all)" are you saying that for example the 70-200 appears to get you further with the DX sensor than it does with the FX sensor? Or Are you saying that that using an FX lens on a DX body is not appealing because you loose the actual range as it is cropped?

Thanks for your feedback as well. I have certain reasons why I would like to go with the full frame for what I shoot. I also like the fact that I can crop in with the D7000 but if I loose that it means I will have to become a better photographer so I don't rely on being able to crop. However when you are fully zoomed in and still would like a crop its nice to be able to have image quality there but at the same time I don't do a lot of enlarged prints of the kids playing soccer.

The person that is selling the D700 is selling it for $2000 with 2 EN-EL3 batteries, 2 MH-18A battery chargers, MB-D10 battery grip, AA battery magazine for grip and it has 5785 shutter actuations. It seems like a fair price. I have a guy lined up to buy my camera and 35mm lens for $1400. I can sell my tokina 12-24 for about $300-$400 making it between $200-$300 to move into the full frame. Yes I know I will need to then buy a 14-24 and adds cost but thats fine with me as I would be getting a lot better lens and wider for that matter.

Trever1t · Apr 3, 2012

no, you only get highest FPS with the Amazon.com: Nikon EN-EL4a Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery for MB-D10 Battery Pack and Nikon D2 and D3 Digital SLR Cameras (Retail Packaging): Camera & Photo end cap and charger or 8AA batteries. The Camera's EN-EL3 have nothing to do with it.

The MB-D10 grip includes a cartidge to hold one regular ENEL3 and a cartridge to hold 8aa cells. I only use the AA cells...get better FPS and no added cost.