Fx vs Dx... which path is right for me long term?

[Destin]

I know there are other threads on this, but I couldn't find what I'm looking for on them. I'll get right to it. For bodies and lenses, I currently own:

D7100
D7000
Sigma 17-50 2.8 OS
50 1.8G
55-200 (junk, never use d/t poor IQ)

My next lens purchase is undoubtedly a 70-200 or some sort. I've owned them in the past and love them.

After that I want to invest in more glass. I'd like to get a wide angle lens, but doing so forces me to choose whether I'm staying Dx or moving to Fx. I plan to shoot primarily family, senior, and environmental portraits as paid jobs and eventually I'd like to get into weddings. But my true passion is shooting sports and I really want to get into wildlife in my down time.

I plan to upgrade my body in the next 3-5 months, and am primarily debating between the D500 and D750. I obviously like the "pro" build and speed of the D500, and for sports and wildlife it's undoubtedly the answer. But for portraits,I find myself wishing for a shallower DOF than I'm able to achieve when shooting environmental portraits. I really like the look and reviews of the tamron 15-30 but obviously that's not very wide on Dx, so only makes sense on fx.

Ideally I'd like to own both, but that's a year or two away from being financially attainable for me. I plan to spend about $5k on camera gear in 2017, most of which is going to be on lenses.

Ultimately I think the D500 is my dream camera for sports, but for the shoots that are more likely to make me money full frame makes more sense. And in the long term, which platform is going to grow with me better as a photographer? I'm trying to ignore the sexiness of the D500 and make a decision more based on which platform is better for me in the long run. Do I go full frame and use the D7100 when I need more reach? Do I go with the D500, then sell my D7100 and D7k to purchase a D600 for portraiture? Am I missing an option?

I've been trying to sort this out for a few days now in my head, but think I need help from more experienced members. Should I rent/borrow both cameras to use them side by side?

Edit: I apologize for typos. I'm at work and typed this on my ipad.

 

[zombiesniper]

Sounds to me like this is a no brainer and you have it already figured out. If the money is likely to come from full frame then that's where you should start.

 

[Destin]

Sounds to me like this is a no brainer and you have it already figured out. If the money is likely to come from full frame then that's where you should start.

I guess I'm just getting sucked in by the appeal of the D500 for sports and the build of it. Trying to convince myself that I'll be happy sticking with Dx for portrait work. I've never used Fx before really, so I guess I'm just trying to figure out if it's really as big a difference as people say.

 

[goodguy]

If you can wait then wait, the D750 replacement will probably have the D500 AF system with FF sensor, the D7100 is a fantastic camera, keep using it till the right camera will come out which is the combination of D500 and D750 and I hope/believe the D750 replacement will be that camera.

But then I might be wrong, in that case get the D750.

 

[adamhiram]

I was faced with a similar decision back in November, and wound up going with the D500. At the same price point, the D5/D500 AF system won out for me, and that was my main reason for upgrading. astroNikon had a great post recently comparing the two for sports, and it sounded like it was still a close call but the D500 certainly held its own. I haven't had a chance to do much portrait work with the D500 yet, but throw an 85mm on it and the results are still fantastic. One other thing to consider is that while they are at the same price point now, there's no telling what the D750 replacement will cost - look what happened with the new 70-200 price increase. Keep us posted!

 

[greybeard]

I just upgraded from a D7000 to a D750. I'm happy with it. Much better in low light, nice shallow DoF when you want it, flip out screen, nice video, does just about everything well. But, I'd like to have a D500 too.

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, my own suggestion might sound a bit daft. But have you considered a good used d600 or d610? Invest in some good glass, keep the 7100 for wildlife shooting. Then upgrade to the 500 a little bit later. Best of all worlds.

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[Destin]

Ok, my own suggestion might sound a bit daft. But have you considered a good used d600 or d610? Invest in some good glass, keep the 7100 for wildlife shooting. Then upgrade to the 500 a little bit later. Best of all worlds.

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When BH has the D750 refurbished for $1400, it's hard not to spend the little extra to get it over a D6xx

 

[Derrel]

The more I hear about the D500 in REAL, actual uses, the less of an opionion I have about a 20-Megapixel APS-C sensor, when state of the art has LONG (since 2009) been 24-MP on FX; then 36-MP on FX, and now 42-MP on Sony FX.

The real key is ISO invariance: this is why a 5-stop-underexposed section of a D7200 file can be lifted in post, and not show patterned banding, as is the issue with the D7100 sensor. I've seen some astroNikon D500 vs D750 lousy-light indoor soccer...the D500 does not impress me that much. The real, raw, total image quality from the bigger, FX, S-made sensors in even the D3x from 2008, and from the D600 and D610, D750, and of course the D800 and D810.

Give you a little tip on focusing: use your left hand, and the focusing ring, and get the focus CLOSE on an AF-S 70-200 and even old cams like the D1h from 2002, can focus well. The 70-200/2.8 is probably the lens that camera makers optimize for; that, and their 24-70 models.

Last tip: do not rush to buy a new camera or lens, when all you hear are fanboys raving about how "GREAT!" it is. Like the D500...it's got good focusing, for sure. But...start looking into how low the sensor's resolution really is...it's falling behind as we speak as a general-use, all around camera. 20 MP on APS-C is not anywhere near the same as 36 MP on FX, or in my opinion, 24MP on FX. Wait until the real, balanced, truth comes out about a camera model.

Pictures look DIFFERENT, in many situations, on APS-C than they do on FX. For several reasons. There is the CAMERA and there is the SENSOR.

The D750 offers what used to require spending $3,495 for a Canon 5D-III, for a "pro-type" wedding camera rig...but the D750 has three EV better low-light and underexposure capability. To me, the new 70-200 f/4 (yes, f/4.0,not 2.8) model VR lens, and any one of several FX Nikons makes the most sense, all around.

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, my own suggestion might sound a bit daft. But have you considered a good used d600 or d610? Invest in some good glass, keep the 7100 for wildlife shooting. Then upgrade to the 500 a little bit later. Best of all worlds.

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When BH has the D750 refurbished for $1400, it's hard not to spend the little extra to get it over a D6xx

Great price on a 750, you can probably pick up a used 600 for half of that. Hence my suggestion. If you'll mainly be using it for portraits it would be a phenomenal camera for a very small chunk of change

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[Destin]

Ok, my own suggestion might sound a bit daft. But have you considered a good used d600 or d610? Invest in some good glass, keep the 7100 for wildlife shooting. Then upgrade to the 500 a little bit later. Best of all worlds.

Sent from my N9518 using Tapatalk

When BH has the D750 refurbished for $1400, it's hard not to spend the little extra to get it over a D6xx

Great price on a 750, you can probably pick up a used 600 for half of that. Hence my suggestion. If you'll mainly be using it for portraits it would be a phenomenal camera for a very small chunk of change

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Didn't realize D600s were going so cheap. Maybe I'll pick one of those up to use side my side with the D7100. That way I can try out full frame cheaply and decide which way to go when I decide to buy a better body.

 

[astroNikon]

I've had the d7000, then went through a similar situation in relation to the d7200 vs d600. I opted for the D600. I kept both for a long time until I realized I didn't use the d7000 for a long time. The low light performance difference is fantastic for the shooter. Yes modern DX sensors are better than their predecessors in low light but still do not compare to a FX camera, they're just that much better.

I then recently moved up to the d750 and added a D500.

If you are making money in portraiture, later weddings, etc then go FF. Either the d6x0 or d750. Afterwards, when you save up money from paid jobs, add a D500 for sports and other fast action.

Don't forget you'll have to add the lenses to support FF instead of DX lenses.
Also make sure you don't use any of the auto features, effects/scenes of the D7x00, because they do not exist on pro bodies like the D500 and above.

And as Derrel mentioned with indoor sports, the D500 doesn't keep up with the FF D6x0/D750 bodies. Before I bought mine I tested a d500 vs d5500 vs d7200 vs d610 vs d750 and looked at 20 vs 24mp. And the ISO was better on the D500 than the other DXs by a bit. But the "Hi" ISOs like on other cameras is usually unusable, at Hi-1 that was on the verge of totally not usable unless you really needed it. Otherwise it goes to about 51,200 just like the D5500.

But I also was going to experiment with 4k video, so D500 knocked the d5500 out of contention (plus a few other features). The D500 FPS and shutter mechanism is mezmorizing though.

If you are shooting Birds in Flight, outdoor sports, etc the D500 is the camera to have though.

 

[astroNikon]

Ok, my own suggestion might sound a bit daft. But have you considered a good used d600 or d610? Invest in some good glass, keep the 7100 for wildlife shooting. Then upgrade to the 500 a little bit later. Best of all worlds.

Sent from my N9518 using Tapatalk

When BH has the D750 refurbished for $1400, it's hard not to spend the little extra to get it over a D6xx

In general shooting when I had my D600 and D750 at the same time I found little difference as the shooter.

If you focusing mode is Single Point most of the time, then there's not much difference.
The Group Focus Mode is handy in moving subjects that only the D750 has and not the d6x0.

The 51 focus points of the D750, you actually lose a little range up and down compared to the d600 as the points are more squished together so you have to be more accurate in pointing the camera (that's the only annoying thing I've found between the 39 and 51 pt focusing system). I've found myself doing *MORE* focus/recompose on the D750 than the D600 because of the lose of the focus points in the hump areas in the middle because I used them so much on the d600/d7000. It also takes more time to manually move around the 51 vs 39 focus points if you need to (to me 39pt has it's advantages especially when you move manually your focus points and don't use tracking very often).

A flippy screen can be advantageous and expand your photo repertoire a bit from above head and low photo images with more ease found on the d750, d500 and d5500.

But overall "shooting-wise" they're pretty much the same except you have to be a bit more accurate in pointing for single focus mode of the d750. The d750 is also a little better in low light.

You do lose Shutter Speed compared to the d7x00. The d7x00 go up to 1/8000. The d6x0 and d750 only go to 1/4000. You do gain 50 ISO so exposure-wise you are fine. Though if you find you need 1/8000 from time to time, it's not there.

If you use the Shoulder LCD for settings the D750 is thinner - 2 vs 3 rows of information.

There's other minor things but really just using the basic features the D600 is an awesome camera for the money. I ended up selling mine for $800 with the OEM grip though I wished I could have kept it as it was a great workhorse.

You may actually find out you're more accurate shooting the d600 vs d7200 in single focus point mode as the point is larger and doesn't require as much accuracy. Plus shooting close objects you just have true FOV versus the annoying crop value of a DX. And shooting certain venues you just can't step back, etc. perspective distortion comes into play with DX and shorter focal lengths, etc. vs FX.

Shooting portraiture you'll get used to the 85-135 sweet spots for imagery and perspective. With FX you're much closer to your subjects so you don't have to use hand or light signals to communicate to them

Also, you can find deals of the D750 with the OEM grip added in for Free. Bestbuy has the d750, d810, d500 with the grips if you buy new. I know adorama and B&H also had those deals with a (cheaper) free memory card.

 

[Solarflare]

I love full frame for its better lens choices. More shallow depth of field wasnt really on my mind. But all the really good lenses are for full frame.

I definitely like the D500 as the fun camera, possibly of the decade. "Unlimited" buffer, constant 10fps, AF over the whole image area, etc. Dont really need it though.

The 51 focus points of the D750, you actually lose a little range up and down compared to the d600 as the points are more squished together so you have to be more accurate in pointing the camera

1. The D750 AF covers more image area.
2. You can enable 9 point mode on the D750, which I do all the time, so I can choose an AF point quickly.

 

[pixmedic]

I love full frame for its better lens choices. More shallow depth of field wasnt really on my mind. But all the really good lenses are for full frame.

I definitely like the D500 as the fun camera, possibly of the decade. "Unlimited" buffer, constant 10fps, AF over the whole image area, etc. Dont really need it though.

The 51 focus points of the D750, you actually lose a little range up and down compared to the d600 as the points are more squished together so you have to be more accurate in pointing the camera

1. The D750 AF covers more image area.
2. You can enable 9 point mode on the D750, which I do all the time, so I can choose an AF point quickly.

Yea...shame you cant use those better full frame lenses on the crop frame cameras....cause that would be awesome, and give DX cameras use of every modern lens nikon makes.


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