Looking to replace my Nikon D1X. Suggestions?

jbench · Jan 27, 2011

Hi. I'm a commercial product photographer (though business is soooo slow I can barely say that I am actually a photographer any more - but that's another topic). I have been shooting with a Nikon D1X tethered to my mac laptop. I use Nikon Capture Control to shoot my images, fully controlling my camera from the laptop (except focusing).

The quality of the images being produced from my Nikon D1x has gotten so bad that I have finally decided to get myself another one. I think I need to stay with Nikon as I have all Nikon lenses and I do not want to have to replace lenses. So, here is the feedback I'm looking for:

1 - Have the new Nikon cmos sensors gotten better so that they do not have any problems with blotches of green and red color or are they generally the same quality but just producing bigger images?

2 - Which Nikon DSLRs would have the features I'm looking for (see below)? I do not want to spend another $6000 for a camera body. I called a nearby store and they said the 7000 is a quality camera but there were issues with software being available that would allow me to to operate the camera, from my laptop.

some important features:
- Lighter than the D1X as I want to carry it around and take nature shots, etc. as well as using it in the studio. That D1X is a backbreaker!
- I want to activate the shutter of my camera using the laptop and have the image immediately appear in my laptop.
- be able to hook in a cable release for portraits
- be able to hook in a pro strobe pack
- be able to use menus to set up white balance,etc.
- manual override of course
- I really dislike the little pictures of flowers, mountains, etc. on the shutter ring (if you know what I mean) so the absence of those would be a plus.
I'm sure there are more - but I'm drawing a blank. You know - all the pro necessities!
thanks for your feedback

Trever1t · Jan 27, 2011

How about the D700?

Ken Rockwell Fan · Jan 27, 2011

If you're like me you won't be happy with anything other than a pro body Nikon after already using one. Go for a D2XS ($1000) or D3 ($3000). The D700 ($2000) is a great camera if you can deal with the different body and lack of controls compared to the pro bodies.

sierramister · Jan 27, 2011

I can speak from experience that I have tethered my D7000 for shooting. I tried a few different software packages, but I'm pretty sure it was successful in either Lightroom or Capture. It's not very useful to me, so I haven't done it since trying it.

rhino123 · Jan 28, 2011

Coming from the D1 family, I think you could think about getting the D3s (I think it had the most fabulous noise control and high ISO performance, excellent for wildlife shooting)... for more megapixel, you could think of D3X.

dallasimagery · Feb 1, 2011

I would recommend a 1ds3

crimbfighter · Feb 5, 2011

The D7000 would likely out perform your D1x in virtually all categories. Keep in mind, the D7000 is not a pro level body, though. You're going to want to go with at least a D300 to consider it a pro body. You'll get better, more rugged construction, more external controls, more interface options and other upgrades with a pro level body. ISO performance and image quality will be spectacular with virtually any of the recent DSLR's, but the pro bodies will give you a little extra. You will also have to look at the big decision these days, FX or DX. Each has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Though overall, I think an FX body is a better choice if you have the money.

If you want to stay in the DX body category, and don't want those little picture things on the dial, I'd suggest the D300s. You could pick one up used for a decent price. Or if you can wait a little bit, a D300s replacement is rumored to be released early this year (thought I wouldn't count on it). That might open another option for you, and would also drop the price of a used D300s a little more.

If you want to go with FX, then the D700 would suit you very well. The big advantage of the FX camera will be a wider field of view with a given lens over a DX body, better ISO performance, richer color reproduction, better contrast and controls laid out more for a pro. You would also get the superb pro quality w/o the bulk of the D1/2/3 series.

All of the above mentioned cameras should meet all your requirements, except the D7000 having the little pictures on the dial and won't have as many interface options...

Something else to keep in mind, is your current lenses. You will want to make sure they are going to work well on an FX sensor, if that's the way you want to go. Some older lenses made for the DSLR market have some vignetting on an FX camera because of the size of the image circle produced by the lens. That's why many new lenses are optimized for DX or FX bodies. Though the ones for FX or 35mm should work w/o issue on DX bodies. Your FOV just might be a little wicky wacky.

Just my .02. Good luck on your purchase, what ever it may be!

jbench · Feb 28, 2011

Thanks for all your input. I decided on the Nikon D700 and should be receiving it tomorrow! I'm excited! It will operate remotely with Nikon's camera control.

jbench · Mar 3, 2011

I played around with the D700 today and I had a few issues. Maybe some experienced D700 users can help -

Turns out that the D700 cannot synch to studio flash packs (such as Dynalite) at high shutter speeds. This is a feature I used quite a bit with my D1X (for those shallow depth of field/out of focus type of shots). Has anyone had success with making this happen? If not, does anyone know of a Nikon camera that does have this feature? Or, perhaps, a work around?

When I couldn't use the fast shutter speed to reduce my light intake, I tried using the exposure compensation on the lap top's Nikon Camera Control. That didn't seem to work at all. I tried, for experimental reasons, adjusting the exposure up and down and the image never darkened or lightened after image capture. I wonder - does something else in the maze of menu features need to be set so that I can manually adjust exposure compensation? I am operating in manual mode (as opposed to apeture or shutter priority).

Although the megapixel size is almost triple that of the D1X, the image size when captured as a .tiff rgb large, is pretty much the same size (14" x 8" - approximately). Maybe I misunderstand with megapixels do. Shouldn't the image size be bigger if I'm using a camera with more megapixels and I'm capturing at the largest capture size?

Thanks for all your input once again!