What camera to buy (D300s, D700, 7D or 5D Mark II) ?

[itisgregory]

I want to upgrade from my Nikon D40X to one of these cameras: Nikon D300s, Nikon D700, Canon 7D or Canon 5D Mark II. I only have one Nikon lens and am not married to Nikon. I have read and compared ALL of the specifications of these cameras. They are all in my price range. I am mostly a Nature/Wildlife/Landscape serious amateur photography. I have also read the last 6 months of various photography magazine reviews on these cameras. I am truly lost as to what to buy because all of them have certain features that I like. Video is not required. I will not be printing beyond 12 x 18. I will be doing some HDR. I would GREATLY appreciate feedback and comments from users of these cameras.

Gregory

 

[Overread]

Since you list wildlife and nature photography I will ask if you have read through and compared the camera lenses for each company. Forget the camera bodies for the moment - if you take nature photographer seriously you can very easily sink many times the cost of the camera body into a single lens - the lens will stick with you for decades whilst the camera body will be old within a year and ancient history after around 10 years!
So have a look at the glass on offer from each company and hte prices they carry and see if one brand has lenses that would seem to suit your needs better than the other. (its not an easy choice since both canon and nikon have very complete lens sets).

At present I'm tempted to say go for the Nikons for the improved high ISO performance that they have these days (though don't hold me to that as I have no idea what a D300 or D700 really are ). However Canon are nothing to turn your nose up at

 

[Derrel]

Nikon has some really fast, multi-shot Auto Bracketing features that other manufacturers do not offer. Nikon is probably the acknowledged leader in auto-bracketing in terms of number of shots (3,5,7,9 for example) and width of the bracketed sequence in stops.

The 5D Mark II has the weakest autofocusing system of all the listed cameras, but the highest resolution and lovely image quality, and it does pretty well at higher ISO settings. Full-frame, meaning a huge image sensor,and good image quality at elevated ISO settings.

The 7D has the highest MP of any crop-body currently on the market, but loses color depth at elevated ISO settings; Canon announced the T2i today,also with an 18MP sensor, so 18MP on 1.6x is here for Canons lower- and mid-tier bodies. It's a high-specification body for only $1699.

The Nikon D300s has the widest-area autofocus of any crop-body from Nikon or Canon or any other maker, and has become one of *the* preferred cameras for BIF or bird in flight photography.

The D700 costs about the same as the Canon 5D-II, but adds a pro-level AF system and a built-in flash with a built-in TTL remote flash commander--all things the 5D Mark II lacks. Excellent image quality at elevated ISO settings due to the full frame image sensor.

So....which camera do you like the most? Have you gone to a photography dealer and handled any of them? Each one has a few features that make it special in one way or another.

 

[kundalini]

I'm a Nikon shooter and own the D300 & D700. Given your predjudices towards Nature/Wildlife/ Nature, I'd guess the D300s might be the answer to your delima. With something like the 12-24mm f/4 DX lens wide angle can be had.........

Also, with a 300mm f/4 with 1.7TC you can get pretty close up shots........​

But then again........ I'm a lowly Nikon shooter. I'm not sure what the D300s has over the D300, but either should be a great camera.​

 

[itisgregory]

WOW...all of you had excellent comments/feedback. I am going to look further into all of your suggestions.

Thanks.
Gregory

 

[mlwadester]

Gregory,
I, honestly, feel like the D700 would be the best choice for what purposes you are shooting. It will shoot the 5 fps so you can catch your wildlife and other fast moving objects but you are still getting the FX sensor so your landscapes will be fully utilized. Not only that but the sensor itself is much larger than the Canon FF sensor as well as multiple times the size of the cropped frame of the 7D or D300s. Plus it will give you the most rich color and saturation out of the bunch.

 

[KmH]

Since the thread is 5 1/2 months old, it's likely the OP has already made their purchase. Thanks for digging the thread up again though.

Not only that but the sensor itself is much larger than the Canon FF sensor

Your statement, quoted here, is wrong. The Canon 5D MKII and the Nikon D700 both have 36 mm x 24 mm, full frame image sensors.

There are some Canon high end cameras that do have a less than full frame, APS-H size image sensor, like the Canon 1D MKIV.

The Nikon D300s does have a slightly larger APS-C image sensor (23.6 mm x 15.8 mm) than the Canon 7D's APS-C image sensor (22.3 mm x 14.9 mm).

 

[Formatted]

the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is very

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