recommend me a FX camera for a book project

I have a new book project coming up where I will be shooting a number of historic buildings and engineering structures. my last couple of books projects were shot with a D2x and Nikon 12-24mm and a cambo 4x5.

this time I plan to use a sigma 12-24mm, and there are many shots where I plan to utilize the full 12mm WA ability of the sigma on an FX sensor. obviously, FX is not essential for book-sized reproductions (a few of the shots I used in the last book effort were shot with a lumix P&S and could hardly be discerned from shots made with my 4x5) - I just want to make use of full 12mm UWA of this particular sigma lens.

I plan to purchase a specific camera for this project, shoot the project, and sell the camera, so I will buy a nice clean used body that I can use for a month or so and hopefully resell for about what I paid for it.

I am considering a 5D mkII, or D3s or similar. on my past couple of projects, I did find the D2x to be quite heavy and bulky to carry around in field conditions, which is why I mention the canon 5D even though I am not fond of the canon user interface. the newer D600 and D800 both look nice, but are more expensive and I may lose more money in resale than the canon 5D option. I thought I would ask for the opinions of the many helpful pros here before I make my purchase decision.

thanks for your assistance with this.

If 12MP is enough resolution, then a used D700 is probably your best bet to not lose any money when reselling. After that, probably a used D600.

Any of Nikon's FX cameras old or new should be up to your task (doesn't sound particularly taxing from the camera point of view) so it's probably more a matter of finding the best used deal you can.

Owning a D800, I agree with you about the size and weight of the D800. How about s D7000? Although it is a DX camera, it is smaller and lighter than the D800 and has 16 MP and the price should be right...Brent

thanks jf - 12mp is quite adequate for this work. the D700 does look like a good choice.

axcentphoto said:

axcentphoto wrote:

Owning a D800, I agree with you about the size and weight of the D800. How about s D7000? Although it is a DX camera, it is smaller and lighter than the D800 and has 16 MP and the price should be right...Brent

Click to expand...

You apparently missed that the fact that they want to shoot very wide angle with an existing wide angle lens. A DX camera will not give them the desired field of view with that lens.

Not sure if this helps or not. You have probably heard all this before.

I shoot with a d800 and the 14-24, actually for a book I am working on right now. And even though a 12 megapixel camera would probably be just fine, I cannot get over the quality of images I am getting. I did a wilderness trip into Idaho a few weeks ago and came back with some nice images. Of course not enough of them, but the quality is thru the roof!

I have seen images used on book covers that are one megabyte (in the olden days of 2004) and they worked out just fine. So all the heavy hitters (d600, d800, 5dmkII or III) will be all good choices.

On the 14-24, I try and not go as far out as 14 mm when I am doing something at the level of fine art because the edges can get strange. But out to 16 mm and the 14-24 redefines the upper level of quality. Simply amazing.

I am not sure how the Sigma would match up but I suspect well. It does need to be at least a really good lens to bring out what a d800 can do, but I would for sure try it out on one.

Overkill or not, this is one hell of a camera!

Just my 2 cents.