Switching from d90 do d610

blwegrzyn said:

if you feel like i don't understand how to compare the equipment , you might just be nice and educate me. You don't have to shout and scream. I was not offensive, so I don't need any of your attitude. I am still learning and every perspective is worth considering.

So i looked at your photos again. In your comparison you have different fstop, shutter speed and iso. Is this a good way to compare?

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blwegrzyn said:

So i went to the store to play around with d610 and few things cough me by surprise:

- focus points indicators barely visible comparable to d90 - i like to see where the focus is

[edit] - i forgot to add that pressing the shutter release button just to focus is very difficult to accomplish. Most of the time it would release the shutter.

- zoom buttons flipped- what a stupid idea

- eight-way controller much smaller then d90

All above are little things but it got me angry pretty quick as I am used to d90 which is much cheaper camera but seems like it has a perfect design.

Seems like I need to rent it or buy it to get a total feel of it.

Is your experience similar?

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blwegrzyn said:

So i went to the store to play around with d610 and few things cough me by surprise:

- focus points indicators barely visible comparable to d90 - i like to see where the focus is

Click to expand...

blwegrzyn said:

[edit] - i forgot to add that pressing the shutter release button just to focus is very difficult to accomplish. Most of the time it would release the shutter.

Click to expand...

blwegrzyn said:

- zoom buttons flipped- what a stupid idea

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blwegrzyn said:

- eight-way controller much smaller then d90

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blwegrzyn said:

All above are little things but it got me angry pretty quick as I am used to d90 which is much cheaper camera but seems like it has a perfect design.

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blwegrzyn said:

Seems like I need to rent it or buy it to get a total feel of it.

Is your experience similar?

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Nexu1 said:

blwegrzyn said:

if you feel like i don't understand how to compare the equipment , you might just be nice and educate me. You don't have to shout and scream. I was not offensive, so I don't need any of your attitude. I am still learning and every perspective is worth considering.

So i looked at your photos again. In your comparison you have different fstop, shutter speed and iso. Is this a good way to compare?

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It depends.

Are you wanting to see real life scenarios that you would likely shoot? Or maximum sharpness? Depth of field? Perspective? High ISO? Pick one or maybe two and then we can make some comparisons.

Here's the problem - you can't simply shoot a D90 and D610 and have perfectly identical images, all settings equal, the different sensor size forces changes.

I was specifically shooting 35mm on DX vs. 50mm on FX because it's more or less the same field of view - relevant for my real world shooting. If I'm in my living room taking pics the 2 setups (D5100+35 and D610+50) give me the same field of view meaning I can take the shot from the same distance and get roughly the same field of view. I purposely chose 2 lenses that were similar in performance. It's not like I'm shooting the 18-55 lens vs. a $2000 prime here. Problems are: if I shoot the same f-stop I get shallower depth of field with the D610, do I want shallower depth of field or the same depth of field for my comparison? If I stop the D610 down by a stop I'll get similar depth of field but now I'll get a slower shutter speed, is that OK? Or should I raise the ISO by a stop to compensate... but now I'm shooting ISO 1600 vs ISO 800... do I care about that?

Or, like the previous poster I just ranted at , If I shoot the same lens I have to move back or forth which changes the shooting experience (in real life) and the perspective, and (again) if I keep the same aperture value I'm going to have differences in depth of field, etc...

When I rented the D610 I mostly shot with different lenses (or different focal lengths) that essentially gave me the same shot. Why? Because that reflects my real world experience with how I shoot. I did what I considered a fair job of comparing pretty equal lenses (again, no $100 bums against $2000 super sharp legendary lenses). Example: if I'm taking a landscape shot down at the beach of a beautiful sunrise, I figure out where I want to put the camera/tripod, what my composition is, set an aperture for typically hyperfocal distance or infinity focus and get my pic. If I were to plop a FX camera on the tripod in the same spot with the same focal length I get a completely different shot due to the 1.5 crop factor of the DX camera. So that doesn't work for me. Same thing with shots of the family indoors.

It's not easy to perfectly compare more than 1 aspect (ISO, depth of field, sensor resolution) at a time. Especially if real world photography is of interest to you.

At the end of the day you are going to get a small but noticeable improvement in dynamic range, resolution/sharpness, ability to shoot shallower depth of field, ability to shoot higher ISO. Only you know your shooting style and which of those are important and which aren't, for example, for someone that always shoots landscapes on a tripod is high ISO performance the most relevant criteria? How about for a handheld street shooter that leaves at ISO1600?

Sorry for the long winded response and the aggressive post earlier. I guess I got a little offended when you blew off the other poster and blew me off as well (as we were both essentially just trying to help). I have dozens of side by side shots but how much do you think I'm interesting in helping at the moment (vs. arguing... which I seem to have the energy for, LOL).

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Dr Paul said:

For what it's worth, I was very close to upgrading from D7K to D610, and had adopted the strategy of only adding FX lenses. I have slowed down and decided to push my skills to the place that I know why my D7K won't accomplish what I seek, then I will upgrade. (There will probably be a D900sx by then) Sharp has never been a problem, even with legacy lenses, but learning how to do PP appropriately and shoot correctly for the result being sought has been a challenge. Those were challenges back in the Kodachrome and PanX days as well.

Clearly, the noise at higher ISOs IS a limiting factor for the D7K, but in good light I doubt I can yet justify the upgrade. The DR is compelling as well. . . when I learn enough to make use of it.

I KNOW I would enjoy the D610, and I also KNOW if I had it I would have nothing to blame but myself for frustrating result. What I am now focusing on is to avoid my old problem of "a poor workman blames his tools." I am not suggesting that is true for anyone else, but I do KNOW that I got caught up in a lot of technical reading and reviews and lost focus on why I got back into photography in the first place.

OK, thanks for the therapy. . . Paul K

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blwegrzyn said:

I did not blow you off, my though process was little different, but i see your points. It is hard to compare those two as they are two different animals it seems like. What i want to mostly see is a portrait photo and possibly some landscape, both with lots of details. I seem to notice that FX is slightly sharper when i look at the photos. Even with photos you provided my wife immediately told me that 610 photo of buildings was sharper or in other words it just looked a little slightly clearer. But, nevertheless that fact I am not sure if I am ready to invest so much as I dont feel like I will gain too much and I probably better invest more time in shooting.

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jpdenk said:

If you're not getting needle-sharp results from your D90, you need to learn more about how to take sharp photos and a change to a D610 won't help with that. The D90 can produce very sharp photos, particularly if you shoot NEF's and learn how to properly process them. I get awesome sharpness from my D90 (and my D70 before it), very sharp even at full resolution, but I had to learn how to use it and Adobe Camera Raw properly to get those results.

John

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Nexu1 said:

blwegrzyn said:

I did not blow you off, my though process was little different, but i see your points. It is hard to compare those two as they are two different animals it seems like. What i want to mostly see is a portrait photo and possibly some landscape, both with lots of details. I seem to notice that FX is slightly sharper when i look at the photos. Even with photos you provided my wife immediately told me that 610 photo of buildings was sharper or in other words it just looked a little slightly clearer. But, nevertheless that fact I am not sure if I am ready to invest so much as I dont feel like I will gain too much and I probably better invest more time in shooting.

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Fair enough. Did I link some of my landscape or building shots? I did do a bunch of side by side comparisons but again, it was all done with different lenses. I guess part of my logic was: if I go D610 I'll need to buy some new lenses so might as well build that into the testing too. I shot D5100+Tokina 12-28 (sharp lens) against D610+new 18-35. Both are similar price & quality.

The challenge is... the D610 setup was a smidge larger, noticeable when zoomed in a crazy amount, but at what level of zoom do you stop caring? IMO there is a "diminishing returns" with camera gear just like there is with almost everything else in life. To me, going from D5100 to D610 feels like about a 10% improvement. But the price feels like about 4-5 times more expensive (when you factor in lenses).

I look at it like this. If you can easily afford FX it's the best. If you try to make a cost/IQ comparison against DX it'll be almost impossible to justify the higher price. It's more of a "want" than a "need" (unless you're a pro then it's your career/reputation etc...).

You and I are probably somewhat similar on our feelings about FX. I "want" to upgrade but it's soooo hard to justify the insane price difference compared to what I already own.

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Nexu1 said:

Rservello said:

"You want people to move forward and back until they get precisely the same framing with the same lens? Good luck."

hmmm, I did exactly that. It took 5 minutes out of my life. You've actually spent more time defending yourself on this thread than I spent shooting a proper comparison. Get over it. It's not that important.

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jpdenk said:

Most of my nature shots are taken with my D70 but there are quite a few (maybe 50-60) from the D90 too. My main macro is my 60mm f/2.8 D Micro Nikkor. Some were taken with a Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX APO macro. Most of my butterfly and dragonfly shots are taken with my Sigma 70-300 f/4-5.6 APO Macro zoom. A few of those shots are from older point-and-shoots (a Panasonic FZ5 and before that, a Kodak DC260) going back to 1999.

John

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https://plus.google.com/photos/110808430334452552749/albums/5061670759057103777?banner=pwa

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• better dynamic range and ability to pull shadows
• better auto focus
• better color sensitivity
• better background separation
• better low light
• auto focus fine tune
• huge resolution diff

Fred Mueller said:

Lots of good advice in this thread ...

For me shooting, commercial real estate, there is a significant improvement using my 600 over any 12 mpx Nikon DX sensor, (or even my D700 FF sensor) ...

- 2+ additional stops in noise handling (+1 over 700)

- a big step up in resolution ( = leeway for geometric transformations)

- Exmore class deep shadow recovery = highlight protection techniques

- 600 with the battery grip is far better handling the 14-24 than a smaller body - including weight = stability = sharpness.

- better viewfinder

- 2 card slots

- all day battery with grip

That being said, my skill set, learned over the last three years of working at it, has lifted the quality of my commercial shooting much more than any gear purchase, especially skills in Photoshop ... although I would be hard pressed to be without the 14-24, and therefore need a full frame body.

For knocking around casually shooting for myself almost any camera will do, and a D90 is a truly great camera in that regard, and plenty of people have shot commercially with it too, and still do.

good luck

gallery: http://www.dpreview.com/members/3138107984/galleries

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UhBre said:

I made switch 2 months ago. For me the most important improvement are:

• better dynamic range and ability to pull shadows
• better auto focus
• better color sensitivity
• better background separation
• better low light
• auto focus fine tune
• huge resolution diff

I felt like a few years ago switching from D50 to D90.

Here are some test images taken with 50mm f1.8D or 85mm f1.8G:


Color and resolution diff


Low light


Background separation


Shadow pulling

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T O Shooter said:

blwegrzyn said:

I plan to sell my d90 with all dx lenses and leave only 35mm and 50mm FX lenses and use them with d610. What i wonder is if the D610 will give me sharper images compared to d90? Would this be like "OMG" difference or not much? I cannot see too much on the example photos as there are no similar photos there. The studio comparison tool does not have images for d90.

thx

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in for a surprise. A D90 image taken with a quality lens by someone who knows what they're doing will not be significantly different from a D610 image taken with a quality lens. Most people see a big difference because they go from a DX with a kit lens to FF with better lenses. I've you are printing large, cropping deep, or have shots where the broader DR is an attritube, then sure you'll see bigger differences.

I have DX images taken with quality glass that on screen you can't tell from FF. I never look at them and say "wish I had FF then"

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UhBre said:

I made switch 2 months ago. For me the most important improvement are:

• better dynamic range and ability to pull shadows
• better auto focus
• better color sensitivity
• better background separation
• better low light
• auto focus fine tune
• huge resolution diff

I felt like a few years ago switching from D50 to D90.

Here are some test images taken with 50mm f1.8D or 85mm f1.8G:


Color and resolution diff


Low light


Background separation


Shadow pulling

Click to expand...