D300 VS D7100 I Can't See The Difference??

I was thinking of getting a D7100 (untill the D400 comes out) but I'v had a look at the "Raws compared" page on this website and Iv compared the D7100 with the D300s (which I have been using for years), up to 400/800 ISO, and I really can not see that much of a difference in the IQ.
Now I know that all the blurb is saying that the D7100 has a far superior picture quality, you have a look at the page for yourself and I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know what I'm missing??? I know I'm a bit dumb sometimes

Could I also ask a question of anybody out there that has already swapped from a D300 to a D7100 the question is, is the autofocus just knock out on the D7100 compared to the D300, sometimes the D300 does hunt a bit in lowish light.

Im looking for a reason to change to the D7100 from my D300,
I shoot weddings and dont want FX , I want the extra depth of field that DX offers for group shots, (I can reduce D.O.F. when I need to by non conventional means.)
My lens is 17-55 2.8. Iv photographed around 300 weddings on my D300

Thanks in advance

I went from a D300s to a D7100 and I noticed a significant difference between the two, IQ-wise

Read my D7100 review written by someone with a D300s background:


cheers

In my humble opinion the D7100 is much better at higher ISO and DR. I am a bird photographer though so my opinions might be different then a wedding photog. Once I got the d7100 I never really used the D300 (I have the non-s) again. Honestly though I'm surprised you don't want a D800. I picked one up a few months ago as the prices dropped and it is a fantastic camera (sold my d7100 even though i'm a birder...). By the way you can crop a D800 to the same size as DX and have the same DOF. It gives you much more flexibility though.. Just my humble opinion..

You'll notice a HUGE difference in IQ when working RAW files and fixing exposure +/-. I love my 16mp and 24mp Nikons for highlight recovery.

The D300 is still a great camera but after a season of using my D610 I wouldn't want to use the D300 for paid work again.

I get great low-light AF performance with my D200.

I use the center AF sensor only (most of the time). Single sensor, not multi-guess, er, I mean, multi-point AF.

It is important to place the AF sensor atop something with contrast, especially things with horizontal or vertical lines.

If you do that it should AF on dang near everything in low light.

Went from D90 which has same sensor as D300S I've read and similar IQ just a couple of weeks ago.

There is definitely a difference in IQ. People who say about a stop better for low light are right. I'm okay at ISO 800 on the D7100 whereas on the D90 I didn't go past 400 except begrudgingly for very fast action. I'd push about a stop above that if I had to before really groaning though I've used the D90 at ISO 3200 and even Hi1 when push came to shove.

The extra resolution is not to be underestimated. Lots more fine detail for birding. More detail than your children will ever want preserved of their own infant faces ;-) When fine hairs on a 4 year old girl's face are visible in a portrait that you'd never see with the naked eye you know your camera's AF is hitting the mark.

The improved AF is much nicer over the D90. Over the D300 I don't know. Low light AF is nice on both D90 and this camera. I've read the D90's actually a little better but not done any side by side comparison. It's definitely better than a Canon 600D or 700D.

The AFMA has already come in handy as the camera did not get along with my 18-70DX without an adjustment of -6. (I failed mserably at dottune and went with a more traditional method which I found much quicker and more accurate).

Hate some of the changes to mechanics.
- I hate the camera straps - they never got in the way of the viewfinder on my D90 whereas they can really annoy me sometimes. In fact this is the first DSLR I've used where this has really annoyed me no end.

- I hate that a lot of the options that are dedicated to buttons aren't duplicated in the menu - especially AF mode. I hate where the AF mode button is placed. It's too easy to end up with the camera's entire weight on it.

- I hate the extra weight. I didn't think it would matter but it does for long periods of shooting. I'll get use to it, but I bet it stuffs my shoulder worse.

- Two card slots is a pain in the neck to manage. Moreso than I thought but I'd definitely use that for an important event so that's a minor nit pick. I'll get use to this for sure.

The menus themselves don't bother me. I like having more options. All of my complaints are relatively minor and worth putting up with the above for the increase in IQ.

I shot loads of weddings with my D300 and then it became my backup when I bought a D7000 (then replaced with a D7100).

The D7000 / D7100 does have better low light performance than the D300, very useful in churches and ceremony rooms, so that was my preferred the camera indoors. I used the D300 outside when I wanted to use the burst mode for moving subjects (e.g ushers and bridesmaids walking, brides twirling etc...) because of the larger buffer.

Having said that, I was very happy with the D300 and the noise difference and IQ is not really apparent when it comes to the wedding album and re-prints (most of which are no larger than 10 x 8).

Oh and one great advantage of the D7100 for wedding photographers is the dual card slots, not that I ever had any card errors with the D300, but that extra peace of mind is definitely worth having (especially for me, I'm a bit of a worrier!)

Cheers,
Bernie

mike concannon said:

I was thinking of getting a D7100 (untill the D400 comes out) but I'v had a look at the "Raws compared" page on this website and Iv compared the D7100 with the D300s (which I have been using for years), up to 400/800 ISO, and I really can not see that much of a difference in the IQ.
Now I know that all the blurb is saying that the D7100 has a far superior picture quality, you have a look at the page for yourself and I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know what I'm missing??? I know I'm a bit dumb sometimes


My lens is 17-55 2.8. Iv photographed around 300 weddings on my D300

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The D7100's sensor will improve the ISO and DR by a full stop (if not more) from the D300. That is, with the D7100, ISO1600 out of camera shots are nice enough to use and you will get much less blown high light in highly contrast scenes. Furthermore the 24 MP files allow you to crop and post-process with ease.

However if you shoot wedding indoors with a flash, you are not going to see much of the improvement that the D7100 sensor will bring to you except for the greater ability to crop and post-process. When you go outdoor and shoot in harsh light, the D7100 will work better.

I too loved the Nikon D300 but decided to upgrade to the Nikon D7100. Yes you get better photo quality and the focus system is much improved. I too am paid to photograph weddings so I know the challenges of light in various wedding venues. Here is a link to a comparision of the two cameras that is very insightful: https://photographylife.com/nikon-d7100-vs-d300s

mike concannon said:

I was thinking of getting a D7100 (untill the D400 comes out) but I'v had a look at the "Raws compared" page on this website and Iv compared the D7100 with the D300s (which I have been using for years), up to 400/800 ISO, and I really can not see that much of a difference in the IQ.

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That's because the comparison tool doesn't show the pictures at the same size. Instead it shows them at 1:1 image pixel to screen pixel magnification, which doesn't really say much.

Instead, imagine taking the same photos with these two cameras and viewing both so the image fills (fits) your screen. Which one would look better? Here's same sized crops from the dpreview ISO 6400 RAW samples, both processed with ACR default settings. I think the improvement the D7100 gives is very clearly visible.





I do wonder why dpreview used a smaller aperture and a faster shutter speed for the D300 though ...

szhorvat said:

That's because the comparison tool doesn't show the pictures at the same size. Instead it shows them at 1:1 image pixel to screen pixel magnification, which doesn't really say much.

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Exactly. It is critical to look at the images at the same physical size. I wish they had an option to do that.

szhorvat said:

I do wonder why dpreview used a smaller aperture and a faster shutter speed for the D300 though ...

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I noticed the same with my D7100 when compared to my D40. The 7100 seems to require more light for the same exposure at the same ISO. Why would this be? You can see in the EXIF of the comparison images you posted that they dialed in -0.67 Ev exposure on the D300s to match the overall brightness of the image. This is what lead to the faster shutter and smaller aperture I imagine.

szhorvat said:

szhorvat said:

I do wonder why dpreview used a smaller aperture and a faster shutter speed for the D300 though ...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I've noticed lots of small differences between the studio comparison shots. Sometimes they've been taken months or years apart. It's unrealistic to expect them to be absolutely identical. Small differences in the amount of flash power, angle and distance of the flashes or even the charge of the battery on the flash can make a difference.

That said there are definitely differences between the camera's metering hardware and algorithms, processing hardware and software etc. So some of what you're seeing is probably a real difference between the cameras. The closest you could get would be to actually shoot them side by side in constant unchanging available light. (So forget fluro lights). Totally impractical and unrealistic to expect this.

I think if you take the comparisons as a rough guide of behaviour only in a studio scene you'll be much happier. The testing images don't tell you anything about focus speed or accuracy, metering, or a myriad of other features, settings and behaviours but they are nonetheless useful.

Good point about the lighting.

Good content and composition in a photo are always much more important than incremental upgrades like this.

Sammy Yousef said:

szhorvat said:

Sammy Yousef said:

I do wonder why dpreview used a smaller aperture and a faster shutter speed for the D300 though ...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I've noticed lots of small differences between the studio comparison shots. Sometimes they've been taken months or years apart. It's unrealistic to expect them to be absolutely identical. Small differences in the amount of flash power, angle and distance of the flashes or even the charge of the battery on the flash can make a difference.

That said there are definitely differences between the camera's metering hardware and algorithms, processing hardware and software etc. So some of what you're seeing is probably a real difference between the cameras. The closest you could get would be to actually shoot them side by side in constant unchanging available light. (So forget fluro lights). Totally impractical and unrealistic to expect this.

I think if you take the comparisons as a rough guide of behaviour only in a studio scene you'll be much happier. The testing images don't tell you anything about focus speed or accuracy, metering, or a myriad of other features, settings and behaviours but they are nonetheless useful.

Click to expand...

I guess my point was that if the difference is not due to lighting then ISO 6400 on the D7100 is equivalent to ISO 4000 on the D300. So it's not exactly fair to compare the noise levels in ISO 6400 vs ISO 6400.

What matters in practical use: how much noise am I going to get when shooting at a given shutter speed (perhaps the minimum that works for the situation) and the ISO setting that gives correct exposure.

That said, according to DxO the true ISO of these two cameras are almost identical at every setting between 200-6400. So maybe it's just due to different lighting. Didn't dpreview move from London to Seattle? There must be differences in the test scene setup.

szhorvat said:

That said, according to DxO the true ISO of these two cameras are almost identical at every setting between 200-6400.

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Did they compare true ISO? I guess I missed that. Glad to hear they were identical. Do you have a link?

Squirrel7 said:

szhorvat said:

That said, according to DxO the true ISO of these two cameras are almost identical at every setting between 200-6400.

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Did they compare true ISO? I guess I missed that. Glad to hear they were identical. Do you have a link?

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Yes, click my link above, the scroll down to the comparison and click "Measurements". It'll bring up a chart showing manufacturer specified ISO values vs measures true ISO values.

szhorvat said:

Squirrel7 said:

szhorvat said:

That said, according to DxO the true ISO of these two cameras are almost identical at every setting between 200-6400.

Click to expand...

Did they compare true ISO? I guess I missed that. Glad to hear they were identical. Do you have a link?

Click to expand...

Yes, click my link above, the scroll down to the comparison and click "Measurements". It'll bring up a chart showing manufacturer specified ISO values vs measures true ISO values.

Click to expand...

Only seems to be a significant deviation in the "extended" ISO range. Base ISO for the D300s is 200. I compared to Canon 600D, Nikon D90, D3300 and the values are always slightly below what DxO has as nominal, but the points for all these cameras are practically on top of each other within the normal range but do vary significantly in the extended range.

I chose the above cameras because I've owned them, except the D3300 which I chose after seeing this video:

The DxO mark measurements suggest either the findings of this video apply only to the capture of video, or the test is in some other way flawed. I wonder how many people have bought a D3300 based on this.

The D3300 does seem a little closer to nominal at ISO 100 but I note the following comments by DxO:

"Resolution as an independent metric isn’t presented in this instance but the sensor’s signal quality of all three models is ostensibly the same. In reality, though, the D3300 isn’t quite a match for either the D5300 or the high-end D7100. While all three share the same color depth and low light capabilities, the D3300 has -1 stop less dynamic range at base ISO."

"If we look closer at our measurement data, between the D5300 and D3300, the two share similar color sensitivity and color response. But, there is a noise difference for the lowest grayscale between the two (grayscale inferior to 1% of the dynamic). In the case of the D3300 this higher noise reduces the dynamic range, but not the color sensitivity."

Thank you all for your helpful comments.

Nikon have got us all running round buying odball cameras that we dont want, what we need is simply a replacement for the D300, a replacement for the D700 and a replacement for the D3 (which we have in the D4)

I think they will only release these replacements when they have shifted a load of boxes to us all first