Nikon

So I have a D500 and 500PF (also a Z6 and a few other Z lenses kicking around which I'm not too worried about).

• I really like the 500PF, and because its only about a year old I don't really want to turn it over just yet.
• Whilst I really enjoy the D500, I'd like to change to full frame, mainly for more detail and better noise control.
• I'd like to shift to ML too (for birds), mainly to keep the noise (of the shutter) down, but also because Nikon has some pretty decent Z glass exotics, and some of the newer ML bodies by varying brands do have somewhat better AF: I do need something as least as good as the D500 for birds and wildlife.
• I don't consider the Z7ii and Z6ii to be along the lines of what i'm looking for numerous reasons.

I figure I have a few options that I'm aware of:

1. A new Nikon FF body with decent AF might come out that not the price of the Z9, all problems solved. Keep the 500PF, ditch the D500 and Z6 (after it eventually arrives).
2. Go all in and buy a Z9, and a FTZ2, additional cash requirement after trades and credit might be $AUD4,500.
3. Sell the D500 and buy a D850. Older but awesome tech, miss a few fps, not quieter, doesn't transition to ML or perhaps more interesting AF. Relatively cheap transition, if I can buy one.
4. Sell everything and buy a Canon R5 and the 100-500 lens. Downgrades the glass a tad, but upgrades the body a reasonable way. But really decent long glass is back to >$17kAUD.
5. Sell everything and buy a Sony (something) and the 200-600 lens. Downgrades the glass a tad, but upgrades the body. Again, really decent long glass is back to >$17kAUD.

Are there any more options in the FF arena that would be worth considering?

Cheers!

You have a very nice 500mm PF lens and, as you say, it is going to cost you $$$$$$$ if you move to Canon or Sony to replace it. Additionally, changing systems requires you to learn new handling and new menu systems, and you may have to replace accessories like flashes.

So, my recommendation would be to go with one of the Nikon options. I think that the current top of the line AF systems are going to trickle down to lower level cameras pretty quickly - look at the AF on the Canon R7.

Assuming you are wildlife or at least long lens user.

The Nikon R7 has yet to show up. Be ready if it does.

Not sure you need ff. If so do you need it for wildlife or other. Can you use two cameras. The d500 is an excellent wildlife tool. But there will be better, and the new lenses are tempting.

I have to recommend pre-ordering the new Nikon crop z9....

The mirrorless world is topsy-turvy at the moment. Wait for Canon and Nikon to transition fully which will take a few years. Looks like Sony is going to rely on third party manufacturers for it's lenses, so eventually Canon and Nikon will provide a much more complete system.

Buy a used D850 and a 1.4x for the 500mm and image quality will be superior to the D500, and get the grip and it's 9 fps (I believe) is still amazing.

Wait for Nikon to introduce more bodies and lenses.

We each have differing wants, and that needs to control what we buy. That said personally I cannot understanding wanting to move from a D500 to any FF model, especially a mirrorless if wildlife was one of my primary uses. You can use the FF model in crop mode, but you loose mp's when you do that, or you can use the FF and add teleconverter, but you loose image quality with that. And the D500 is still considered at or close to the top when rating cameras for wildlife and birding.

And changing systems with what you already have seems to me to be a "gotta have something new and latest and greatest" moment, which we all have and have succumbed to at some point in time. Which is what keeps the manufacturers in business, so not all bad. And maybe puts new life in your interests. I know I always take way more photos when I get a new camera.

I've been in your exact position about two years ago. Bought a D850 and liked it better than the D500, but that's largely a matter of taste, Both lack some of the reasons why people go ML, from EVFs to Eye AF and more.

I added a Z7, then a Z7ii, and was hugely disappointed with both AF-wise (they're great otherwise). Only the Z9 was on the horizon at the time, still a long way off and of no interest to me, as I knew it was going to be a brick. And a brick it is.

I switched to Canon with the R5 and the RF 100-500 lens, a great combo. I later moved to Olympus/OMDS, but that's another story. (Read it at https://thisbeautifulplanet.de/bird-shooting-combos if you're interested - you get plenty of comparo details there.)

Anyway, if I were in you shoes today, I'd hang on to the D500 and save up for a Z-whatever-it's-ultimately-going-to-be, a regular-size Z body with AF performance close enough to the Z9's. I'm pretty sure we are now within a year of that thing appearing, so making the huge investment in a whole different set of gear, combined with the required learning curve, does not seem to make much sense anymore.

You can also use that time to save up for a Z 100-400 with the Z 1.4x TC. It seems like an even better option than the wonderful 500 PF: similar IQ and sharpness, but the flexibility of a zoom.

I definitely would not opt for the Sony. It's a great and affordable lens, but its weight (2.4kg with foot) restricts it to tripod use unless you like cursing. ;-)

Good advice, thank you.

Yes I feel like the Z9 is a very obvious choice at this point, but I really do like the idea of just getting another body and a long Z lens and carting two around like you say!

Absolutely, the D850 might be a nice transitional workaround, and you basically miss nothing and get so much.

Yes I love the D500, but I am running out of ways to get more detail.

I do enjoy cursing from time to time

And you're right, just wait is also probably the best option.

I don't really need much more beyond the AF I have at the moment and I don't really want to change systems, although like you I've seen some great results from the canon gear.

Thank you all!

You're all in some way/s dead right, I might opt to hurry up and wait, but if a well priced D850 comes along, i might just snap it up too.

I must admit though, the Z9 seems less and less of an outlandish idea...

Not sure the D850 will gain you much with the 500pf compared to it's use on the D500. You'd need to consider the D500 is a crop sensor, so if used on subject matter that would fill the "crop" dimension, you have pretty much the same resolution.

Which is not to say that the D850 is not one of the greatest dslrs or all times and worthy of consideration but different end uses might get different solutions.

There's some concept that lenses are more stable, they are replaced or advanced more slowly. And choose lenses to fit your objectives. Then the bodies for those lenses. Maybe if a very specific objective and only a very few lenses work to that end. But maybe the bodies in that mount aren't quite there. Or the goal takes a specific functional capability in the body so you go to the "good enough" lens.

So, if you can't abide moving off the 500pf, you're going to stay in Nikon land. OTOH, you want Z9 range performance but A1 size, looks like Sony is in your future. (Or maybe there is a suitable Canon body, too?) But short of specific announced releases, etc., it's a time risk to wait for "perfect" if good enough is already out there.

They all have access to pretty much the same tech, so the body offerings will likely stabilize and have similar offerings - but which ones and when may differ. Lenses? Sony has a broad range and a lot of third party offerings. Nikon seems to be tapping the 3rd party sources some now. Canon seems to be going it alone.

Sony is not going to stagnate, so while Nikon and Canon work to catch up, Sony won't be standing still.

This will likely not be of interest to you, but I don't have a D500, but do have several Nikon aspc dslr's and have problems getting enough detail with small birds at distance even with a 500mm lens. And as crazy as it may seem to many, I can usually get more fine feather detail for small birds at a distance with my Nikon P900 bridge camera as I can usually put more pixels per bird this way as most small bird photos with detail require the 2000mm equivalent lens. As long as distance allows me to fill the frame with my dslr's things are fine, but when I can only get a small bird image to fill a small portion of the frame with apsc, and can fill the frame on the bridge cam, the details edge goes to the bridge cam.

I looked at a couple of photos and found that a photo that framed a small bird filling the frame of the 16mp image from the P900 would require cropping a photo taken of the same bird at same distance with 24mp apsc sensor and 300mm (450 FF equiv) would have to be cropped to less than 5 mp to achieve the same framing. So even given the better ability of the apsc senor it was hard to achieve the detail of the 1/2.3" sensor with 5 mp compared to 16mp to work with. Not saying that the larger sensor is not better, and if I had a 1300mm lens for my apsc camera it could win easily, but unfortunately I have neither the funds or physical abilities to deal with a 1300mm f6.3 lens. I even recently traded my only 500mm lens off as I no longer felt I would ever be able to handle it any more at my age.

There's no guarantee moving to full-frame will deliver photos having more detail and less prominent noise. The core question is, how often do you fill the frame when photographing birds with your D500/500 PF combo? If you occasionally fill the frame, but mostly crop a bit in post to get a composition you like, full-frame offers only minimal advantages at a much higher cost.

On the other hand, if you often wish you had a shorter focal length than 500mm when doing bird photography with that combo, moving to full-frame has some potential to deliver on your goal of improving image detail and reducing noise visibility.

Given that your interest is bird photography, I suspect you often wish the 500mm PF was even a bit longer. If that's the case, your best option is to give Nikon another 6-9 months to deliver a D500-equivalent Z900 body. It'll probably have something in the range of a 30MP sensor, which will deliver a bit of a resolution boost. (Equivalent to a 68MP full-frame camera photo cropped to match an APS-C angle of view.) Being an APS-C camera, it won't capture any more light than the D500 but, if paired with the Z-mount 200-600mm zoom that's been on the Z-cosystem road map for several years, you'd have 20% more reach and the ability to fill the frame a bit more. That would give you a modest improvement in noise performance.

Good luck.

--
Bill Ferris Photography
Flagstaff, AZ
http://www.billferris.photoshelter.com

Thanks Bill,

it’s an interesting conundrum, one for which there are almost two answers, birdsize dependent.

But mainly it goes like this:

- I’ll take it as it goes: quite often I can get close to smaller birds, and easily fill the frame on DX, although there are certainly times when the frame goes wanting. DX or FX, the end result is none too different. I find I’m probably too close in a lot of cases with larger birds I like to shoot in flight (eagles and kites and the like), a tad too far for Kestrels etc.

- on FX though I gain another set of opportunities, I think. Fill the frame, or 3/4 fill it, and I’m winning with the smaller birds, and crop to sub DX and I lose nothing.

- the larger birds are potentially a better fill ratio for BIF on FF, potentially increased detail.

- for anything smaller in flight, my attraction to the z lenses was mainly the 800, which gets me 100mm further than the D500, 500PF and TC14, and at f6.3 and not f8, all on a 45MP sensor.

All of that said, I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, I appreciate your input.

Cheers!

The other factor to keep in mind is autofocus performance. Of the current Z bodies, only the Z9 offers clear improvement. The Z7 is at breast a sideways move. As Nikon releases products having Z9 DNA, your upgrade options in full-frame (and probably APS-C) should expand.

Yes I have a Z6 and I’ve tried it for birds and whilst it’s possible there’s no comparison.

the EVF lag is horrific, but I was shooting bee eaters and swallows and the like.

interesting though, I was just thinking that crop sensor could still be fairly interesting with the right number of pixels, I wonder what the chances of 33-40 MP would be?

Ramon767 said:

So I have a D500 and 500PF (also a Z6 and a few other Z lenses kicking around which I'm not too worried about).

• I really like the 500PF, and because its only about a year old I don't really want to turn it over just yet.
• Whilst I really enjoy the D500, I'd like to change to full frame, mainly for more detail and better noise control.
• I'd like to shift to ML too (for birds), mainly to keep the noise (of the shutter) down, but also because Nikon has some pretty decent Z glass exotics, and some of the newer ML bodies by varying brands do have somewhat better AF: I do need something as least as good as the D500 for birds and wildlife.
• I don't consider the Z7ii and Z6ii to be along the lines of what i'm looking for numerous reasons.

I figure I have a few options that I'm aware of:

1. A new Nikon FF body with decent AF might come out that not the price of the Z9, all problems solved. Keep the 500PF, ditch the D500 and Z6 (after it eventually arrives).
2. Go all in and buy a Z9, and a FTZ2, additional cash requirement after trades and credit might be $AUD4,500.
3. Sell the D500 and buy a D850. Older but awesome tech, miss a few fps, not quieter, doesn't transition to ML or perhaps more interesting AF. Relatively cheap transition, if I can buy one.
4. Sell everything and buy a Canon R5 and the 100-500 lens. Downgrades the glass a tad, but upgrades the body a reasonable way. But really decent long glass is back to >$17kAUD.
5. Sell everything and buy a Sony (something) and the 200-600 lens. Downgrades the glass a tad, but upgrades the body. Again, really decent long glass is back to >$17kAUD.

Are there any more options in the FF arena that would be worth considering?

Cheers!

Click to expand...

The rumours say that the "Z8" will have a 60Mpix sensor which will give you a higher pixel density than your D500 or the D850. Just what you want to get more detail of those pesky birds. It's also safe to assume that it will have new focussing and viewfinder technology to make it at least the equivalent of the Canon R5.

I have a D850 which I'm delighted with and which I use for demanding tasks. I use my Z5 with a host of Z lenses for more mundane things.

I can wait. My only problem is that the D850+200-500 is just too heavy for me to use comfortably and I'm looking forward to using the "Z8" with the 100-400 Z + 1.4 teleconverter instead.

Thank you for being honest. Interesting, and what I would expect. But few reports of real world experience. But it makes perfect sense. efv cannot be viewing in real time.