Thinking of switching to FX

[qunamax]

I'm having this idea these days of selling my D7000, Tamron 17-50 f.28 and 55-300VR and grabbing a used D600. I will keep 50mm 1.8D and Samyang 85mm f1.4.
What I'm looking for is to further thin out DOF (oh such a cliche). Also I'd like to have more PP room from FX sensor and more resolution as it'll help me a great bit with stock. My main interest are full figure portraits. I also shoot a fair amount of landscapes and that's going to be a problem with this switch as I won't have any wider FX lens and anything similar to Tamron 17-50 f2.8 is pricey for FX.
So I was thinking of using old Nikon 18-70mm in a crop mode as an first aid until I get at least Nikon 24-85mm.
Does this have any logic with you guys or am I just having a gear fever?

 

[mrbr]

Hi,

I would start with reading and study ( but I presume you are doing this already ) :

Nikon D600 & D610 Camera Review | DSLRBodies | Thom Hogan

Review of the Nikon D600 and D610 camera by Thom Hogan

www.dslrbodies.com

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www.dslrbodies.com

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www.dslrbodies.com

Then if you still want to go FX, maybe first buy a used D600 or D610 , use it for some months and then decide what you want to do ?

a) sell the used D6(0|1)0 and keep your dx gear ( not much harm done )

or

b) sell your dx gear to be able to invest in fx lenses

or if you can and want and can justify this for yourself

c) keep both fx and dx and work out a lens plan that works on your dx and fx bodies

Good luck !

Maybe inform us about your decision and why you made it ? Thanks in advance

 

[romfordbluenose]

The move from D7000 to D600, or anything with a new sensor would significantly improve your PP capability when it comes to ISO/noise performance. perhaps get a used D610 rather than the D600.

You may be pleasantly surprised by the 18-70 as you will find that it will be wider at certain focal lengths than you think as long as you use it in FX mode, but you will need to do PP cropping to trim the edges.

Your 50mm on FX becomes a much more useful focal length than on DX.

Lastly the 24-85 is a great lens for the camera, sharp and lightweight. I use it as my normal walk-around lens on my D800.

 

[qunamax]

@mrbr: Thanks for the links. Unfortunately the only way I can handle this financially is to sell all my DX gear. I was thinking, I can pull this and keep just the two primes, which I mostly use and just add something wide later on. I'm having doubts if the jump will be worth it as much as I think it would, in DOF and PP departments that is.

@romfordbluenose Usually I really enjoy DIY and "I can do this without the right tools" attitude but I completely forgot about that options, to just use it in FX mode crop and in PP, it certainly would give me a higher resolution than 10MPX of crop mode.
Actually I also shoot film with F75 and I can check 18-70 there to see how's the vignetting. Thanks for the reassuring, I think I'm going to give this a go.

I've chosen D600 as I'm on a tight budget and their availability on a local used market, as I understand D610 is practically the same camera with somewhat faster burst rate and introduced just to address the oil issue (which doesn't really bother me to be honest).

 

[TacticDesigns]

I'm having this idea these days of selling my D7000, Tamron 17-50 f.28 and 55-300VR and grabbing a used D600. I will keep 50mm 1.8D and Samyang 85mm f1.4.
What I'm looking for is to further thin out DOF (oh such a cliche). Also I'd like to have more PP room from FX sensor and more resolution as it'll help me a great bit with stock. My main interest are full figure portraits. I also shoot a fair amount of landscapes and that's going to be a problem with this switch as I won't have any wider FX lens and anything similar to Tamron 17-50 f2.8 is pricey for FX.
So I was thinking of using old Nikon 18-70mm in a crop mode as an first aid until I get at least Nikon 24-85mm.
Does this have any logic with you guys or am I just having a gear fever?

 

[qunamax]

Thanks for the feedback!
I really have no complains about D7000, it's a lot of camera and it's serving me very well.
So to sum it, there are going to be considerate gains with this FX sensor for PPa dn I won't feel disappointed about this whole switch and I'll feel a punch.

I'll just list my stuff for sale these days and go from there.

 

[mrbr]

• qunamax wrote:

@mrbr: Thanks for the links. Unfortunately the only way I can handle this financially is to sell all my DX gear. I was thinking, I can pull this and keep just the two primes, which I mostly use and just add something wide later on. I'm having doubts if the jump will be worth it as much as I think it would, in DOF and PP departments that is.

Maybe after preparing, first hire a D600 or D610 for a weekend to get the feeling of the fx world and pp the fx raw files before deciding?

Don't decide to quick. The D7000 is also a great camera.

Good luck!

Greetings,

Marc

@romfordbluenose Usually I really enjoy DIY and "I can do this without the right tools" attitude but I completely forgot about that options, to just use it in FX mode crop and in PP, it certainly would give me a higher resolution than 10MPX of crop mode.
Actually I also shoot film with F75 and I can check 18-70 there to see how's the vignetting. Thanks for the reassuring, I think I'm going to give this a go.
I've chosen D600 as I'm on a tight budget and their availability on a local used market, as I understand D610 is practically the same camera with somewhat faster burst rate and introduced just to address the oil issue (which doesn't really bother me to be honest).

 

[TacticDesigns]

Thanks for the feedback!
I really have no complains about D7000, it's a lot of camera and it's serving me very well.
So to sum it, there are going to be considerate gains with this FX sensor for PPa dn I won't feel disappointed about this whole switch and I'll feel a punch.
I'll just list my stuff for sale these days and go from there.

 

[Lightpath48]

I wonder whether you might miss your DX zooms in the long run, for gains in sensor size.

 

[herbymel]

I wonder whether you might miss your DX zooms in the long run, for gains in sensor size.

No one said lens choices had to be permanent, and as we all know, most of the time they aren't.

One of the first lenses I did pick up when I jumped up to the D800 was the 35-70 2.8...zoom range isn't the best but very sharp lens and usually can be found around $250, wish I still had mine...nice, sharp, small and cheap enough that you don't have to worry if something happens to it.

 

[qunamax]

@mrbr: Yes that's a great idea, I might even remotely know someone with D600 to met up and give it a go and bring a card back home.

@TacticDesigns: That's what I'm looking for, rich detail to wow me. I'm thinking it's going to really shine with my Samyang.

@Lightpath48: I certainly am going to miss Tamron, it really grew on me for wide shots, but holiday summer season is over and probably I won't be needing a zoom until the next one. I'll certainly add something adequate for the wide end in time. 55-300VR is a nice lens but just doesn't fit my needs much, I was using it for portraits until I got Samyang, since then it's been sitting on a shelf.

 

[bjn70]

I would think your f1.8 and f1.4 primes would be sufficient on the crop sensor body. I've seen people using f1.8 and f1.4 lenses on full frame bodies, but they frequently stop the lenses down to f2.8 or beyond so they don't have the depth of field advantage. For that matter you can get f1.2 lenses as well. If you want more resolution you could get a D7100 or D7200.

Comparing DX and FF cameras, it is always very difficult to justify FF when price is a factor. There are other ways to achieve your goals.

I have a D7200 and I've read about the D610. I'm not so sure about the D7000 but going from D7200 to D610 you might be disappointed with the speed of focus and operation. You would be better off going to the D750 but that is even higher cost. I want FF myself, not because I can prove to myself that it is substantially better, but just because. But I can't justify the much higher cost.

 

[bjn70]

But click on the image and see how much detail is there.

Standing about 20-30 ft away . . . I swear you can count how many eye lashes she has.

I believe the D7200 will do that also if you have really good glass. Of course there are some other characteristics of the FF image that the D7200 can't do. The D7200 will really put the resolving power of your lenses to the test.

 

[qunamax]

I would think your f1.8 and f1.4 primes would be sufficient on the crop sensor body. I've seen people using f1.8 and f1.4 lenses on full frame bodies, but they frequently stop the lenses down to f2.8 or beyond so they don't have the depth of field advantage. For that matter you can get f1.2 lenses as well. If you want more resolution you could get a D7100 or D7200.

Comparing DX and FF cameras, it is always very difficult to justify FF when price is a factor. There are other ways to achieve your goals.

I have a D7200 and I've read about the D610. I'm not so sure about the D7000 but going from D7200 to D610 you might be disappointed with the speed of focus and operation. You would be better off going to the D750 but that is even higher cost. I want FF myself, not because I can prove to myself that it is substantially better, but just because. But I can't justify the much higher cost.

Thing is, these lenses too need to be stopped down to f2.8 for optimal performance but I do use them on their widest apertures when I need light or max shallow DOF and work on CA and sharpness in PP. I'm looking for being able to come in closer to subject with FX, on crop I have the desired effect but only if the subject is sitting down or the subject is a child, I'm hoping to achieve the same result with adults standing up.

I'm not really concerned about AF at all, I used 50mm 1.8D for years on D40 and lately this Samyang which is pure MF.

I'm on a really tight budget, I can't possibly justify cashing away 1000 and some euros for either single body or single lens in any foreseeable future, apart from stock that gets me some money for holiday trips this is purely a hobby for me.

 

[blue_cheese]

Is the AF sensor coverage, it is basically one big cluster of center focus points, 1/3 of the frame away from the center you have no AF coverage.

few years ago, I was looking for a new camera (stolen gear started me with a clean slate) and I was as close as I would be to getting into FX at that time as I didn't have to commit with any lens baggage.

There was no D750 at the time, the D810 was unnecessarily big and relatively quite pricier than the D610. I borrowed a friend's D610 and used it for a week for a couple of thousand snaps, the AF sensor coverage really annoyed me. In portrait orientation you can't frame a close up shot and land an AF point on the face/eyes.

The D600/610 have very nice tonality and DR, and how clean it is at higher ISO (6400) is immediately noticeable, soI went with a D7100 for the AF coverage.

I think had the D750 been available at that time, things would have turned out different. FF takes noticeably better photos (if the photographer is the same, and you know what you are looking for)

Of course, your mileage may vary

 

[mosswings]

My main interest are full figure portraits. I also shoot a fair amount of landscapes

Although qunamax stated a desire for even thinner DOF, for which FF is an obvious first choice, portraiture especially benefits from the lower noise and greater tonal depth possible in full frame (about 1.5 stops between the D7000 and D600/610). Landscapes appreciate the lower noise as well, which lets you keep fine detail instead of smoothing it away with NR. But by moving to a 24MP sensor from your present 16MP, that would accrue to you even with a modern DX camera. The D810 is of course the do-it-all wunderclicker, but out of your price range.

The other question I'd ask is what sort of stock you shoot. If it's for small-size reproductions, the main reason to go FF would be for DOF control, but I can see where FF would give you an advantage in PP for critically-viewed reproduction as long as you are shooting 14 bit RAW.

The D610 and D7000 AF systems are fairly similar - only the coverage area of the D600/610 may be a concern. And Qunamax is not shooting sports.

 

[qunamax]

As I stated I'm not concerned about AF at all, any AF system is adequate for me, I'm either focusing with central point and recomposing or using manual focus (and I'm reasonably fast tbh as I've been doing it for years now).

I'm concentrating on concepts that include people (business, lifestyle etc), you could say that those are more or less a portraits in a sense. Also some food, textures and general travel. Most of the time it's available light because I can work faster that way and change locations. I try to upload as high res as possible to broaden the possibility of use by buyers but I often find myself needing to scale down to hide the imperfections and pass the inspection, often because of noise caused by either having to shoot at higher ISO or introduced by heavy PP. So I see a benefit the too both by having 24MPx and better ISO performance.

 

[TacticDesigns]

But click on the image and see how much detail is there.

Standing about 20-30 ft away . . . I swear you can count how many eye lashes she has.

I believe the D7200 will do that also if you have really good glass.

In my situation . . . I was already using FX lenses, but on my D7000 for the extra reach for shooting gymnastics from the stands.

But then all of a sudden people started asking for portraits. So, I needed to have the FX lenses shoot wider to get the shots I wanted when I started shooting portraits.

I already had FX lenses, so it was actually easier for me to just get the FX camera. And since the D600/D610/D750 had been introduced by then, I was actually able to afford getting into FX.

It would have been a lot more work to research and figure out what DX lenses I could get to get what I was after, especially considering that I already had the FX lenses, and if I went the FX route, all I would have to do was buy an FX camera and I'd be done. LOL.

Of course there are some other characteristics of the FF image that the D7200 can't do. The D7200 will really put the resolving power of your lenses to the test.

I think there can be pros / cons either way.

For me, it just happened to be the easiest way to get to where I would have all my equipment working together to get the shots I was after.

But, using the same lenses and me shooting the same way, I instantly got cleaner pictures.

Then again, if I wasn't shooting for other people and just shooting for myself, I'm pretty sure I would have kept shooting DX. I really hummed and hawed about the Nikon D7200.

Take care & Happy Shooting!

 

[JoeNap2]

When you go FX you will want to go to higher quality lenses. I bought a D600 recently and the upgraded to the new Tamron 24-70 f2.8 G2. I still use my D7000 with a Tamron 10-24 for work (real estate) as it is a much lighter combo. The FX body and good-quality FX lens is a load to carry. It will produce a big step up in image quality for landscape and portraits but you need the lens to make that happen. Hope you have a newer PC, too. The larger files will tax your computer system, as well.

Good luck and good shooting.

 

[qunamax]

I'm aware and because of that I'm thinking of sticking to primes altogether, probably add some UWA Samyang later. You think 50mm 1.8D and Samyang 85mm f1.4 won't resolve well with D600?