new camera time...

[Davi]

After my question on lenses, I think it's time to just replace my camera.

What to get is the question. I was looking at trading in against a D90, but I don't really need HD movie, so was thinking second hand D80. Or second hand D300. or. erm.

So.. what's the best image quality for money going to come from? Is there much difference in the sensors between 80/90/200/300? Is it worth worrying about self sensor cleaning? etc

[Jack Blag]

Find a good second hand D300... it will be worth every penny!

[14-7]

What's your budget?

[Davi]

Budget is open to interpretation. My budget is whatever I fancy. My wifes interpretation is "as little as possible" :P

More seriously though - depends. If a new D90 is £550 but a used D300 is £650 in good nick but you lot reckon it's well worth the extra, then I'll go the extra

[Jack Blag]

I wouldn't bother with a D80, but both the D90 and D300 are excellent choices. As always, the best thing is to try them out if you can.

[d1d215]

Jack Blag said:

I wouldn't bother with a D80, but both the D90 and D300 are excellent choices. As always, the best thing is to try them out if you can.

how is a D80 different apart from the video ?

[Simpo Two]

Out of that lot I'd plump for a s/h D200. But then I would say that wouldn't I (and indeed bought exactly that recently as a backup to the other one)

[andy-xr]

I must have missed another thread. What are you going from?

[Muska]

I bought a D200 recently for about £500 with plenty of batteries and the portrait grip. great calue for money. The D300 body only will set you back about 800 but is a better body in my opinion.

[Davi]

D60 Andy. Biggest problem is lens selection is so much smaller / more expensive. Plus I can see me outgrowing the D60 very quickly anyway.

[Simpo Two]

Muska said:

I bought a D200 recently for about £500 with plenty of batteries and the portrait grip. great calue for money. The D300 body only will set you back about 800 but is a better body in my opinion.

I'd say the bodies are the same but the D300 has a bigger higher-res monitor and a stop better noise. That may be worth £300 or it may not be, depending on the OP's needs. For me the D300 was close but finally fell down on histogram display options and NEF compatibility, but that's a personal thing.

[Muska]

When I said better body I meant in general terms, not build quality.

[RobDickinson]

Davi said:

Is there much difference in the sensors between 80/90/200/300? Is it worth worrying about self sensor cleaning? etc

AFIK...
The D80 is old and ignore it.

D200 is ok so long as you dont push the ISO
D90 is probably better IQ than the D300 at low ISO but not by much.
D300 likely the best out of the lot especialy at high ISO but still needs carefull exposure (to the right).

D300 realy is a cracking camera, D90 isnt bad either, havnt used a D200 for comparison tho.

[andy-xr]

Davi said:

D60 Andy. Biggest problem is lens selection is so much smaller / more expensive. Plus I can see me outgrowing the D60 very quickly anyway.

Fair call, I started on a D40 and lens selection was a bit of a problem so I went D80 then D300 and would recommend both. If my D300 broke/got dropped/nicked, I'd definately look for another S/H

One thing to watch (I think Simpo Two mentioned this ages ago in a D300 vs D200 discussion) is the D300's Camera Standard seems to have upped greens over the D80 (profile calibration from LR). I do a fair bit of portraity type shots and skin tones took me a bit of time to get the hang of

[itsnotarace]

Simpo Two said:

I'd say the bodies are the same but the D300 has a bigger higher-res monitor and a stop better noise.

The D300 beats the D200 hands down, it's not even close. The autofocus system is far, far, far better. Battery life is double the D200. Image review on the rear screen is hugely better, with the ability to zoom right in to check your focus point. It has 2 extra frames per second. The level of detail in images are higher. Automatic white balance is a lot better. I don't use Active D lighting or Live View but neither of those features are on the D200. I do use the automatic sensor clean on startup and shutdown though.

I will also agree with the stop better noise in ISO.

[Simpo Two]

itsnotarace said:

The D300 beats the D200 hands down, it's not even close. The autofocus system is far, far, far better. Battery life is double the D200. Image review on the rear screen is hugely better, with the ability to zoom right in to check your focus point. It has 2 extra frames per second. The level of detail in images are higher. Automatic white balance is a lot better. I don't use Active D lighting or Live View but neither of those features are on the D200. I do use the automatic sensor clean on startup and shutdown though.

I will also agree with the stop better noise in ISO.

I have used both cameras 'in combat' and can only judge them by criteria which are important to me.

AF: The D300 has 51 points not 11, but as I use single point AF, 11 is fine for me and quite enough to toggle round when I may have only 2 seconds to prepare for a shot.

Battery life: Agreed, but I have five batteries. Two batteries is usually enough for a whole wedding.

'Ability to zoom in and check focus point'. As in the D200; I use this a lot. But try getting one large histogram on a D300 at the same time - they are mutually exclusive!

The D300 does scroll faster over a zoomed image though, which was handy.

2 extra frames per second. No use to me, sorry. I actually leave my 5fps D200 set to 3fps and almost never use it.

12Mp vs 10MP: not significant, just larger files.

Auto WB: D200 does a great job, but I found the D300 gave an odd hue on skintones.

Automatic sensor clean. Dear me, whatever next, go-faster stripes?!

But the real deal-breaker for me was that D300 NEFs are incompatible with my preferred RAW processor and its lovely workflow.

99% of the images on my website were taken with a D200, and importantly in this instance, £300 cheaper for the OP. Of course the D300 is better on paper, and maybe for you too, and a Ferrari is faster than a Jaguar, but that does not mean a Ferrari is the most suitable car at all times.

Edited by Simpo Two on Thursday 13th May 09:21

[Davi]

Noise in higher ISO is something that bugs me constantly as I seem to end up needing it quite a lot, but produce such grainy results I bin them all!

Automatic sensor clean... I wondered on this one, the chaps in LCE said it was a worthwhile feature if you swapped lenses around a lot - well I wouldn't know, I can't afford many lenses for the D60, that's how this all started

I'm still at a fairly basic level in many respects so I think half the problem is I don't know where I'm going with my needs. I know several things about the D60 annoy me - I'd like more focal points available so I don't keep having to use the lock as it's in an awkward place for me, the noise as mentioned, the lack of bracketing REALLY gets on my nerves, and there are certain things I'd really like to not have to go into the menu system to change, for example the metering type!

Here's my flickr thing - http://www.flickr.com/photos/33522717@N00/ - that's a fairly good indication of my spread of photography at the moment, though if there were more scenery around here, there would be a lot more landscape shots! Dunno if that influences type?

Edited by Davi on Thursday 13th May 09:38

[RobDickinson]

Davi said:

Noise in higher ISO is something that bugs me constantly as I seem to end up needing it quite a lot, but produce such grainy results I bin them all!

Automatic sensor clean... I wondered on this one, the chaps in LCE said it was a worthwhile feature if you swapped lenses around a lot - well I wouldn't know, I can't afford many lenses for the D60, that's how this all started

I'm still at a fairly basic level in many respects so I think half the problem is I don't know where I'm going with my needs. I know several things about the D60 annoy me - I'd like more focal points available so I don't keep having to use the lock as it's in an awkward place for me, the noise as mentioned, the lack of bracketing REALLY gets on my nerves, and there are certain things I'd really like to not have to go into the menu system to change, for example the metering type!

Here's my flickr thing - http://www.flickr.com/photos/33522717@N00/ - that's a fairly good indication of my spread of photography at the moment, though if there were more scenery around here, there would be a lot more landscape shots! Dunno if that influences type?

Not sure how much better the D200, D90 or D300 are than the D60, probably best to check some reference sites for that.

Sensor cleaning is OK, works, a bit, not always, didnt have it for years on the 350D coped fine, just clean it yourself from time to time, and dust bunnies are usualy easy to fix later anyhow, certainly wouldnt be on my list of must haves.

As for controls they'll all be a marked improvement, and have better AF.

[Simpo Two]

Davi said:

Noise in higher ISO is something that bugs me constantly as I seem to end up needing it quite a lot, but produce such grainy results I bin them all!

Judging from the photos on your link there's no obvious reason why you'd need to be running very high ISOs - or are you letting the camera decide?

Davi said:

I'd like more focal points available so I don't keep having to use the lock as it's in an awkward place for me, the noise as mentioned, the lack of bracketing REALLY gets on my nerves, and there are certain things I'd really like to not have to go into the menu system to change, for example the metering type!

Focus lock - you mean the 'AF-ON' button? I never use it; if you want to lock focus and reframe, just set the camera to AF-S and semi-depress the shutter release.

Braketing - I've found this a double-edged sword. Maybe I misunderstood something but I was expecting, if it was set to a bracket of three, to take three photos and then stop. Instead, you have to count out three (or five) exposures each time you use it, or you get out of sequence. And the next time you use the camera, your exposures will be all over the place because you'll forgot you left it on autobracket... Hence I never use it, but bracket manually using +/- EV.

Both the D200 and 300 have all the major functions on the outside so that will cheer you up! They also have a configurable button under the DOF preview button which I find very handy for quickly disabling the flash.

Edited by Simpo Two on Thursday 13th May 10:09

[Davi]

Simpo Two said:

Judging from the photos on your link there's no obvious reason why you'd need to be running very high ISOs - or are you letting the camera decide?

because they all come out so noisy I'd never even keep them in the "almost worked" folder let alone display them on the 'net Even ISO 800 on the D60 is unacceptably grainy from my attempts so far.

Simpo Two said:

Focus lock - you mean the 'AF-ON' button? I never use it; if you want to lock focus and reframe, just set the camera to AF-S and semi-depress the shutter release.

I find the reframe option can be a bit of a PITA when taking multiple shots in the same situation. With only 3 focal points on the D60 I find in situations where you want to fire off a few quickly I'm waving the camera around like a loon to recompose the pic every click. Of course that may be because I'm a noob and am teaching myself as I go along so may well be using the wrong technique!

Simpo Two said:

Braketing - I've found this a double-edged sword. Maybe I misunderstood something but I was expecting, if it was set to a bracket of three, to take three photos and then stop. Instead, you have to count out three (or five) exposures each time you use it, or you get out of sequence. And the next time you use the camera, your exposures will be all over the place because you'll forgot you left it on autobracket... Hence I never use it, but bracket manually using +/- EV.

Both the D200 and 300 have all the major functions on the outside so that will cheer you up! They also have a configurable button under the DOF preview button which I find very handy for quickly disabling the flash.

Now that's interesting on Bracketing - I think I may have misunderstood it too. I was lead to believe you put it onto continuous shooting and AEB and it would burst off the amount of shots you'd specified. I can completely see what you're saying about counting shots - that seems a bit crap! Maybe I just need to be faster with the +/- button :P

edited for crappy formatting :P

Edited by Davi on Thursday 13th May 10:22