Coming back to a DSLR: Full Frame or High ISO?

gerardsaunders

gerardsaunders

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Gerard Saunders
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Good evening gang, I've not been on here for a while. I'm looking to getting back into DSLR photography after a break of about five years. I'm traditionally Nikon and am looking at them again. Being mainly interested in landscape and a bit of architecture my question is, should I invest in a full-frame body or would I be better off, for the same sort of budget, just going for a high ISO, ie. recent but inexpensive body, and a couple of really good lenses? It seems as though one can spend a lot of money just to get maximum frames per second, but that is not of interest in my situation. To answer the obvious question this invites: I'm looking at a total budget of about £1,500 all in for new equipment, or maybe £1,000 secondhand.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.
 
Just to clear something up, there's full frame or crop sensor. Full frame tend to have less noise at higher ISO, but many crop sensors can also do high iso, they just tend to have more noise than the same on a full frame body. So your question is "full frame or crop?" I assume :)
 
You could easily use your whole budget on a couple of lenses for that description. I can't see a reason for going for older FF (i.e. D700) over a modern DX Nikon unless you want the shallow depth of field available from FX. OTOH if you could manage a D600/610 or ever a D750 then I think that would be distinctly superior for the extra dynamic range.
 
htid said:
Just to clear something up, there's full frame or crop sensor. Full frame tend to have less noise at higher ISO, but many crop sensors can also do high iso, they just tend to have more noise than the same on a full frame body. So your question is "full frame or crop?" I assume :)
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Yes, sorry, my actual quandary is whether I should invest in a full frame body or go for cropped sensor and plough my budget into a recent body with maximum ISO.
 
£1500 for all new Full Frame would get you the D610 (grey import) and at most 2 lenses.

The D750 would leave you with no budget left.

That also applies for the D500 if you went crop.

With a budget of £1000 2nd hand to include lenses that would be a D610 or D7200 or you would need to start looking at older bodies such as the D700.

Not a great time to buy at the moment due to the recent rocket in prices.
 
I'd probably go for a D700 which would leave plenty of change for a couple of decent primes.
 
HDEW are holding their prices until midday Saturday but yes, due to the exchange rate going fubar things are getting pricey.

FWIW if buying new would go for a recent crop body and good lenses.

If going second hand I would go for a D6X0, and 70-300VR (my favourite landscape range) and then one of the newer f/1.8 wide primes.
 
I would suggest full frame as they put less demands on the lens than crop sensor and so all things considered equal they will produce sharper results which is what you want with landscapes. Also the Nikon bodies are great for landscape due to their large dynamic range and shadow recovery. For your max budget you could probably buy a used D750 and 18-35mm G and this would give you a stellar setup for landscapes and architecture.
 
I have a nikon d7100 and d700 but the d700 wins hands down in the iso stakes.
 
snerkler said:
For your max budget you could probably buy a used D750 and 18-35mm G and this would give you a stellar setup for landscapes and architecture.
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Good choice, but not sure £1000 will get you that set up?
 
just interesting to know why do you have a £1,000 budget for used but a £1,500 budget for new?

is it because you can get the VAT back on new?
 
JJ! said:
Good choice, but not sure £1000 will get you that set up?
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It won't having just sold both he would be very lucky to just get the D750.

In fact £1000 for a couple of really good lenses is pushing it by itself depending on requirements.
 
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My advice would be a D610 (or even D600 that has been serviced by Nikon). I had the D600 and it was great for landscape on a tripod.

Having said that, I see no reason why a D7200 couldn't do a great job assuming you put a good lens on it. High ISO shouldn't be a factor for landscape/architecture and you'll be using smaller apertures anyway.
 
For that budget and those requirements, for an APS-C camera I would be looking at Pentax not Nikon. If pixels aren't so important the K5iis is a great camera, and very cheap nowadays, or the K70 if you want more pixels.

A K70 costs £560 new and gives you IBIS, pixel shift, and superb weather sealing too.
 
JJ! said:
Good choice, but not sure £1000 will get you that set up?
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That's why I said max budget rather than the used budget, as he has £1500 to spend although said that he only wanted to spend £1000 on used. I'd personally rather spend £1500 on better used equipment than £1500 on not so good new equipment, but each to their own (y)
 
If the budget is £1500 max, then why not mix up s/h and new?
If I was going for Nikon, I'd probably go for a used D610 then something like a Nikon 18-35mm to cover landscapes and if you have budget left, add another lens like 24-85mm or a 35mm/50mm prime.

As I'm a Canon user, I'd suggest the equivalent setup, Canon 6D (great at high ISO, plenty of detail to recover in shadows) for around £750-800, then a Canon 17-40mm L for £350-400ish, which might just leave enough for a 24-105L out of the £1500 budget.
Do you need to add in accessories or do you still have them from before?
 
gerardsaunders said:
Yes, sorry, my actual quandary is whether I should invest in a full frame body or go for cropped sensor and plough my budget into a recent body with maximum ISO.
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I think you may be misunderstanding "high ISO"? I take it you mean either going for a FF body or a crop body with a huge max ISO on the spec sheet? The latter isn't a good way to go if you want clean high ISO. Even on modern crops, at their max ISO (and half the way up to it) they won't really be usable and are pretty dire right at the top end, whereas a full frame body will be far better throughout the ISO range at every comparable ISO.
 
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Indeed, the D500 has an incredible high ISO setting, but I doubt you wouldnt want to use it! The D750 has the better high ISO performance.

I would say Full Frame and High ISO both go together.
 
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JJ! said:
Indeed, the D500 has an uncredible high ISO setting, but I doubt you wouldnt want to use it! The D750 has the better high ISO performance.

I would say Full Frame and High ISO both go together.
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That was one big reason I went full frame, for better high ISO performance.
I'm happy with shots taken at ISO10,000 now, wouldn't have dreamed going much beyond 3200 before. (Though admittedly part of that is going to a newer sensor, not just full frame).
 
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ABTog said:
That was one big reason I went full frame, but better high ISO performance.
I'm happy with shots taken at ISO10,000 now, wouldn't have dreamed going much beyond 3200 before. (Though admittedly part of that is going to a newer sensor, not just full frame).
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New tech does definitely help, but generally FF is still a stop or so better at noise handling.
 
snerkler said:
New tech does definitely help, but generally FF is still a stop or so better at noise handling.
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Yep, and of course you get all the added extra benefits of the larger sensor on top of that.
 
I would personally go ff like a d610 with maybr a 20mm f2.8d and build up from there.
 
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Thanks for all the advice. Having said I want to stay with Nikon, I'm a bit loved up with the Pentax K1 now! I might have to reassess my budget....
 
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