D300s or D700 or stick with a D5000???

craigm

craigm

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Craig
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I started a college course in Sept and was happy using my D5000 but have since started to get more in to the portrait side of photography and would like to turn this into a business later on.

I bought myself a 50mm 1.8 AF lens but didn't realise the AF wouldn't work on a D5000 so by the time i had used manual focus i had missed the shot :bang:

Do i upgrade now to a D300s or see if i can stretch to a D700?

Or stick with the D5000

Any help will be gratefully received

Thanks

Craig
 
What other glass do you have? There's no point in spending the thick end of 2 grand on a body and then having to stick cheap lenses on it, it defeats the purpose.
 
My current lenses are:
Tamron 70-300mm
Nikon 18-55mm VR Lens
Nikon AF-S VR 105mm f2.8G
Nikon 50mm f1.8 D
 
How about a middle ground and look at a D90. Very similar to the D5000, so it shouldn't mean 're-learning' the camera again, plus it has a built in motor. Second hand around 500 ish.
 
wait 2 weeks and get the D7000 - everything the D300 has and more - and £100 or so less !!
 
tim_uk said:
wait 2 weeks and get the D7000 - everything the D300 has and more - and £100 or so less !!
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Sadly that isnt correct.

If you shoot sports or wildlife or anything whereby you need action photography I would select the D300s over the D7000

I just brought a D300s and the D7000 just cant cut it for sports :(
 
PeterCollins said:
Sadly that isnt correct.

If you shoot sports or wildlife or anything whereby you need action photography I would select the D300s over the D7000

I just brought a D300s and the D7000 just cant cut it for sports :(
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please let us know what's missing then ?
 
The D300 has a 51 AF focus, the D7000 has 39

D300 upto 8fps with the grip (or the bracketing hack ;) ) D7000 upto 6fps

Both have the same CMOS sensor, the D7000 pushes out 16mp where as the D300 gives 12mp.

D7000 has HD video, D300 does not.

If HD video is your bag, the D300s offers it.

The D7000 looks a good camera, but the price....I'd go for a 2nd hand D300.
 
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tim_uk said:
please let us know what's missing then ?
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I think you will find that the frame rate on continuous is nearly twice as fast on the D300.
 
Rokkin said:
The D300 has a 51 AF focus, the D7000 has 39

D300 upto 8fps with the grip (or the bracketing hack ;) ) D7000 upto 6fps

Both have the same CMOS sensor, the D7000 pushes out 16mp where as the D300 gives 12mp.

D7000 has HD video, D300 does not.

If HD video is your bag, the D300s offers it.

The D7000 looks a good camera, but the price....I'd go for a 2nd hand D300.
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So would the D7000 be better than the d300s for portrait work ??
 
ahh the numbers not quite so good on the D7000 - 6fps seems pretty good to me - think even my best film cameras struggled to get above 5fps.

am sure the D7000 must have a new sensor - the D300 one is 2 or more years old now.
 
craigm said:
So would the D7000 be better than the d300s for portrait work ??
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IMO, no. The D300 is aimed at the prosumer, one step away from the full frame prosumer (with money) model...

tim_uk said:
ahh the numbers not quite so good on the D7000 - 6fps seems pretty good to me - think even my best film cameras struggled to get above 5fps.

am sure the D7000 must have a new sensor - the D300 one is 2 or more years old now.
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Dont forget the D7000 is a replacement for the D90.

A rumor of a D400 is on the way to replace the D300/ D300s
 
Jack Flash said:
I think you will find that the frame rate on continuous is nearly twice as fast on the D300.
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The D7000 has 6 frames per second maximum, and the D300S has 7 frames per second max and 8 fps max with the optional hand grip and the correct batteries. ;) An extra one or two images is not quite twice as fast.

Frame rate is not much use to the Portrait photographer, but most people do a bit of everything, and the extra fps could come in useful.

I would wait to see some reviews of the D7000 to see whether the extra 4Mp is the benefit you would 'assume' it to be before I made a buying decision. ;)
 
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I think the D7000 looks a nice replacement for the D90 but i dont think it is a better option to the D300s, but if the OP can afford the D700 then i would say go for that every time.
 
Hmm the D7000 has a magnesium body and weather sealing just like the D300S.. the D7000 also has 9 cross sensors (D90 only had one 1 Cross Type sensor) as opposed to the D300S 15 Cross type AF so still very reasonable for action photography.

Video on the D7000 (if that is your bag) also outperforms the D300S at 1920 x 1080 p whereas the D300S is 1280 x 720p.

Based on that and the 16MP sensor I would probably opt for the D7000 over the D300S especially as it has better ISO sensitivity (without going into the Hi / Lo range) than the D300S whose ISO capability isn't exactly awe inspiring.
 
I just realised that the OP mentioned the D700 rather than the D7000 in the original post. :bonk:

This thread talks about the D300S, D700 and D3 being compared in a studio and may be of interest. In certain situations the D700 is not the huge increase in quality that one would imagine, and one of those situations is in the studio looking at that thread. ;)

If the choice is between the D300S and D7000, then as I said earlier, wait for the reviews of the D7000 first.
 
Not sure i could stretch to the D700 (would depend on talking the wife round lol) but im looking to buy a camera i wont need to upgrade for a good few years ;)

When i got the D5000 it was ok for me because i only planned on taking a few shots here and there but I am now doing a college course and the D5000 isn't going to what I want it to do, I didn't think I would get in to photography this much and would rather upgrade rather than later:shrug:

Not sure on what the benefits are buying the D700 over the D300s and D7000 are.

My aim is to work towards starting a business in the portrait side of photography and maybe weddings when I have a lot more experience and can maybe assist on a few first.
 
Benefits of the D700 are mainly the high ISO performance - though it has been claimed the new D7000 isn't a million miles away, but we'll have to wait for proper reviews/tests.
 
The D700 is a full frame sensor and would require full frame (expensive :()lenses. The D700 is popular with some wedding pros here because of amongst other things, its low light capabilities. Depending on your timescale for progression, the D300S, D700 and indeed the D7000 could have been upgraded by then. :shrug:

If portraits is what you want to do in the short term, then I would consider getting a quality lens rather than a new camera. The sensor in the D300S is not a huge increase in quality on the D5000 (though the actual camera may be), whether the D7000 is a big quality leap remains to be seen, but to get the best out of these cameras at these Mp sizes, or indeed the full frame sensor of the D700, you'll need good quality lenses anyway. I know when I upgraded from the D70 (6Mp) to the D200 (10Mp), the quality of a Sigma lens that I had suddenly didn't seem so good. Raising the pixel count or the sensor size can sometimes show up lens deficiencies unfortunately. :shrug: :(
 
sparkoss said:
i would say get to the limits of the D5000 before thinking about upgrading.. thats what i did.
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So far, this is the best advice offered in this thread.

The D5000 will be absolutely fine for portrait work given that you light and compose the scene well enough. My suggestion? Follow sparkoss's advice, and if you really must spend some money, get some better lenses. At least then when you do step up a body, you'll already have nice glass to stick on it.

New camera bodies with MP this, FPS that, and all the magnesium under the sun wont give you better shots if you've not really reached the limits of your current kit.
 
Woodsy said:
So far, this is the best advice offered in this thread.

The D5000 will be absolutely fine for portrait work given that you light and compose the scene well enough. My suggestion? Follow sparkoss's advice, and if you really must spend some money, get some better lenses. At least then when you do step up a body, you'll already have nice glass to stick on it.

New camera bodies with MP this, FPS that, and all the magnesium under the sun wont give you better shots if you've not really reached the limits of your current kit.
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I can see the point in keeping the D5000 as it is only 6 months old but when the 50mm i bought wouldn't work with Autofocus and the AF-S version being around £300 i thought about upgrading the Camera body instead of the lens :bonk:
 
craigm said:
I can see the point in keeping the D5000 as it is only 6 months old but when the 50mm i bought wouldn't work with Autofocus and the AF-S version being around £300 i thought about upgrading the Camera body instead of the lens :bonk:
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get the 1.8 35mm lens. does af and its great.
 
Decided to invest in a couple of new lenses:

Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 G AF-S ED Lens

Nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 G DX Lens

Unless someone recommends a better choice before i order lol

Hopefully i will get more benefit out of upgrading the lenses than the camera body :thumbs:
 
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look for a used low shutter count d300 unless you REALLY want the movie capability.... that way you can use the extra saved on a couple or single decent fast lens
 
craigm said:
Decided to invest in a couple of new lenses:

Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 G AF-S ED Lens

Nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 G DX Lens

Unless someone recommends a better choice before i order lol

Hopefully i will get more benefit out of upgrading the lenses than the camera body :thumbs:
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most definitely I had a D60 before me 300 and the fast nice Tammy lens I got proved lens quality makes more difference than body I only upgraded body as needed more focal points and speed/ pixels ... and bracketing etc otherwise would have stuck with D60
 
craigm said:
Decided to invest in a couple of new lenses:

Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 G AF-S ED Lens

Nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 G DX Lens

Unless someone recommends a better choice before i order lol

Hopefully i will get more benefit out of upgrading the lenses than the camera body :thumbs:
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Two excellent choices. The 24-70 is probably one of the best lenses Nikon makes to date, and the 35mm will be a nice length on the D5000, not to mentioned, as stated above, the AF will work :)
 
Woodsy said:
Two excellent choices. The 24-70 is probably one of the best lenses Nikon makes to date, and the 35mm will be a nice length on the D5000, not to mentioned, as stated above, the AF will work :)
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The only caveat with the 24-70 on a D60 might be that the lens weighs twice as much as the body, so it will be a tad nose heavy.....
 
Hi Sorry to resurrect this old thread...

I'm in a similar position to you were, current got a D5000 and am looking eventually to do weddings and other stuff and am looking at the D700

The lenses I have already are:

35mm DX
18-200mm DX
24-70mm (The Beast)
18-55mm (not used anymore - maybe one to sell)
SB-600 flash

Is the D700 a good progression with this gear? Or shall I wait for its sucessor? Any ideas on when it will be available??
 
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