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Dilemma (What to upgrade?)
MooreDriven
Registered Users Posts: 260 Major grins
I currently own a D50, purchased in February '07. When I purchased the camera, I was testing the waters to see how much I would actually enjoy it. I've feel that I've outgrown my D50, but would like the opinion of others about where they feel I would be better served to upgrade first.
My first thought is to upgrade the body to a D300. I've been impressed with image quality and reviews I've read. I'm sure a D80 or used D200 would be a good upgrade as well. However, had I purchased a D80 initially, I doubt I would be wanting to upgrade this soon.
Secondly, I turn to my lenses. I've read many times on this board that you should upgrade your lenses prior to upgrading a body. However, I wonder how many feel that way with 6-old camera body technology. Currently I own the the kit lens, 50 1.8, Sigma 10-20, and the 18-200 VR. I think I would replace the kit lens with either the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or the Nikon 17-55 f/2.8. I like the size of the Tamron, and according to the reviews I've read, it has excellent optics.
Last, I currently use Lightroom for my image management and post-processing. I've looked at Capture NX (which would come with the D300), Photoshop, and others for performing more detailed post processing. I'm not sure I want to make the leap into Photoshop yet, but feel that it may be inevitable based on my current enjoyment of the craft.
In general, the D50 does a nice job. However, I feel limited in some applications. It also has an annoying issue with the view finder being mis-aligned with the sensor. I thought it was just me, until I read Thom Hogan's review confirming my suspicions.
Based on the above information, where would you spend your money? Body, Lens, software?
Thanks in advance.
Dale
My first thought is to upgrade the body to a D300. I've been impressed with image quality and reviews I've read. I'm sure a D80 or used D200 would be a good upgrade as well. However, had I purchased a D80 initially, I doubt I would be wanting to upgrade this soon.
Secondly, I turn to my lenses. I've read many times on this board that you should upgrade your lenses prior to upgrading a body. However, I wonder how many feel that way with 6-old camera body technology. Currently I own the the kit lens, 50 1.8, Sigma 10-20, and the 18-200 VR. I think I would replace the kit lens with either the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or the Nikon 17-55 f/2.8. I like the size of the Tamron, and according to the reviews I've read, it has excellent optics.
Last, I currently use Lightroom for my image management and post-processing. I've looked at Capture NX (which would come with the D300), Photoshop, and others for performing more detailed post processing. I'm not sure I want to make the leap into Photoshop yet, but feel that it may be inevitable based on my current enjoyment of the craft.
In general, the D50 does a nice job. However, I feel limited in some applications. It also has an annoying issue with the view finder being mis-aligned with the sensor. I thought it was just me, until I read Thom Hogan's review confirming my suspicions.
Based on the above information, where would you spend your money? Body, Lens, software?
Thanks in advance.
Dale
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The choice is always going to ultimately be yours to make. Any upgrade is an upgrade that you will appreciate in one way or another.
One comment you made, "I've read many times on this board that you should upgrade your lenses prior to upgrading a body. However, I wonder how many feel that way with 6-old camera body technology."
If you are talking about the Nikon D50 it wasn't announced until April 2005 and didn't ship until later. It is likely that your D50 is around 2 years old or less, so not that old.
Anyway, I too have always preferred to spend more on glass than body. In fact I just purchased my first new dSLR and it should be in later this week. Mind you I have several dSLRs now, but they were all purchased used.
I like your current selection of lenses and I think that your choice of a standard zoom with a constant aperture of f2.8 is prudent. That is my most used lens by far, although I have a Sigma version. So my first recommendation would be for you to add in the Tamron or Nikon 17-50ish lens.
I'm not sure how you're set for flashes but that is another place I have invested considerably. You can never have too much light, and if you bring it yourself you can place it where you need it. So flashes, modifiers, stands and remote slave triggers is my next recommendation.
PhotoShop (PS) is my biggest time bucket, but for good reason. Rarely does the camera capture exactly what I want or remember. I am always doing or trying something to achieve an effect or a crop or ... whatever. So yes, you should sometime acquire a competent image processing software for advanced manipulation. PS is perhaps not an end-all solution for everyone so do some research before you buy.
You mention that you have "outgrown" the D50 and that you "feel limited" but, other than the viewfinder misalignment, I didn't read what exactly causes you such angst. Perhaps you could elaborate?
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If you can afford it, then it may be worth it to upgrade to the D300. Probably the biggest difference will be in terms of camera build/speed-responsiveness.
If you print large, then the extra pixles will come in handy. It's a personal choice and if you are shooting for fun and the body hinders it, and if it's financially reasonable to upgrade, upgrade.
Having said that, don't expect much of a difference in your images, except mainly in resolution, once again, which won't matter unless you print larger than 8x12 in my view
As far as the D50's limitations. I would like to have the ability to enter presets, limit ISO when using Auto ISO (which I don't use a lot because it can be limited), Live View, a wired remote control versus an infrared that must be pointed at the front of the camera, and quicker access to focus/metering selection via button rather than a menu.
I know upgrading my 17-55 is a given, and will likely provide me the quickest image improvement. But the greedy side of me says buy the D300. I'm also hoping that the D300 will help the 18-200 VR I already own, when shooting at higher ISO's.
Deciding on a post-processing solution has been something I've been struggling with from day one. I like knowing that Photoshop has all of the tutorials, books, plug-ins, etc., but I don't really want to spend hours editing photo's. I purchased Photoshop Elements 5.0 when I first purchased the camera, but never really like it. It was slow and cumbersome to work with in my opinion. I've since switched to Mac, so my choices are a bit more limited.
Currently I've not printed any of my images any larger than 8x10. However, I would like to start doing this more, but that's not the reason for the consideration of the D300. I would expect better picture quality from the D300, especially for low light situations.
Thanks for the replies. Hopefully a few more will chip in with their opinions as well. I know it's ultimately my decision, but sometimes a sanity check is in order.
Dale
I have D80 which I am selling and went the upgrade route to the D300 that you are considering. As I put in a recent thread over at Nikon Cafe -
I upgraded from my D80 to a D300 because:
1) High ISO - I shoot sports and as the day gets dark the pictures get harder
2) Better AF - I do ok with the D80 but much better with the D300
3) FPS - The shots I got last week at 6FPS made a sale while the D80 would have missed some of them
4) Live View - The ability to hold the camera above my head for some shots
5) Vivid - with +3 saturation - the colors I can achieve with this means less post processing and honestly is just plain cool.
You already have some good lenses.
The other option is to see how much you can get a D200 off of Craigslist.
Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
blog - http://blog.katzclix.com
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And, I respectfully disagree. As I become more proficient, I find my use of Photoshop has dropped like a rock! In fact, if I had to do it all over again, I would have skipped PS and either invested in Lightroom or a suite of products that handles Lightroom's functionality. (As it happens I'm in the very slow process of doing the latter ...)
I think this is a case of "horses for courses". There are things that Lightroom is better at, there are things that you can't do with Lightroom that you can do with Photoshop. Making global adjustments to an image, or a batch of images, cleaning up dust spots, cropping, all of these are things that I consistently use Lightroom for. When I want to do anything selectively to an image its off to Photoshop I go.
Just because you have Photoshop doesn't mean that you are going to spend hours editing photos. The vast amount of time that people spend editing photos in Photoshop is in my opinion due to one of three factors, and only one of them can really be "blamed" on Photoshop:
1) Lack of familiarity with Photoshop, meaning your per photo time is substantial. With use and training this problem goes away. I can't blame software (that is actually very well documented) for having a substantial learning curve when it has a feature set as large as Photoshop.
2) Poor original photographs that require a substantial amount of work to make them into something "good". If this is the case work on taking better photographs that will require less post processing to look good. I can't blame Photoshop for my inability to take a good picture in the first place.
3) A desire to create truly incredible photographs by using all the tools available to us to create the best pictures we can. Photoshop has so much functionality that drawing every last bit of perfection out of a given photograph can take a substantial amount of time. Nothing wrong with this in my opinion, you just have to balance the amount of effort you put into a picture with what you will get out of the effort. I can blame Photoshop for having so much functionality, but to me that seems like a good problem to have.
Thank you for your comments. I certainly agree with items two and three above. At this point, I've tried to focus on taking photo's that are correctly exposed, focused, and composed, with minimal post processing. That's not always the case, but's certainly my goal.
One of the issues I have with Photoshop is the cost factor. If you nail item two above, then spending close to a thousand on a single software program is a bit steep. I think this is where programs like Capture NX have value. However, being the defacto standard has value as well. I'm still on the fence to be honest.
Dale
Anyway, I'm deciding to wait a bit on the D300. Hopefully a D90 with a sensor close to that of the D300 will appear this year. I'm more of a $1000 camera body photographer than a $1800. So in the mean time, I'm trying to find my perfect lens. My current pool of candidates includes the 85MM f1.8, 80-200MM f2.8, or 70-300MM VR.
I would also suggest looking at the Tamron 28-75MM f2.8. I got mine for $300 as a demo from Adorama and I love it for portraits.
Shane -
I love my 70-300mm VR and you can't beatthe price of less than $500 for it. I use it all the time for outdoor soccer. I just picked up a 500mm F1.4 (arrives tomorrow
Brian
http://photos.katzclix.com
blog - http://blog.katzclix.com
It focuses much better in low light (and most of my photos are taken in VERY low light) and 51 focal points vs 5. 'Nuff said.
The ISO performance is a lot better than the D50. When I shoot abandonments I'm on a tripod and ISO 200 but general photos I can use ISO 800 and 1600 and they are pretty noise free. ISO 3200 and 6400 on the D300 is around where I feel my ISO1600 shots were on my D50.
The colors! Oh man does the D300 get some lovely colors.
I also LOVE being able to make some small crops of my original image and still have them be razor sharp, something that wasn't possible with the D50's 6.1MP.
Ex:
Crop:
Original:
I don't think I could have pulled that off with the D50.
I also like that the D300's viewfinder covers 100% of what the sensor will see, not 95% as with the D50.
It sounds like you have some nice lenses, if you can afford the D300 I say go for it!
Steep like a brick wall, but there's a way around it. Look for a community college or similar that allows educational discounts on software -- I purchased CS3 "design premium" for less than $400. Check with the school first, but if you register for a single class you should receive the discount. A photoshop course would be an obvious one to take, but the cheapest class available is all you need. You could even [redacted].
AFAIK the drawback with educational versions is that they're not eligible for upgrades, but there's nothing that says that you can't rejoin Higher Learning when the time comes. The software itself is not limited in any way.
I have seen some educational licenses that restrict the use of the software to "non-commercial" use only. In other words if you are using the software to edit photos that you make income from you may technically be in violation of the license. I don't have a copy of Adobe's academic/educational license to see if Adobe has a clause to this effect or not, but if you are planning on using it as part of a business you may want to look into this.
Adobe does not limit the use of their educational license to "non-commercial use." I looked it up once on their website. Unfortunately, I have a terrible time navigating their site, so maybe some other hardy soul could provide a link.
In addition, IIRC, once you have a license, you automatically qualify for upgrade pricing to non-educational products when they become available.
Having said all that, if you're not sure you need Photoshop, don't buy it. Check out some of the other editor products that are out there: Elements, Paint Shop Pro, etc. Just about all of these programs have some sort of trail program -- usually 30 days.
Not sure where the non commercial use thing came from. But that's incorrect as well. I intensely studied these topics and talked w/ multiple Adobe reps to make sure this was the case before I bought mine.
Web Design Premium for 580.00 bucks and all I had to do was sign up for one class
I also told Adobe exactly what I was doing and they didn't care at all. I also asked several Adobe reps this to make sure I wasn't getting bum info from one uneducated Adobe rep.