Considering a new DSLR... (now own a D600 - next: other discussions)

[iGas]

I have no idea what this means...

But, I do know that FX lenses are generally very sharp on DX due to the fact that the sensor is only using the center (e.g. sharpest) part of the lens. The tendency of some lenses to get soft on the edges does not apply.

Correction...

Sorry, I was trying to say that lenses have a specific resolving power (line pairs per mm), and using a smaller sensor area/lens area of DX to reproduce greater megapixels is not going to be as good as a result as a FF sensor/lens area.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml

 

[Indus]

The OP is right.. he's spending a lot of money.. photography is an expensive hobby. I know.. I've got over $10,000 invested in cameras and lenses and I'm no professional. I do however run a website which needs photo work done and I prefer to do it myself which saves me money in the long haul.

So researching is correct.

That said with DX he's always going to wonder, I would have had a little better shot outcome if I had a FX camera or FX glass. It's just the nature of the beast.

Then again consider this cost in the long run.

First you're going to get a DX camera and DX lenses. Then you will want the best DX lenses as the DX lenses don't give you the best quality. Then you will consider upgrading to full frame but as you can't justify the cost, you'll invest in strobes, reflectors, umbrellas and what not. Then you'll try and sell that to recoup the cost and try to invest in FX gear.

You can save a ton of money by going with the right equipment right from the start if you have the money and patience for it. i.e.

Get 1 low light prime (28mm f/1.8) , 1 portrait prime (85mm f/1.8) and a normal zoom (24-70 f/2.8) and a fx Camera and a flash. You're set for 5-10 years. And if you're an amateur at photography by the time you have 30,000 shots in (non rapid fire succession) you'll be an expert.

Best of luck with your decision and one final word:

The best camera is the one you have with you. I still take great shots with my P300 when I can't be bothered carrying my DSLR around (think rain, or party).

 

[Anteaus]

Correction...

Sorry, I was trying to say that lenses have a specific resolving power (line pairs per mm), and using a smaller sensor area/lens area of DX to reproduce greater megapixels is not going to be as good as a result as a FF sensor/lens area.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml

The premise isn't that using an FX lens on a DX body gives better IQ, it's that by virtue of size a DX sensor will frame itself in arguably the sharpest part of the lens and avoid the weakest parts, i.e. the edges. On the flip side, using FX glass on a DX body doesn't reduce IQ either. The downside to using FX lenses on DX bodies is primarily size and weight. Buying FX lenses for a DX body at the beginning is more about saving money down the road than for performance. If money isn't a big deal then DX glass works fine. Just be prepared to sell it later if you upgrade to FX. Nikon's latest FX cameras can use DX glass in a pinch, but in my experience crop mode is annoying because you have to ignore a large portion of the viewfinder in favor a "crop box".

Regardless which body the photographer chooses, once you get into the high end lenses it's all FX but by the time you get to that point this thread will be useless because you'll know exactly what you need and why.

 

[blastingcap]

That said with DX he's always going to wonder, I would have had a little better shot outcome if I had a FX camera or FX glass. It's just the nature of the beast.

If you take this to the logical conclusion, he will want a medium format or larger camera. Obviously we all need to draw the line somewhere for ourselves. I do think FX is overrated for many types of photography, particularly if it's high end DX vs low end FX, the high end DX might actually be better if it has better AF point coverage or other such features, for instance. Anytime you can use a tripod vs a still subject, or flash, that also hurts the case for FX. At that point all you have left in favor of FX is (in some cases) lens selection and DoF (which may not be important to you).

Size is an issue for many of us. I eventually gave up trying to downsize to Micro Four Thirds and got myself a RX100 instead, because even MFT is too bulky for everyday carry in hot weather. (Not a problem with coat pockets in colder weather.) If I need PDAF or more bokeh, I will grudgingly lug around my DSLR.

 

[destrekor]

Okay - so I'm entertaining the idea of the D600 a little more.
I'm quite likely to settle for the D7100 just so I can pay for better glass. I still haven't looked into how much I'll need to pay for decent UWA FF glass.

I'm trying to figure which route would leave me happier - get the D600 now, and upgrade to a newer, slightly better FX body later (whatever update Nikon makes that brings the newer mix of D7100/D800 features to a D600-type body) - or get D7100 now and a DX UWA lens... and probably the DX 35mm F1.8, just because. Might get a decent 28-80mm or 70-300 too, to replace the Tamron ones I have - not necessarily avoiding Tamron, just getting better glass and it doesn't have to be Nikon - research is to be done (those zooms will NOT be DX lenses, rather, future-proofing with FF glass), and sell all the DX when I feel the need to step up.

 

[randomrogue]

I have the 35mm F1.8 on my DX camera. I bought it because it was cheap and made more sense than 50mm for pictures of skylines at night. It's fine as a walk around since it's so light and fast. It's a bit tight on the focal range though. It's 52.5mm equivelent and my 50mm on my D600 feels just a tad tight. Ideally I think I'd want a 35mm on FX. You'll want to judge for yourself. Either way this lens will be $200 that cannot be used on FX.

UWA FX glass I listed above. Look at these lenses to start with and see what you think:

Nikon 14-24 F2.8 - This is the best of the best. It's $2000.

Tokina 16-28 F2.8 - Almost as good but missing 2mm on the wide end that some need. I paid $750 after a $100 MIR.

Nikon 16-35 F4 - This is a very sharp lens with VR but it's F4. It takes filters if that's important to you. Costs around $1200.

Samyang 14mm F2.8 - Very sharp lens. Has some mustache distortion that is difficult to correct. Costs less than $400.

Nikon 17-35 F2.8 - $1500 lens. Not sure what's so special about it.

Sigma 12-24 F4.5-F5.6 - Slow lens. $850. Very wide. Distortion at 12mm will need correcting if you shoot anything with straight lines.

 

[MrSquished]

If you take this to the logical conclusion, he will want a medium format or larger camera. Obviously we all need to draw the line somewhere for ourselves. I do think FX is overrated for many types of photography, particularly if it's high end DX vs low end FX, the high end DX might actually be better if it has better AF point coverage or other such features, for instance. Anytime you can use a tripod vs a still subject, or flash, that also hurts the case for FX. At that point all you have left in favor of FX is (in some cases) lens selection and DoF (which may not be important to you).

Size is an issue for many of us. I eventually gave up trying to downsize to Micro Four Thirds and got myself a RX100 instead, because even MFT is too bulky for everyday carry in hot weather. (Not a problem with coat pockets in colder weather.) If I need PDAF or more bokeh, I will grudgingly lug around my DSLR.

agreed. often people get a lot more camera than they need. the logical end conclusion is as you said - well if it's just about a bigger sensor, then you can just keep going.

i think what people forget is that not that long ago the 5d MkII was out. well now the APS-C sensors are equaling and exceeding that. was the 5d MkII sensor quality not good enough for pro use then? that was, and still is, a camera for many many professional photogs. the D7000 handily beats it in DR, equals in color depth and loses out a little to high ISO

heck the OM-D even beats out the 5DMKII in Dynamic Range and Color Depth, of course not on high ISO noise. man i remember sweating that Canon 7D not that long ago, so bad, to upgrade from my 40D. that camera was awesome. never could get it though. glad though - the Oly is essentially equal to it or better in sensor IQ. the Panny GH3? amen to that as well. any APS-C coming out now will start to solidly beat the 7D in everything. the logical end conclusion of that argument is, so what, now a Canon 10D is good enough? nope.

but there is a balance. people will buy the latest and greatest, with 45 cross point phase detect focal points!!!! but use just the center one 99% of the time. 45FPS per second! but rarely shoot continuously. i get it, it's tough not to want the latest greatest. i used to always recommend the latest and greatest biggest and baddest. now i am more realistic. it was pretty hard for me not to justify getting the latest and greatest intel chip for my upgrade last month, i went with the bang for the buck but still awesome i5 3570k.

it's tough to find the right balance. any enthusiast photographer would get excited thinking about the 12,800ISO performance of an FF sensor, it's great, I'll use it rarely. I can use 3200 ISO and get great results. so 2 more stops of clean high ISO images? to carry all that huge shit around? I'm with you brother. helllll no. I prefer in 3-4 stop in body image stabilization anyways. after being spoiled with the excellent canon IS, I'd rather just have it all the time, and a camera i don't mind carrying with me pretty much all the time. but if you really shoot in dark places handheld then it's important, grab and go with the ridiculous high ISO of an FF body. some pros probably live and die by ultra high ISO's. i really don't think too many people ever need to shoot at 12,600, but who knows. at least one person in this thread does, so perhaps its a bigger market than i thought.

i hear you about putting the camera in the jacket pocket and going. ill chuck a pancake on my camera and take it out on a regular night out. it's the biggest thing that i can put on the bar or dining table and because of its styling and size, people just see it as a cool looking big P&S. i'm not usually going to go out on a night about the town primarily for entertainment and plop down a big dslr thing everywhere i go, nor carry a bag. it's an unreal freedom. you seem to be in the same phase in photography. although i find mft gear so light i don't mind chucking a few lens in a small bag and going out just to shoot. even in the heat.

so about the sony - i read great things about the rx100 IQ but not so good about the AF. which i dont need continuous AF, but good single shot AF, and i get that. you feel the size difference is still better than getting just a 17mm pancake lens and sticking it on an MFT body? have you tried a pancake lens on mft yet?

 

[iGas]

The answer is quite obvious if you have to ask the question of getting a DX or a FF camera, because you will always ask yourself the what if question if you get a DX camera.

I haven't purchase a DSLR or lens since the EOS 10s more than 20 years ago, and I ended up picking up a new 5D mkII late summer last year. The reason that I put up with such a large and clunky body is, because I want to use L lenses (I purchased 3 L lenses along with the Samyang 14mm within 30 days of the 5D mkII).

I'm pretty happy with what I got, and the camera produced tack sharp images during my 5 weeks travel in SE Asia. However, I'm contemplating getting rid of the incredibly sharp 70~200L f4 IS (even those I use it the most), because I want to cut down on weight and I already have the 100L f2.8 IS that equally as sharp. I also have the 24-105L f4 IS that I rarely use but I like to keep it for the odd occasion that I may need wider field of view than 50mm.

 

[blastingcap]

so about the sony - i read great things about the rx100 IQ but not so good about the AF. which i dont need continuous AF, but good single shot AF, and i get that. you feel the size difference is still better than getting just a 17mm pancake lens and sticking it on an MFT body? have you tried a pancake lens on mft yet?

I have no complaints about the RX100 AF so far. Like most mirrorless cams, it isn't as quick as PDAF when it comes to continuous tracking, but most of the time I don't need that.

I have owned several MFT bodies, the smallest of which was the GF2, and even paired with the 14mm f/2.5 lens, it still wasn't small enough for me. Weight matters too, and the GF2 weighed more than I'd like.

With the RX100 I can literally slip it into a pair of hiking pants and be set. It's small and light and doesn't affect my stride. During the daytime you can shoot at base ISO, which has little noise, thus a larger sensor would be of little use. I would like a wider wideangle focal length but otherwise the 28-100mm zoom is enough for me... the f/1.8-4.9 is also enough for me. Plus the RX100 takes decent macros stock; with third-party filter mounts, it can take macro filters (and ND and others) for even more macro goodness, though I haven't tried that yet. Then at night or in low light, the RX100 is a cut above every other compact. The LX7 and Nikon 1 cameras come close, but are larger and heavier.

I also like how the RX100 can also take candids a lot more easily than huge DSLRs which tend to draw unwanted attention.

All that said, I would not pay full price for a RX100. I got mine brand new for $450 including tax and shipping, but it was a special sale unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. At $450 I do think it's worth it--but only if you are okay with not having the modularity that come with system cameras and other high-end compacts, like interchangeable lenses, hotshoes, remote shutter, optical or at least electronic viewfinder, PDAF, etc. I keep my D5100 around with some Nikon glass specifically to address the rare situations when the RX100 is not enough, but let's just say that I don't use my D5100 nearly as much these days.

 

[JohnnyRebel]

Correction...

Sorry, I was trying to say that lenses have a specific resolving power (line pairs per mm), and using a smaller sensor area/lens area of DX to reproduce greater megapixels is not going to be as good as a result as a FF sensor/lens area.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/resolution.shtml

Gotcha, and you are correct.

JR

 

[destrekor]

Heh - I think it's literally going to be a coin toss tomorrow or at least sometime soon. No matter how much research I do on each camera, I hem and haw because of price differences.


Another major concern:
software
I hate Adobe, hate hate hate them for their pricing approach. But I haven't encountered a more powerful software solution.

Is Lightroom 4 "enough" ? Specifically, I'd combine Lightroom 4 with DxO Optics Pro.. I think. Can't swear I'll get the DxO software, but it's rather enticing.
Photoshop. Ugh. Powerful as hell, but... $600+? Is the Extended version offer that much more? Am I missing a great discount somewhere (I absolutely cannot get away with Student discount - they require too much info, lol).
Can I do awesome things with Lightroom 4 and some other software package, or no other software? I can fumble my way around Photoshop somewhat decently, and understand the essentials.

 

[MrSquished]

Heh - I think it's literally going to be a coin toss tomorrow or at least sometime soon. No matter how much research I do on each camera, I hem and haw because of price differences.


Another major concern:
software
I hate Adobe, hate hate hate them for their pricing approach. But I haven't encountered a more powerful software solution.

Is Lightroom 4 "enough" ? Specifically, I'd combine Lightroom 4 with DxO Optics Pro.. I think. Can't swear I'll get the DxO software, but it's rather enticing.
Photoshop. Ugh. Powerful as hell, but... $600+? Is the Extended version offer that much more? Am I missing a great discount somewhere (I absolutely cannot get away with Student discount - they require too much info, lol).
Can I do awesome things with Lightroom 4 and some other software package, or no other software? I can fumble my way around Photoshop somewhat decently, and understand the essentials.

dpreview had an article on 3 main RAW image editors recently

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/82...re-one-pro-7-dxo-optics-pro-8-and-lightroom-4

i'm not an adobe fan per se, though i do like lightroom - and lightroom used to be overpriced, but ummm, it's the cheapest one here. used to be $299. it's been $149 for awhile now on Amazon.

the LR feature set and PS feature set targets are very different.

i used to use photoshop because i had access to it. i never used anything in it that lightroom didn't have. LR has got the fundamental tools for a photographer that wants to take good photos and process them while retaining the integrity of the photos and nothing more. yes it now has the clone tool so it can be a bit fake but thats about it. curves/tonemapping, some color tweaking, sharpening, CA correction, NR, exposure, a few other essential tools that simply develop RAW images without modifying them too much. it puts all those essentials front and center, making workflow very good.

there are intermittent performance issues with some people and LR4.

ps has all those tools and way way more. it's targeted at designers and retouchers. if you want to make a model's skin glow and look perfect, you use photoshop. if you want to blend layers and layers and do all kinds of stuff to pictures.

this guy posted on the DP MFT forum a photo the other day. it was really good - this is what PS can do along with some good photography, a good camera, and imagination:

I asked him what he did:

The girl with the gun is a studio shot (grey bg) with one strip light to have only one shadow.

The image is a composing of several layers: street, mountains left, mountains right, chopper, bird, sky, strap, tattoo and the girl. All merged in PS using different blending modes and masks. Final touch with cross processing and bi-color filter in NIK CFX."

im not sure why you would get dxo and lr4. thats $450 bucks. for a lot of redundancy. the main three, lr4, dxo and captureone, all seem to have plusses and minuses. dxo seems to have the least amount of features. the organizational feature of lr4 and captureone are a big plus. dxo doesn't seem to do much of that. i keyword all my imported photos to LR4. super easy to search my catalog.

i'd pick one now and get it right the first time.

 

[iGas]

dpreview had an article on 3 main RAW image editors recently

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/82...re-one-pro-7-dxo-optics-pro-8-and-lightroom-4

i'm not an adobe fan per se, though i do like lightroom - and lightroom used to be overpriced, but ummm, it's the cheapest one here. used to be $299. it's been $149 for awhile now on Amazon.

the LR feature set and PS feature set targets are very different.

i used to use photoshop because i had access to it. i never used anything in it that lightroom didn't have. LR has got the fundamental tools for a photographer that wants to take good photos and process them while retaining the integrity of the photos and nothing more. yes it now has the clone tool so it can be a bit fake but thats about it. curves/tonemapping, some color tweaking, sharpening, CA correction, NR, exposure, a few other essential tools that simply develop RAW images without modifying them too much. it puts all those essentials front and center, making workflow very good.

there are intermittent performance issues with some people and LR4.

ps has all those tools and way way more. it's targeted at designers and retouchers. if you want to make a model's skin glow and look perfect, you use photoshop. if you want to blend layers and layers and do all kinds of stuff to pictures.

this guy posted on the DP MFT forum a photo the other day. it was really good - this is what PS can do along with some good photography, a good camera, and imagination:

I asked him what he did:

The girl with the gun is a studio shot (grey bg) with one strip light to have only one shadow.

The image is a composing of several layers: street, mountains left, mountains right, chopper, bird, sky, strap, tattoo and the girl. All merged in PS using different blending modes and masks. Final touch with cross processing and bi-color filter in NIK CFX."

im not sure why you would get dxo and lr4. thats $450 bucks. for a lot of redundancy. the main three, lr4, dxo and captureone, all seem to have plusses and minuses. dxo seems to have the least amount of features. the organizational feature of lr4 and captureone are a big plus. dxo doesn't seem to do much of that. i keyword all my imported photos to LR4. super easy to search my catalog.

i'd pick one now and get it right the first time.

LR4 have most popular lenses and cover 99% of what DxO lens list.

I got LR4 download version for $82 and got the license key instantaneously.

http://www.next-tech.de/index.php/c.../2471/s/adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4-download/

HDR merge for LR4 at $29.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/order.php

 

[randomrogue]

I used Adobe Bridge at first before switching to Lightroom. Lightroom works better for me since it can do what Bridge can plus the organizational tools are invaluable. Keyword your pictures properly. I recommend Kelby's book on the software.

Photoshop has 2 things that you'll want immediately. Stitching for panoramas, and layers to do something like single RAW HDR. It's expensive though and I'm not good enough with it to justify the cost outside of my old student discount. I really want to learn how to post process like some of these pros can but I have yet to see any good online tutorials that can get me started. I should note that I sometimes use Photoshop for the clone tool. Lightroom has a spot removal tool but not a clone tool.

The Nik software does some really neat stuff and I think the plugins work with Lightroom. Look into that before you look at dropping a king's ransom on Photoshop.

 

[randomrogue]

Oh and pro tip. If you're going to buy all this software consider simply enrolling in a photography course at your local community college. That's what I did. I know that it depends on what state you live in since costs vary drastically but you can do the math on whether it's worth it. It's definitely worth it in CA. Stock up on all your software with your discount.

 

[randomrogue]

And the ISO argument above. Anytime you are dealing with low light and moving subjects you will need to raise your ISO. 1600 ISO can work for a lot of stuff. However to really freeze the action on say a dance floor you'll be at 3200 and 6400 - especially with higher F stops. Trying to get the focus right at F1.4 to F2.0 with moving subjects in low light is tough. If you can simply raise the ISO and stay at F2.8 or F4 you'll have a much higher keeper ratio. I haven't used 12800 yet. The D600's ISO 6400 shots are completely useable so I imagine the 12800 shots would be useable in a pinch.

 

[finbarqs]

yeah. Photography is the easy part. Pre-production, post-production is what separate the pros from the amateurs...

 

[finbarqs]

And the ISO argument above. Anytime you are dealing with low light and moving subjects you will need to raise your ISO. 1600 ISO can work for a lot of stuff. However to really freeze the action on say a dance floor you'll be at 3200 and 6400 - especially with higher F stops. Trying to get the focus right at F1.4 to F2.0 with moving subjects in low light is tough. If you can simply raise the ISO and stay at F2.8 or F4 you'll have a much higher keeper ratio. I haven't used 12800 yet. The D600's ISO 6400 shots are completely useable so I imagine the 12800 shots would be useable in a pinch.

And the explanation for this is so that you'll be able to increase your shutter speed. So to add to his lesson, (in a nutshell) the key to stop motion is a fast shutter. In low light, a fast shutter is almost impossible. Hence, aperture and ISO adjustments...

 

[MrSquished]

And the explanation for this is so that you'll be able to increase your shutter speed. So to add to his lesson, (in a nutshell) the key to stop motion is a fast shutter. In low light, a fast shutter is almost impossible. Hence, aperture and ISO adjustments...

so to add to the lesson, an explanation for this is, clearly, we must all prepare for shooting low light subjects on dance floors. in a nuttyshell.

 

[randomrogue]

so to add to the lesson, an explanation for this is, clearly, we must all prepare for shooting low light subjects on dance floors. in a nuttyshell.

Ok maybe that's not what you shoot (I do) but many shoot their kids indoors. Kids are some of the hardest subjects to shoot. Maybe your thing is sports at night. The lighting is not always that great and you're probably shooting with a slow lens like the 70-300mm that the OP and I own. It's going to require a high ISO to freeze the action.

Shooting a static subject in broad daylight can be done with any camera. Low light and moving subjects are a different ball game.

 

[Indus]

Okay - so I'm entertaining the idea of the D600 a little more.
I'm quite likely to settle for the D7100 just so I can pay for better glass. I still haven't looked into how much I'll need to pay for decent UWA FF glass.

I'm trying to figure which route would leave me happier - get the D600 now, and upgrade to a newer, slightly better FX body later (whatever update Nikon makes that brings the newer mix of D7100/D800 features to a D600-type body) - or get D7100 now and a DX UWA lens... and probably the DX 35mm F1.8, just because. Might get a decent 28-80mm or 70-300 too, to replace the Tamron ones I have - not necessarily avoiding Tamron, just getting better glass and it doesn't have to be Nikon - research is to be done (those zooms will NOT be DX lenses, rather, future-proofing with FF glass), and sell all the DX when I feel the need to step up.

One thing you should know about.

More megapixels doesn't always make pictures better. It often makes them worse as pixels are packed more closely together so the image often looks more blurry and has noise. This is why camera makers are reducing megapixels and putting in bigger sensors. Biggest example Canon G11 vs G10. Nikon P330 vs P310. There's a reason why the flagship of Nikon the D4 which produces the very very best image at insane ISO's is only 16 MP.

So you'll have to deal with 24 MP crammed into the D7100 crop sensor vs the 24 spread nicely with the D600. Canon has been having this problem for years.. fanboys love the 18 MP sensor on the 550D, 600D etc but often the D90 (12 MP) and D7000 (16 MP) and the D700 (12 MP FX) were producing better images. Also pixels packed closely together require really really good glass to over come that.

So the decision you have to make now is not the camera.. it is which glass you want. You will never be able to sell your glass for more than 60-70% of it's value. So decide the lenses first and then pair it with the camera that seems closest to what you want in a camera. Do you want more dynamic range for landscapes? Do you want more frames per second to capture sports or do you need extremely clean high ISO?

And with glass you can have 2 of the 3 but never all 3: fast/ good/ cheap

 

[blastingcap]

One thing you should know about.

More megapixels doesn't always make pictures better. It often makes them worse as pixels are packed more closely together so the image often looks more blurry and has noise. This is why camera makers are reducing megapixels and putting in bigger sensors. Biggest example Canon G11 vs G10. Nikon P330 vs P310. There's a reason why the flagship of Nikon the D4 which produces the very very best image at insane ISO's is only 16 MP.

So you'll have to deal with 24 MP crammed into the D7100 crop sensor vs the 24 spread nicely with the D600. Canon has been having this problem for years.. fanboys love the 18 MP sensor on the 550D, 600D etc but often the D90 (12 MP) and D7000 (16 MP) and the D700 (12 MP FX) were producing better images. Also pixels packed closely together require really really good glass to over come that.

Please don't ever repeat this myth about how more pixels = worse image quality. I know you softened your statement with "often" etc. but your explanation is simply not true when you don't boost the number of pixels that much; you still have plenty of space left over for light collection, especially with modern fabs which are at 180nm or less node size. The light collection area is simply much larger than the power and signal circuitry. This is why the latest generation Sony/Tosh sensors are basically tied in DXOMark, which scales their analysis to the same print size, as it should be.

In fact, as long as the sensor size is the same and you have a modern sensor with small enough node size, more pixels does not hurt image quality when printed to the same size. Zoomed in 100% might look slightly worse but that's not comparing apples to apples. Downscale a D800 shot to 16MP and it looks pretty much the same as a D4 image. The REAL reason for why the D4 has 16MP is more likely because more megapixels requires more processing power, which slows things down to the point where it would compromise the shots-per-second speed of the D4.

It's also a myth that more MP means worse handshake. You need steadier hands to gain the full benefit of more MP, but you will NO WORSE OFF than if you were shooting with a lower-MP sensor, because once again, you need to downscale to the same MP. Once you do so, you will see that the shake at higher MP is no worse than the shake at lower MP, holding sensor size constant.

The Canon vs Nikon thing was not because of MP, it was because Canon sensors haven't evolved for years--they are stuck at 500nm. Nikon/Pentax/Sony sourced sensors from Sony (and now Toshiba), which are at 90-180nm. Much smaller circuitry, along with other tricks no doubt. Canon just refuses to invest in new fabs apparently, though I've heard rumors saying they are finally going to move to new fabs soon to try to catch up to Sony/Toshiba.

So please, never repeat the myths that more MP is bad, or if you do, you must do so with explicit caveats; or limit the downside to non-IQ stuff like how it requires more processing power, more hard drive space to store, etc. But as for IQ, more MP doesn't hurt. More pixels gives you more resolution in good light, more cropping ability too. Because at base ISO the 24MP D7100 sensor does fine and should be basically tied with the 16MP D7000. At higher ISOs the D7100 might look worse per-pixel vs the D7000, but that's before you downscale to equal print size. In short, MP might help (at low ISO), and can't hurt (at higher ISOs).

 

[destrekor]

LR4 have most popular lenses and cover 99% of what DxO lens list.

I got LR4 download version for $82 and got the license key instantaneously.

http://www.next-tech.de/index.php/c.../2471/s/adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4-download/

HDR merge for LR4 at $29.

http://www.hdrsoft.com/order.php

When you say it has 99% of the lens list of DxO - does LR4 offer most of what DxO can do? Barrel distortion, UWA/fisheye tweaks, CA, etc.

And thankfully, if I were to get the D7100 - it's only $170 as opposed to $300 (if I got the D600).

But looking to expand upon Lightroom might be the better route, at least at first...

I used Adobe Bridge at first before switching to Lightroom. Lightroom works better for me since it can do what Bridge can plus the organizational tools are invaluable. Keyword your pictures properly. I recommend Kelby's book on the software.

Photoshop has 2 things that you'll want immediately. Stitching for panoramas, and layers to do something like single RAW HDR. It's expensive though and I'm not good enough with it to justify the cost outside of my old student discount. I really want to learn how to post process like some of these pros can but I have yet to see any good online tutorials that can get me started. I should note that I sometimes use Photoshop for the clone tool. Lightroom has a spot removal tool but not a clone tool.

The Nik software does some really neat stuff and I think the plugins work with Lightroom. Look into that before you look at dropping a king's ransom on Photoshop.

Oh and pro tip. If you're going to buy all this software consider simply enrolling in a photography course at your local community college. That's what I did. I know that it depends on what state you live in since costs vary drastically but you can do the math on whether it's worth it. It's definitely worth it in CA. Stock up on all your software with your discount.

hmmm. I'll have to check it out - I got to thinking, if I were still a student, software would be crazy cheap in comparison to the wallet-rape-fest it is for the rest of us.

Nik Software also offers a government & military discount, using a valid email address (or the cumbersome route - uploading copies of various documents). Like, 50% off.
I think I'll be snagging the Complete package for LR4.
(if only Adobe was so kind)

Now: how does Nik's HDR plugin compare to the HDRsoft HDR merge plugin? Anyone familiar with both?

And what about a panorama stitching plugin? That would be a really handy feature.

 

[finbarqs]

agreed. He's trying to explain sensor diffraction or lens diffraction. Sure, you'll need to open up before you're diffraction limited. More pixels will give you more detail, but each pixel collects less light than a bigger pixel. So, an APS-C sized sensor will collect less light at the pixel level, than a full 35mm at the same MP.

The solution? increase the sensor size.

 

[Indus]

So please, never repeat the myths that more MP is bad, or if you do, you must do so with explicit caveats; or limit the downside to non-IQ stuff like how it requires more processing power, more hard drive space to store, etc. But as for IQ, more MP doesn't hurt. More pixels gives you more resolution in good light, more cropping ability too. Because at base ISO the 24MP D7100 sensor does fine and should be basically tied with the 16MP D7000. At higher ISOs the D7100 might look worse per-pixel vs the D7000, but that's before you downscale to equal print size. In short, MP might help (at low ISO), and can't hurt (at higher ISOs).

Perhaps you could explain to me why a current top of the line 20 Megapixel sensor in Sony RX-100 which is paired with a Carl Zeiss Lens produce worse images than a Nikon D700 12 MP sensor with a kit lens not to mention the 12 MP sensor is 5 years old and also made by Sony?