Any Camera Gurus out there

[Bob & Sue]

I'm looking to sell some of my camera gear to purchase something lighter right now I mainly use a Nikon D300 or D700 I'll probably sell the D700 in 4 years it only has 1,200 shots on it the D300 has 18,000. Been looking at a light weight Nikon D5500 weighing 15 oz my D300 weighs 28 oz both without lens.

My question or concern is I have 6 Prime FX format lenses all the plastic lightweight cameras use DX format which can be used on a DX format camera according to Nikon but you'll lose some functionality on focusing, noise level and crop focusing size. But I would gain WiFi & Bluetooth.

What would you do? I'm thinking of selling the D700 body and 1 lens to pay for a D5500 with two DX format lenses.
I'm having a hard time deciding on going with a consumer plastic body from both of mine that are machined magnesium bodies pro cameras.

I do have phone cameras and point & shoot cameras for daily use one of my hobbies is photography so I'm not looking for anything like GoPro.

 

[Gofirstclass]

Bob, Sorry, but I can't really add any info to help you solve your dilemma. Other than my phone camera, I have two that I've used for years and like both of them. One is an Olympus underwater camera that's about the size of a deck of cards. It takes great pics, especially underwater. The other is a Nikon Coolpix P600. It's my main go-to camera and I take it along most places I go. I don't know how many megapixels it is but the reason I bought it was the long optical zoom length.

Here's a shot I took with the Nikon right in front of the house.


I did get a GoPro but haven't used it much. I bought it because of the time delay pics you can take where it snaps one every few seconds and you can put them into a video. I want to use that for some of our boat stuff.

 

[Tonka Boater]

Hi Bob,

I'm not a camera expert but, like you, photography is a hobby. I'm not that great of a photographer but it's fun and relaxing for me.

Is your concern about the durability of the plastic body on the D5500? I have a Nikon D5000 that I bought new in 2009 -- it's a plastic body, 12.3 MP DSLR. After 7 years it's still a great camera. I find the plastic body is both durable and light weight. On a vacation to Cape Code in 2012, I dropped this camera as we ran for shelter from an unexpected downpour. I had the camera on a neck strap but when the rain came I placed it in a paper shopping bag for protection from the rain. I slipped as got to our car and the bag dropped 3 ft. to the ground and I heard a very unsettling "thud" knowing it was the camera that took a direct impact, not our souvenir t-shirts.

Once we got in the car inspected the camera. The body suffered no damage but the mirror got jammed so all of my shots had a huge black bar on top and on the bottom of each image you could see a partial, misaligned image. We drove straight to a camera shop on the Cape and the guy gently inspected the damage. It took him all of 1 second to get the mirror unstuck and aligned.

Long story short, this camera has been durable and continues to work flawlessly. It's sitting next to me as I type this.

 

[Bob & Sue]

No I'm not worried about the body my dilemma is the sensor format of the 2 styles of cameras mine are FX sensor & lenses using a model like the D5000 uses a DX lens unless you configure the settings for the FX format. Doing this would mean changing the setup for each type lens I use, if you forget to change the setting the image will have a black ring 360* around it plus the focusing you see in the view finder may look in focus but could be out of focus. The minus on mine is the weight they weigh 28-29 oz vs D5000, D5500 is only 14-15 oz lugging around the camera with a lens on it all day weighing a few lbs gets tiring.

Nikon makes a great camera never had a problem with any of them.

 

[Tonka Boater]

Bob -- now I understand your concern. If you get the D5500 and you use one of its DX lens' on your D300, then yes, you won't have a choice but to change the setting otherwise you will get the ring that you mentioned. However using an FX lens on a D5500 won't be an issue since the FX lens circle is larger and will automatically center and fill the frame on the DX.

 

[Irie308]

Bob, I'm sorta in the same frame of mind as you I too had the d700 with 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8. Fantastic setup which produced fantastic shots. Switched over to canon 5d with similar focal ranges rendering equal quality shots. But I still struggled with lugging all that gear around. I've recently been looking at the Sony product line which offers 24 mp full frame sensors in a much more compact body and lens setup particularly the Sony RX1R. I've found I can't go back to a dx after shooting fx for so long. Haven't pulled the trigger yet since the wife has limited me to 1 expensive hobby however I may go this route as I still love my canon gear which comes in handy now and then but the Sony is a great travel camera from what I've read as far as portability and image quality.

 

[Creekwood]

Seems like a big step down to go from a D700 to D5500. Out of curiosity, why are you not looking at the D7200?

 

[estoltz]

Do we run a d7200 and while the idea of wifi is nice I haven't found it to be integral to my work flow. I previously used a d 80 so it was a big step up but overall I'm happy with it although I don't have any experience with the higher end heavy bodies you are coming from.

 

[Bob & Sue]

Seems like a big step down to go from a D700 to D5500. Out of curiosity, why are you not looking at the D7200?

I'd keep the D300 which I guess I prefer over the D700 just because I've taken so many photos with the D300 and know the settings by memory, plus I can still sell the D700 without taking much of a loss on it.

The D7200 is a magnesium body weighing 27 oz. I'm going to contact Nikon today to find out which light weight body is equivalent to the D7200 which uses both dx & fx auto sensing with both style lenses.

 

[Bob & Sue]

Bob, I'm sorta in the same frame of mind as you I too had the d700 with 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8. Fantastic setup which produced fantastic shots. Switched over to canon 5d with similar focal ranges rendering equal quality shots. But I still struggled with lugging all that gear around. I've recently been looking at the Sony product line which offers 24 mp full frame sensors in a much more compact body and lens setup particularly the Sony RX1R. I've found I can't go back to a dx after shooting fx for so long. Haven't pulled the trigger yet since the wife has limited me to 1 expensive hobby however I may go this route as I still love my canon gear which comes in handy now and then but the Sony is a great travel camera from what I've read as far as portability and image quality.

I've used a couple different Sony's can't remember the model #'s they are a great camera plus you can use most of the older prime Minolta lenses on them Sony bought out Minolta-Konica.

I take a lot of wild life photos usually carry 3 prime lenses that's about 6 lbs plus the camera body a couple of my lenses weigh 3.5 lbs or more.

I really like my 70-200 2.8 VR II & mostly use the 24-120 f/4g VR.