More limitations, what now?

[eastley]

Hey guys..

So I have a Nikon D60 and D80, I will always keep the D60 as a small Point and shoot type DSLR, it's brilliant.

However my D80 as a main DSLR is limiting, the flash warm up or what ever you call it is to slow, is it called strobe warm up time? The buffer is to small, the camera is to slow

I have a few people from work who say there canons can take 80 odd pictures before starting to slow up, would this be true? What Nikon camera do I need for my use? I take landscaping, nature, HDR and some family shots, but nothing like major portraits as I have no studio and no room to even get any sort of setup that would be required.

I find the lens I have good, the 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VR that came with the D60, will these work in a D700? or a D90 if one comes out? Is a D300 good enough for my use? I have spent plenty of money so far, but I am only planning to make one more purchase and that'll be that.

I just want to make the right choice now, and not regret it.

[Eero Makela]

The lenses you have are for DX format camera, they should work on the D700 however you will be reduced to the center part of the FX sensor and it will be something like 5mb picture only (I don't have the exact details on D700, but this is what happens on a D3 vs D300 if you use a DX lens on the D3).

The D300 is dropping in price as is the D3 since the D700 came out.

Check out Ken Rockwell's web site

KenRockwell.com

He has compared just about every canon/nikon camera out there.

As far as buffer size and how many pictures you can take. it also depends on the speed of the memory card as well as the buffer and how fast the camera can run in burst mode.

All built-in flashes are slow. if you need a fast flash you can get either a SB800 or the newer SB900 and with 5 batteries the SB800 cycles fast enough for most people.

[PhotoshopAbuser]

How much speed do you need for a landscape shot?

[Douglas]

I was wondering the same thing. With my D70, I can take picture after picture and have not had an issue with the buffer. But Ive never really pushed the camera. Still, the shots you describe shouldnt be a buffer issue. What type of card are you using for it? Have you tried other cards to see if you have a bad one that transfers too slowly?

How slow is your flash? With my D70, it seemed I could should once every 3ish seconds with it which seemed very reasonable.

[eastley]

Originally Posted by Douglas

I was wondering the same thing. With my D70, I can take picture after picture and have not had an issue with the buffer. But Ive never really pushed the camera. Still, the shots you describe shouldnt be a buffer issue. What type of card are you using for it? Have you tried other cards to see if you have a bad one that transfers too slowly?

How slow is your flash? With my D70, it seemed I could should once every 3ish seconds with it which seemed very reasonable.

Sometimes I take burst shots of people, I don't think I will be doing any sport, but if I do wildlife I would benefit from a faster camera.

Yes, same deal with flash for me, but after a while, the indicator for flash tells me it's not ready, can take 6-7 seconds to it's ready again, how can I avoid that? I hate waiting.

[Douglas]

From what ive read with the D70, thats also a heat issue. Not sure if its with the battery or the flash though.

Here is ken's write up on the d80.
Nikon D80

Not sure what mode you shoot in (raw, fine, normal) but that effects the buffer too. On my D70, I shoot normal and get 12 for the buffer.

[Eero Makela]

It does not matter how fast the flash is the camera will always be able to out perform the flash. My D300 with the SB800 I can usually take about 3-4 shots in a dark club and the next one is dark. I use 5-2500mAh batteries which increases the cycle by about 2 seconds over 4. The flash and the batteries heat up and there is a duty cycle on the flash. I have heard many pros run with 2 SB800 so they can let one cool off while they switch to the 2nd one.

Side note if I recall my D300 does not allow burst mode on the built-in flash at all, they don't want people melting the camera..

[Bonner]

I have done weddings with the D80 and SB800. When the action gets going at inside receptions, I have experienced the SB800 shutting down from the heat it generates.
If I did weddings as a business I would go for the new 900 as I am sure it was engineered to handle the heat better.

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by eastley

Hey guys..

So I have a Nikon D60 and D80, I will always keep the D60 as a small Point and shoot type DSLR, it's brilliant.

However my D80 as a main DSLR is limiting, the flash warm up or what ever you call it is to slow, is it called strobe warm up time? The buffer is to small, the camera is to slow

I have a few people from work who say there canons can take 80 odd pictures before starting to slow up, would this be true? What Nikon camera do I need for my use? I take landscaping, nature, HDR and some family shots, but nothing like major portraits as I have no studio and no room to even get any sort of setup that would be required.

I find the lens I have good, the 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VR that came with the D60, will these work in a D700? or a D90 if one comes out? Is a D300 good enough for my use? I have spent plenty of money so far, but I am only planning to make one more purchase and that'll be that.

I just want to make the right choice now, and not regret it.

The cameras that are higher up the chain usually do have more features. The higher end cameras usually have separate buttons for certain functions so you don't have to dig into menus to change things.

The lenses you use for a DX camera will probably not serve you for an FX camera because to use them you are then shooting with a 5.5 megapixel resolution level. No point in spending the money on an FX body to shoot at less than half of it's potential resolution.

For recycle rate, you really should be using one of the Nikon strobes and not the on camera (built in) flash. the built in flash is pretty limiting and I really only use them in a pinch. (Yep, I carry at least one SB800 usually everywhere)

If you're sticking to DX format...I'd go with the D300. It's excellent. I still have two of them that I use on a regular basis. There are times I use the D3 and there are times I use the D300. I can't really divorce myself from either FX or DX at the moment as it'd cost me $8,000 to go with FX only as I'd have to get the 400 f/2.8 AF-S VR.

Julio