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Author Topic: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?  (Read 7914 times)

Brian Hirschfeld

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D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« on: December 11, 2013, 11:10:03 pm »

Nothing planned at the moment, but musing over what I might take on a future trip to do wildlife (think like my Costa Rica adventures which you can see on my website) and I was thinking that aside from my D4, I would rent a D800e to a) see what all the fuss is about b) get some higher-res shots of things which move less (like lizards and frogs). I've read in the past that some wildlife photographers sometimes choose to shoot a crop body sometimes for the extra reach. So I was wondering do we think a crop from the D800e would be better then / compare to a shot simply taken with the D7100 (which by my estimation is supposed to be the premier DX body camera at the moment?)...Would the D7100 offer anything over a D800 + crop? thoughts? Thanks,

Best,
BH
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Paul2660

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2013, 10:35:11 am »

The crop to DX feature of the D800 family to me is a excellent tool.  I find that I use often and would rather crop the shot in camera, than take a huge 20mp shot and crop it later in post as I did with Canon.  As to 7100 vs D800 to me it breaks to down to the sensors.  The 7100 is noisy much past 1600 and is always cropped.  The D800 can shoot clean up to around 3200 and if you push 6400.  The other plus to me is having the amazing range of DR at iso 100 which the 7100 will not have.  The DX mode to me is the better solution since I can still use all FX lenses and not have to carry a DX set to get the best from the 7100 or similar camera.  When I need the crop, it's there and using by far the best part of any lens, i.e. the center.

The 7100 (as all crop sensor cameras in my experience) will also have issues with wides, especially if you use a DX lens as it gets pretty hard to resolve to the edges of the 24mp sensor, thus requiring a crop, thus bringing the final resolution more to like 18mp. 

My thoughts were pretty much the same as yours on the use of a crop sensor and I hoped to see better results with the 7100, however it pretty much mirrored the Nex-7 I have (believe the sensors are pretty much the same also).  The Nikon 7100 does do better on noise up to around 1600 or so, whereas the Nex-7 is pretty worthless past 800.

To me the sensor in the D800 or 800e is pretty much the best thing to come along in quite a few years and so far has yet to be surpassed.  Having a 15mp file in DX mode is a huge advantage especially if you are shooting wildlife.  Not to mention the savings you get on the card not having to shoot a full 36mp file each time. 

About the only downside I can see to the D800 is the size/weight of the body with grip (I use the grip) vs the 7100.

Enjoy the trip as it's a beautiful place.

Paul Caldwell


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Paul Caldwell
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Brian Hirschfeld

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2013, 01:29:17 pm »

Actually thats a very good point, I completely forgot about the DX crop mode on Nikon's FF"s (I think even my D3s / D4 have it?) but that is an excellent point about not needing to carry another thing around when you already have it in the camera thanks for the DX shooting mode.
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BJL

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D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts? 50% more pixels at equal focal length
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2013, 02:06:11 pm »

Would the D7100 offer anything over a D800 + crop?
24MP vs 16MP when cropping to the same FOV with the same focal length, so it is partly a matter of whether if 50% more "pixels per bird" matters to you, or if you would like to get away with the longest lens in your kit being about 20% shorter.

In my attempts to do wildlife photography with lenses no longer than 300mm, that could also become something like 12MP vs 8MP, when I have to crop even with the smaller format sensor, and so would crop even more with the larger one.
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Paul2660

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2013, 02:22:50 pm »

I had the same 50% more conversation with myself.  After using a 7100, I felt that at the iso range I would tend to shoot birds, (iso 400 to 3200) with a 200-400 or 70-200 nikon lens, the increased amount of noise was not worth it.  The noise on the 24MP chip of the 7100 I used (6 months ago) was pretty harsh.  However Nikon may have fixed this with a firmware upgrade.  I don't make many large wildlife prints as it's a very different market than landscape and so far the 16mp of the DX mode has gotten me by.  I agree that 24mp with the DR of the D800 would be great especially for birds, small birds especially and the 16mp DX mode will be a limiting factor for a larger print for sure.

Paul Caldwell
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BJL

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2013, 03:20:30 pm »

I had the same 50% more conversation with myself.  After using a 7100, I felt that at the iso range I would tend to shoot birds, (iso 400 to 3200) with a 200-400 or 70-200 nikon lens, the increased amount of noise was not worth it.
If and when and where the extra per pixel noise is a problem, it is unlikely to make much visible difference when you display at the same size and view from the same distance (higher PPI, dithering by the juan visual system); the noise will only show up when you view closely enough to also see the extra detail. Also, it is likely that NR can be applied in the parts of the image where noise is visible (dark areas and regions of little detail, where res. loss to NR is not so much of an issue) while retaining the higher resolution in areas without noise problems. It is almost as if one can have "24MP resolution and noise levels is some parts; 16MP resolution and noise level in others". The blunt anti-noise strategy of lowering resolution in all parts of all the photos one takes does not appeal to me.
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allegretto

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2013, 03:26:50 pm »

not a Pro as you are (don't sell, just have fun) I did exactly what you are thinking and got a 7100 body to go with my D4;

1) You have a D4. Folks who don't use this camera have pre-conceived notions about it due to pixel count. You know those pixels are very deep buckets indeed and it resolves, enlarges and looks better than anything with that count has a right to act. If you go to sensorgen.info you will see that as ISO climbs it catches up and passes everything at wildlife ISO's. Yes, the D800 still has more pixels and if you're focal-length limited and do Big Crops the D800 does have some built in advantages due to count. But in the real world at ISO 1600 and above it just screams while other cameras are losing it.

2) D4 does have DX mode, so try that first. See if it gets you where you want to go. Never really used it that way, but no reason not to try it.

3) The 7100 in terms of rendition is the equivalent to your girlfriend's ugly sister when working with files in post. I could tell you right away, even at low ISO which files were from which body.

Bottom line is the the D4 rocks, but the hub-bub is over the D800's stupendous count. It's a great camera to be sure. But just get long glass for such pics since even IS is only partially useful for moving targets and with big f-stops and that D4 sensor you can take a pic of a black cat running through the woods under starlight.

If I still lived in Nikon-land would be all over the Df because of that sensor in a smaller, lighter body...
« Last Edit: December 17, 2013, 03:32:37 pm by allegretto »
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rickk

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2013, 11:28:59 pm »

The D7100 was an appealing prospect to me as well for many of the same reasons. It seemed like it should be a fine back-up body to the D800e: used the same batteries, had similar interface and controls, and just "felt" close enough to not think about too much. However, the results were a different story as mentioned above. While perhaps acceptable in isolation or compared to my prints from a few years ago, the prints out of the D7100 were disappointing compared to those from the D800e -- even at relatively small sizes. That disappointment was particularly surprising because I've displayed prints from a NEX-7 and a m4/3 camera next to prints from the big Nikon without a similar reaction.

Last spring, I had the opportunity to photograph birds over several mornings with the same long lens alternatively on both Nikon models. Bottom line: many images that I really like from the D800e and, well, the D7100 has moved on to a new owner.

Regards,  Rick
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PhotoEcosse

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2013, 04:55:32 am »

Just a wee observation - I use both a D800 and a D800e and, seriously, cannot discern any IQ difference whatsoever between the two bodies in terms of my normal photographic output (normally A3+ prints). I use the two bodies completely interchangeably and now regret "wasting" £300 on the "e" version.

I never use the in-camera crop modes. Always shoot lossless compressed Raw (which only average about 45Mb per file) and then crop in post-exposure processing if I need/want to.
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David Anderson

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Re: D7100 vs D800e + Crop Thoughts?
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2013, 05:52:47 am »

The D7100 was an appealing prospect to me as well for many of the same reasons. It seemed like it should be a fine back-up body to the D800e: used the same batteries, had similar interface and controls, and just "felt" close enough to not think about too much. However, the results were a different story as mentioned above. While perhaps acceptable in isolation or compared to my prints from a few years ago, the prints out of the D7100 were disappointing compared to those from the D800e -- even at relatively small sizes. That disappointment was particularly surprising because I've displayed prints from a NEX-7 and a m4/3 camera next to prints from the big Nikon without a similar reaction.


I also got a 7100 as a back-up to an 800e and found the same.
Just the same, it's probably not fair to expect a camera costing a third of the price to match the 800e.

In hindsight I should have just stumped up for another 800.
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