D7000 or D800?

D800 seems imminent (D700 is out of stock in many places, not to be restocked).

Nikon has a worldwide press conference on Feb 9th, some Coolpix cameras are definitely being announced, who knows what else

Then along comes Nauticam, moving from sub-contracting to mobile phone producers to making (very nice) housings for underwater photographers.

I wonder what their business model is. I am amazed that they think we represent a viable customer base, even if they managed to put all their competitors out of business, when there are so few of us..........

I think I can easily sum up our business model as follows:

Haha!

Cheers,

Cp

P.S. I'm quite sure that will get me in trouble, somehow... :-)

P.P.S. Narf!

I am sitting in the Canon camp but facing a similar dilemma. I have a 5DMkII with housing which I absolutely love but having a second system would really help in a lot of shooting situations that I find my self (having to swap from rectilinear to fisheye on a small boat is not ideal) so do I wait for the 5DMkIII or do I go for a 7D now.

Pluses for 7D

1) DX sensor so can take Tok 10-17 ( I really miss shooting this lens),

2) Greater depth of field for video work,

3) Better focusing than 5DMkII

4) Available now.

Pluses for 5DMkIII

1) New video technology (if canon makes any improvements to this feature)

2) Items mentioned earlier in the post about FX dslr.

3) Image quality. (The image quality on the 5DMkII is fantastic)

I would go 7D now in your situation. I know several pros that use the 7D and are getting very good material, both video and still. I guess the 5DMkIII is rumored to be released this year, but is that actually certain?

Just to clarify, one can consider the D800 as a 'superset' of the D7000. Put a recognized DX lens on a D800 and like the D700, it will autodetect its DX format. Unlike the D700, the resulting files will have essentially the same resolution as if they were taken with a D7000. A neat trick in my book. (I have two D7000's and plan to trade up to a D800 and a D800e when the Ikelite housing becomes available.) ... Marc

For more than 3 times the money.

Went over this question for a friend of mine just this weekend. Just estimating off of guesses as to costs.

Housing, maybe twice as much for an 800 vs 7000 ??

Will have to buy that Nikon super wide angle zoom. 2000$ ??

Will need a 9 or 10" dome to get corner sharpness. 2000$ ??

So I think to house a D800 properly would cost 4000$ more than a D7000 at the minimum.

Do you need full frame that bad? Also the housing will be bigger and heavier. Remember to figure in the cost of transportation to remote diving locations. Might not be able to carry it on, so it might not get there, no matter how much you are will to pay for it.

Went over this question for a friend of mine just this weekend. Just estimating off of guesses as to costs.

 

Housing, maybe twice as much for an 800 vs 7000 ??

Or maybe not ;-) the Ikelite D700 housing -- which if Ikelite practice holds will be nearly identical to the D800 housing -- is only $100 more than the D7000 housing.

Will have to buy that Nikon super wide angle zoom. 2000$ ??

Or for wide angle, use your current 10-17mm FE at zero extra cost . That was an (intended) point of my post.

Will need a 9 or 10" dome to get corner sharpness. 2000$ ??

Or not ;-) see above

So I think to house a D800 properly would cost 4000$ more than a D7000 at the minimum.

Or only $100 more -- at maximum ;-)

Do you need full frame that bad? Also the housing will be bigger and heavier. Remember to figure in the cost of transportation to remote diving locations. Might not be able to carry it on, so it might not get there, no matter how much you are will to pay for it.

Actually, according to the Ikelite web site, the D700 housing -- which we can expect to be extremely similar to the D800 housing -- is slightly lighter, narrower , and less tall than the D7000 housing. So once again ...

I was in Raj Ampat in December and many/most macro shots would have greatly benefitted from the increased resolution -- with the very same lenses as I was already using ( 105mm and 60mm). It would have made the differences between some keepers and bleh ...

Mis dos céntimos ... Marc

Went over this question for a friend of mine just this weekend. Just estimating off of guesses as to costs.

 

Housing, maybe twice as much for an 800 vs 7000 ??

 

Will have to buy that Nikon super wide angle zoom. 2000$ ??

 

Will need a 9 or 10" dome to get corner sharpness. 2000$ ??

 

So I think to house a D800 properly would cost 4000$ more than a D7000 at the minimum.

 

Do you need full frame that bad? Also the housing will be bigger and heavier. Remember to figure in the cost of transportation to remote diving locations. Might not be able to carry it on, so it might not get there, no matter how much you are will to pay for it.

Dave,

I think the math is that bad for an aluminum housing. Maybe if you compared a much bigger camera like a D4, the housing would be 30-50% more but with a D800, I'd say maybe 15-30% more (going by present day difference between D700 to D7000, adding more for new things like fiberoptics etc).

Weight wise, the cameras + accessories (batteries etc) will probably add up to 20-35% more weight and take up to 20% more space. In exchange, you get better ISO, resolution, shallow DOF, AF, dual FX/DX functionality at good resolution and MUCH better video etc etc, albeit at the cost of more expensive lenses and bodies that's 190% more expensive!

From the samples I've seen (I'll probably get to play with the prototype a few weeks.), it's a great camera... but is it 190% more expensive great? That's VERY subjective.

Just a quick note - most of the posts in this thread are over a year old - Jan 2011 - not Feb 2012. So to those original comments you can add - "and more that a year of using it before the D800 actually arrives in a housing". :-) Just wanted to mention this for those reading the thread now.

I gave a short talk at BSoUP before Christmas when I was aware of the specs of both the D4 and D800 with the intention of reminding members to think hard when these new cameras appear and everyone is lusting after the new toys to think carefully about whether you want to take on full frame underwater. DX is the better solution for most photographers in most conditions. Which is why I have a D7000.

I think both Dave and Marc's argument are valid. If you want to realise the full potential of the D800 underwater then there is serious investment, in lenses, glass and housings. But if you want a great topside landscape camera, that you can use in DX mode underwater - then the investment is much more modest.

That said the D800 does give you a DX camera between the D300 and D7000 in DX resolution. But with AF that I feel is better than the D7000, although I have yet to try the D800 underwater (although I did take it on the dive boat).

Adapting to using the in camera crop - switching between FX and DX mode - will be a new challenge for our thinking. But one we should embrace. I can see it being very valuable to contest shooters (where no post cropping is allowed), but for me at least it will require a new mindset - one where I am not trying to realise the camera's full potential on every shot.

There's nothing wrong with that. It is just something I will have to learn.

Alex

Adapting to using the in camera crop - switching between FX and DX mode - will be a new challenge for our thinking. But one we should embrace. I can see it being very valuable to contest shooters (where no post cropping is allowed), but for me at least it will require a new mindset - one where I am not trying to realise the camera's full potential on every shot.

 

Alex

I think this is the real issue for a diver with this camera. If the intention is to sometimes use FX underwater and sometimes DX, the D800 will be a very versatile tool.

If you are going to shoot DX underwater 100% of the time it becomes more problematic. I spent a good amount of money for a magnifying viewfinder to help me out with U/W composition and also because my eyes aren't as good as they used to be Using a "cropped" view for all my DX shooting underwater would seem to be a step backwards in that respect. Thus, I am thinking I will do D7000 for U/W and perhaps D800 later this year or early next year for FX above water.

JP

I think this is the real issue for a diver with this camera. If the intention is to sometimes use FX underwater and sometimes DX, the D800 will be a very versatile tool.

 

If you are going to shoot DX underwater 100% of the time it becomes more problematic. I spent a good amount of money for a magnifying viewfinder to help me out with U/W composition and also because my eyes aren't as good as they used to be Using a "cropped" view for all my DX shooting underwater would seem to be a step backwards in that respect. Thus, I am thinking I will do D7000 for U/W and perhaps D800 later this year or early next year for FX above water.

 

JP

It's highly likely Nikon will release a D300 upgrade this year (Nikon Rumors reaffirms this today) - if one looks at Sony sensors and extrapolates, probably will be a 24MP DX camera equivalent of the D800. Arguably a better underwater and even wildlife camera than the D800. I would expect it to have a higher frame rate than the D800, better buffer than the D7000, and similar video and focusing specs to the D800. Sounds like a pretty spectacular underwater camera to me. May be worth the wait.

It's highly likely Nikon will release a D300 upgrade this year (Nikon Rumors reaffirms this today) - if one looks at Sony sensors and extrapolates, probably will be a 24MP DX camera equivalent of the D800. Arguably a better underwater and even wildlife camera than the D800. I would expect it to have a higher frame rate than the D800, better buffer than the D7000, and similar video and focusing specs to the D800. Sounds like a pretty spectacular underwater camera to me. May be worth the wait.

That's the problem isn't it?

The D400 *will* probably be a killer DX U/W camera, but of course it won't come out until at least May and possibly not until July or August; Then it will probably be "out of stock" for 3 months and if it follows the way housings came out for the D7000 we will see those in the 1st quarter of 2013. But yes, it will be likely be the hot U/W camera after all that happens.

John

I'm worried about the cost to high ISO and quality (refraction) a 24MP DX chip will have. I would prefer a 16MP good ISO high frame rate camera to freeze wildlife action with big tele lenses as well as that little extra shutter speed in low light underwater situations. IMHO if you need the pixels get FX, it also has the optical quality to enhance your images further. A 24MP Dx chip greatly out-resolves current Dx glass offerings. I'm guessing the pixel pitch to glass ratio sweet spot is around 16MP? What do you think?

E.

Id like to point out that I started this thread more than a year ago. At that time I (and probably all of us) thought the D800 was imminent. It took a full year after that for the camera to actually come out. Keep that in mind when waiting for the D400 or any other camera. I made this mistake before with my D2x, and i'll never do that again. The best camera is the one you can get right now. Dont rely on something that 'may come out in the future'.

I bought the D7000, and for now im very happy with it. Im not buying the D800 because it's 3 times as expensive, and if I look at my results from my last dive trip, im not convinced that expense would have made any of my images better. Granted, I do very little land photography worth mentioning, so thats a big factor in my decision.

If I were doing a lot of land photography, I would consider the D800. I would not consider the D4 unless I was a pro and had to work with it all day.

I remember Alex hinting to me that FX was maybe not the answer for underwater just before I bought the D700. I have recently gone back to my DX D200 outfit for many trips, simply because of the Tokina 10-17 lens. As for quality, at the LIDS last year there were some 12 foot square prints of pictures of mine taken with the D700, the D200, the Fuji S2 Pro and even a Nikon F90 with the trannie scanned on a Nikon Coolscan.

Guess what? I defied anyone to identify which was which. The quality was comparable.

It's like the rented Hyundai i20 I have here at the moment in Andorra, skiing. It's a shitty little car that I would never buy but it gets us up the mountain to Arcalis in deep snow without chains.

I say, buy what pleases you but Don't confuse the hardware with the journey.

I spent a good amount of money for a magnifying viewfinder to help me out with U/W composition and also because my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. Using a "cropped" view for all my DX shooting underwater would seem to be a step backwards in that respect. Thus, I am thinking I will do D7000 for U/W and perhaps D800 later this year or early next year for FX above water.

John makes an excellent point about "not going backwards".

That said, macro ( 105mm, 60mm +/- 1.4X converter) will be FX unless you purposely force it to be otherwise.

And the only other lens that really matters to me right now is the 10-17mm FE. I put one on a F2 (~100% finder) to 'see what I could see' and was _very_ pleased.

Wide open at 10mm, the image circle is ~33-35mm so the corners are clipped, but it is full frame by ~16mm. (Might be somewhat different behind a dome. Be interesting to see how the Ikelite 8" and Bill Libecap's mini dome work full frame. Fer shure someone else already knows ... ;-)

I dare say it is a _better_ lens on FX than DX -- certainly wider and with more possibilities because every FX exposure is a superset of the cropped DX exposure.

One would need to 'prevision' the final outcome a bit more, but that's key to the craft IME.

... Marc

I bought the D7000, and for now im very happy with it. Im not buying the D800 because it's 3 times as expensive, and if I look at my results from my last dive trip, im not convinced that expense would have made any of my images better. Granted, I do very little land photography worth mentioning, so thats a big factor in my decision.

After seeing the fabulous photos you and Julie took in Komodo, that makes me want to buy the D7000

John

I think both Dave and Marc's argument are valid. If you want to realise the full potential of the D800 underwater then there is serious investment, in lenses, glass and housings. But if you want a great topside landscape camera, that you can use in DX mode underwater - then the investment is much more modest.

There is no added investment at all that I am aware of for "lenses [and] glass" used in macro for either of the two most popular macro lenses (60m and 105mm) with or without teleconverter and regardless whether the 105 AF-D or VR is used.

And ABIK, to switch to a FX format zoom fisheye, one would have to switch to a Canon body. Last I knew, all Nikon-brand fisheyes are FX.

And the ever-popular 10-17mm Tokina FE w/could be used in partial FX mode (blackened corners) or DX'd.

Reducing -- seems to me -- the "serious investment" to the cost of trading up to a new housing and _possibly_ rectilinear wide angle.

In my case, I have a 20-35mm AF-D gathering dust since the D200 came out that I could press into service.

But I haven't used my rectilinear 10-24mm DX underwater with the D7000, preferring the 10-17mm fisheye and prolly wouldn't feel the urge to ever finally 'straighten out' if using a D800 <joke intended>

So my "serious investment" will/would involve no lenses or glass and consist in the price differential between new housing and what I can sell the old one for --> ~$400 to ~500 ( + hassle factor).

My perspective ... Marc

Last I knew, all Nikon-brand fisheyes are FX.

Nikon makes a 10.5 DX fisheye, was a very popular lens until the 10-17 was released