Advice required re camera upgrade

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bluedodge

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I currently have a Nikon D90 with a Sigma 50mm, Nikon 18-200mm and Nikon 28-300 lenses.
I want to upgrade my camera and can not decide what to go for. The new D500 looks awesome or 2nd hand D3s or D4 or a D7200 with a new piece of glass. I currently shoot mainly landscape/ wildlife but would like to shoot more sports etc in the future.
Any advice to help me decide which direction to take would be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't know enough about Nikon to give direct advice, but it's worth considering which aspects of the D90 you feel are holding you back or just want to upgrade. That should help to home in on the body that gives/does what you want.
 
Wildlife and sports, the D7200 and nice glass.(y)
 
As GeeJay said, you need to consider why you want a new camera - that should be driven by the way your current camera restricts you. If you need to ask, your existing camera cannot be letting you down too much.

If it is a case of having the money with no real need to upgrade, spend the money on a trip to somewhere you would not normally go to and end up with exceptional pictures rather than exceptional kit.
 
In terms of Nikon gear as a Canon user I cannot throw any light on which body, assuming you intend staying with Nikon.
I would however pose a couple of questions.
What does your current body not do for your intended purposes ( AF Speed , High ISO, Focus tracking Frame Rate)?
you have two superzoom ( ish) lenses which are fairly slow and which overlap in terms of FL, perhaps get rid of one and get a something faster which will take a TC( the sigma 70-200 f2.8 springs to mind) and that depends on available funds
 
bluedodge said:
I currently have a Nikon D90 with a Sigma 50mm, Nikon 18-200mm and Nikon 28-300 lenses.
I want to upgrade my camera and can not decide what to go for. The new D500 looks awesome or 2nd hand D3s or D4 or a D7200 with a new piece of glass. I currently shoot mainly landscape/ wildlife but would like to shoot more sports etc in the future.
Any advice to help me decide which direction to take would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

The biggest difference between those cameras is the sensor size, and that's the most important thing to get right. Broadly speaking, for image quality, it's full-frame; for wildlife and sport, lens reach and speed generally favour APS-C at the affordable end, so you have somewhat conflicting requirements. Also, your 18-200 is designed for APS-C.

These things are never easy ;)
 
Good glass on a d90 is better than a d4 with a milk bottle on it!
Get top notch glass before a better body!
 
Mark twiglet said:
Good glass on a d90 is better than a d4 with a milk bottle on it!
Get top notch glass before a better body!
Click to expand...

In the general absense of milk bottle lenses, FF will always beat a cropper for image quality pretty much regardless. And D90 is a couple of generations old now.

The 'lenses first' mantra was true with film, as the cameras didn't change much. It was the film that made the difference, and that was always the same 35mm format (full-frame). All that changed with digital and there have been big advances across the board in the eight years since the D90, and the biggest difference of all is moving up to a full-framer with double the sensor area.
 
As others have said, why do you want to change? You only have one lens out of 3 capable of giving good (rather than just tolerable) image quality, so you might want to ask whether it's lenses or camera holding you back. You also don't mention budget, which pretty much controls the choices you can make too.

As pointed out already, FF will give a higher image quality, all things being equal, while crop will give more reach. I also found that FF images are less susceptible to fringing/halos when processed, often hold shadow detail better, and if you have decent lenses, can tolerate more cropping before IQ falls off a cliff, but they do require more precise focus control. The new D500 is reputed to have all the dynamic range and noise advantages of a recent full-frame camera, so that may well be the way to go, but if you want pictures that are sharper, crisper and with nicer bokeh then you need to ditch the superzooms - an older 28-70/85 and 70-210 from Nikon will give you much better image quality, or for crop, consider an older Tamron 17-50 2.8 or similar instead of the 28-70. I'm loathe to advise about camera bodies, because although I use a D610, I'm not a Nikon fan and don't really have an interest in their current gear.
 
Generally speaking, landscapes fare better with a full frame camera such as the D810. For wildlife the D500 is first class but you can save a bit of cash with the D7200 if you're not shooting fast moving birds or sports. I have the D7200 and the D500. There is little to choose in terms of sensor quality between the two crop bodies at base iso, with the D7200 having a bit more colour saturation but per pixel detail is possibly a bit higher for the D500 which compensates for its slightly lower absolute resolution. Where the D500 scores is when the iso starts to go up as you chase fast moving stuff as it holds onto its dynamic range better than the D7200 at higher iso levels. It's autofocus is so good that I can use teleconverters and still get accurate focussing where the D7200 would struggle. Since getting the D500 last month I haven't used my D7200.
 
Thank you to everyone who has commented. Very grateful for your time and thoughts.
 
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