FF or crop camera for wildlife

PatrickO

PatrickO

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As the title really.

I've previously mainly done people and preferred my D700. But now getting into birds/wildlife would I be better off with a crop sensor camera for the extra range.

I can't afford the massively expensive quality long lenses.
 
Have you thought about a high MP FF such as the D800/600 which would give you all the IQ of a FF and retain the crop ability.

If I were in your position, I'd choose a crop sensor over the D700 due to it being 12mp but definitely the D800/600 over a crop sensor.
 
Phil Young said:
Have you thought about a high MP FF such as the D800/600 which would give you all the IQ of a FF and retain the crop ability.

If I were in your position, I'd choose a crop sensor over the D700 due to it being 12mp but definitely the D800/600 over a crop sensor.
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I've got to admit I had not been thinking along those lines, but what you say makes a lot of sense.
 
Have you considered getting the lens you're considering first and trying it with the D700. If you're happy with the results then there's no need for the expense of another camera. ;)
 
Phil Young said:
Have you thought about a high MP FF such as the D800/600 which would give you all the IQ of a FF and retain the crop ability.

If I were in your position, I'd choose a crop sensor over the D700 due to it being 12mp but definitely the D800/600 over a crop sensor.
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But as they say if your cropping to much your using the wrong lens :)
 
Going from FF sensor to smaller-sensor because of improved picture quality is almost always a very bad idea..

A higher pixel density (not necessarily cropped, which is always bad!) sensor generally works better for wildlife if you just need more pixels. However, it only works when you have a lens that can deliver the resolution.

Since you say you can't afford high-quality lenses I doubt you'll see any improvement if you just switch your D700 to something with more pixel density. The D800 costs about £2k. I am pretty sure that if you invest same amount of money towards a solid lens for your D700 (and here we can think about older or 3rd party 300 f/2.8 ), you'll get much better results than upgrading your body to anything.
 
IIRC, the D800 has about the same pixel density as the D7100 so if it's in budget, get a D800 and crop. A cheap and light(er!) alternative to long fast teles!
 
I took a D700, D3200 and 70-300VR on a recent safari and I ended up using the D700 on all but the most distant things, I just preferred the images.

If I were going again I think I'd get a 300mm f/4 and a couple of TCs and use the D700.

Actually, now I'd probably look at the new Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 OS which looks like a belter of a lens and TCs.

EDIT: so in conclusion I don't really think the extra cropping more MP supposedly gives you makes much difference but the extra 1.5x crop factor of the smaller format really does help but not really enough that I'd want to ditch FF.

When I get a minute I'll post a comparison of the only shot I got on the D3200 that I picked over the same shot with the D700 - a Leopard in a distant tree.
 
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Can't speak for Nikon, but my Canon 6D is much better at 100% magnification than the crop sensor 60D I also owned. I needed to resize the 60D image down to the same size as the cropped 6D image to get similar quality. Using that method, they were comparable up to iso 800, after that the full frame 6D streaked ahead.
 
Thanks for all the well informed replies

I have the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR which is a good lens

I feel I should try that for a bit longer with the D700.
 
Phil Young said:
The point is, whether you use a crop sensor or crop in PP, same thing so might as well get the better IQ body.
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Fair enough,but when i am taking a photo i like to fill the frame with the shot,it would start to drive me mad not being able to fill a frame,so for me i would alway chose an lens that i needed to do the job rather than keep cropping :)
 
simonblue said:
Fair enough,but when i am taking a photo i like to fill the frame with the shot,it would start to drive me mad not being able to fill a frame,so for me i would alway chose an lens that i needed to do the job rather than keep cropping :)
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Indeed, I agree with you - I would find it slightly irritating not go frame the shot correctly.

However...

When you've got a 1.5 fstop advantage with better DR I'm higher ISO and the fact that most of the time cropping is just part of the process for wildlife shooting...gives you a lot to consider over which of the two evils is lesser :)
 
PatrickO said:
Thanks for all the well informed replies

I have the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR which is a good lens

I feel I should try that for a bit longer with the D700.
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Definitely worth trying your d700 and 70-300 for wildlife first. Great wildlife photos come from knowing your subject, getting low, field craft and getting close to subject.

The d700 is a great camera. Don't get me wrong the d7100 is a great camera but I would suggest good glass first before a dx body. A 300 f4 used is about £650-700 and a 1.4 tc can be had for less than £200. If you find these are not of help then you can exchange the d700 for d7100 knowing you have good glass. It all depends what your budget is, I'm assuming about £800 by you saying you want a dx camera.
 
Frankly speaking, if you have 70-300 4.5-5.6 VR, then your D700 is definitely not the weakest link. Don't expect the 70-300 VR will be able to deliver resolution to keep higher pixel density cameras like D600/D800/D7100 or even D7000 happy. You'll just get more pixels, but the images won't be any better.

The 70-300 VR is a basic amateur tele-zoom, just one step above kit lenses. It is a good performer between 70-200 when the light is good, but the aperture is slow and performance at 300mm is significantly inferior to lenses like 300 f/4, 300 f/2.8, 500 f/4 or even Sigma 150-500.

In fact going to DX would take you another one or two stops of ISO performance and the results could be significantly worse than with your D700.

Keep the D700 and if you really want to get into wildlife and can't afford professional primes, get AF-S 300 f/4D + TC 1.4x. You should see a big leap in picture quality.
 
barratt1988 said:
id have to say look at the 7100. you want a crop as it gives better range but the 7100 have a 2nd crop you can select which will mate a 300mm lens a 600mm with no light loss
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Buuuuut... it all ends up the same.

I have a 70-300VR lens. It is good.

I can put it on a D700
I can but it on a D3200
I can put it on a J1 (with FT!)

In terms of IQ:

Basically somewhere between the lot of them I concluded that A) 24mp of the D3200 equates more or less to 10mp of the J1 with the FT1, both of which were beyond the limits of the lens. So, irrespective of if I were shooting equivalents of 450mm on a 24mp crop body or somewhere near 1000mm on the CX sensor, the IQ was about the same, once cropped.

So, somewhere between all of that the lens had met it's resolution wall.

As I've already said, all in all my preference would be to just put the lens on the D700 but there are a few occasions where the D3200 came out top.

So, I say conclude that the ability of the 70-300VR to resolve detail is somewhere between the D700 (on which it is pixel good) and a 24mp crop sensor on which it is not perfect.

in conclusion, MP makes naff all difference whatever anyone says, it really doesn't (I bought the 24mp D3200 to see if it did, and it didn't). Quality of pixels and reach of lenses is what really counts. People will tell you otherwise but now I've tried it I don't believe it.
 
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rob-nikon said:
Definitely worth trying your d700 and 70-300 for wildlife first. Great wildlife photos come from knowing your subject, getting low, field craft and getting close to subject.

The d700 is a great camera. Don't get me wrong the d7100 is a great camera but I would suggest good glass first before a dx body. A 300 f4 used is about £650-700 and a 1.4 tc can be had for less than £200. If you find these are not of help then you can exchange the d700 for d7100 knowing you have good glass. It all depends what your budget is, I'm assuming about £800 by you saying you want a dx camera.
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Have to agree with Rob here, field craft, patience and knowledge will give you bigger gains than equipment. Also, the 300 f4 with a 1.4 converter give the best IQ for the money, IHMO. I have used that combination for a number of years and it can produce stunning sharpness and detail.

Good luck with which ever way you go, but I would vote for better glass first, upgrade the camera later if required or when you can afford it.
 
I can't say nikon but moving to a full frame canon I now use a 1.4TC to make up the difference in reach. Handy the 5D mk3 now autofocuses at f8
 
Phil Young said:
What??

Take a 24mp image and crop to the same area of a 16mp image with the frame filled, that's the same difference.
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Assuming 1.5x crop factor the 24MP sensor cropped is about 10ish MP. You'd only get the ~16MP crop on the D800.

That said for many 10MP will be plenty. I managed to get a reasonably decent 30X40cm ish print from a 5MP image that was also cropped.

I am happy with my crop camera, it means my lens goes further and I don't need a 600mm lens (though it would be nice). To me the reason to get a FX camera is the ISO ability which I certainly could use at times. I'd love to test a D600 against my D7000. D7000 worse ISO but more pixels after crop vs a D600 less pixels when cropped in post but better ISO.
 
Phil Young said:
I think you misunderstood me.

I didn't mention crop mode on a FF camera, I said cropping a 24mp image to the same size as a native 16mp.
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If the 24mp is an FX sensor then same physical sample size in mm would be a 10MP result (24 / 1.5^2) . If you cropped to 16MP your cropping much less than the 1.5x needed to get the same FOV as a crop sensor (about 1.22x I think but that's probably shonky maths)

If you mean a 24MP DX sensor then no crop needed for 1.5 but you could obviously crop even further.
 
I think this topic has been discussed to death.

The argument about higher pixel density of cropped camera could play a role when comparing relatively low-pixel density full-frame DSLR like 5D/D700/D3. In the best days of these cameras a decent lens almost certainly outresolved the sensor. These cameras only had about 5mp on 1.5x eq frame. This might not be enough for tighter crops, pulling details out of distant subjects and printing large. But often it was enough and I've seen stunning pictures from these cameras.

However, more recent 20mp+ full-frame DSLRs like D600/D800/C6D/5DMkIII/D3x... have about 10-15mpx on DX frame, which is likely enough pretty much for almost any usage. I don't think there is any benefit in using a crop camera if you can afford full-frame. To utilize potential of 15-24 crop camera, you need an exceptionally good lens (and weather conditions, focus accuracy, support and holding technique). And even then the difference will be negligible.

What is more important is that full-frame bodies have still 1-2+ more stops better performance at . That means you can shoot at 1/1000 instead of 1/250, use slower aperture to freeze the motion, have much cleaner image, have more headroom for exposure compensation in post-processing, etc.

I would take a modern full-frame camera over crop body anytime. Unless obviously a decision is between better lens or bigger sensor size.
 
mpe said:
more recent 20mp+ full-frame DSLRs like D600/D800/C6D/5DMkIII/D3x... have about 10-15mpx on DX frame
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Er, 5D MkIII is 22.3 MP. Crop that down to the size of a 7D and you get 8.7 MP. Or, if you make the 7D sensor the size of a FF then it would be around 47 MP.
 
mpe said:
I don't think there is any benefit in using a crop camera if you can afford full-frame.
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This.

Crop sensors are now pretty much just for people that can't afford full frame.

I don't anticipate this will change in the near future either.

The only thing I could think of being a good argument would be a 16-18mp crop vs a 8-10mp FF... BUT... that's not going TP happen now is it :)
 
hollis_f said:
Er, 5D MkIII is 22.3 MP. Crop that down to the size of a 7D and you get 8.7 MP. Or, if you make the 7D sensor the size of a FF then it would be around 47 MP.
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True. However, 8.7megapixels @ 1.5x crop area is still excellent for wildlife and gives you a decent potential for cropping/recomposing the frame unless you have a very special needs. I had 5.1mp (2784x1848) at crop of my D700 and it was sometimes tight, but 8.7mp would be comfortable.

The funny fact about these numbers is that the hypothetical 47mpx camera would still only give you about 45% more horizontal pixels compared to 5dMkIII. Honestly, I doubt I would notice the difference in most situations. More doesn't mean always better.
 
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Phil Young said:
This.

Crop sensors are now pretty much just for people that can't afford full frame.

I don't anticipate this will change in the near future either.

The only thing I could think of being a good argument would be a 16-18mp crop vs a 8-10mp FF... BUT... that's not going TP happen now is it :)
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I'll go with that. Would love a D600 or a D800 but the upgrade cost is just too much right now (and I'd want to keep the current kit as backup/2nd camera)

Like I said I got a good print from a cropped 5mp image (4.6MP according to Lightroom) so resolution on a current FX sensor is clearly good enough even quite heavily cropped.
 
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