Kit question

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sammylou

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Sam
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Hi there,

I'm after some advice on what to do with my kit. At the minute I have a Nikon D70 (quite old now and very well used/loved), a 50mm 1.8 prime (which I love), a 70-300 (the cheap one, it's rubbish and I never use it) and the 28 - 80 kit lens it came with.

I've saved up about £700 (could maybe wangle a bit more....) to spend on some new kit but I'm not sure what to do. Do I buy a new camera (D90, D5100?) with new kit lens (Jessops has the D5100 with 18-55mm and 55-200mm for just under £700)? Do I get my D70 professionally cleaned and get some decent(ish) glass? (the thing that annoys me is that even taking raw photos there is a noticeable loss of quality if they are enlarged - but is that more the lens?). Do I get a second hand D200/D300? Or do I do something else.

I was planning on keeping my D70 as my eldest son has 'claimed' it.

I mainly take family pics at the minute - dogs, kids etc, we're off to South Africa in February and I love taking wildlife, landscapes, macro type photos.

I really don't care about the video (I have a video camera) and on my D70 mostly use S or A settings.

Thanks for any help :thumbs:
Sam
 
sammylou said:
I mainly take family pics at the minute - dogs, kids etc, we're off to South Africa in February and I love taking wildlife, landscapes, macro type photos.
Click to expand...

£500 would buy you a used 70-300 VR (£300 ish) and a used Tamron 90mm or Sigma 105mm Macro lens (£200 ish). All of them also make nice portrait lenses.

Sell the your old 70-300 and you may just be able to stretch to a D200 or a D90 as well though I don't think there is much wrong with the D70 for what you are using it for.
 
You have a 50mm prime and a 28-80 kit lens, so you might as well ignore offers with the kit lenses and get the body on its own. If you are used to playing with ISO, metering settings, focus points etc., the D5100 lacks the direct controls.

You can then put the other money to a good long lens..
 
If you're shooting landscapes, 28mm isn't very wide on a crop sensor. Do you find yourself shooting at 28mm a lot? It might be worth looking at a wider lens.

I don't know how good the 28-80 is compared with the 18-70 or 18-105VR, but both lenses can be got for about £100-£120 second hand. The lovely 16-85VR is about £300 second hand.

Or, if you're keeping the 28-80, you could get an ultrawide lens, like the much-liked Tokina 11-16, Sigma 10-20 or Nikon (think it's 12-24).

For safari wildlife, you might want a better zoom than our current 70-300? The Nikon 70-300vr is a great lens for the money, but if you won't need it again perhaps you'd be better off renting an even better lens (Nikon 70-200 for better IQ and aperture? Sigma 150-500 for reach?)
 
D90 or D300 is the best bet. Add a Tamron 17-50 or 24-75 and it should come in around £750 for a D300 or less for a D90.
 
Oh, and if you fancy a new body, the D90 can be got used from a dealer for £450 including warranty. You could trade in your D70 against it to make it cheaper (or better still, sell privately - think D70s can get >£100 on eBay).
 
Try your lenses with the D7000 - you should be able to get a body for around the money you're talking about... up until a few months ago, I had a similar set up - D70, 50 f/1.8, the 70-300, etc. The only difference was that I had the 18-70 kit lens instead of the 28-80.

Putting the 50mm on the D7000 made a vast difference - images had so much more clarity... the difference on the 18-70 wasn't quite so marked, but with a little careful PP (removing the awful CAs on the 70-300, for example), you CAN get usable images out of it...
 
Has your 50/1.8 got an AF motor? If not it won't autofocus on D5100 as it hasn't got a screwdriver
 
Where are you going in SA? February is summer and the rainy season (except for the Western Cape) and the bush will be lush and heavy. You may not need that much reach for wildlife, although birds are another matter.
 
Wow, thanks everyone for all the advice :D

I think that the D5100 won't be right for me after all, it's not really much of a step up from my D70 and won't give me any more control. Probably be best buying some better lenses then seeing if I can save for a second hand D90 or D300 before Feb (beans on toast for dinner?:lol:)

gad-westy, I like the sound of the lenses you mention, thanks.

Llamaman, I do shoot mostly at 28mm for alot of things so a smaller lens would probably be a good addition. We aren't really going on a safari, so a better quality 70-300mm should be long enough.

Catdaddy, I'd love a D7000 but need better lenses as well so it's just too much :'(

Gunnar, I think so but I'm not sure, how do you tell just from looking at it? (I can take photos but I'm afraid the technical ins and outs of the actual camera blow my brain a bit)

Thanks everyone :)
 
If it were me, I'd get a D90 and a 18-105VR. That'll be about £550.
I'd then sell the 28-80 and 70-300 and save a bit more to pick up a 70-300VR.

The 18-105 and 70-300 share a filter thread size so it's economical for filters!


Alternatively, you could go for a D90 and a brighter 'walkaround' lens - something like a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 - think these are around £270 so with the body that's your budget gone for now. For longer focal lengths you can sell your 80-200 and 70-300 then go for a 55-200VR (cheap, light and pretty good apparently) or save up the 70-300VR and have a small gap in your range coverage (not really much of an issue).
 
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