Will upgrading help me?

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MarkRiddoch

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Mark
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Currently I have an old Nikon D40X, however I am frequently disappointed with the results I get. The results in good light are pretty good, or at least I think so, but as soon as the light levels start to fall I really struggle to get results I am happy with. I find going about 400ASA on the camera gives grainy results, so I tend to try to stick to 400ASA or faster, which means I end with little dept of field or slow shutter speeds and correspondingly poor results. I'm sure that a lot of the problems are to do with my lack of skill and I should probably put more effort into working within the constrains of the camera. However I am thinking I might upgrade to a newer camera, if only because that way I feel I will have more scope if I put the effort in than I would with D40X. My thoughts are to get a D3300 or D3400 body and use the lenses I already have for the D40X. Anybody have any thoughts on whether I should just go for the upgrade, improve my skills with the D40X before (maybe) upgrading? Is the D3400 that much better than the D3300? Part of me thinks I don;t upgrade very often (obviously) so I should go for the newer model, but is newer always better?

Just to give some background, I like doing HDR (so bracketing would be a boon to me), night photography (long exposures), not great on portraits - my family don;t like having pictures taken. Otherwise fairly general use, landscapes etc. Plus I take pictures of steam trains a lot and also model railways.

To give anybody you might be interested an idea of what some of my better results look like these are the ones I have dared put on flickr


Thanks for reading this, any advice gratefully received
Mark
 
MarkRiddoch said:
Currently I have an old Nikon D40X, however I am frequently disappointed with the results I get. The results in good light are pretty good, or at least I think so, but as soon as the light levels start to fall I really struggle to get results I am happy with. I find going about 400ASA on the camera gives grainy results, so I tend to try to stick to 400ASA or faster, which means I end with little dept of field or slow shutter speeds and correspondingly poor results. I'm sure that a lot of the problems are to do with my lack of skill and I should probably put more effort into working within the constrains of the camera. However I am thinking I might upgrade to a newer camera, if only because that way I feel I will have more scope if I put the effort in than I would with D40X. My thoughts are to get a D3300 or D3400 body and use the lenses I already have for the D40X. Anybody have any thoughts on whether I should just go for the upgrade, improve my skills with the D40X before (maybe) upgrading? Is the D3400 that much better than the D3300? Part of me thinks I don;t upgrade very often (obviously) so I should go for the newer model, but is newer always better?

Just to give some background, I like doing HDR (so bracketing would be a boon to me), night photography (long exposures), not great on portraits - my family don;t like having pictures taken. Otherwise fairly general use, landscapes etc. Plus I take pictures of steam trains a lot and also model railways.

To give anybody you might be interested an idea of what some of my better results look like these are the ones I have dared put on flickr


Thanks for reading this, any advice gratefully received
Mark
Click to expand...

Looking at your preferred shooting style .. landscapes, HDR for example then to get the best results I'd have thought you wouldn't need to be much above Iso400, are you using a tripod to help keep the iso down.... the higher the iso the less detail you capture and less dynamic range your camera can handle so the lower the better.

Astro is another thing and for this a good high iso camera does make a big difference, full frame is really the way to go if you really want the best images from this though. Swapping to the D3300 will give you about 1 more stop of iso so in theory you'd still not be 100% happy with Iso 800 on that model... not sure the upgrade is worth the expense based purely on iso performance

Simon
 
Hi Mark,

Cannot suggest a camera, but may help other if you say what lenses you already have.

Some of the older lenses will not work with the d3xxx range as they need a motor.

I have a d90 and was happy with that apart from ISO noise which is why I upgraded to a FF, so may a d90 or one of the d7xxx may be a better choice.

Thanks
 
sep9001 said:
Hi Mark,

Cannot suggest a camera, but may help other if you say what lenses you already have.

Some of the older lenses will not work with the d3xxx range as they need a motor.

I have a d90 and was happy with that apart from ISO noise which is why I upgraded to a FF, so may a d90 or one of the d7xxx may be a better choice.

Thanks
Click to expand...
he's ok with his lens the d40x does not have a motor either.
 
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I had a d40x and sensor technology has improved since the d40x however i'd say only a stop advantage. You'd be better off gaining this advantage with a faster lens however you're still left with the lack of bracketing on the d40x.
 
MarkRiddoch said:
Currently I have an old Nikon D40X, however I am frequently disappointed with the results I get. The results in good light are pretty good, or at least I think so, but as soon as the light levels start to fall I really struggle to get results I am happy with. I find going about 400ASA on the camera gives grainy results, so I tend to try to stick to 400ASA or faster, which means I end with little dept of field or slow shutter speeds and correspondingly poor results.
Click to expand...
A better low light and high ISO response is one of the things you can improve by upgrading, but as has been pointed out how much of an advantage you'd gain is another question. If you stay at the entry-level end of the range you're unlikely to gain a satisfactory improvement and will quickly run into the same problem but now at ISO800. Full-frame gets you the greatest improvement on this aspect of performance, but a premium crop-sensor would also give you a significant ISO improvement as well as ergonomic improvements.
 
For the hdr stuff you should really read @Pookeyhead tutorial in tutorials section. He shows the best way to minimise noise when doing hdr photography.
 
The issue with noise is that everybody has different tolerances, for example if needed I'd be 'happy' to use the D3200 at ISO 3200 at a push, but others may not want to go above 800. Looking at some of your shots there's not much wrong with them at all tbh, although obviously there's some motion blur of people in some, which is to be expected when using a 6s shutter. However, I see that you used 200 ISO for these so if you got the D3200 and were 'happy' to use ISO 3200 you could increase the shutter to 1/3. However, at 1/3 you're still running the risk of subject blur. The only way to then get shutter speed up you'd have to use a faster lens as this example shot was at f5.6. You can still get large DOF with fast lenses it just depends on focal length and subject distance.
 
You could upgrade to using a tripod, or upgrade to using specialised noise reduction software where required. Either of these would get you at least the improvement in low light performance that upgrading to full frame would get you.
 
nice shots of the alexander nevsky cathedral - i know it well
 
Thank you all for the time you have put into responding to me on this, I really appreciate it.

It sounds like I should be thinking of sticking with what I have for now and trying to get the most out of it.

I currently have two soon lenses, the 18-55mm that came with the D40X kit and the 55-200mm VR zoom. Neither of these are probably classes as fast lenses, so maybe a fast prime lens might be in order.

As for tripods, I do use them when I have them, but a number of the photos I take are when travelling for work and with hand luggage only a tripod is a bit of a luxury.

I suspect I was really looking for a short cut to overcome my own lack of skill, as always the biggest upgrade is probably just to put the effort into getting better and not just to buy the latest kit and hope that has the desired result.

Thank you all again
Mark
 
MarkRiddoch said:
It sounds like I should be thinking of sticking with what I have for now and trying to get the most out of it.

I currently have two soon lenses, the 18-55mm that came with the D40X kit and the 55-200mm VR zoom. Neither of these are probably classes as fast lenses, so maybe a fast prime lens might be in order.
Click to expand...

I'd say your lenses are probably / possibly pretty ho hum but using wider aperture lenses at wider apertures loses you depth of field and using the wider aperture lenses at smaller apertures to gain DoF negates the ISO advantage. I've never been a big fan of tripods possibly because the type of things I shoot tend to move and lower ISO's and longer shutter speeds don't suit subjects that move either by themselves or in the breeze.

Thinking back to when I tried a D40 I have to say that I was pretty shocked at how badly it compared to my Canon DSLR's so I'm going to go against the consensus and suggest that you at least look at a newer body. It's ok saying that newer bodies are a only a stop or so better but what counts is how it looks to you and it may make the difference between being rather disappointed and being actually rather happy.

You can of course download example shots taken with just about anything these days but I think it's best to take real world shots and process and assess them on your own pc if at all possible so I'd recommend that you beg, borrow or hire something newer and assess any advantages before making your mind up.
 
woof woof said:
You can of course download example shots taken with just about anything these days but I think it's best to take real world shots and process and assess them on your own pc if at all possible so I'd recommend that you beg, borrow or hire something newer and assess any advantages before making your mind up.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure I know anybody with the camera I am thinking about, maybe I'll look into trying to rent a camera for a short time and see if I find it helps me or not. The other thing I am thinking about is trying to find a local camera group. I have looked at the traditional camera clubs, but they seem geared up to competitions, which is not really something that interests me.

Thanks again everybody
Mark
 
I think your images are rather good, don't beat yourself up.

Noise, the bain of my life. I have a 7DMk1 and anything above 400 iso (even 100) can be very noisy. I don't think it's so much to do with camera skill or anything like that but more to do with sensors. Exposing correctly can help but that's not always the answer. I can't comment too much on Nikons as I happen to be Canon but I am convinced that I need to switch to full frame to get more detail in my images as well as less noise. I have given up on crop sensors myself, I'm not saying they are all as bad as the one in the 7D but I don't think there is a single crop sensor out there at the moment that can hold it's own against an FF sensor.

Just my pennorth but from now on, it will be FF for my next upgrade.
 
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