Upgrade from Nikon D3100 to D7000

[GTi]

After the D7000 you will have to go FX D700 coz there's nothing greater than the D7000 in Nikon DX atm.

 

[APoc184]

Well well well.

Here I am and I still haven't decided what to get. And I am now seriously considering the 7D as mentioned by bwana.

I am not an impulsive buyer at all and spent hours and hours of reading up and watching videos about the D7000.

Main reason (and maybe I am being petty) for my hesitation to buy is the problem of the Nikon D7000 buffer. Buffer is very small and when shooting in continuous mode you only get 10-14 shots before the buffer is full and has to be cleared. It is illustrated in many videos on Youtube and in a lot of reviews.
It is no use for me if the camera can shoot at 6FPS but you can only do that for 2sec before it comes to a sudden halt to write to the card first. Especially when I will be trying to catch a whole sequence of photos when a try is scored in rugby. I will be missing that "money shot".

Maybe somebody with a bit more understanding or knowledge can share his views regarding this problem.
@GTi - You have one. Have you ever experienced problems with this?

@bwana - As a pro sports photographer. Do you often find yourself shooting for 2 or 3 seconds and then picking the photo from that batch? Or do you rather anticipate the moment and shoot in shorter bursts of say 3-4 shots?

Another reason for holding out is of course the rumours about the new Nikon models to be launched "soon". (Whatever and whenever that may be)
I doubt I will be able to afford the D400, D800 anyway so not exactly sure why that is playing in on my decision. Maybe I am hoping for a miracle and the D800 will be released at a give-away price!

 

[bwana]

Main reason (and maybe I am being petty) for my hesitation to buy is the problem of the Nikon D7000 buffer. Buffer is very small and when shooting in continuous mode you only get 10-14 shots before the buffer is full and has to be cleared. It is illustrated in many videos on Youtube and in a lot of reviews.
It is no use for me if the camera can shoot at 6FPS but you can only do that for 2sec before it comes to a sudden halt to write to the card first. Especially when I will be trying to catch a whole sequence of photos when a try is scored in rugby. I will be missing that "money shot".

Wow - that's remarkably poor performance. Are you sure that's JPG and not RAW? I just tested my 7D and it started slowing at 109 jpgs - the average speed was a hair under 8fps.

@bwana - As a pro sports photographer. Do you often find yourself shooting for 2 or 3 seconds and then picking the photo from that batch? Or do you rather anticipate the moment and shoot in shorter bursts of say 3-4 shots?

I shoot a lot, sometimes I might shoot too much but apart from action shots I'm also looking for stock pics. It's hard to anticipate the unexpected and it sucks realising later you missed a great shot because you let up on the shutter button a little too early.

I shot about 6000 pictures last weekend covering the sevens. Add to that another three or four thousand for all the practices, training sessions, media ops, etc leading up to the actual rugby and I worked my cameras pretty hard last week.

 

[APoc184]

Wow - that's remarkably poor performance. Are you sure that's JPG and not RAW? I just tested my 7D and it started slowing at 109 jpgs - the average speed was a hair under 8fps

According to the videos on Youtube and several comments and reviews it makes almost no difference if you are shooting in RAW or JPG. Maybe 2 or 3 shots. That is why I said 10-14 shots before buffer is full.

As for the 7D. Yeah. I played with that for quite a while at the Canon Expo on Saturday. Really impressed with the speed. And I did about 60 shots and it still went full blast at 8fps. That is what I want!

So if I need to bite the bullet and cross over to Canon, I will do just that. Because with the current models from Nikon there is nothing else but the D7000 and I just can't see myself being happy with the buffer limit!

EDIT: I have never been a fanboi of any brand of any type of product. I buy the product that will suite me best. But it is a bit of a decision because of the lenses/cards/etc...

I shoot a lot, sometimes I might shoot too much but apart from action shots I'm also looking for stock pics. It's hard to anticipate the unexpected and it sucks realising later you missed a great shot because you let up on the shutter button a little too early.

I shot about 6000 pictures last weekend covering the sevens. Add to that another three or four thousand for all the practices, training sessions, media ops, etc leading up to the actual rugby and I worked my cameras pretty hard last week.

I thought so much. I would do exactly the same. But because me current camera is on the slow side (3fps) I found it easier to anticipate the shot rather than just letting it go full blast. Missed to much action between the shots.

 

[bwana]

EDIT: I have never been a fanboi of any brand of any type of product. I buy the product that will suite me best. But it is a bit of a decision because of the lenses/cards/etc...

Once you've started collecting lenses swapping gets harder.

 

[APoc184]

Now have a look at this.

They compare the two cameras:

I would like to know how the hell they measured image quality. What does 80 vs 66 IQ mean? I struggle to believe they can say the Nikon has 20% better IQ. How? Why?

I don't really understand the dynamic range and color depth difference and what it means. So maybe somebody can help with that?

As for sealed for weather. Surely the 7D is also weather sealed?

Video is a bit bleh! for me so I won't even consider those stats.

Higher ISO boost is irrelevant because it would be stupid to use that.

And all the other stats do not weigh in on my decision.

http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/data/500/Canon_7D_vs_Nikon_D7000.png

 

[DGremlin]

Snapsort gets its lens and camera quality ratings from DXoMark.com, this site is very nice when you want to compare 2 lenses or camera's ...
The Graphs give a little more relevance to the numbers and if you move the line up along the right handed coloured bar you get a pretty picture to show what the diference is ... try it you see what I mean

Here is the D7000 and 7D comparison
http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Ca...brand)/Nikon/(appareil2)/619|0/(brand2)/Canon

The 7D is not weather sealed.
While I dont care much for High ISO either its nice to know that if you have to bump up to a higher ISO you picture is still acceptable.
EDIT: Click measurements to see the difference in image quality etc

 

[bwana]

Now have a look at this.

They compare the two cameras:

I would like to know how the hell they measured image quality. What does 80 vs 66 IQ mean? I struggle to believe they can say the Nikon has 20% better IQ. How? Why?

I don't really understand the dynamic range and color depth difference and what it means. So maybe somebody can help with that?

As for sealed for weather. Surely the 7D is also weather sealed?

Video is a bit bleh! for me so I won't even consider those stats.

Higher ISO boost is irrelevant because it would be stupid to use that.

And all the other stats do not weigh in on my decision.

http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/data/500/Canon_7D_vs_Nikon_D7000.png

I'm sure these are all very important things and something to appreciate while you're waiting for your buffer to clear . . .

I can attest to the 7D's weather sealing.

 

[floydthebarber71]

I moved up from the D60 to a D7000 for sports purposes. Needed to be quicker on a few triggers. I can't grasp this concept of spraying with the fps, though. I'm no expert either so who knows. Get the shot at all costs I guess.

The tonal range is gorgeous on the D7000. Really love the sensor. Image quality is...good? Shrug. I notice more from my lenses - just work on getting the shot instead of wasting time pixel peeping I don't see the point of upgrading to another DX body after this, but FX for sure and this'll make a handy 2nd body.

I still think you should consider which lenses will suit you first (Canon or Nikon) as I sometimes yearn for the 70-200 f/4 and 400 f/5.6 of Canon where Nikon has none - in AF anyway. They make up for it with their old MF AI lenses though, I own a bunch and those optics are secret weapons. All meter with the 7000 too. Either way just get a body and start shooting, it's easy to get caught up in gear madness when you could have been enjoying a better body ages ago and improving as a tog too!

 

[dabean]

According to the videos on Youtube and several comments and reviews it makes almost no difference if you are shooting in RAW or JPG

They probably had lens distortion correction on, it kills the number of shots (even small jpegs) you can get in a burst. ADL also makes a (smaller) difference. It's more the processor bogging down than the buffer filling up.

 

[GTi]

http://sportsphotoguy.com/nikon-d7000-raw-burst-test/

Here something to read about the buffer of the D7000 and sport photography, enjoy.

Nikon D7000 RAW Burst Test
December 23rd, 2010 · 63 Comments
As I did for the Nikon D300/D300s, I aim to make this site the most up-to-date source of real-world memory card performance data for the Nikon D7000. The initial batch of test results are in, and the winner is a tried-and-true workhorse that’s been around for awhile. Unlike the D300, where I put the primary emphasis on JPG files, the real challenge on the D7000 is shooting NEFs. With a potential throughput of nearly 100 megapixels per second (6x16MP) and only slower SDHC/SDXC cards to rely on, card performance varies significantly. Settings used were typical for sports: ISO 800, manual exposure of 1/1000 @ f1.4 with the Sigma 50/f1.4 HSM, ADL (Auto), 12-bit lossless compressed NEF, 6 fps, Auto ISO set to off. With these settings, the D7000′s buffer could store 11 images; I thus fired 3 consecutive bursts of 15 frames, just enough to “bite” into the buffer. In just under 2 seconds the buffer filled; the remaining 4 frames trickled out of the camera as images were written to the card and the buffer cleared. I timed the total length of time for all 15 frames to determine an “effective” frames-per-second rate for the entire burst; then continued keeping time until the card activity light went out indicating that all images had been written to the card. Measuring the size of the 45 files and dividing by the total write time gave me an average throughout in MB/sec. (While I utilized the same lighting conditions and target for each card tested, variations of up to 10% in total files size persisted.) Throughput rates differing by less than 1-2 MB/sec probably aren’t meaningful.

All I can say D7000 is an awesome camera, I do not do sports photography, only time I do, went my 10 yo son has his school sport. but never experienced the buffer lockup. I do events, such as weddings, club and social events. You won't regret getting a D7000. Regards

 

[Dolby]

I would like to know how the hell they measured image quality. What does 80 vs 66 IQ mean? I struggle to believe they can say the Nikon has 20% better IQ. How? Why?

Whoa!

I often post from that site - but use it as a guide only!

It's often inaccurate and plain wrong. As bwana said, the 7D is weather sealed (though I believe levels differ?) .... but the most questionable thing are the image quality specs. Do your self a favour and compare it to anything else and see if you believe the results

If snapsort were to be believed, one would think this D7000 is the ultimate camera ever. It easily takes out the 1D MKII/III/IV as well as the 1DS MKIII. Even worse, it manages to take out Nikons own top end full frame cameras on quality - bettering the D3S and a number of others.

This alone should tell you those specs are pure BS

EDIT : Unless you think a sub R12,000.00, semi pro, cropped sensor can really take out R50,000+ pro, full frame ...

 

[Dolby]

The 7D is not weather sealed

http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_7D/

The magnesium alloy body offers weather sealing equivalent to the acclaimed EOS-1N, EOS Integrated Cleaning System and 150,000 release shutter durability. The EOS 7D has been designed from the ground up to be used by the most demanding photographers.

 

[GTi]

http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_7D/

The magnesium alloy body offers weather sealing equivalent to the acclaimed EOS-1N, EOS Integrated Cleaning System and 150,000 release shutter durability. The EOS 7D has been designed from the ground up to be used by the most demanding photographers.

Magnesium alloy body with environmental protection, as they put it.

 

[Dolby]

Magnesium alloy body with environmental protection, as they put it.

magnesium alloy body offers weather sealing

Are we not reading the same text?

 

[GTi]

Are we not reading the same text?

Read the heading. weather sealed or not still an awesome camera, true what you say about the comparison.

 

[bwana]

http://sportsphotoguy.com/nikon-d7000-raw-burst-test/

Here something to read about the buffer of the D7000 and sport photography, enjoy.

Nikon D7000 RAW Burst Test

TBH I know of few sports photographers, especially rugby, who shoot in RAW. The workflow is just too slow to be of much use. That's why I wondered how the buffer handled JPGs. A large buffer is pretty much essential these days for a sports photographer and believe me if you don't have one the guy standing next to you does.

There's a whole lotta keeping up with the Joneses going on on the sidelines.

 

[GTi]

TBH I know of few sports photographers, especially rugby, who shoot in RAW. The workflow is just too slow to be of much use. That's why I wondered how the buffer handled JPGs. A large buffer is pretty much essential these days for a sports photographer and believe me if you don't have one the guy standing next to you does.

There's a whole lotta keeping up with the Joneses going on on the sidelines.

Beats me, I don't shoot sports and I only shoot jpg.

 

[APoc184]

So confused at the moment! Argh....!!!

 

[GTi]

So confused at the moment! Argh....!!!

Best is to get the bodies in your hand and test them instore and the one you feel most comfortable with could be you choice.