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DX vs FX considerations and decisions
Fellow photographers: If you're shooting DX or FX formats, let me know what format you shoot, and: --> If you started with DX but moved to FX, why? or --> If you thought about it before purchasing and started with FX, why? or --> If you've considered moving from DX to FX but decided against it, why? My bodies are DX, but I have both DX and FX lenses. I have an opportunity to purchase a few FX bodies at a good price, all compatible with my FX lenses. Let me know. I appreciate your time. Marc, UCPhotog Apr 11 23 12:04 am Link Sounds like you're grasping aimlessly for a reason to go FX. From a quick perusal of your portfolio there's nothing there which might have benefitted from being shot FX IMO. If that's all you use your camera(s) for, then I'd say save your money even if it means turning down a bargain. Apr 11 23 03:34 am Link film -> DX -> FX -> m43 Like you, I bought FX lenses when I was shooting DX. I went from DX to FX when it was time for an upgrade to a newer, better camera. What cameras do you have now? Why are you dissatisfied? What are the "few" FX bodies you are considering? How do you expect them to be an improvement? Are they newer & better or will they just be a handful of stuff? My preference has always been quality over quantity. Edit: Are all of your lenses top quality? Apr 11 23 05:39 am Link I started with DX on a Nikon D1 and progressed through DX bodies as they broke and got replaced with better bodies. When one of my D200s broke I got a D7100 Dx which I still use. When my back up D200 broke, I got a good deal on a D610 FX body which I still use. The FX body enables me to use my 135 f 2 lens inside many studios where on a DX body it is too long. The DX body gives me a little better reach on my 70-180 Nikkor lens, and my 50-300 Nikkor lens. I still have many lenses from my film days that work on both FX and DX bodys. I don't see any appreciable difference in images from either body. Apr 11 23 06:01 am Link UCPhotog, to you plan to be doing a lot of work in low light situations? I.E. Wedding receptions, nightclubs, concerts, or things along those lines... Where the "quality" difference between the two (assuming both have a similar generation sensor, etc) on the lower edge of the light range can make some degree of a difference. However, if you're thinking of the change PURELY for a "quality difference" (i.e. where depth of field, low light performance, angle of view, etc, aren't significant factors) and mainly shoot in situations where the light levels aren't a problem, then you may find the "full frame quality difference" a disappointment. There are good technical reasons as to "why" that is, but I don't know your reasons for considering full frame... Apr 11 23 09:43 am Link LightDreams wrote: Fully and hugely agree on the quality when using higher ISO settings. I had a Canon T2i Rebel and it was great but there was too much noise at ISO 3200 for me to get some of the images I wanted. I found a Canon 6d (first version) for a reasonable price and the image quality at ISO 3200 is MUCH better. Apr 11 23 10:14 am Link I have been shooting full frame since the original Canon 5D in 2006 (or 2005 - I don’t recall exactly). I used FX (Nikon) with a D810, but I am shooting Sony now. The full frame cameras are generally a little bigger than their APS-C counterparts. They may have more pixels - you can get more pixels on a full frame sensor than on a smaller one (60Mp on a Sony) - not sure what the highest pixel count you can get on an APS-C is. A full frame also gives you the ability to use shallower depth of field. Main reason I am using full frame is for the pixel count (yeah, yeah, don’t need more than 3 megapixels, blah, blah…), but I do like shallowth of field, too. Do you need it? Probably not :-) but I have no intention of returning to APS-C. Apr 11 23 07:15 pm Link Mark Salo wrote: Currently I shoot with a D7100 and on occasion, an older D2XS and a duo of D70S bodies. Apr 12 23 03:48 pm Link LightDreams wrote: I keep the styles of my work separate (as separate entities, as I've had Bride-zillas and mother of the brides not want me shooting since I also shoot adult work. I do shoot weddings (it's been awhile with Covid), and have done some promo work for clubs and their acts. I have a number of pretty wide lenses that give me a lot of light. Venues and bands are often using work for posters, so I do like the idea of higher resolution. Apr 12 23 03:56 pm Link UCPhotog wrote: The D7100 should satisfy you as well as the D800s. Apr 12 23 04:05 pm Link Mark Salo wrote: The D800s are the bodies I'm being offered. If I wasn't close friends with the seller, I'd consider this a price too good to be true. They are both under 30K actuations, and part of the payment is a bunch of labor from me (computer configurations, HTPC and home automation setup). If it were closer to retail used prices, I'd likely pass on the deal. Hell, if it were all cash I'm not sure I'd take him up on it. If I buy them, when it's time to replace my DX bodies, I'd probably go for FX and sell / trade my DX lenses. So more associated costs. Apr 12 23 08:05 pm Link I'd say its time to replace your D2XS and D70S bodies. Apr 12 23 08:44 pm Link Not much thought was required for me. A couple bad experiences with point and shoot cameras, along with news of the D800 and what it could do back around 2012, led me to place a bid on eBay for a used D800 sometime around 2015. Since then, I've acquired around fifty mostly prime lenses, none of which were DX, tons of lighting equipment, a D800E, D810, and a year ago I got a D850 that I am just now getting ready to use for the first time. I am glad I got the D800 and not a lesser or smaller camera, even though it was not as portable as the ones I saw many tourists using. I found out that if I ever wanted to shoot APS-C or DX, well, the D800 can do that. You can use your DX lenses on it, in crop mode, or something like that. I learned a little about the history of the full frame, the F-mount lenses that were there before many of us were born, the ones that have come out in the past few years, and I continue to await those that have yet to hit the market, such as the Voigtlander 56mm 1.2. There are a few I am just waiting for the price to go down on. Weddings, portraits, architecture and landscape are what the FX camera does best, and the lenses for these cameras are cheaper to make, according to some guy on YouTube I had been watching a lot of, and who said one of the best reasons to go FX is if you ever use a perspective control, or tilt-shift (or even just shift) lens for architecture, real estate, interiors, products, because FX cameras have a bigger maximum angle of view, as well as more room on the front of the camera for the lens to shift. Many of my lenses are top quality. The rest are zoom and Rokinon lenses I got out of ignorance when I was even more of a n00b than I am now: Irix 11mm f/4 Laowa 12mm 2.8 Zero-D Nikon 14mm f/2.8 AF-D ED Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC Irix 15mm f/2.4 Laowa 15mm f/4 Macro Shift Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Nikon 20mm AF-S Nikkor 1.8G ED Nikon 24mm AF-S Nikkor 1.4G ED Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC Nikon 24mm PC-E Micro Nikkor 3.5D ED Laowa 24mm f/14 Probe Lens Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X Ultra-Macro Lens Nikon 28mm f1.4 E ED AF-S Nikkor Nikon 28mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Nikon 28mm 1.8 Nikon 28mm 2.0 Nikon PC-Nikkor 28mm 3.5 Nikon 35mm AF-S Nikkor 1.4G ED Kerlee 35mm 1.2 Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm 2.8 AI-S Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm 2.8 AI Sigma 40mm 1.4 Irix 45mm 1.4 Nikon 45mm PC-E Micro Nikkor 2.8D ED Nikon 50mm 1.2 Nikon 50mm AF-S Nikkor 1.4G Nikon 58mm AF-S Nikkor 1.4G Voigtlander Nokton 58mm f/1.4 SL II-N Nikon 60mm 2.8G ED Macro Laowa 60mm 2.8 Ultra Macro 2:1 Mitakon Zhongyi 85mm 1.2 Nikon 85mm 1.4G Rokinon 85mm 1.4 Nikon 85mm PC Micro Nikkor 85mm 2.8D Laowa 100mm 2.8 CA-Dreamer Macro 2X Rokinon 100mm 2.8 Macro Nikon 105mm 1.4E Nikon 105mm 2.0 DC Nikkor Nikon 105mm 1.8 Nikon AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED Nikon 135mm 2.0 DC Nikkor Rokinon 135mm 2.0 Irix 150mm 2.8 Macro 1:1 Nikon 180mm 2.8 Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4D IF-ED Nikon 300mm 2.8 Nikon 400mm 2.8 Nikon 500mm 4.0 Nikon 600mm 4.0 Nikon 800mm 5.6 Tamron 15-30mm 2.8 Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 Nikon 70-300mm 4.5-5.6 Nikon 200-500mm 5.6E ED VR Nikon 25-50mm 4.0 Ai-S Zoom Apr 12 23 09:39 pm Link Mark Salo wrote: I'd say that too. I won't get rid of them because the used market gives nothing for them. I keep one of the D70S bodies in the car all the time with a 70-200 kit lens on it. It's also what I'd take to a picnic or other kind of get together / party. If it gets wet, damaged, etc I'll just grab the CF card, and get rid of what ever is damaged. If it gets stolen I'm not crying about it (but the strap is pretty thick so I cut it and put an Apple Air Tag into it to track it just in case). Apr 13 23 12:23 am Link I thought I was the one that needed an intervention because of buying lenses... :-D phpcat wrote: Apr 13 23 12:25 am Link I plan to stick to DX because I have odd focal-length preferences. In particular, 24-70mm on DX (35-105mm "35mm equivalent") is my core mid-range, with a fat tail of longer focal lengths and no use for shorter focal lengths. If I had more standard focal-length preferences, I would likely now be the happy owner of a D810. As it is, I'm the happy owner of a Nikon 24-120mm f/4 that I really liked on my D90, really like now on my D500, and would like a lot less on an FX body. Apr 13 23 04:58 am Link UCPhotog wrote: I owned a D800e for a while, eventually trading it in on a D810. The D800e was a good camera, but the D810 felt like the "fully finished" version of the camera. The 36Mpixel sensor in these cameras is excellent (it was also used in the Sony A7R). I've taken some fine shots with these. Apr 15 23 01:47 am Link Sablesword wrote: There are two full frame lenses that provide 35-150mm, but they are E mount - so you'd have to switch to a Sony full frame mirrorless camera (I bought a Sony FF A7R2 while shooting Nikon, so you wouldn't be the first :-) ). Apr 15 23 02:08 am Link I switched from a prosumer crop camera to full frame several years ago. Sure I got great images with the D7100 I was using and still have but full frame gives you a better and more accurate viewfinder and if you are using fx lenses it will also be more representative of the actual image. Apr 15 23 07:19 am Link I am currently using a D7200, D500, and D750. I bought the D750 out of curiosity to see if full frame really is, as so many claim, noticeably superior to its crop-frame counterparts. The D500 is nominally the best camera of the three, and, if I could keep only one, I would probably keep the D500 because it has better burst-shoot capabilities and its focussing is superior in difficult situations. That being said, for most of my purposes, the three are fully interchangeable. Also, when I am travelling, I pack my wife's D3300 because it is so light and can do everything I need when I am just a tourist. Apr 15 23 06:26 pm Link Started with a Nikon D7000. To shoot beauty I bought a D750 and have a 2.8 70-200m lens. I shoot beauty at 200mm and need a really sharp lens. For beauty the lens and camera combination rocks. With it I have shot beauty images in about 7-8 takes. It just makes it easier. Apr 16 23 07:34 am Link The dslr bodies are going for so cheap these days that it makes sense to have at least two. One as a backup. I have an fx and dx. The reason I moved to fx was all the fuss at the time being a better low light performer, better oof, 35mm original film size and lenses true distance indicator. Back then it cost an arm and a leg to own one of those now everybody can own one. So much for technology. By the way I got a dx for my micro work. I use prime lenses and I hate changing them in the field. I figure the bodies are so cheap why not just have one permanently attached. Apr 16 23 04:42 pm Link 35mm film -> DX SLR -> FX SLR-> FX mirrorless -> FX SLR I switched from DX to FX for the viewfinder as I missed the large (seemingly brighter) view through the camera viewfinder that film SLRs had. I also prefer my D780 over my Z6II for the same reason, I just don't like the digital display. The D780 has pretty good face-detection AF for an SLR and is a incremental upgrade of the venerable D750. I can switch to live-view mode on it too which has a unique implementation for the D780; it behaves identically to Z6 as it has same on sensor focus and metering as it uses the same sensor as a Z6. Apr 19 23 02:40 pm Link Up till recently I have used both with D500 ( 2), D300s and a D850 and not being a pixel peeper frankly didnt see much difference between the results. I switched from a D4s to the D500 for sports because it had a better AFand was lighter and less expensive. Used the 850 primarily for model shoots but asa a BU for the D500 for sports. All my long glass was FX, all WA was DX as I started wen DX was all that was available na saw no reason to change as I dont shoot wide enough to justify cost. Presently I am moving toward mirrorless, Z9 because of its AF and other features and keeping the 850 for the foreseeable future, same of the 300S As to upgrade to me it is about features that add value for what I shoot and DX has a lot of advantages, primarily in the area of SYSTEM cost and IMO unless you are making a living with your camera I dont see and advantage to FX and the future is mirrorless and for me the only mirrorless that meets my needs is the Z9 and I am reducing my system inventory to 3Zlenses, all zooms, 3 F primes and some F Zooms not worth selling-Yet. Apr 20 23 06:19 pm Link I started using DX partly because of affordability but also because my main interest at the time was wildlife, sports and so on, requiring longer focal lengths. I contemplated getting an FX camera for landscape photography for the higher resolution, sharper focus through full depth of field etc, but never did enough serious landscape work to justify the added cost. As I started into portrait work, albeit still only ever as an amateur photog, I just stayed with DX and bought the best DX or FX lenses I could afford to suit my needs. To my mind the only way I could justify the added cost for FX would have been if I needed higher resolution for published editorial work. For the foreseeable future I'll be happy to stay with DX (I'm still happily using a D7000 most of the time, occasionally renting another body or lenses for specific projects if I need to). I'll think about mirrorless if I start travelling again, mainly for the compact sizes of the gear but still with comparable (or better) functionality, resolution etc. May 01 23 05:03 am Link UCPhotog wrote: I think there has been a lot of good reply and info so far. May 01 23 06:44 am Link |
