The D7100 vs D800 Debate

I have a guy on Flickr ask me what I thought of both cameras as he wanted to look into moving away from his D7100 to a D800. I must have been sober when I replied as when I read it back it made sense, even to me. I thought I would share my thought as it may be of some use in the same situation.

His question was:

Hi Lee, I noticed you have used both cameras with the Tamron. I shoot a D7100 and only shoot birds. I have shot the Tamron on a D600 and thought IQ was better than the D7100. I've been toying with the idea of picking up a D800 now that used prices are falling. I was wondering if you could share any thoughts? I shoot mostly Ospreys, feel free to check my flickr, I'm not a noob, lol..

I'm thinking the ISO performance of the D800 would trump the D7100, but I'm not sure how it shakes out if you are cropping the D800 a lot. Thanks for your time..

My Answer was:

I have had the D800 for 2 months now. I actually probably would not have got it but a very good friend sold me it brand new, with CF cards, rails for tripods, books, battery grip extra batteries for $1700. I could simply not refuse!!


If he had not offered me the D800 I would still be with my D7100 and very would be very happy.


With that said, once I picked the D800 and started using i fell in love. Feature wise its better that the D7100, it has more pixels, blah blah. you know the story. What it wont do is make you a better photographer because you just happen to own it. What it will do is train you to be a better photographer because its nowhere near as forgiving as the D7100.


For a while my D7100 shots where head and shoulders above the D800, only very recently (and you will see this in my Flickr posts) have the D800 shots started to show a bit more quality. Like I say, its an unforgiving camera. To much shake with all those pixels can ruin what would have been a fantastic shot on the D7100.


What I do now, and this is what I would advise. Keep both. I use both every day side by side. I put the 150-600 on the D7100 and everything else goes on the 800.


I do use the 150-600 on the D800 but only if its on a tripod with a gimble. On the D7100 I can hand hold and get amazing shots (see the song sparrow) I have not tried the D800 hand held, but intuition tells me it will struggle unless you have hand of a surgeon. The 70-200 performs very well hand held (See Red Dragon Fly Pic)


Both fantastic cameras, both capable of doing what you want to do. For Birds in Flight you will have more throw always than you do with the D7100 and for stationary birds you throw always will be slightly up with the 800. The 800 will force you into being a better photographer over time.


I am not sure if that answers your question directly. Sorry for rambling on. Please let me know if you have any other questions i am more than happy to help.

Just my thoughts, observations and suggestions. Others may have different opinions.

Makes sense to me too.

Both are amazing cameras which will have certain advantages over the other. Having both would be beneficial, but nothing wrong with having either one on it's own either.

The Iso on the D610 trumps both D7100 and D800

Having both cameras myself, and the D600, the only things I take issue with are your use of the phrase "actually probably" in the second sentence, and ShootRaw's assertion regarding the D610 (same sensor as the D600). While I agree that the High ISO noise control on the D600/610 is excellent, I would posit that the D800 is nearly its equal, and when pushing past 6400 it can be better than the D600/610. My experience is that the D800 is better at suppressing Color Noise, while the D600 is better at suppressing Contrast/Luminance Noise. The added sharpness of the D800e (no OLPF) often provides better details at higher ISO's once noise reduction is applied. Both are superior to the D7100, which still performs wonderfully at high ISO, particularly for a DX camera.

I own both and each is better for certain tasks? You seem to suggest that the 800 allows throwing away more pixels when cropping. This only applies if you fill the frame on the 800 such that all 36mp are used. If you only fill the DX portion of the frame which is common for birds then the D7100 out resolves it. It's a common myth with the 800 that it out resolves everything else in all circumstances.


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ShaggyRS6 said:

I have a guy on Flickr ask me what I thought of both cameras as he wanted to look into moving away from his D7100 to a D800. I must have been sober when I replied as when I read it back it made sense, even to me. I thought I would share my thought as it may be of some use in the same situation.

His question was:

Hi Lee, I noticed you have used both cameras with the Tamron. I shoot a D7100 and only shoot birds. I have shot the Tamron on a D600 and thought IQ was better than the D7100. I've been toying with the idea of picking up a D800 now that used prices are falling. I was wondering if you could share any thoughts? I shoot mostly Ospreys, feel free to check my flickr, I'm not a noob, lol..

I'm thinking the ISO performance of the D800 would trump the D7100, but I'm not sure how it shakes out if you are cropping the D800 a lot. Thanks for your time..

My Answer was:

I have had the D800 for 2 months now. I actually would not have got it but a very good friend sold me it brand new, with CF cards, rails for tripods, books, battery grip extra batteries for $1700. I could simply not refuse!!


If he had not offered me the D800 I would still be with my D7100 and very would be very happy.


With that said, once I picked the D800 and started using i fell in love. Feature wise its better that the D7100, it has more pixels, blah blah. you know the story. What it wont do is make you a better photographer because you just happen to own it. What it will do is train you to be a better photographer because its nowhere near as forgiving as the D7100.


For a while my D7100 shots where head and shoulders above the D800, only very recently (and you will see this in my Flickr posts) have the D800 shots started to show a bit more quality. Like I say, its an unforgiving camera. To much shake with all those pixels can ruin what would have been a fantastic shot on the D7100.


What I do now, and this is what I would advise. Keep both. I use both every day side by side. I put the 150-600 on the D7100 and everything else goes on the 800.


I do use the 150-600 on the D800 but only if its on a tripod with a gimble. On the D7100 I can hand hold and get amazing shots (see the song sparrow) I have not tried the D800 hand held, but intuition tells me it will struggle unless you have hand of a surgeon. The 70-200 performs very well hand held (See Red Dragon Fly Pic)


Both fantastic cameras, both capable of doing what you want to do. For Birds in Flight you will have more throw always than you do with the D7100 and for stationary birds you throw always will be slightly up with the 800. The 800 will force you into being a better photographer over time.


I am not sure if that answers your question directly. Sorry for rambling on. Please let me know if you have any other questions i am more than happy to help.

Just my thoughts, observations and suggestions. Others may have different opinions.

Click to expand...

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Eek sorry I made a mistake. I was trying to get rid of the actually probably bit. That was a typo. Should have been just actually.

So you can untake your issue now

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Wasn't a serious issue.

Lee, you can go in and delete that post altogether if you want.

Can't at the moment. Out in the nature preserve!! Will do it when I get home.

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This is probably going to start another D800 flame war, but....

The D800 isn't the type of camera that I would recommend for bird watching. Larger game like bear, elk, deer, wild cats, maybe. Even then it would be more ideal to set up in a blind with a tripod as opposed to going walkabout. Birds are a stretch, especially with long non-Nikon glass. Personally, and I've been wrong before, but I would think your keeper ratio is going to go down using a D800.

I think the bird shots anyone does manage to get would be spectacular. The detail, color, and tonal range of that camera are second to none. I suppose it depends most on how patient someone is waiting for that one awesome shot as opposed to several others they could get with a different camera.

In the OP's particular case, it's hard to pass up a D800 @ that price. Not so sure I'd recommend it to a friend, though.

YMMV

I'd disagree slightly with Browncoat. I have taken some really nice shots with D800 of birds. You need a decent tripod and a gimble. I guess it would not be most people's go to for birding but it is capable.

I do find myself using the D7100 more.

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My biggest issue with using the D800 for birding has nothing to do with keepers, it has to do with file size and fps. For birds in flight I shoot a lot of frames, so it takes a LONG time to bring 'em in to scope out the best. The fact that the D800 can only do 4fps is a disadvantage here too. My beef with the D7100 is that while it does 6 fps, it will only do it for 1 second shooting RAW, so it's a trade-off when you've got something flying across your field of view - more shots spaced further apart, or more choices in the one key second provided you nail it.

My keeper ratio is no less with the D800 than it is with any other camera.

I should've been more specific in my wording:

Because the D800 has such low FPS, and bird shooters do a lot of FPS work, there are going to be less shots to choose from, and therefore fewer keepers.

What Lee said in his original post makes a lot of sense to me.
I have a D800 but really really want a D7100 as well because of the quality of the bird photos seen on here. I have tried the Nikon1 V1 for birds as that gives even more reach but no where near the D7100 IQ.

The extra reach of the DX vs full frame makes a big difference with very little if any loss in IQ except when the bird is very near.

To get the equivalent reach of the 100-600 lens - D7100 on a D800 you have two choices. Use a teleconverter and lose some IQ or pay crazy money for an exotic 800mm lens which weighs a ton and really can't be used for birds in flight without a heavy duty gimbal, not a walk about solution.

Pretty good debate in this thread - what people have said makes a lot of sense. Hope it helps some people out.

A further update. I had the original chap that asked the questions come back and ask a few more. Again, these are my opinions only. See below:

HIM

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I would think the D800 would be more forgiving at the pixel level since the pixels are larger on the D800. I think I might just stay in a holding pattern and see if Nikon ever releases a DX body with better speed and a larger buffer.

The million dollar question... This shot is taken at ISO 4500 on my D7100. The cropped image size was 4175x2193. A quick calculation results in 3340x1754 on a D800, so would the D800 have looked better at ISO 4500 on this shot at 100%? Let's hypothetically say I wanted to print it 10x20. On the D7100 I would have around 200 DPI on the D800 I would have around 175 DPI.. which would look better? I had to use a ton of noise reduction https://flic.kr/p/ocDBUZ

ME:

I cant give you a answer directly either. What I can say is this... I took the following picture with the D800, at 450mm, at ISO 280. Using a $800 worth Gitzo Tripod and a very expensive gimble. I had to process the crap out of it to get it to look remotely good, and to be honest, the only reason it works is because of what's actually happening rather than the quality of the shot. I would be the first to admit that. https://flic.kr/p/o1S93d


As you can see I had to keep the crop wide as well. Here's the thing.


I am in no doubt that had the D7100 been on that Tripod, or indeed hand held I would have got a significantly better shot.


Lee

Hi all! I am the "chap" that had originally messaged Lee. I saw a referrer on my flickr page, so I figured I would sign up here. I am sticking with the D7100 for now in hopes that a successor will show up next month.. My thoughts were the 1.2x crop mode at 5 FPS would work pretty well for me since I overstuff the frame with Ospreys quite often and if I added a grip I could still get my 6 FPS in DX mode when needed with a much larger buffer than the D7100. I'm thinking in the equivalent DX mode there would not be a noticebale difference in noise after doing some studying...

I think sticking with the D7100 is the wise choice.

Welcome to the site!!

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