This should be considered an enthusiastic amateur's post and eventually two questions.
I just covered a grandson's christening with my D700 using a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens. Lighting indoors in the church was not good but setting a high ISO with the lens aperture mostly wide open or one stop closed (and using Lighthouse) I took some beautiful pictures - which was pretty hard not to do with this equipment. Most of the pictures were impromptu and involved people moving (slowly) and chatting and eventually children moving at speed outside in good light.
I started wondering how my D7100 would have handled these conditions so I set-up a very amateurish experiment indoors at home in poor lighting. I set an ISO of 3200 on both my D700 and D7100 and took photos with three of my most treasured lenses: the nikon 80-200, a nikon 180mm f2.8 and a nikon 28-105mm. I set the apertures to either the widest setting or stopped down one stop and started taking photos. What I found surprised me. No matter what lens or focal length was used , the shutter speed on my D7100 was always significantly faster than my D700. For example 1/180 or 1/80 on my D700 (depending on the focal length) became 1/250, or 1/60 on my d700 became 1/90 on my D7100 and images appeared to be of equal quality and exposure on both.
All other things being equal (I am unsure of the equivalent ISO capabilities of each of these cameras), my amateurish conclusion is that the D7100 is a better camera for freezing action in low light conditions because it would allow higher shutter speeds. I always considered my D7100 a better camera for distant objects (eg my Tamron 150-600 lives on this camera because I live in the bush with abundant wildlife available for photographing and effectively get 900mm) but now consider my D7100 a better option for indoor sport shots also because of its ability to use higher shutter speeds. I realise there are other factors to take into consideration (eg ISO capabilities of each camera etc.), but is my conclusion that my D7100 is a better camera for indoor sports correct?
One other thing that did surprise me was that when I cropped my D700 images (using Lighthouse) to give the same view as provided on the D7100, the quality of the resulting photograph appeared to be the equivalent of the D7100 image. I thought with the reduced pixels from the cropped D700 camera I would get an inferior image to that of the D7100 uncropped image (compared on a large screen computer monitor). This leads me to the amateurish conclusion that there is more to stated pixels count for each camera "than meets the eye". Am I correct in this also?
I just covered a grandson's christening with my D700 using a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 lens. Lighting indoors in the church was not good but setting a high ISO with the lens aperture mostly wide open or one stop closed (and using Lighthouse) I took some beautiful pictures - which was pretty hard not to do with this equipment. Most of the pictures were impromptu and involved people moving (slowly) and chatting and eventually children moving at speed outside in good light.
I started wondering how my D7100 would have handled these conditions so I set-up a very amateurish experiment indoors at home in poor lighting. I set an ISO of 3200 on both my D700 and D7100 and took photos with three of my most treasured lenses: the nikon 80-200, a nikon 180mm f2.8 and a nikon 28-105mm. I set the apertures to either the widest setting or stopped down one stop and started taking photos. What I found surprised me. No matter what lens or focal length was used , the shutter speed on my D7100 was always significantly faster than my D700. For example 1/180 or 1/80 on my D700 (depending on the focal length) became 1/250, or 1/60 on my d700 became 1/90 on my D7100 and images appeared to be of equal quality and exposure on both.
All other things being equal (I am unsure of the equivalent ISO capabilities of each of these cameras), my amateurish conclusion is that the D7100 is a better camera for freezing action in low light conditions because it would allow higher shutter speeds. I always considered my D7100 a better camera for distant objects (eg my Tamron 150-600 lives on this camera because I live in the bush with abundant wildlife available for photographing and effectively get 900mm) but now consider my D7100 a better option for indoor sport shots also because of its ability to use higher shutter speeds. I realise there are other factors to take into consideration (eg ISO capabilities of each camera etc.), but is my conclusion that my D7100 is a better camera for indoor sports correct?
One other thing that did surprise me was that when I cropped my D700 images (using Lighthouse) to give the same view as provided on the D7100, the quality of the resulting photograph appeared to be the equivalent of the D7100 image. I thought with the reduced pixels from the cropped D700 camera I would get an inferior image to that of the D7100 uncropped image (compared on a large screen computer monitor). This leads me to the amateurish conclusion that there is more to stated pixels count for each camera "than meets the eye". Am I correct in this also?
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