Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BackdoorArts" data-source="post: 114336" data-attributes="member: 9240">I have not been shooting long enough to give your question the answer it deserves, but I will say that while I was very happy with my D7000, I was astounded by the image quality of the D600 when I decided to jump on the Christmas special price Nikon offered this year.  Two months later I am seriously pondering whether I want to hang with the D7000 or possibly sell it and move up to a pair of full frame cameras.  Gonna mull this one for a while.While I don't feel comfortable making recommendations on bodies, I will definitely share my opinions on lenses and software.  If software is going to limit what you can process then I wouldn't consider it.  I'm using Lightroom 4 for 90% of my processing and to my knowledge it'll handle the D800's 36 MP's no problem.  I recently moved from Photoshop Elements to full blown Photoshop 6, but still find myself jumping into Elements (11) for quick fixes (smart healing of dust spots).  While I'm not shooting 36MP's, I did run into an issue just yesterday where a panorama I put together in Photoshop would not open in Elements (single layer tiff file composite of fifteen 24MP images).  I'm assuming I hit a limit on what it could handle file-wise, but I had previously been able to open similar tiffs made up of half as many D600 files, so I'd guess that it'll easily handle single D800 images.As for lenses, like you I love a good zoom lens, and have found some that work very well for me (I really like the 24-85mm kit lens I got with my D600).  But after acquiring a set of f1.8 primes (28, 50 & 85mm), and witnessing first hand the sharpness, if there's a shot that I need to get then I'm sticking a prime on there.  My recommendation coming in would be to fully research your decision on whether you want to go full frame with a D600 or D800, or get a top of the heap DX camera, and then find a good flexible zoom that will work for that camera and then see where you want to go.  I'm assuming you haven't shot SLR's since the film days, so the cropped DX sensor may seem limiting to you (the 24mm in your head is a 36mm on the camera, etc.).  If you can find a D600 at the price I did ($2K for the kit) that leaves you with half your budget for lenses and still being able to shoot with the kit zoom.  Even without, the 24-85mm can be found "nearly new" thanks to the XMAS blowout for $300-400 fairly regularly.  For portraits (I don't shoot them) I regularly see the 85mm and 105mm recommended, and the 85mm 1.8g ($499 list) and 105mm 2.8g ($985 list) would suck up the rest of your budget - though you might find that the 24-85mm zoom works for you.And here I said I couldn't speak to cameras.  LOL  Give me enough time and I'll talk to anything.</blockquote>

Verification