advertisement


Best used Nikon DSLR for wildlife - £600 ish, FX or DX?

Fretbuzz said:
Nice one. That does sound much in the same kind of boat, scenario wise.

I get the AF thing. Even though I only use one focus point at a time, and mainly the centre one, I have occasionally used a outer one for eyes etc on reflection - just as you say. Good point.

What ISOs seem usable for each please? And if you took the same pic at say 1600 with the same lens and cropped to the same result, with each, would there be much difference?
Click to expand...
Really dull day last month and raining. D7200 at ISO 1800: whole frame, RAW, processed in Lightroom:
Tit whole frame D7200 ISO 1800 by Ian123_running, on Flickr

And cropped from this - no additional noise reduction:
Tit cropped by Ian123_running, on Flickr

And the same image with noise reduction added (in Lightroom):
Tit cropped with NR by Ian123_running, on Flickr


(D7200, 300f/4 PF with TC1.4, 1/500, f7.1, ISO1800
 
So not too bad, with the NR applied, but obviously not perfect. I looked at another taken at ISO4500 and the noise is a fair bit worse - and obviously cannot be [edited:] easily removed without cost to the resolution. Obviously what is 'usable' or acceptable depends on cropping, magnification, display medium and purpose of the shot.

If I get chance later I'll run some more controlled comparisons D610 vs D7200 at high ISOs (with the crop factor built in as you suggest) - never done that so would be interesting for me too!)
 
Last edited:
Colinb said:
My previous body was a D300, which I had for a long time waiting for its successor, the D500, which I still have. It was a big step up in IQ, AF, burst rate, buffer etc so far superior, although the D300 was no slouch. I sold the D500 as I bought a D850 at a really good price. I had all three for about a year. Obviously the D850 wins out on resolution, newer processing engine and the ability to focus stack, which I use for macro work. AF, burst shooting and buffer are not as good as the D500 unless you add the grip and use the fastest cards available. In crop mode its pretty much the same as the D500 with a slightly slower frame rate and AF. Compared to the D300 both are a big step up in terms of ability to customise everything.
Click to expand...
Really useful, thanks. The D300 (IIRC) had the same sensor as the D90 (but better body/more features)?
 
ian123running said:
So not too bad, with the NR applied, but obviously not perfect. I looked at another taken at ISO4500 and the noise is a fair bit worse - and obviously cannot be removed without cost to the resolution. Obviously what is 'usable' or acceptable depends on cropping, magnification, display medium and purpose of the shot.

If I get chance later I'll run some more controlled comparisons D610 vs D7200 at high ISOs (with the crop factor built in as you suggest) - never done that so would be interesting for me too!)
Click to expand...
That would be ace, thanks! Good example above with the great tit. Not bad at all given it does look really dull.
 
Yes, I think you are correct. As far as noise reduction in high ISO shots are concerned, it is possible to do a really good job without making it worse by using high pass sharpening in Photoshop. Plenty of videos online to explain how to do it. Works even with very high ISO shots.
 
Start your noise reduction in lightroom using masking in the detail panel and adjust the sliders carefully whilst you have the alt key pressed. You only want to reduce the luminosity noise, not the colour noise. Then make further tweaks to the sharpening, radius and detail sliders until it looks good. Then open in Photoshop and use the high pass sharpening filter on the bits that need it. Use layers and masks to select which bits you want to sharpen. You could also then use the new super resolution feature in ACR to double the pixels horizontally and vertically with no loss of IQ.
 
Colinb said:
Start your noise reduction in lightroom using masking in the detail panel and adjust the sliders carefully whilst you have the alt key pressed. You only want to reduce the luminosity noise, not the colour noise. Then make further tweaks to the sharpening, radius and detail sliders until it looks good. Then open in Photoshop and use the high pass sharpening filter on the bits that need it. Use layers and masks to select which bits you want to sharpen. You could also then use the new super resolution feature in ACR to double the pixels horizontally and vertically with no loss of IQ.
Click to expand...
Yes I do it much more simply and only touch the NR slider (Luminance) if I have to (which is not very often)... But something to look at for sure, thanks.

Does this change the equation that the original post mentioned though? Is the sensor NR performance less critical when such sophisticated post-corrections are available (albeit with some knowledge / effort)? Interested in your take.
 
Last edited:
My gut instinct tells me that the more modern sensor is always going to outperform the older one because of wider dynamic range, better resolution etc. Fundamentally, if the sensor can't capture as much information to start with then it doesn't really matter what you do to remove noise in post processing it would still not be as good as a more modern sensor in terms of noise performance given the same treatment. It would just give you a more useable image. Have a look at the video workshop on noise reduction in lightroom and photoshop by Steve Perry if you are interested in exploring more:

https://bcgwebstore.com/product/noise-reduction-using-lightroom-and-photoshop-video-workshop/
 
Gromit said:
Paul - those are superb of the Wren :)

Just done a quick'n'dirty comparison between my D700 and Df - obviously done in good light, but plenty of dark/black surfaces to show up noise:

D700 & Df at base:

D700...

D700 base by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

Df...

Df base by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

D700 at 6400:

D700 6400 by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

Df at 6400:

Df 6400 by Boxertrixter, on Flickr

Df at 25600:

Df 25600 by Boxertrixter, on Flickr
Click to expand...
Not bad at all from the D700 at 6400.
 
Colinb said:
Yes, I think you are correct. As far as noise reduction in high ISO shots are concerned, it is possible to do a really good job without making it worse by using high pass sharpening in Photoshop. Plenty of videos online to explain how to do it. Works even with very high ISO shots.
Click to expand...
Cheers. I haven't got photoshop, just Lightroom. I tried photoshop once but didn't find it intuitive at all and gave in (probably too soon); especially when Lightroom did seem really intuitive. That was years ago though - could revisit.
 
Fretbuzz said:
Cheers. I haven't got photoshop, just Lightroom. I tried photoshop once but didn't find it intuitive at all and gave in (probably too soon); especially when Lightroom did seem really intuitive. That was years ago though - could revisit.
Click to expand...
… When I say not intuitive, I mean it really p****d me off! Can't remember why exactly, just recall that it did...
 
I only need to use Photoshop for a minority of images for things that it's not possible to do in lightroom as there is only a small part of Photoshop that is useful for photography. Watch a few videos to get the hang of using layers and masks and it becomes quite intuitive. One of the things which tends to make it over complicated is the fact that there are multiple ways of doing everything and working out which is best for you is a steep learning processwhich is greatly helped through watching some of the online videos. Matt Kloskowski is good for that. You can find him on mattk.com
 
Personally I think that Lightroom's noise reduction is a bit coarse, it makes images very soft, very easily. I tend to use Dfine from the NIK collection (as a lightroom plug-in), though a lot of people swear by Topaz's Denoise AI software for noise reduction and it would certainly be something I would look into if I was shooting wildlife at high ISO, but I wanted to retain details on the subject https://www.topazlabs.com/denoise-a...gMbOfoSqzj5a9kmeXymID_BvY7CUL_YQaAv5ZEALw_wcB
 
I think it does if you just apply it globally. But the way to do it is to treat each area separately for noise reduction first in lightrooom on separate copies using masking and small changes as I outlined above. Don't touch contrast, clarity, dehaze etc as that will just add noise. Then import them all as a set of layers into photoshop and do any more noise reduction adjustments using layer masks, such as with the high pass filter, to each layer before combining them, its possible to achieve very substantial noise reduction without loss of IQ or softening the image, in fact it can be used to sharpen the image without sharpening the noise.
 
Here's one I did earlier. A bit of an extreme example. Shot on my D500 in very dim light conditions just as dawn was breaking with a Sigma 150-500 handheld at 150mm f8, 1/400th and ISO 32254:

Cheetah Noise reduction by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
That's only noise reduction. No other adjustments. I could now do more adjustments to contrast, clarity, dehaze, colour balance etc in lightroom without affecting noise too much.
 
Last edited:
Late as always but...
Of the cameras you mention, I own a 610, have used a 7200 and have used a D90 for many years.

First thought is re sensor size and lenses. Generally speaking for wildlife I prefer a cropped sensor DX, with that advantage of 1.5 x the reach from a given lens, but if your specialism is more toward static close subjects then I'd reverse that decision, because the definition from the FX sensors just wins all the time. If you are cropping and mucking about in post processing this is more true.

In low light there is so little difference between the DX and FX sensors that you needn't base any decision on that IMO. Both are about as good as there was on the market a few years back. I.E. flippin good! :) You should easily use 3200 and 6400 is quite acceptable with care.

The auto focus however is very varied. The D500 is way better, and of the other 2 they are both good for the way you shoot. On a scale of 1-10, the D90 is a 3, the 610 and 7200 maybe a 6 and the D500 an 8.

The D500 is a beast, and the 610 not far behind to lug about.
 
By coincidence Nigel Danson did a video today comparing his old D200 to his Z7 taking identical pictures with the same lens. Conclusion was that with the 15 year old sensor it was much more difficult to work with the colours, they were very different on each camera, had much less dynamic range and far less shadow detail. I would expect similar results comparing any pair of such sensors even if both DX format.
 
D7200 ISO 3200...so not too bad for noise but I don't think this was cropped heavily. I know it’s not a great photo ...

I can't remember what processing I did for this but what I can say it was at night (well, late twilight), with torchight, handheld on my Nikon 300 f/4 PF plus 1.4 TC (equivalent 630mm) at.... 1/6 second!!! The wonders of VR.
The left eye is injured - seen this a couple of times with leopards.

Leopard_tree_night by Ian123_running, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top