Fx camera on Dx mode to shoot wild life?

Gainzwhey

Gainzwhey

New member
Hello everyone,
Does it make sense to switch to Dx mode while on a Fx camera to shoot wild life? For instance, if on a D810, you can get higher fps (7) (using other power sources, which I assume is the vertical grip battery), much higher buffer than D7200 or D7500, ~21Mpx image resolution. For the prices that the D7500 is going for used, is it better to just spend a little bit more, if that (used prices of course), and get a D810 and shoot on Dx mode for better perfomance? Thnx
 
B

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard, enjoy the ride. We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

You might also want to consider introducing yourself on New Member Introductions.
 
Fred Kingston_RIP

Fred Kingston_RIP

Senior Member
Is that the only reason you want to upgrade? Are you missing shots because one camera isn't as fast as the other????? How many shots are you missing because of "performance" of burst mode???????
 
Gainzwhey

Gainzwhey

New member
Fred Kingston said:
Is that the only reason you want to upgrade? Are you missing shots because one camera isn't as fast as the other????? How many shots are you missing because of "performance" of burst mode???????
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No, that's not the reason, but certainly a plus to buying the D810. As far as I can tell it's a superior camera with the features of the D7500 and more. So for the money, I was considering just upgrading to a D810. But I've gotta read more on that and see what I really need.
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
Right now the D850 is on sale for $2500, and shoots at 7 fps. For a $100 more you could get a Z7ii which has the same 45 mp sensor rating and 10 fps.
 
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Gainzwhey

Gainzwhey

New member
Clovishound said:
Right now the D850 is on sale for $2500, and shoots at 7 fps. For a $100 more you could get a Z7ii which has the same 45 mp sensor rating and 10 fps.
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Although I do appreciate that mirrorless are vastly superior to DSLR's I'm not ready to make the leap. Frankly it would require me to change all my lenses, since I I have no AF-S lenses. All my leses are AF-D lenses, and they are sharp enough for me. I think the DSLR's are suitable for the purposes of the vast majority of amateur photographers. And it's sad that at some point I'll be forced to switch to mirrorless because DSLR's will be discontinued in the very near future.
 
BF Hammer

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Going back to the original question: Is this about using a DX lens on a full frame body? Or are you curious for specifically photographing with the crop using FX lens? There is no advantage to this in my opinion. It is simply a way of adapting existing gear until you can get the right gear working together.

Here is the rundown. Lower cost DX telephoto lens is going to reveal it's limitations even more so with a higher-megapixel sensor. As in no real improvement in photo quality. If you use a good FX lens on the FX body, you simply are making a smaller photo cropped from the image in the camera. Just leave it full size and do your cropping in post. You will have way more options that way.

It's not that there is more "zoom reach" in DX, you get the exact same size image on the sensor itself. What happens is you get less image. And 1.5x increase in apparent depth of field.
 
Danno

Danno

Senior Member
In affect you are simply cropping inside the camera. You can do that and an 810 would work, but if yo are going for wildlife go to a used D500 or an 850 used. The 500 is an Excellent camera. The 850 has higher resolution than the 810 so if you are going to crop in camera you have much higher resolution to work with.
 
Gainzwhey

Gainzwhey

New member
BF Hammer said:
Going back to the original question: Is this about using a DX lens on a full frame body? Or are you curious for specifically photographing with the crop using FX lens? There is no advantage to this in my opinion. It is simply a way of adapting existing gear until you can get the right gear working together.

Here is the rundown. Lower cost DX telephoto lens is going to reveal it's limitations even more so with a higher-megapixel sensor. As in no real improvement in photo quality. If you use a good FX lens on the FX body, you simply are making a smaller photo cropped from the image in the camera. Just leave it full size and do your cropping in post. You will have way more options that way.

It's not that there is more "zoom reach" in DX, you get the exact same size image on the sensor itself. What happens is you get less image. And 1.5x increase in apparent depth of field.
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It's not about using DS lenses on a FX cameras, I don't own any DX lenses. My questions was more towards the second point you made, i.e. to use in full size and crop later or shoot in DX, already cropped. I guess if the buffer is an issue (one needs to shoot for longer) shooting in DX might help. But yeah, maybe to stay in full-size in FX is better. Like you said there's no "zoom reach", the size of an object doesn't change in FX or DX (provided your using the same focal length). Thanks for the input.
 
Gainzwhey

Gainzwhey

New member
Danno said:
In affect you are simply cropping inside the camera. You can do that and an 810 would work, but if yo are going for wildlife go to a used D500 or an 850 used. The 500 is an Excellent camera. The 850 has higher resolution than the 810 so if you are going to crop in camera you have much higher resolution to work with.
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It seems the D500 was conceived for the specific purpose for wildlife photography and the D850 seems to be good at everything. I will look into both, but for now I think they are out of my budget.
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
The question I have is this: Does cropping in camera using the Dx mode the same as cropping in post? Aren't you just reducing the image size?
 
Fred Kingston_RIP

Fred Kingston_RIP

Senior Member
Dawg Pics said:
The question I have is this: Does cropping in camera using the Dx mode the same as cropping in post? Aren't you just reducing the image size?
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Yes... You can test this with your own camera. Setup a test shot, and cycle thru the different FX/DX inage size options on your camera, then import those images into your favorite editor and examine the resolution and what each image looks like... For my money, I shoot the largest camera size I can, and have the option to throw away what I don't want in POST.
 
BF Hammer

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Dawg Pics said:
The question I have is this: Does cropping in camera using the Dx mode the same as cropping in post? Aren't you just reducing the image size?
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Yes and yes. End effect is discarding the image around the DX-size sensor area. Just as if you had cropped it smaller in post. The pixel size of your subject remains the same (xxx pixels by yyy pixels). But if you were to use a D500 that may have the pixels packed tighter-together on the APS-C sized sensor, then you get a benefit of the image being recorded by more pixels and a larger file size again. Extra noise in the image is the normal trade-off for that.

My example is going to astrophotography. The last time I photographed Jupiter and Saturn, I used an old D7000 DX body. The image of the planets are projected from the lens as a certain size against the sensor. The sensor is 16MP, so the pixel density allowed a decent amount of detail to be viewed. If I repeat that today with my Z5 with the same 600mm lens, again the planets would record as the same size against a larger sensor. But the Z5 has 24MP, so the pixels are not packed together quite as tightly as the D7000. So I would have less detail visible in the raw images. But not as noisy either. And the cropping to equal apparent size on screen would yield the smaller xxx by yyy pixel size on the Z5.

And some day I am going to do this again with my Z5, but I expect I may be disappointed comparing to the earlier photos. I could have to double the amount of exposure-stack images I take.
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Take a look at this article by wildlife photographer, Steve Perry. He knows his stuff.

All About Crop Modes

@Fred Kingston @BF Hammer
Thanks. That is what I thought. I have used the crop mode a few times in the D500, but never really analyzed the results.
I just read the above linked article. I figure anything new I learn helps me in the future if I want a different camera.
 
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