As I’ve mentioned before, photography is a passion of mine. I recently embarked on a journey to get a new camera, and wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on the process.
I’ve been dabbling in photography for quite a few years, and so I was considering upgrading from a crop sensor camera (a Nikon D7200) to a full frame camera.
What I like about going full frame is that full frame sensors can capture better dynamic range, so there’s more detail and color in the shadows and highlights of the shot. I shoot a ton of landscapes, so that is an attractive feature.
A totally different reason for going full frame vs crop sensor is that a full frame sensor has better low light performance. Again, that’s a bonus when I’m out in the wee hours of the morning or after sunset taking blue hour photos or photos of the night sky.
Here’s the thing though. Full frame cameras are expensive, and in the case of DSLRs, they’re huge and bulky too. I didn’t want a big, heavy camera to lug around as I explore landscapes, so I decided to stick with the crop sensor format and upgrade from the D7200 to the D7500.
What I liked about the D7200 was its size, its light weight, and the fact that with the cropped sensor, all my lenses have a longer effective focal length. I’m not huge into telephoto photography (yet), but with a crop sensor camera, I don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a long lens. Instead, I can use the camera’s crop factor to my advantage to get more reach with a more traditional lens like my 24-70mm.
Anyway, I upgraded to the D7500 for two major reasons. First, it has an articulating touchscreen that makes getting low angle shots so much easier - something that was hard to do with the D7200’s fixed screen. Second, it has better ISO performance than the D7200, so when I’m looking for those low light shots I get better results.
The D7500 is basically the same size as the D7200 and slightly lighter, so upgrading didn’t mean I had to get familiar with a new camera’s size and shape.
I haven’t noticed a huge difference in image quality between the two, but overall I’ve been very pleased with how the D7500 has performed. It took all the good stuff from the D7200 and added more modern features like better burst shooting, improved video quality, and Bluetooth, that have made it a great camera for me.
That’s my two cents on the subject!
