Replacement for the D70 & nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6g lens?

fotobakkerij

Regular
Location
Alkmaar, The Netherlands
Name
Peter Bakker
My daughter is shooting with our old D70 and she likes shooting with the nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6g lens. We are happy with the quality of the pictures (we almost never print and if we print it will be max 20x30cm) but the D70 is getting some problems and it will be to expensive to repair. I sometimes borrow the D70 with this lens to make photo's of my son playing soccer.

Now I'm making a list of possible options as a replacement:

  1. A second-handed D70 with a year warranty (cheapest option)
  2. A fixed-lens bridge camera like the Stylus 1 or RX10 or the FZ1000 (I prefer the Stylus 1 for its price and size)
  3. An Alpha6000 which has dropped in price recently at Amazon.de (but what lens would I need)
  4. An GM5 or OMD E-M10 (with what lens?)

My budget is a bit limited, below 1000 euro's, the lower the better :) and I prefer to shoot OOC JPEGs and I'm not interested in video.

Can you help me to refine my options?

BTW: I've an Olympus XZ-10 and I'm very happy with the OOC JPEGs but a bit dissapointed because I've a dust on sensor problem which I didn't expected to have so soon with a fixed lens camera. Only thing I miss is an EVF and manual zoom.
 
The second-hand D70 still beats most of the other options in terms of flexbility, but is definitely aging in terms of sensor and image quality potential. If you prefer to stay this route, consider moving up to a D90 which still keeps you under your spend cap. A bit bigger jump still is the D300. The good news is that the batteries are common in all three, so that saves you some money in terms of accessories, etc. The 12MP sensor in the D90/D300 is still quite good and you gain a couple of stops ISO which helps with the 70-300 on the long end as the light falls. Given you shoot sports at times, I'm not sure the other cameras are going to get it done as well - compared to a DSLR with good phase-detect AF.
 
Thanks Covey22 and Bill,

I looked and I can get a D300s for about 500 euros with one year warranty, the D300 for about 375 and a D70 for 95 euros (both are also with one year warranty). The D300s has the advantage over the D300 of being able to use sdcards and a better body and shutter I think. And according to the site of the shop theD300s is cosmetic in a bette condition. I don't know the shutter count on the various models, I have to call the shop for that.

I think I like the idea of going for a second handed Nikon because lens prices seems to drop also, and we already have almost all the lenses we want (D70 kit lens, 70-300 and the 50mm 1.8D). Only lens I would want to buy extra is a wide-angle or fisheye like the Nikon AF G DX 10.5/2.8 10.5mm (price is 650 euros for a new one which doesn't sound too expensive) or the 12-24/4.0 G AF-S DX IF-ED second handed.

Perhaps the second handed D70 and the new fisheye lens is a good investment and go for a D7000 or D7100 in the future? Or is the Nikon AF G DX 10.5/2.8 10.5mm a better option than the fisheye?
 
The D300 buys you a lot - 51-point AF with a lot of cross-hair sensors - now your ability to capture well-focused off-centered compositions in fast action (i.e., rule of thirds, etc) just went up immensely. High FPS rate, robust body build. Lots of external controls that fall nicely under the hand. You can literally, by touch, control AF, metering, WB, ISO, drive mode and image quality settings without ever taking your eye off the viewfinder. All the D300 series are rated to 150K cycles on the shutter. And the viewfinder relief is great.
 
I talked to the shop which selss bodies with one year warranty but they won't tell me the shutter count of the different bodies they have for sale :-(

There is a shop that sells new D7000 bodies for 699 euros (with the mandatory two year warranty and an option to buy two years extra warranty for 75 euros) inluding a 16Gb SD card. I think that the D7000 maybe easier to handle as the D300(s) for my daughter because it's lighter and has scene modes like the D70. Is the D7000 easy to handle?
 
The D7K is lighter and has more consumer friendly interface controls. Just be aware you can overrun the buffer in action shooting depending upon your settings. But overall a very nice alternative and a good warranty behind it. I'd consider it!
 
I would argue for the FZ200. Constant f2.8 from 25mm to 600mm (e) and 1200mm if you engage digital zoom

Check out these links:

Since some folks are talking about FZ1000, here's an example of what a superzoom can do. Eagle robs

Show "Flowers" (scroll down to my post)

Micro 4/3 - Of a fire in the sky (sky hunting again)

My contention is that the FZ200 is simply the most versatile camera on the planet

I have been using the Panasonic superzooms professionally. The photos for this story were taken with the FZ150 (the FZ200 wasn't available yet): Shooting Sports USA - October 2012 - 18

Feel free to PM me for more info if you need it.

Cheers, Jock
 
There's also the option of a used D70s.....:)
(Familiarity with a slight performance increase over the D70...) :)

I wanted to buy a used camera with a warranty, and the store only had the regular D70 and D300s and yesterday the D80, which I bought :) Advantage is that the D80 uses a normal SD card and I had a spare 4Gb card. This morning I tested the D80 with the 50mm 1.8D lens in shutter priority mode at the soccer game of my son (in hazy morning light) and I'm very happy with the results. With some cropping they are good enough for web sharing, e.g.:

15435445395_b2e07a2744_b.jpg

Soccer game, early in the morning by Fotobakkerij, on Flickr
 
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