DX Lenses on an FX camera.

[SwissJon]

I'm looking very carefully at buying the new D800. Prices crashed almost immediately, ant the cameras are currently being advertised for pre-sales at a massive $600 less than what they started out at on Tuesday.

Looking at the specs, it seems to do what I want.. As a landscape photographer, I'm not concerned about the low light abilities (Which seem pretty comparable to my D7000 anyway), nor about the shutter speeds.. 4FPS is enough for me.

What is of great interest is the ability to shoot in DX mode at almost the same pixel dimensions as my D7000. This makes my D7000 something I can happily sell since I'm not earning from my photography, so I don't really need a backup camera.

What I'm curious about is, if I'm shooting in DX mode on this camera, will I be able to shoot with DX lenses without vignetting? My feeling is yes. Unlike Cannon, Nikon lenses appear to be interchangeable, you can fit an FX lens on a DX camera, and vice versa.. Is this true? Am I going to be able to keep my DX lenses for those days when I want to shoot in DX mode (For example, when travelling, I can take an 18-200 and a 50 1.4 and forget the rest)

Oooh, I'm getting soo tempted.. I'm waiting for a few more hands on reviews before I make up my mind, but this camera seems to me to have all the compromises in the right places. I like the fact I can reuse my spare batteries from the D7000, and also my memory cards. Everything else seems like it was built for landscape work. The on camera flash will be brilliant in studio work as a control flash for the ones I have. If I can reuse the DX lenses I have then that's really the icing on the cake.

[loons49]

Yes you can use DX format lenses with this camera because it will automatically switch to a 15.3MP capture mode which crops the sensor to fir the DX image format.

[jdepould]

Originally Posted by loons49

Yes you can use DX format lenses with this camera because it will automatically switch to a 15.3MP capture mode which crops the sensor to fir the DX image format.

You can also override the auto-crop, which, from what I remember, is on the conservative side.

[kirbinster]

What do you mean when you say the camera is now $600 less. Less than what since it is not on store shelves yet? Are you saying you can buy it now for $2399 rather than the list of $2999? Where can you get it that cheap?

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

What do you mean when you say the camera is now $600 less. Less than what since it is not on store shelves yet? Are you saying you can buy it now for $2399 rather than the list of $2999? Where can you get it that cheap?

I'm saying the list price here was CHF3400 on Tuesday, and that's the price the fun started at. The online shops have been having discount wars, so the current leader is selling it at CHF2740 which is about USD $2996.. I think that's likely to be about the lowest we'll go because it matches the US prices.. But we'll see.. However it's really done the price of second hand D700's some harm.. They're currently selling at about CHF1550 instead of CHF2000.. I'm very tempted to get one, keep a couple of months while the D800 beds in.

Oh god, I don't know, I've been saving up for this for a while.. I'm getting impatient.

[kirbinster]

That's a great price for a used D700, you should go for it. I don't think the D700 will drop that much in price. In fact, I would not be surprised to actually see the price of used D700's go up after the D800 is in stores. The D800 is $3,000 while most used D700 go for about $2,000 these days. Sure you see some go as low as $1,700 but most are in the $2,000 +/- $100 range.

The reason I think the D700 will go up is because the cheapest new FX body will now be $3,000. So, anyone wanting FX but not wanting to pay $3,000 will bid up the price of the used D700 as there will not be any new D700 made.

[jdepould]

I'm almost a little surprised they discontinued the D700, since it's such a totally different camera than the D800. Really makes me want a D3s ... even if it is huge.

[Bruce A]

Originally Posted by kirbinster

What do you mean when you say the camera is now $600 less. Less than what since it is not on store shelves yet? Are you saying you can buy it now for $2399 rather than the list of $2999? Where can you get it that cheap?

Again, we get ripped off in Australia. Our dollar is currently about 1.06 over the US and I see a discount camera store here selling the D800 for $3999 and the D800E for $4199 - and this store usually sells quite cheaper than the usual retailers. They wonder why many Aussies use the gray market.

Jon, if the camera didn't have a crop mode then you'd get vignetting with a DX lens. The D700 has this feature too, but only at 5mp.

I'm always hesitant about jumping in and buying any first off the line new item and wonder if a wait and see approach would be more prudent.

[ravncat]

I have used the d700 in crop mode, the auto crop from the dx mode is a bit conservative, it's set to the dx size, often times the image circles are bigger, sometimes vary, you can get a bit more if you crop yourself. You'll get consistent angle of view with your lenses that way though.

You're still going to see the vignetting in the viewfinder. - but it will show you the area you are capturing which is inside of that vignetting. I like to use my 11-16 tokina as a 16mm 2.8 on my d700. Not all dx lenses image circles are that small - some vignette the FX frame severely the entire way through (18-70) - some don't.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by ravncat

I have used the d700 in crop mode, the auto crop from the dx mode is a bit conservative, it's set to the dx size, often times the image circles are bigger, sometimes vary, you can get a bit more if you crop yourself. You'll get consistent angle of view with your lenses that way though.

You're still going to see the vignetting in the viewfinder. - but it will show you the area you are capturing which is inside of that vignetting. I like to use my 11-16 tokina as a 16mm 2.8 on my d700. Not all dx lenses image circles are that small - some vignette the FX frame severely the entire way through (18-70) - some don't.

The 18-70 vignettes on DX, so thats no surprise. I know my Nikon 10-24 works well around 16mm, and maybe higher. I tried it on FILM at 15mm and got only the very very extreme corners.