ole sarg Loc: south florida

Flower show long lens! Something doesn't compute. Why not take a really fast 50mm if you have one and just walk up to the flower?

Stephan G

Depending on the crowd at the show, a zoom lens is indeed a better choice. It is harder to catch the right moment to shoot at flower shows than catching Santa Claus taking a break on Christmas at the mall. The children get in the way.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Some people do not seem to realize how packed the Philadelphia flower show gets even in the slow times. You get 20 feet away from an exhibit and, unless your 70-200 has an X-Ray built in, you are not shooting anything but people.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I don't know what type of lighting the Penn Convention Center uses... but if it's like many such places, it's a type that cycles on and off rapidly and often "fools" cameras, causing a lot of images to be underexposed.

The D500 has an "Anti-Flicker" feature specifically to deal with that and, if that type lighting is present, would make for a lot more accurate exposures by available light, than a camera without it. I don't know if the D7200 has Anti-Flicker (FWIW, most or maybe all Canon models 7D Mark II and later have similar feature.... and I can tell you from experience it works well. Prior to having this feature available, I just took a lot of extra shots when working under fluorescent, sodium vapor and some other types of lighting, because I knew about half would be badly underexposed. Now I rarely see a problem, using this feature.)

The way this works is by detecting the off/on cycle of the lights and timing the shutter release to the peak output of the lights. You rarely notice anything while shooting, since it all occurs in the fraction of a second. Maybe an occasional "shutter lag".

So, if the D7200 doesn't have Anti-Flicker, I'd use the D500 which I know for certain has it.

Note: Canon's implementation of this feature is much simpler than Nikon's. With Canon it's simply on or off and when on it's automatic. With Nikon you have choice of three different on modes: 50Hz, 60Hz, or Auto. In the US 60Hz is appropriate... or Auto if you prefer (between those two, the results should be the same... but I haven't used them so can't say from experience).

If the D7200 has Anti-Flicker, I might choose it instead. It has a bit higher resolution (24MP versus 21MP) and probably is lighter weight. Flowers don't really demand the high speed performance of the D500, either!

BigGWells Loc: Olympia, WA

No question, the D500. Sorry to hear about your wife.

Einreb92 Loc: Philadelphia

Sorry to hear about your wife. We live in Philly and have just cancelled our plans to go to the show this weekend, based on the weather predictions. Stay safe and have a good time. I'll be taking my 7200 and either my 17-70 Sigma or 70-300 Tammy. Decisions, decisions!

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

Both will do a good job, but I'd recommend that you take the D500.