jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The D750 is a great camera. Match it with a good, affordable, refurbished or used lens of the focal length you want. The body will have more effect on noise than the lens. Don't spend a moderate amount of money for a moderately-performing lens.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

There was a recent thread demonstrating shots taken by the D5. Unfortunately I could not find it through search. ISO sensitivity on the D5 goes up to 102,000, and with EV increased to over 3 million. In the thread I am speaking of, basketball shots were taken at iso 50,000 with no perceptible noise. The shots looked as though they were taken in daylight.

billnourse Loc: Bloomfield, NM

Okay?? The 5D is a FF the other two you mentioned are crop. The FF has better low light ability. In your previous post it seemed that you were saying not go go to FF expecting better low light results. I am saying that in my experience you will get better low light results.

Bill

Fotomacher Loc: Toronto

Buy FX glass, pro quality and pre-owned. Your image quality will improve. Learn how to use aperture/shutter speed and ISO to get good images with a minimum of noise.Eventually you’ll have some $$ to invest in a better body and you’ll already have proper lenses.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

For your use, a FF is a better move than a fast lens. With a fast lens you would need to shoot wide open all the time on your cropped body. The FF will give you more flexibility indoors without flash.

JoAnneK01 Loc: Lahaina, Hawaii

As a professional I'd be looking at the FF camera and get the best camera body you can afford. Going with a refurbished body would be the cheapest route to go. (Of course, you know that your purchase is tax deductible.) If you have any doubts go rent the camera and see for yourself which would be better for you. (Of course, this would also be tax deductible.) You just might find that the FF product would blow your sox off.

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

Buy a used 7200 because you already have crop sensor lenses. If you go to full frame it's expensive and you will need to get some full frame lenses. You can use you older DX lenses on a full frame in the crop mode. You can use full frame lenses on a crop sensor also. When buying a used camera always ask for the shutter count. Under 5000 shutter count on any camera is really good.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

You will not necessarily get better low light capability by going full frame. For instance, getting a 610 rather than a 7200 may not give you a measurable increase in low light capability. The best Nikon crop cameras for low light are the D7500 and D500. However, the one camera that is definitely leaps and bounds ahead of other Nikon crop sensor and full frame cameras is the D5 as far as low light capability goes. It is in a class by itself. While the D850 may be great as far as resolution goes, it cannot match the D5 for low light capability. They're two different animals.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

The D610 (or D750) is almost a full stop better than a D7200 or D500. The OP may find the chart with low light ISO and EV under the graph useful: http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm

And I agree - the D5 is a low light king (at least in 35mm format).

no nameJoe

I own both cameras the 610 and the 750, for me the 750 fuses much faster, that is the only difference that I found however I also shoot with a 7100 and it has a little sharper images of the 3 cameras

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I would imagine your newer, 24MP D3400 has much better high ISO performance than your older, 14MP D3100. There's been a lot of improvement in ISO performance of APS-C/DX format cameras the last few years.

But full frame/FX is probably even better, for a couple reasons. One is that a 24MP sensor such as that the D610 and D750 is far less crowded than a 24MP sensor in a DX format D3400. That makes for less heat build up and less cross talk, both of which lead to noise at higher ISOs. Also, for any given size and resolution that the image will be used, the full frame capture requires considerably less magnification than the DX camera image. For example, an uncropped 8x12 print from an FX camera is approx. 8X magnification. The same size print from a DX camera requires roughly 13X magnification. The more you magnify an image, the more apparent any noise will be. Hence the FX camera should have an edge. I'd guess you could use the D610 or D750 about two stops higher ISO and get about the same noise level as you see now in your D3400 (just a guess, since I don't have those cameras to compare).

Shooting in low light, you also have to be concerned about auto focus capabilities. Many cameras... probably your D3400 included... are only able to focus down to -1EV or so. Other cameras use AF systems that are optimized for low light shooting to be able to autofocus two or three stops lower... to -3EV (bright moonlight) or even -4EV. I don't know about the D610 and D750, in particular... so look up their autofocus specs for yourself. I am pretty sure the D500 DX is able to keep focusing down to -3EV or more. The difference between -1EV and -3EV is significant.... two stops means that the more capable system can continue focusing with only 25% of the light the less capable one requires (i.e., each stop lower is half as much light... so two stops is one half of one half... or 25%).

There are other things to think about. Large apertures in lenses mean more than just lower light capabilities. They also significantly effect depth of field. When that's very shallow due to a large aperture, it makes focus accuracy much more important, at best. Or, at worst, it can make important features too out of focus and images unusable. You have 50mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses, so can experiment with those to see for yourself. (I rarely use my fast 50mm and 85mm lenses any larger than f/2 aperture).

An ultra fast zoom such as you mention will also be big, heavy, expensive and more intrusive. You might want to consider upgraded primes, instead. They can be a lot smaller, much more affordable and better for candid shots.

Folks often overlook that switching to full frame also usually means switching a lot of their lenses. The 50-100mm f/1.8 you mention, your 18-55mm, your 18-200mm and possibly even your 70-300mm are all "crop only". While you can mount them on a D610 or D750 and they'll work, it's only in a very limited way. By the time either of those 24MP cameras' FX format images are cropped down to DX to accommodate the lens, you are left with less than 10MP.... less resolution than either of the DX cameras you have now... far less than the D3400 in particular. Using DX lenses on them pretty much defeats the whole point of "upgrading" to FX. I suspect only your current 50mm and 85mm lenses are FX and ready to use on a D610 or D750. So you may need to budget a good deal more than $1000 for some lenses, too! Priced out a 24-70mm lately? At a very minimum, say if you just use the 50mm and 85mm and don't get a zoom right now, you'll probably want to add a fast 135mm to your kit. You'll be losing the "reach" of the 85mm on a DX camera, switching to use it on an FX camera.

You may be best served instead upgrading to a "better" DX camera such as a D7200 (approx. $1000) or D7500 (about $1250). Their newer 24MP sensors and more advanced processors should make for higher usable ISO... certainly compared to the D3100... tho maybe less so comparing the D7200 to the D3400. Note: The D7500 actually is a little lower resolution... 21MP. That allows it to have a higher frame rate (8 fps versus 5 or 6) and higher usable ISO (much as the same or very similar 21MP does in the top of the line D500).

On your tight budget, you might even want to consider a D7100... widely available for about $700, while being very similar to D7200 in most respects. It doesn't have as large a buffer for continuous, high speed burst of shots and it's AF system is slightly less low-light capable.... -2EV instead of -3EV. Also D7100's native range of IS0s is 100 to 6400, expandable to a lower 50, or higher up to 25600. The D7200's range is 100 to 25600, expandable up to 102400. (Note: "Expanded" ISOs are actually shot at the highest available speed within the normal range - essentially under-exposed and then "pushed" to the higher speed rating by the software. As such, the quality usually drops off rapidly, so you'd have to test either camera to see if their respective expanded ISOs are usable for your purposes. I tend to avoid them. So if it were me ISO 6400 would probably be my limit with the D7100... While with the D7200 I'd at least give a try using the ISOs up to 25600.)

You also might want to upgrade from that manual focus, third party 85mm to an AF-S Nikkor (approx. $475).

You may be able to help out your budget by selling off a few unused things or duplicates and/or shopping used or refurbished.

Definitely explore your options with noise reduction software, too. That certainly has come a long way in recent years. I use a Noiseware plug-in with Photoshop for my very highest ISO images (now 6400 to 16000, with my current cameras). I'm able to make prints up to at least 11x14" with some modest post-processing work. You mention social media usage, which means far lower resolution... so you can probably get away with a great deal more noise in your images. I've also used both Lightroom and Photoshop built in NR, though usually only with less extreme ISOs (currently, 3200 or less). And I've installed and done a little experimentation with Nik DFine too, but so far haven't liked it as well as Noiseware. Both Noiseware and DFine (and other NR s'ware) can be installed as a stand alone, too... if you don't use Photoshop or just prefer to not use them as a plug-in.

Also remember that when you view an image from a 24MP camera "at 100%" on typical computer monitor, that's like making a 4 foot by 6 foot print, then viewing it from only 18 or 20".... way, Way, WAY bigger than you're intended usage. By the time you scale an image down to, say, 800x1200 pixels for online display at 100 pixels per inch approx., much of the noise you see in the original image might disappear completely. You may well be the only person who ever sees that noise, while viewing the original file at high magnification on your monitor. Everyone else who ever sees the image will be looking at the smaller version you made from it.

Just for example, the image below was a test shot at ISO 16000 in very low light (one 60 watt light bulb and a small window, both 8 to 10 feet from the subject) with one of my APS-C cameras... As you can see from the greatly enlarged detail, there is some noise. But I think it's pretty well managed. This image was NOT specially post-processed for the noise. In fact, it only got the default amount of noise reduction in Lightroom when it was converted from a RAW file to a JPEG. That was deliberate because I wanted to test the "worst case" at such high ISOs with my new cameras. I did shoot RAW (hence no NR in-camera) and took care to avoid underexposure, because adjusting for that will always greatly amplify any noise that's in an image. The only adjustments: contrast and the exposure curve/black point of the image were slightly tweaked... because higher ISOs also reduce dynamic range (and resolution). Image was cropped from 3:2 to 5:4 format, too.



Of course, furry subjects tend to conveniently hide noise to some extent (so look at the blacks in the eye)... Maybe not at weddings, but that should work in your favor at Sci Fi conventions, in particular!