ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

I love older cameras and the challenge to produce new images using older technologies. Great images produced in the past are still great images today. As long as it does what you want for your photography I say go for it. And there are great deals out there also and you can also use them as backups to your new cameras.

DickC Loc: NE Washington state

My d100 and D200 still take great pics!

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

When I read your post, I detect some ambivalence in your direction and needs. And we don't know anything about what you shoot or what you would like to start shooting that you don't shoot now. So there is no one, including me, that can give you any useful advice to tell you what to do. The best we might do is share some personal experience and suggest some things for you to think about.

With that in mind, here is a little bit of my story. My original entry into digital photography was a Fuji S3 Pro. It was a 6 mp camera, but had two sets of sensors which allowed it to have really good dynamic range for the time. I bought it on a closeout sale in 2006 or 2007 for a really good price. It was capable of beautiful images, but it was incredibly slow, and the only suitable word for the user interface was "awful." So I pretty quickly bought a Nikon D200 in 2007. It was wonderfully better than the S3 in every regard, even though I never really got it to quite match the image character of the S3. But I liked it overall and used it until 2017, when I traded a box of unused film equipment for a well-used D300.

The D300 was an advance over the D200. Couldn't quite get its CMOS sensor to match the results from the old CCD sensor in the D200, but it was a lot better in low light and at somewhat higher ISOs. There are those here who aren't convinced about the character of images produced by the CCD, but when compared to those produced by the cameras that just replaced them, there was a definite loss of image character. (The D300 is a 12 MP camera vs. 10 MP for the D200). But the move did reinvigorate my interest in photography...to the point that my wife gave me a night sky workshop for my birthday. Investigation revealed that there was no way the crop sensor D300 was going to do the job at the workshop, so I sprang for a D810. (Actually, I sprang for a D610 which I found within a week wasn't going to work for me for a multitude of reasons, so I traded it toward the D810).

The D810 was (and is) a remarkable camera, I already had several good full frame lenses, so that wasn't a big deal. Low light sensitivity and dynamic range are within a fraction of a stop of the D850. It is impossible to tell by inspection whether an image has come from a D850 or a D810. And they produce essentially identical results of the night sky, except that the slightly higher resolution of the D850 does provide a small benefit when photographing the night sky with a wide-angle lens.

The D850 came along when I needed (or maybe just wanted) a second full frame body. It has a couple of very nice new features and some rearranged controls which I have come to like very much, but other than that, it is very close to the same as the D810. There are propaganda claimss that its dynamic range is significantly better, but I have found the difference to be maybe 1/3 of a stop, which is generally not enough to see most of the time.

It didn't take too long to realize that for much of what I do photographically, the 30+ MP images from the D810 and the 40+ images from the two cameras were just overkill much of the time. There were also too many cases where the slightly different control layout of the D300 and the absence of some of the newer functions was becoming a problem. That's when I discovered that I had enough rolls of quarters saved back to buy a D500. Nobody will say it out loud, but the D500 is, in fact, a DX twin of the D850. Despite what you read and hear, it is not just a wildlife and sports and BIF camera. It is a crop sensor version of the D850. Photons to Photos shows you that there is one stop or less difference between the D500 and the D500. Sensor density is almost identical. It is impossible to visually see a difference images from a D500 and a D850 when both are set up the same. It has become my daily all-around camera when I don't need the special capabilities of the full frame models.

Also...there is some goofy mantra here that the newer cameras will show every flaw in your old lenses. That is baloney. In fact, every lens you have will produce better results on one of the newer cameras than it did on an older one. Of course, better lenses will produce better results. But the D500 can produce beautiful results with the 18-200mm DX zoom, which I have found to be a pretty mediocre lens. I wish I still had my old 18-70mm DX zoom, which was an awful lens, to see what it would do.

Anyway...give some thought to what you want to do and why. If you just want a new camera, that is just fine too, of course. But if that is the case, you really don't need us at all. Best wishes with whatever you decide.

John Hicks Loc: Sible Hedinham North Essex England

My camera is 18 months old and it is superior to one I bought12 years ago so in that respect I prefer new.