Idaho

Yes, since you are an active photographer a new camera would be worth the cost. I'm puzzled over how you came up with the $2000 figure?
That is strange. For $500 or less you can get a modern body, new or slightly used, that you would be happy with. Life is too short to try and scrape by with outdated equipment. Loosen up a little. Enjoy your hobby and your life. You don't always have to act your age. It's ok to splurge a little a times. I had a D200. It was a good camera - in it's day.

Idaho

and... make two people happy. Give the D200 away to someone who can't afford it but would love to have it. A young person, maybe.

appealnow Loc: Dallas, Texas

If you can afford it, get a new camera. Plus, you don't have to spend that much. I was going to China a couple of years ago and went into the camera store to get some accessories for my Nikon D70s, a DX, half sensor camera--which was then 8 years old--about the age of your current camera. The guy at the camera store sold me a D5300 for somewhere above $400 as best I recall with the kit 18-55 F.3.5 lens. I was so glad that I had gotten a new camera. The megapixels went way up, trebled. The ISO range went way up. Today's sensors and software are a lot better. Bottom line, I was taking available light photos in museums and dark spaces that were coming out fantastically and beautifully white balanced to boot. My eight-year old camera never would have produced those kinds of results. You won't regret getting a new camera.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

My advice is the same as we often use for lenses--if you are wondering about a new body try renting one for a day or two and shoot a lot of pictures similar to what you like. You may have some trouble adjusting to the different controls but you should be able to allow for that. I just used that strategy with a new lens and I'm glad I checked it out before I bought it--but buy it I did and I'm happy with the decision. Most of the qualities mentioned in previous answers are true but you won't know if they matter to you until you try it.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

To me, the time to upgrade to a new camera is when you become aware that your camera doesn't have the capability to do some type of photo you want to do. Then you find a camera that does have that capability, or other capabilities you think might help you.

Shutterbug57

The D200 May or may not be your best bet. If you never shoot in low light where you need to be above 800ISO and you aren’t doing large prints, the D200 is fine. I shoot sports at night and in gyms. I upgraded to a D500 solely for the higher ISO capability. You need to assess your needs, then you will know whether to stay put or upgrade.

spraguead Loc: Boston, MA

You could always rent a new camera and play around with it for a couple days and see for yourself if it passes the "worth it" test.

shelty Loc: Medford, OR

Only if you are all 'het-up' in spending your money. As for new cameras, I just bought a little pocket camera and bit has 130 different menus of of which I can use only ten. Do you want to spend several weeks trying to learn how to set-up your new camera? You are better off with what you've got.

jjtotten Loc: Washington, Utah

It sounds like you would like a new camera to me. With all the new features and capabilities that are available you would soon learn that you would be using some of them and enjoying even more your amateur status. I never thought that I would want to do video on my camera until I purchased one and have found that it is a great option. If the cost of the new one you have probably already looked at is not a deal breaker why not?

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

The small, point and shoot cameras generally have the worst menu setups. I don't think the people that design them actually use them.

uw095b

I had a D200 and used it for years with good results. I was tempted to trade up by the higher ISO, larger format and generally increased flexibility of the D810 which I bought. No regrets but it is even heavier than the D200.

torchman310 Loc: Santa Clarita, Ca.

In my humble opinion, if you like this camera body, and it serves you well, consider using your money on a new lens that would fit your shooting style. I still have and use my D 200 as a backup and since it has a crop sensor, it can bring telephoto work that much closer.

George Kelling Loc: Berlin, NJ 08009

About 11 months ago replaced my D-200 with a Sony A7ii. Nothing wrong with the Nikon, I was just looking for the challenge of mastering a more modern technology. The Sony has a larger sensor and no mirror. The sensor has a higher light sensitive and a higher dynamic range across it's surface. That means that it can bring out more detail in areas that would have been shadow areas, but without "blowing out" the brighter areas.

Just as there was a learning curve with the D-200, the A7ii/I will, and I repeat, will lead to short term frustration. But, you will never be younger than you are today, so grab that new camera and learn it before you are too old to learn. Good luck, enjoy life and embrace its challenges.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Normally I'd say "No"... put your money into lenses.

But D200 was Nikon's last camera to use a CCD sensor. The newer models all use CMOS which makes possible MUCH higher ISO capable and for considerably nicer images overall. A friend of mine who I worked with a lot used a pair of D200 (after using D90 before, I think) and often got upset how much better my images from cheaper, less "pro" oriented Canon were at one to two stop higher ISOs than she ever dared to use. She was one of the first people standing in line to upgrade to a pair of D300 when they came available.. traded in her D200s and never looked back!. With only a very modest upgrade to the D300s, those models saw an unusually long (for a DSLR) model "life"... about eight years. Finally Nikon introduced D500 with a lot of major improvements (AF system, images, speed, etc.)

All camera manufacturers have largely abandoned CCD sensors... first in their higher end models, now in all DSLRs, most medium format... in favor of CMOS (following Canon's lead, BTW... they committed to CMOS only with their first in-house built models back in the early 2000s and created their own sensor production facility). You now only find CCD like your D200 uses in cheaper point-n-shoot and cell phone cameras.

In addition to the different and much better type of sensor, the D200 is a 12-bit camera, while the newer models can do both 12-bit (if you need to conserve memory card space, because you didn't buy and bring enough cards), they also can shoot 14-bit. This makes for much better color rendition. Difference might be minimal or pretty subtle in some situations, but can be more dramatic and noticeable in others. Basically... a 12-bit file has about 4000 tonalities per color channel (red, green & blue or RGB), or a palette of around 64 billion possible colors and tones (4000 x 4000 x 4000). Sounds like a lot, but 14-bit has 4 times as many with over 16,000 per color channel, or a palette of more than 4 trillion colors and tones (which is what? 64X as many?!)

D200 was a ground-breaking camera... it bought pro-grade build and performance to a much more affordable level than ever before (and it forced Canon and others to make some serious changes to their camera line-ups, so eventually helped all of us whether we used Nikon or not). But it's day is long past and there have been many significant improvements to DSLRs in they years since..

So, in your case.... YES, I'd say it's time for a camera upgrade. I'm quite confident you WILL see the difference and find it to be money well-spent.

It doesn't need to cost $2000, though. In fact, a D7200 with a 24MP CMOS sensor (more than double the resolution of your 10MP D200) would be a BIG step up in image quality in many respects, and out perform your D200 in many other ways... costing right around $1000 right now. For what you say your shoot, that would be a wonderful camera. Plus it would leave a lot of money for a nice new lens or something else you might need or want. D500 (also well under $2000 at about $1600 right now) is a great choice for sports/action with it's higher performance autofocus, more "pro grade" build/sealing and very fast frame rate. But that model is actually a little lower resolution than the D7200 (21MP versus 24MP). And the D7200 has a very good AF system, too... It's more than adequate for all you mention wanting to shoot.

I am not recommending the newer D7500 as highly because in spite of some upgrades (4K video, faster frame rate), in order to shoot faster, buffer more images and use even higher ISO than the D7200, it's also been "downgraded" to the same 21MP sensor as the D500. That's a very good sensor, but why spend more (about $1250) for lower resolution just to get other features you say you don't need or want? For you, I really think the D7200 makes more sense.

There are cheaper D3000 and D5000-series Nikon that would also give considerably better IQ than D200. But these models are not able to autofocus a lot of earlier and even current Nikkor lenses, which D7000 series and higher models can. If you have any of those Nikkors already in your kit (also some Tokina lenses)... or want to be able to use them in the future..... stick with D7200 and higher models. Those can autofocus both the lenses with built-in motor such as AF-S and AF-P AND the older style which rely on a motor in the camera body to drive the AF with no motor in the lens itself. The D5000/D3000 series also cannot meter or auto expose properly with some of the vintage manual focus lenses that used mechanical means of aperture control. The D7200 can.

All the above that I'm recommending are "DX" or "crop sensor" cameras, same as your D200. There are also FX or so-called "full frame" models, with larger sensors. Those are great for landscapes, for example... if you make really big prints (which you say you don't). Some FX cameras are within your stated budget, too. HOWEVER, to make best use of a FX/full frame camera requires you use it with FX/full frame lenses.... which are necessarily bigger, heavier and usually more expensive than DX/crop sensor design lenses. FX lenses need larger elements to produce an image circle big enough to fully cover the larger size FX sensor. Of course, that makes for an overall bigger and heavier lens... often at a higher price. DX cameras, on the other hand, can use both FX and DX lenses, equally well (which you probably already know, with your DX format D200).

So, while you can buy a D610 or D750 for well under your $2000 limit, I'm not recommending them for travel in particular, not because the camera presents any problem, but because would end up with a heavier and bigger kit of lenses to use upon them but you'd see little benefit if you rarely print larger than 8x10. BTW... both of those FX models are 24MP, too... same as the D7200 DX camera. Now, the FX cameras with "less crowded" sensors are sure to offer higher usable ISO than the DX camera. But you'll already be seeing a huge improvement in that respect coming from D200 to D7200. Where you might have never have wanted to use above ISO 800 with the older camera, you can probably get just as good or maybe even better images 2 or 3 stops higher with the 24MP D7200. With one of the 24MP FX models, it might be 3 or 4 stops higher. It's highly subjective, how high ISO folks are willing to use... beside personal preferences and folks tendency to "pixel peep", it also depends upon other factors such as post-processing and more... so I hesitate to put actual numbers on it. Just figure that with the newer DX camera you'll be able to do at least 2 and maybe 3 or more stops higher than feel you can now, whatever that might be, with your D200. that will come in handy in low light conditions and indoors when you can't use flash.

There are lots of other features that the newer camera will offer... hard to say which might appeal to you. For example, I think D7200 has Flicker Detection which is great when you need to shoot under fluorescent and similar lighting. That lighting which cycles on and off rapidly has always been a problem for photographers, causing a lot of under-exposed and ugly tinted images. The only solution in the past was to shoot plenty of extra shots, because half or more were likely to be badly exposed (though some felt they could do a little better by using a shutter speed that's a multiple of the light cycling rate, which is 60 times per sec in the U.S and 50 hertz in most of Europe). Recent cameras offer a feature that detects the cycling and times the shutter release to coincide with the peak output of the lighting. Canon calls it Anti-Flicker and I think Nikon calls it Flicker-Free... IT WORKS. Using it under fluorescent, sodium vapor and some other types of lights, I see FAR fewer poorly exposed images... almost eliminates the problem entirely. May or may not be something helpful to you.

Other folks like WiFi, GPS, HD or 4K video and some of the other gee gaws more modern cameras offer. Not for me. But I have to shoot in dusty places frequently and self-cleaning sensors are GREAT! My cameras without it, I had to manually clean every month of two. Self-cleaning sensor models (which I quickly switched to when they came available around 8 or 10 years ago) need far less frequent cleanings. Sometimes I've only need to manually clean once a year or less (and I'm still shooting the same events... so am dealing with the same dust).

You also might like the 100% viewfinder (versus 95% in your D200) and much improved 51-point AF system, 15 of which are higher performance "cross type" (compared to 11-point with 1 cross type in D200). The D7200's AF also is "f/8 capable".... at center AF point only... allowing use of teleconverters with more lenses (your D200 is "f/5.6 limited").

You'll probably find other stuff you like on an upgrade camera. This sort of summarizes the key things an upgrade from D200 to D7200 offer you:

http://cameradecision.com/compare/Nikon-D200-vs-Nikon-D7200

These are more in-depth reviews of the D7200 itself, by only compare to immediately prior and other manufacturer models:

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d7200
https://kenrockwell.com/nikon/d7200.htm
https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d7200/nikon-d7200A.HTM

Rab-Eye Loc: Indiana

Good answer!