Any Samples of D3 (or D3x) with 17-55/2.8 DX lens?

[juanju]

<p>Hi, I have been using D2x since it came out to the market and now I am thinking on an upgrade.<br>

I would like to keep the same kind of body and that makes me think on the D3, D3x or D3s.<br>

My dilemma is that my favorite lens is the 17-55 that is 95% of the time on my camera, which is a DX.<br>

Somebody on an early post said that: "on film, body is not that decisive, while on digital it does". That is the other reason I would prefer to get even a D3x (instead of a D3 and 24-70), and use it with the 17-55 for a while. Both combinations would mean a 12MP image, so I wonder if the quality would drop due to the DX on a FF DSLR?<br>

The only DX lens that I own is the 17-55, and my other lens are 70-200/2.8, 85/1.4, 50/1.4 and 105/2.8 macro VR, which shouldn't have problems on FF. <br>

So I have thought that I could start by upgrading the body, and eventually get the 24-70, so my questions are:<br>

1) Does any body has done this testing(with D3x+17-55/2,8 lens) in order to know how does it behaves?<br>

2) Are there any sample shots and analysis that could be reached online, of pictures taken with D3x+17-55/2,8 lens?</p>

 

[john_c16]

<p>I realize my response doesn't help you at all with questions 1 and 2, but have you thought about selling the lens? It seems they're going for about $1000 used these days, then you'd only have to come up with the difference for the 24-70. After spending $5k on a new body, a few hundred more dollars won't seem like much. I have a feeling that you won't be happy using the 17-55 on the D3X as you're missing out on the very thing you're paying for - resolution. If you only want 12mp, then why not buy a D300s.<br>

<strong><em> Also, I imagine it will be a real pain switching from DX to FX whenever you change lenses.</em></strong></p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>It make no sense to use a DX lens on an FX body on a regular basis. If you are spending $5000+ on a new FX body, I would first get your lenses line up, e.g., get a 24-70mm/f2.8 AF-S first.</p>

[oskar_ojala]

<p>You end up throwing away a lot of the image, thus reducing quality a lot and the 24-70 is a better lens anyway, but otherwise the 17-55 is okay :-)</p>

[dan park]

<p>I do see a good reason to match the lenses to the body so I will agree that you should probably ditch the dx lens but. For a stopgap measure you will pick up all the wonderful qualities of the D3 sensor and body like focusing speed and accuracy, FPS, high iso performance etc in crop mode. Not everybody cares about absolute resolution all the time. I know I don't.<br>

As for using the lens in FX mode. I have a full frame camera and when I mount the tokina 12-24 to it I get a circle @12 and vignetting @18mm. After that image quality is normal. I suspect it probably won't vignette in crop mode on the D3. To the resolution junkies out there unless you are planning on printing big the drop in megapixles will probably not affect image quality much on a properly handled raw file. I have no issues printing 11x14 and 13x19 on images from my d2h and it's only 4 mp.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Would you buy an airplane and use it only to taxi around, never taking off to actually fly? Does that make financial sense?</p>

[hans_janssen]

<p>It is something like buying a Lamborghini with a Mini motor. It works, but you can't get the max from it. The 17-55 fills the FX frame from about 30mm, but that part of the image wasn't never meat to be used and you can see that.</p>

[juanju]

<p>Thank you all for your advise.<br>

I work as a freelancer for Museums and sometimes images need to be large. Last weekend I printed some 2 by 4 feet images, and I am sure that D3x would be an improvement on that need, initially combined withe primes.<br>

So I will definitely need it, but I normally use the versatility of the 17-55 on things that will not need such enlargement, just enough for editorial purpose. The issue is that I have a limited budget to spend at once.<br>

Wish I could sell my 17-55 which I really take good care of, but I live in Central America, and there is parctically no market for used equipment, actually the market is way to small as you may imagine. My decisions has to be taken with several weeks, since I buy equipment when ever I have the chance to travel to US.<br>

Said that, I believe that the 17-55 will be with me for another couple of years, but the body is a real need, since 24MP would definitely shift my enlarged images a lot, as well as the low iso noise, since sometimes I do have to capture Museum objects, from Works of art to archeological pieces, and you may realize that sometimes light is not as good.<br>

<strong>Dan Park</strong>, thank you for your advice, do you have some images taken on FF with DX lens? I would really like to have an idea of how do they come out. Do you see any special difference from your D2h to your D3? Does the image looks the same, looks better than on a D2h or goes down?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

 

[arthuryeo]

<p>Can't you sell your 17-55DX on eBay?<br>

And, get the 24-70mm zoom?</p>

[mt4x4]

<p>Wouldn't the 24-70 be preferable? It would mimick the focal lengths you are used to with the 17-55 and work perfectly with the D3.<br /> <br /> If you want to go wider the 17-35 is also supposed to be a pretty good lens.<br /> <br /> I'm sure you won't have a problem selling your 17-55.</p>

[brian_choong]

<p>Hi, le tme share my experience with you<br>

I have D300+17-55 previously, and last two weeks I got a new body D700, and that time I have company dinner, so, for the testing purpose, I bring my D700+17-55+50+85+80-200 to the dinner and test it out.<br>

When a DX lens mount to the FF body, in the FF viewfinder, you are like seeing things through a hole, the corner is black, and there is a rectangle in the middle, mean that, that rectangle area is your photo area actually. It is very uncomfortable to use that small rectangle to composite photo. But the good thing is, high ISO performance of D700 do a great job even on DX lens.<br>

Quality? If ISO is not a limitation, D300+17-55 is better than D700+17-55, I did not compare the photo with D300 and D700 side by side, but I feel that the 17mm in D700 do not give me the wide effect but the D300 yes.<br>

After that particular testing, my conclusion is, yes, DX lens is usable in FF body, but I will like to use it for non commercial use only. I shoot wedding, everything need to be fast composite, the small rectangle will increase the risk of composite wrongly.</p>

 

[juanju]

<p>Brian, really appreciate that feed back, as well as everybody who has taken their own time to help me out.<br>

Keith, could agree more with you. 24-70 most be my next step. But as I explained, I don't have a chance to sell equipment down here at Central America. It is very hard to do so, and once you make a purchase, that is going to be for a long time. People's budget is smaller on this economies unfortunately. I have my 17-55 in pretty good shape, but people who has the budget to buy it, will provably travel as well and buy it new.<br>

Any way, I will try to sell it and will see if there is any luck.<br>

But definitely would really like to see a sample of DX lens on a FF. </p>

 

[mihai_ciuca]

<p>Juan,<br>

Maybe my idea sounds crazy... but if it's hard to sell the lens it would be maybe harder to sell the body as well... In this situation I will not sell anything, keeping the DX camera as a backup and as a complementary body. I'll renounce to purchase 24-70 untill the budget will let me do it and I'll buy only D3X for now. It seems that you already have funds for that and even some extra since you plan to buy D3X and 24-70 and to sell only the D2x... Eventually I will add to the kit one ultra wide prime, like Sigma 20mm/1.8 and I'll have a pretty good focal covering with 20, 50, 85 and 105 primes and 70-200 zoom. <br>

You may consider as well that keeping the DX body could be helpful because on a FX camera all your lenses will seem shorter and for some applications you'll prefer to keep the long reach of a 1.5 sensor.</p>