Thoughts on Nikon 5100 or 5200? as opposed 5300

[rachel_rose1]

<p>I was looking at buying a 5300 BUT can only use AF-S lenses or Sigma's HSM. This could be an issue I suppose.<br />The other thing that bothers me is the fact there is no menu changes via dial controls. Does anyone know if these models have that too?</p>

[LenMarriott]

<p>Rachel, The D5100, D5200, & D5300 are all menu driven. What you might want to consider is a D7000 or D7100. Best, LM.</p>

[Palouse]

<p>Rachel,<br>

What Len is saying, you will be(come) a happier and better photographer with a camera from the 7xxxx series :)</p>

[vrankin]

<p>The D5300 does have a main dial on the rear, though not a second one on the front of the grip. It also has an assignable function button to the left of the flash. The D5300 and D3300 have the i Button as a short menu function. It's not as fast as buttons and dials, but faster than the usual menu diving. I have a D3300 after owning a D80 with more buttons and two dials. I do miss them a bit, but not as much as some would. The D5300/D3300 sensor and Expeed 4 processor are very nice. As others have already said, you'd probably be happier with the D7100. It has their upgrades plus a number of others, two control dials + more external buttons, and also a larger/brighter viewfinder. For many it seems to be worth the extra $250-$300.</p>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>Do you have any lenses already, maybe from the Nikon film era? Otherwise, unless you're into retro lens use, the future is with AFS or it's equivalent lenses. That being said the 7000 series are better handling cameras. They are also due for an update soon, so you may find a good deal on an older model.</p>

<p>I have a D5100 and a D5300. The wifi and GPS are sometimes handy with the later variant as is the better AF implementation in Live View.</p>

<p>I'd go and have a play in a camera shop, hands-on 'research' will decide it for you....:-)</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Do note that the limitation to only use AF-S/HSM lenses is getting less and less of an issue. Unless you already have old(er) lenses, you can find good lenses with the needed build-in motor for pretty much everything today. The myth that AF-S lenses are a lot more expensive also isn't that true anymore either. After all, the kitlenses are AF-S and they are not specifically expensive.</p>

<p>That all said, if you do not like menus, the D7x00 indeed makes a nicer choice. They are slightly bigger and heavier, but that is unavoidable if you want more external buttons. On a budget, though, I think the D5200 is a terrific camera and the quick menu that Howard described works really quite well. Personally, I wouldn't spend the extra for a D5300 over a D5200, as I think the added value is too low.<br>

Best thing to do is try them in a store, and see how you like their operation in your hands.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Hi Rachel. The only argument I would have for having a screwdriver motor in the camera in your situation is that it makes it easier to use some older lenses (with autofocus), which might save you a little money - for example, the 50 f/1.8, f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 primes are all cheaper in AF-D form than in AF-S, though in all these cases the optics are better for the AF-S version as well (not universally true). There are a lot of good and reasonably affordable AF-S lenses now, though, so as Wouter says it's not a big issue. The D7x00 series also have an aperture following ring that make use with older (and cheaper) manual focus "AI" lenses much nicer. You can still use these on the D5x00 and D3x00, but you won't get metering, so you'll have to look at the histogram in review and experiment. I suspect both of these factors are dwarfed by the handling difference from the two dials, better view through a pentamirror, etc. that you also get with a D7x00 series. However, I appreciate you're financially constrained, so if you just can't afford a used D7000 there's no point in us banging on about it.</p>

 

<blockquote>The other thing that bothers me is the fact there is no menu changes via dial controls.</blockquote>

 

<p>Do you mean you can't spin the dial to navigate the menu? To be honest, I've not tried, or if I did it was a long time ago, but I think this is a Nikon thing - I don't think it works on my D800 either, though I don't have it in front of me. Because the four-way controller has an "ok" button in the middle, I find it fast enough to scroll up and down, in and out of the menu system and select the menu options. Jumping my thumb up to the dial would actually be slower for menu navigation. (Not such a problem for the higher-end Canons that have the big spinny thing with a button in the middle, and the Canon single-dial behaviour is on the index finger where Nikon's is on the thumb - this probably makes the Canon faster at menu navigation, but IMO less fast at changing settings during live shooting. I do own an elderly low-end Canon DSLR as well, for what it's worth.) If you find you prefer the Canon layout, there's nothing invalid about that.<br />

<br />

Re. the D5300 vs the D5200, there are a number of differences, none of which are huge. The D5300 has no low-pass filter, making it slightly sharper if your lenses and shooting environment allow you to get the best out of it. There's essentially <a href="http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Nikon-D5300-versus-Nikon-D5200___919_850">very little in it</a> for image quality. The 5300 is a little lighter, a bit faster, and has a somewhat better LCD and finder - but not by much. They have the same AF system, too. While the D5300 is indubitably the better camera, were I on a tight budget, I'd probably not find the differences worth it - but it's your call. The D5100 is more of a step back, with significantly worse autofocus and lower resolution (but still matching the D7000).<br />

<br />

If you're expecting to stick with this camera for a while, by all means go for the D5300. If it's a placeholder until your photography work lets you afford a D7100, I'd go with the D5200 and save money for lenses, SD cards, spare batteries, etc. But if the handling drives you nuts when you try it in a store, maybe Canon is the way forward.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>pretty sure this limitation was mentioned in the earlier thread, which also advised that a d7000 or d7100 would give the most options in terms of using non AF-S lenses and having two control dials. of course the d90 does that too.</p>

<p>excessive menu-diving can be a deal-killer for paid work, i.e., events, though if you have patient subjects, it might be ok for some studio applications. the usual mantra, though, is that you want the camera to get out of the way as much as possible and just let you shoot.</p>

<p>for budget photographers who want something other than kit lenses, the in-body focus motor is important, because you can scoop up older used lenses, some of which are pretty good, for less than the cost of newer AF-S/HSM lenses with the same or comparable specs. Wouter's point is taken that the AF-S/HSM/whatever tamron has lens lineup has filled out a lot compared to the mid-2000s, but there are still some gems out there without focus motors.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>I think we can over-state the merits of the higher-end cameras. Most of the functionality is there on the D5x00 series for basic photography (you need to check a little more closely with the D3x00 series, which sometimes lacks 14-bit raw and so on). The D7x00 is definitely more configurable, but while that may limit some areas of photography, it's really not much.<br />

<br />

Two dials are nicer than one, but I survived pretty well with a single dial on my Eos 300D. It depends how often you actually change settings. Yes, I like having a separate AF-On button, and I'm quite wedded to having fast access to exposure compensation in manual (+ auto ISO) mode, but in terms of controlling the autofocus point, changing aperture and shutter speed, or exposure compensation in an auto mode, the D5x00 series ought still to be perfectly capable. My D800 has separate dedicated buttons for bracketing, white balance, image quality, ISO, autofocus mode... Do I use all of these? Yes. Do I use all of them <i>often</i>? Absolutely not. I usually shoot in raw and large JPEG, the raw means that I normally stick to auto-WB for the JPEG and don't think about it (because I'll fix WB in post) unless it's hopelessly wrong, I'm usually in AF-C with AF-On making AF-S redundant, I rarely bracket because the dynamic range of the D800 is so good, and I can't reach the ISO button during shooting so I usually use auto-ISO (though with the latest BIOS I also use the video record button to control ISO). It would make very little difference to me if I had to use menus for these - any controls I can't reach with my right hand are effectively inaccessible during shooting anyway.<br />

<br />

If you don't often need to make rapid changes between camera set-up as you shoot - if you're just changing the immediate exposure parameters and controlling autofocus, I wouldn't expect a D5x00 to be significantly slower to use than a D7x00. I'd be more worried about hopping between a D5x00 series and a D90 back-up, because they're <i>different</i> rather than because the D5x00 interface is inefficient.<br />

<br />

(Disclaimer: I don't own a single-dial Nikon, I just don't think they've done a significantly worse job than my old Canon, which I admittedly view through rose-tinted glasses. I'm not saying there's no benefit to the two-dial interface, just that it can be overestimated.)</p>

[eric_arnold]

<blockquote>

<p>I think we can over-state the merits of the higher-end cameras.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>actually, i think <em>you</em> can overstate the merits of higher-end cameras, Andrew. for someone who wants to do studio portraits and weddings, the D7xxx cameras are a far better choice than the d3xxx or d5xxx bodies. surprised you would even argue otherwise.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Eric: the D7x00 <i>is</i> a far better choice, hence my suggestion that Rachel get a D7000 if she possibly can - but she's decided her budget can't stretch that far, so there's no point arguing it. I certainly advocate the D5200 over the D5300 for the price-constrained. A new D5300 is substantially more than KEH's going rate on a used D7000 - in fact, even KEH's used D5300s are more than their D7000, and I'd take the D7000 in a heartbeat, especially for Rachel's interests - so I assume there's either a specific reason that Rachel wants a brand new camera against our advice (this is allowed, we're not all-knowing), or we're actually looking at used D5200 prices.<br />

<br />

I don't deny that AF-On is very useful, a pentaprism is very useful, the dual card slots are quite important, flash control is handy, etc. I was just railing against the "menu diving" comment. People tend to over-state the amount of time you need to spend in menus on even a low-end Nikon. (In the Df threads, a lot of claims were made about needing to menu-dive for things that didn't require a menu on high-end Nikons.) Do you need the menu to set the camera up as you want? Yes, but that's true of even a Df. Do you need to use the menus more on a D5x00 in order to switch between subject behaviour more than a D7x00? Yes. Might this cost you a shot? Maybe. Will you be in the menus on every shot to change common photographic settings? No. You can shoot a low-end Nikon with the camera up to your eye perfectly well, and only need to change things in menus occasionally. And I still need to go into the menu sometimes on my D800e, though I admit there are a few things you can do with a D7x00 or above that you can't with a D5x00.<br />

<br />

I was just suggesting that if Rachel is stuck with a D5200, all is not doom. If we suggested that the D5200 needed the kind of menu diving that a typical consumer compact (or cell phone) needs in order to change basic settings, we'd be doing it a disservice. The interface on a D5x00 is not <i>bad</i> - it's just that the interface of the D7x00 is <i>better</i>.<br />

<br />

But I've only used the low-end Nikons briefly, so maybe they're more frustrating than I give them credit for.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

There is the possibility of buying a second hand D7100 which could be around the price of a new D5300.

[bruce_maddox]

<p>D5200/400-450 used/refurb,35g f/1.8 dx 150 used. There's your starting point. Don't bother with the screw drive AF Nikkors. Target the 50 g or 85 g f/1.8s for portraiture after you learn how to master the 35. The 18-35mm range of the 18-55 VR is useful as a beginner wide angle DX.</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Bruce - to clarify, Rachel's <a href="/nikon-camera-forum/00cnoD">an experienced photographer</a>. I agree with your advice as a flexible kit as well as a "beginner" one - but the details depend a bit on the lenses Rachel already has available from her D90.</p>

[bruce_maddox]

<p>what is the glass at hand for said OP??</p>