5200 or 7100? coming from Canonland

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arturrito

Well-known member
My old 5D2 was stolen, and I need replace it, 90% video use, 10% photo use.
Canon 5D3+ML raw is an option, a bit pricey.
BUT
I did put my eyes on Nikons (all my lenses are manual Zeiss ZF.2 and 28-70 nikkor 2.8).
I´m Pix240 owner paired with F3 sony, and I would like to get some of these baby nikons.
I did read a lot of your threads and posts, incredible useful info.
Till now I can´t see clear option between 5200 or 7100, can you help me?
many thanks for your suggestions and time!
 
[Edited due to correction by Lpowell] With both the 5200 and 7100 you have to exit Liveview to change aperture with lenses w/o aperture rings. The 7100 allows you to enter in K number for white balance. While with the 5200 you are limited to presets or custom WB which you can adjust using a color matrix, but you can't just type in a number. The 5200 has an articulating screen while the 7100 doesn't. FWIW, I went with the 5200 b/c I wasn't convinced that there is any image quality difference between the two cameras. Hope that helps a bit.
 
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For still shooting, the 7100 gives you AF with all the older screw-drive lenses. Much of the screw-drive era AF glass is legendary stuff - I use 5 or 6 of those. For AF lenses, many of them have really nice focus damping vs. more modern glass, and plenty are built like tanks. Good values are out there price-wise.

For video, you'll be using them with manual focus so AF isn't an issue. But if you want to use them for stills with AF, the 5200 doesn't have the screw-drive motor (my understanding, anyway). Perhaps not a huge issue, but it's one more vote for the 7100 if you own or are looking at used pro glass. (for video, AIS lenses often have the best focus feel).

If the 5200 is a "single knob" body (just one wheel, vs two for the pricier bodies - generally you assign one to aperture and one to shutter when shooting manual) think about whether this would be an issue for you or not. I dislike shooting stills with a one-knob camera.

For IQ differences, you might research one major difference (I'm thinking low-pass filter??? Can't recall). The 7100 omitted this and people are reporting crazy sharpness in their stills. Not sure how the 5200 relates to this and how it related to video.

Usually the biggest still-shooting issue for me is manually moving the focus point - on my 7000, you move it with the arrow-pad; on my canon body, you have to press a button to activate the arrow pad for focus point moving. Pisses me off to no end, adding a step for (to me) the most used and critical control in many situations.

None of those issues may affect your shooting style of course. To some they may be major. (I'll have a 7100 in a few weeks myself...)
 
really useful advice, many thanks!!
I saw DR test from danielvilliers, and 7100 seems astonishing results!
Mainly my work is corporate doc, run+gun style, so, 7100 2 cards slots, sealed body and sharp image are true advantages.
and the K number fixed in 5200, is a real world issue.
I guess my wallet will suffer a bit, to get 7100 way to pair with PIX240!
another question, FLAAT_11 and FLAAT_10 are PicturesProfiles as "Marvels Cinestyle" in Canon world?
are they in SamuelH web to download and customize the Nikons?
 
BobbyMurcerFan said:
The 7100 has better aperture control in that you can control aperture when in Liveview, with the 5200 you have to exit Liveview to change aperture with lenses w/o aperture rings.
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Sorry, lens aperture cannot be changed in Live View mode on either D5200 or D7100, it's a mechanical limitation of the camera. More info here:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3487428#forum-post-51460202

The D7100's advanced photographic features (micro-focus adjustments, remote flash control, no OLPF) aren't as useful for shooting video as the D5200's swiveling LCD. However, if you have vintage Nikon AI-S lenses, the D7100's light meter can be set up to work with them. While AI-S lenses can be made to work mechanically with the D5200, you won't be able to use its light meter to set exposure.
 
Yes you can change aperature, you must have a D or AI lens.....

Yes you can change aperature, you must have a D or AI lens.....

Lpowell said:
Sorry, lens aperture cannot be changed in Live View mode on either D5200 or D7100, it's a mechanical limitation of the camera. ] Sorry but you are so wrong. You must change control of the aperture from wheel to aperture ring control, and take off the lock that is on the lens. You can then change the aperture while imaging video. On the D7000 you change this in the control setting f6 to aperture ring control. I always image using the camera in manual when I does this. If you use shutter or auto you get an FF error (because the camera no longer controls the aperture electronically). I have a 24-85 D, an 80-200 2.8, and an AFS 300 Nikon and a Tamron 90 (non-Di) that all work correctly when using a Nikon for video in this manner. So this will be true any Nikon DSLR camera that has a manual setting. So if you have lenses with aperture control rings yes you can change your aperture. I'm so tired of reading that you can't change aperture when the "Experts" (like those on DPR) don't clearly explain the difference between AI, D, AFS, and "G" (which you can't use to change aperture because they don't have a manual aperture ring).
Click to expand...
 
The other big difference between the D5200 and D7100 is that only the latter has a headphone jack. So if you're recording audio internally and want to monitor, you'll need the 7100. That, and Kelvin white balance, were enough to swing my decision.
 
lookin examples D7100 + External recorders (Pix220/240, Atomos, others), kelvin+noOPLF+audio monitor, are huge differences in video world.
 
Ok, I bought the d7100 on Thursday, and shot a wedding with it yesterday. A friend was my second shooter and used a MkII. I'll post some similar screen grabs later from our footage if you guys are interested.

The 7100 was awesome. I'm really liking the images I got out of this camera. I'm coming from t2i land, and the upgrade is definitely noticeable.

My biggest gripes with the camera as of right now are.

No exposure meter on screen while using live view at all. I really liked using this and even the stock Canon firmware has this.

The aperture ring on my tokina 28-70 2.6-8 cannot be used manually. I believe all Nikkor AF lenses with aperture rings and autofocus, the aperture can only be controlled from the body. So you set the aperture on the ring to 22, and change the values via the camera. This sucks for live view video because now even though my lens has a aperture ring, it's useless because its controlled through the camera.

On my AIS primes, the ring works as it should.

And the aperture complaint being that you cannot change it while in live view or shooting video. You have to exit live view, change the aperture from the viewfinder, and re-enter live view to start recording again, with no exposure meter.


That said, it wasn't that big of a deal to me. I shot a very low key wedding yesterday and used the d7100. It was my first real/full day with the camera, and the aperture thing wasn't as big of a deal as I expected it to be. It was an inconvenience, yes, but wasn't really a deal breaker.

I do really miss the exposure meter though!!!

I've never had a Nikon DSLR before, so if I'm just doing something wrong in the settings, someone please tell me. But I have been looking into the issues, and I don't think there's anything I can do?
 
homestar_kevin said:
I believe all Nikkor AF lenses with aperture rings and autofocus, the aperture can only be controlled from the body. So you set the aperture on the ring to 22, and change the values via the camera. This sucks for live view video because now even though my lens has a aperture ring, it's useless because its controlled through the camera.
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This is not true, if you go to the Custom Settings Menu and choose Customize Dials then Aperture Settings and you select Aperture Ring, you'll be able to use the aperture ring of your AF lenses.
 
Andrea189 said:
if you go to the Custom Settings Menu and choose Customize Dials then Aperture Settings and you select Aperture Ring, you'll be able to use the aperture ring of your AF lenses.
Click to expand...
That's good that Nikon finally fixed the lack of aperture ring control on the D7100; it's annoying that they didn't provide this basic functionality on the D7000, D5200, and D5100. But even if it did work on my D5200, I still wouldn't be able to use Nikkor AI-S lenses since the camera's light meter cannot work properly with them. (The D5200 lacks a mechanical lever on the lens mount that detects the AI-S lens' max aperture.)

One feature the D5200 does share with the D7100 and D7000 is manual exposure settings in Live View video mode. But you know what? I never use manual settings to shoot video because of the lack of a histogram in Live View mode! In practice, I've found the most reliable way to shoot video on Nikon DSLR's is to use the light meter to set exposure in Aperture Priority mode. While it's a little tricky to set up the auto-ISO function to default to 1/60 sec shutter speed, Aperture Priority best suits the camera's Live View aperture limitations. Likewise, auto-ISO works very well with the camera's wide usable ISO range and gray card white-balancing produces more accurate results than my own manual color temp guesstimates.
 
Lpowell said:
That's good that Nikon finally fixed the lack of aperture ring control on the D7100; it's annoying that they didn't provide this basic functionality on the D7000, D5200, and D5100. But even if it did work on my D5200, I still wouldn't be able to use Nikkor AI-S lenses since the camera's light meter cannot work properly with them. (The D5200 lacks a mechanical lever on the lens mount that detects the AI-S lens' max aperture.)

The D7000 does also work that way.
Click to expand...
 
Andrea189 said:
This is not true, if you go to the Custom Settings Menu and choose Customize Dials then Aperture Settings and you select Aperture Ring, you'll be able to use the aperture ring of your AF lenses.
Click to expand...

Ooooohhh that is so awesome! It worked on my Tokina lens.

Thank you! Like I said, very new to Nikon DSLRs and don't really have a handle on the (quite extensive) menu system yet

That and the exposure meter were by biggest gripes with the camera. I think I'm all in with that.

Now to get some AF-d primes and a 80-200!
 
Andrea189 said:
This is not true, if you go to the Custom Settings Menu and choose Customize Dials then Aperture Settings and you select Aperture Ring, you'll be able to use the aperture ring of your AF lenses.
Click to expand...

Didn't know about this. Thanks for pointing it out.
 
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