A few days ago we looked into five reasons to replace your Nikon D5000 with the new Nikon D7000 – today it’s time to look into five reasons not to replace your D5000.
Let me be honest, it was a lot tougher for me to find “don’t do it”-reasons than to find “do it”-reasons. If you have any more suggestions, please leave a comment below and let me know π
Megapixels ain’t everything!
Still, to this day, many people think that the more megapixels a camera has, the better pictures you get. That’s not entirely true. The quality of the image sensor is more important. The amount of megapixels is just how big the image is. Obviously it does matter some, but don’t pick a camera because it has 18 megapixels compared to the competitor with 16 megapixels. There are other, much more important things, to consider.
D7000 has 16.2 megapixels versus the 12.3 megapixels of the D5000. Already with the D5000 you’ll be getting RAW filesizes of 10-12 MB per image. D7000 RAW filesizes will probably end up at around 16 MB per image. So if you go on vacation and shoot 1000 images, with D5000 they’ll take up 12GB on your hard drive while the D7000 would eat 4GB more. If you’re a JPEG shooter, this doesn’t matter much. I know that I’m mostly whining here… I prefer to shoot RAW “just in case”, but sooner or later I’m going to have to upgrade my internal drive – or split my Aperture 3 library into multiple files and on multiple drives which would then make my library much less user friendly to search for images based on keywords, GPS coordinates etc., if you have to search one library at a time.
Expensive!
If you already own Nikon D5000, you probably paid around $800 for it if you had it for about a year and you’re now considering upgrading to D7000. The D7000 is currently listed as $1,199 at Amazon US and Β£1,029 at Amazon UK. That’s a lot of money, especially considering you probably can’t get more than maybe $400 for your used D5000 since a new one would cost less than $700 these days.
Doesn’t make you better!
A new camera doesn’t always make you a better photographer. Sure, if you only shoot indoors in low-light then there’s a big difference if you’re shooting with a point & shoot pocket camera or an expensive DSLR with much better ISO performance. But looking at just D5000 and D7000, you’ll not become a better photographer by replacing D5000 with D7000. You’ll get more features, allowing you to play around some more and get different results – but you’re not becoming a better photographer overnight.
Slightly heavier!
D7000 is 24.3 oz. (690g) and D5000 is 19.8 oz. (560g). Since D5000 is my first and only DSLR, I can’t really say for sure if the extra weight is going to matter at all. But it is heavier. Remember you’ll have to add the weight of your lenses to that, too.
Doesn’t have articulated LCD screen!
You could argue that an articulated LCD screen doesn’t matter if you’re not using Live View that much anyway. Nevertheless, I do find it useful from time to time on my D5000, especially when shooting from angles where you can’t easily see the LCD or if you’re shooting up high or down low on a tripod – just move the LCD so you can stand/sit comfortable and still see what’s going on. With D7000, you can’t do any of that.
Well, that’s it for my “reasons not to buy the D7000”-list. I’m sure there are more reasons that I just didn’t think of, so, please leave a comment below and tell us why you will not buy Nikon D7000. Reasons such as “I’m a Canon shooter” doesn’t apply π
Good points. This just prove that, you don’t have to buy a new one if you are really comfortable and having good shots with your old camera. I mean, if the new one won’t make that much difference, why buy it right?
This PowerShot SX130IS, it’s a premium performance with family-friendly value. You should have this excellent camera.
PowerShot SX130IS is not even a DSLR, so I don’t know why it’s relevant to this post.
Uh oh, I’m one of those people who think that the more megapixels the better. But leave it to my inexperience and lack of knowledge concerning the inner workings of DSLR cameras. Knowing now that all it offers is a bigger image, I’m no longer sure about the idea. Well, perhaps if I intend to shoot images to be printed later as posters, then perhaps bigger megapixels definitely would be very useful.
The next great speedlight from Nikon is here, introducing the Nikon SB700, a high-performance portable flash with a number of new features designed to make flash photography simple, accurate and creative.
Just read your article about buying the D7000 instead.. it was more convincing than this one although I have to say none have convinced me to part with my trusted D70 lol
βm no longer sure about the idea. Well, perhaps if I intend to shoot images to be printed later as posters, then perhaps bigger megapixels definitely would be very useful.
What about their battery life and the types of battery that they have? That’s one of the things that I first look at when buying a camera. I was choosing between a Canon and a Nikon before and I chose the Nikon simply because the Canon one used AA batteries. I don’t like using or carrying AA batteries because not only are they usually non-rechargeable and wasteful, they also make the camera much bulkier and heavier than it really is!
This blog did not bring up any valid points for me NOT to go for the D7000. There are a lot of good reasons I feel that would make this a good step up from say the D5000.
For me there is most importantly the AF motor that will be built into the camera. This will bring down lens cost and lens rental ALOT as I dont need to buy or rent AF-S lenses and can just purchase the AF version of the lens instead.
There is then the much better video quality, the choice of fps and the two HD resolutions to choose from, dual memory card slots, stereo mic input, better performance under low lighting with the higher ISO.
the articulating screen is not a must have and sometimes its a case of practice of blind firing your camera. And I think I am happy to part with that feature as the D7000 has a full sized viewfinder which i think works wonders for composing photos through the viewfinder.
I felt the paragraph “Doesnβt make you better!” was highly irrelevant and I’m confused as to why this is included as a “point” to not buy this camera. In some senses because this camera is higher end with features that the D5000 doesn’t have, its quite possible that it WILL improve your composition of shots with new features such as the the bigger viewfinder. You then have the 6 fps continuos shot mode, which means you can get THAT shot you were looking for in a situation where you only have a moment to capture the “moment” you wish to capture.
“Slightly heavier” I feel this is a semi reasonable reason but only for someone who is a casual photographer. For someone like me I am used to a heavy load with my D5000, battery grip, sb600 flash and my 50mm 1.8. If you looking for results then I think weight is of a lesser issue, obviously it cant be too heavy as it would hamper doing your photography.
Obviously we are entitled to each of our opinions including yourself and alike, but when I read this I just didnt feel that alot of these points were valid and such.
Hi Ben,
I’m not going to reply to everything you wrote, other than let you know that I actually purchased D7000 myself a month after writing this post π
The D7000 is GREAT! It’s definitely a nice upgrade. But I still think my reasons in the post above are valid (as seen with my eyes – back then, maybe not with your eyes).
hey dude or i should call you sir because i am just 19 and newbie in photography section.
i have d5000 but i preferred it because of its image sensor which is same(i guess) as d7000.
plus as per me mega pixels are really not a big issue.
you have softwares for it.
if you want to click videos i better suggest you should go for a better video camera.
there are some points which make d7000 more heavier that are much better noise reduction, built in auto focus motor, much wide ISO range but common i wont(or i should say my father wont) pay more bucks for this.
“A writer once said to a Photographer “Great photo…you must have a good camera!” and he replied “Great book…you must have a good pen!!”
i think camera doesn’t matter. the thing that matter is the VISION of the photographer.
whatever.
just want to say lets click more and more photos and lets show the world how it looks from our eyes.
thank you.
π
Hi rutvij,
The D5000 image sensor is NOT the same as D7000, just so you know π D7000 image sensor has more megapixels and better ISO performance, but D5000 is still a great camera.
It’s true that a good camera doesn’t take a good picture, like with the pen and book, but I wonder if not the book got better when made with a pen rather than a piece of chalk π
Still, with modern cameras (DSLR or not), everybody can get the gear they need to make pictures that are technical great, then it’s just about vision to get the rest right (which can also be the hardest part).
@Klaus
Thanx for the information about the difference in image sensor .
As I have mentioned before I am just a newbie in this photography field so frankly speaking I didn’t know about all this things.
But I will still stick on my point better camera wont make you better photographer. π
Very interesting blog! I wish I had read it before I bought my D7000.
I have a D5000, which I kept because it looks like you don’t get much for it if you sell it used- I figure 200$. For that money I preferred to keep it. After buying the D7000 I’m glad I did.
I must say I fell for the hype surrounding the D7000. It sounded like an amazing piece of technology – which it is, clearly. But after I spent quite a while comparing the D5000 and D7000 I found that the difference in image quality is really not that great. I may be missing something but I found the D7000 only slightly better.
One of the main reasons I bought the D7000 was that the image quality at high ISO was supposed to be substantially better. It is better – but again not by that much. I think the D7000 is better built, feels more solid and has a lot more features of which I will only use may be 30%. The active D-lighting is my favorite of those so far, it gives you more options than the D5000, very effective. I don’t shoot much video and would gladly sacrifice the video function for a smaller camera. Which is another thing I’m not so crazy about the D7000. It’s quite a bit bigger and heavier than the D5000.
I will keep the D7000 and plan not to upgrade it until Nikon makes a SRL that is
shooting noiseless images at ISO25000 and is as small as the D5000…
For all who own a D5000 now I say: it’s a great camera and I would wait until at least the next generation of Nikon SLRs, possibly longer to upgrade. The D5000 and D7000 are not that different.
Hi Justen. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment π
I’m actually quite happy with the D7000 and I wouldn’t trade back to the D5000. The extra wheel and buttons means a lot to me. Also I find the ISO to be quite good, with D5000 I wouldn’t go above 1600, with D7000, 3200 is usually my max but I can take it to 6400 if necessary, that’s a lot of extra light for indoor shooting!
The downside with D7000 though, is that it better shows the faults of “average lenses” than what the D5000 did, in terms of sharpness. So if you’re putting cheap glass on D7000, you would have been better off buying better glass for D5000, probably π
Size and weight is a personal matter. I know people who still thinks that D7000 is too small and would only consider using it as a travel cam. For me, it’s just right, I wouldn’t want it heavier or bigger though.
You wouldn’t get a DSLR any smaller by removing the video function, so no need to dream about that π I’m not too crazy about video either though.
The D5000 has better high ISO performance. It has less noise then the D7000, really!
Hi Ronnie – I’m sorry, but you are mistaken. The D7000 easily beats D5000 in terms of ISO performance. If you believe otherwise, then you have a different problem than ISO π