So I am thinking of getting a new camera.
I am currently a Nikon user, namely the D700. I absolutely do not want to downgrade from full frame, and budget is tight. I don’t like being a cheapo’ so initially I thought I should just wait until my budget is friendlier; but I stumbled upon the Sony A7ii online and it seems neat.
Reasons I like it:
full frame
small/light
under $2000 CAD
the potential to expand my collection of vintage lenses, even the small ones that only work well on mirrorless
Reasons I dislike it:
no A/F for Nikon lenses (most of mine are AF-D and not G …so I am out of luck)
Sony lenses are expensive and less variety of them
lesser battery life
larger files 24MP vs my 12MP (I know I shouldn’t complain about this )
>> What I’d like to know: <<
Are there any of you shooting with this camera; especially if you’ve switched from NIKON? If yes, how do you find it?
is image quality good? - all reviews seem to hint that it is
Did you consider Nikon Z6? I got it a few months ago and love it coming from D610. With the adapter you can continue using your existing Nikon lenses. And native S lenses are even better. I got the kit 24-70 f4 - relatively compact and sharp.
@paperdigits That’s exactly what I was thinking. Last year I wanted to get into a full frame at a reasonable price and probably would have went for the D810 but found a low shutter count D800 for way cheaper.
I’ve looked into the D800 now. And they are around $1100 used or $1400 new. Would help with my existing lenses, though it is a heavy beast and has huge files. Thanks for the suggestion though!
The D750 might be worth considering at this point. I recently upgraded to a Z6, but that was more about moving to the new lens spec than cost. Otherwise, I’d probably have a D750…
I used it for about one and a half year, but coming from an Olympus, not Nikon. I find it nice, the only reason I changed was that the good lenses are big, heavy and expensive. Also I might have been a victim of GAS and found all sort of reasons to change the system
The image quality was great for my taste, the reviews did not lie.
At that time (about 2 years ago) it worked fine with RT and darktable, so it probably works even better now
If you have any specific questions about the a72, ask, I will try to answer them …
Thanks so much for actually answering the questions I asked in the post haha
I am very tempted to get it but I will wait until Friday to see if there is any better deal on it at the store.
One question though; what is “GAS” as in:
Why? Is there something wrong with your D700? What are the features you are missing from it?
Yes, it is smaller than Nikon bodies, but is an advantage only if you need a more portable camera AND attach a small lens to it. IMHO small camera body is not a good choice with big lenses.
FTZ-adapter does not support autofocus in AF-D series lenses. Only new G-type lenses will be able to autofocus. Stefan says he has a lot of AF-D lenses…
I’ve happily owned a D700 since 2009. I love it. It does have an issue with the mirror getting stuck on up position most of the time, which can be annoying but I am able to get work done in most situations.
Why I’d like to have it is that it’s smaller and lighter which would be great for street photography and travel. I also mostly shoot portraits, landscape and street. Rarely do I use my 70-300mm. I don’t technically mind the D700’s weight, however a lighter and more compact camera would be a plus I think.
The price is great also, especially considering it’s full frame. For focusing I’d use the sharpness peaking feature to ease the manual focusing, until I can hopefully find a converter that work.
I’ve been dreaming of the Nikon Df for a long time, but I can not justify the amount it currently goes for
C$2000? I bought a very good condition a7Rii body for below US$900
The format is well supported by rt/dt. You can buy plenty of cheap glass for it and adapt it. My fav lens is a 40 year old Canon FD 17mm f/4, I also have the legendary Canon FD 80-200mm f/4 L
I think it’s perfectly fine for that price. Under no circumstances would I pay for an a7Riv
BTW, I just added a cheap Sigma SD Quattro - now that is quite special and specially for black & white is unmatched (unless you go for Leica Monochrome). This said, the Sigma isn’t good to adapt lenses, can only do M42
Stefan, I will also not reply to the original question but instead ask back: why don’t you get a used D810?
I’ve just done a similar thing, i.e. upgraded my D600 to a D810 that I’ve found second hand with very few actuations (14k) for 1000 EUR (including the original MB-D12 battery grip!). I’ve seen that you wrote that “budget is tight” and well, if you’re lucky as I have, you can get an incredibly good camera that will have no problems with your lenses and will arguably be much faster in operations and AF.
And yes the Sony is smaller but my usual configuration is D810 + 50mm f1.4/af (old lens), and actually it’s not that bad. It may be a sensation but this D810 seems to me lighter than the D600.
I also have to add however that I understand your desire to get hold of a “smaller” mirrorless camera; I do have a Fuji XT2 that I continue to use despite the recent acquisition of the D810. But well it’s a minimalistic XT2, that I normally use with the smallest Fuji lenses (18mm f/2 and 35 f/2), if I had to use an adapter to use vintage lenses then it would defeat the purpose of having a small camera and I’d prefer to take the D810.
PS: I forgot to mention one aspect that you pointed out, about huge files etc. Well I was also expecting a slowdown of my operations but in fact it was a non-issue. These 36 Mp files are as fast to process and manipulate as the 24 Mp files of the D600 and the Fuji.
Yeah. $2000CAD for an A7M3 is obscenely overpriced. I’m seeing it for C$1200 on Amazon.
But I kind of agree with the others that looking into a newer (but used) Nikon may be a better option for the OP, especially if they have an investment in AF Nikon glass.
If they were transitioning from Canon, the value proposition would be better thanks to Metabones, but Nikon-to-E AF adapters perform extremely poorly. Also, even if you got that adapter, the A7M2’s AF with adapted glass is extremely poor. The A7M3 is a major step up in that regard. But again, with Nikon glass it’ll just be poor anyway no matter which body, because the Commlite adapter and its clones are really meh.
and less variety of them
More Zs will be coming out and hopefully that will do something to those prices. 
