HELP. Need camera advice

[lif]

My 14 year old son is a serious wildlife photographer. He would like to upgrade his older Nikon setup to a newer setup. He is looking at a Nikon D500 with a nikkor 200-500mm lens and he is also looking at a Olympus OMD E-M1 mark 3 with a Olympus 100-400 mm. Can anyone give me advice to cross reference my sons research? Me wants the Nikon setup but I keep hearing that mirrorless is better than DSLR. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Camera Land]

Here is the current trends regarding mirrorless vs traditional DSLR

Canon announced the D80, T77, T7i were discontinued. At the same time they announced they will not be making any new DSLR models.
Sony, Olympus, Fuji and Panasonic only make mirrorless cameras and are doing well. Every new model from Nikon and Canon the last year have been mirrorless. Canon has 5 consumer crop sensor models and now 4 full frame models. Nikon has has 1 crop sensor consumer model and 4 full frame models.

Regardless of brand you prefer, this is the way the industry has gone

 

[Brute]

I use the D500 with a 200-500 f5.6. Which is a good set up.
Just upgraded a few months back with Joel at Camera Land to the 500mm pf 5.6
Look up Nikon Gear forum or Nikon Rumors forums lots of info.
Don't know anything about mirrorless ,but there is threads on both forums about them.

Here is a Turkey shot with the that set up from March.

 

[Wapiti1]

Brute makes a solid case for that camera/lens combo. Great photo.

If he has interest in video, I think mirrorless offers more. Otherwise, it's a toss up. DSLR is a bit better at autofocus tracking, no EVF lag, and battery life. Mirrorless is where the tech is going.

Choosing the sensor size is probably a bigger concern and definitely look at the lens lineup to make certain it is forward compatible. Lenses are your biggest investment, so get that right.

Here is a shot from an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk2 with 100-400 Pana/Leica lens I took last year in Zambia. I could not have taken this shot with a bigger camera system just due to portability. Perfect? No. But I got the photo. It was very late in the day and I had only a few moments to shoot while this mother cheetah called to her kittens.



Jeremy

 

[lif]

Brute makes a solid case for that camera/lens combo. Great photo.

If he has interest in video, I think mirrorless offers more. Otherwise, it's a toss up. DSLR is a bit better at autofocus tracking, no EVF lag, and battery life. Mirrorless is where the tech is going.

Choosing the sensor size is probably a bigger concern and definitely look at the lens lineup to make certain it is forward compatible. Lenses are your biggest investment, so get that right.

Here is a shot from an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk2 with 100-400 Pana/Leica lens I took last year in Zambia. I could not have taken this shot with a bigger camera system just due to portability. Perfect? No. But I got the photo. It was very late in the day and I had only a few moments to shoot while this mother cheetah called to her kittens.

View attachment 240241

Jeremy

What part of technology would he be lacking if he went DSLR? I know most companies are fading out DSLR, but is there anything that he would be handicapped on in the future with DSLR?

 

[BiggMc]

Aweso

I use the D500 with a 200-500 f5.6. Which is a good set up.
Just upgraded a few months back with Joel at Camera Land to the 500mm pf 5.6
Look up Nikon Gear forum or Nikon Rumors forums lots of info.
Don't know anything about mirrorless ,but there is threads on both forums about them.

Here is a Turkey shot with the that set up from March.

View attachment 240071Nicesuper love the shot!

 

[Wapiti1]

What part of technology would he be lacking if he went DSLR? I know most companies are fading out DSLR, but is there anything that he would be handicapped on in the future with DSLR?

Handicapped? No there isn't anything that he couldn't learn his way around.

Probably the most useful thing is in body image stabilization for mirrorless. 5 axis in body IS is better than 2 axis in lens IS.

Size of the system is another thing that mirrorless gets you that is very useful. This is also sensor dependent. Big sensor, big lens. Little sensor, little lens. Big lenses work and feel better with a larger DSLR body than a tiny mirrorless body.

Higher frames per second rate with mirrorless and electronic shutter. You can only move that mirror so fast.

Silent shooting with mirrorless.

DSLR's have better lens selections and way, way, way better battery life.

It's a complete toss up and depends on the type of shooting he wants to do.

Jeremy

 

[Camera Land]

WAPITI1 makes some great points.
2 things
As far as batteries it's not as bad as some of the reviews say and most people have a couple of back ups

Sony and Olympus have as good a lens selection as anyone can want and Canon and Nikon have adapters to use all of their A/F lenses

 

[FlatlanderMN]

Iif

I’m no expert but I went through the process of upgrading my Nikon D3500 last year. I only had a couple of lenses and I wanted a full frame camera. Ultimately I switched from Nikon to Canon and got the RP. My thought was spend less on the camera and invest in the glass. Also, later on I can use the rp as a backup after my next upgrade.

In your son’s case, what does he want to upgrade? Sensor, more presets, fastest frames per sec? Just something newer and more “professional “? - nothing wrong that.

If your son likes the controls of Nikon one camera I wouldn’t overlook is the Z50. It is one frame per second faster than the D500, about the same mega pixels, is a cropped frame sensor and is pretty reasonable price wize. It has the Z mount for the new mirrorless lenses and I think with the adapter you can still use the DSLR fx and dx lenses. Joel from cameraland can confirm this. I got my rp and my lenses from him. He will take good care of you.

One thing about mirrorless cameras, especially the z50 and rp is they are small, which is the reason why a lot of people get a mirrorless camera. It will take some getting use to when it’s behind a big lens.

Like I said I’m not an expert but I’m glad I made the switch to mirrorless. And as for battery life. Nothing an extra battery or two can’t take care of.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Camera Land]

Steve is correct. Using the FTZ adapter you can use all the FX and DX lenses on the Nikon Mirrorless cameras