Blue Pixel

Monday, November 24th, 2008 by Reed Hoffmann

The more choices we have, the harder it can be. Shoot JPEG or RAW? Upgrade Photoshop now or wait? Spend more on a faster lens or save $$? My favorite choice right now is between full-frame or cropped-frame cameras, because that choice gives me more flexibility in my photography.

I first did this on a trip to Africa earlier this year. I took two cameras, one Nikon D3 and one D300. I used the D300 with my telephoto lenses photographing wildlife, to get the extra reach that the 1.5 crop factor of the DX chip gave me. And the D3 was used mainly for people photography with wideangle lenses, and in times when the light was low and I wanted its exceptional high-ISO performance. With the new Picture Control menu on these cameras, I could be sure that regardless which camera I used, the images would share the same color, sharpening, contrast, etc. Plus, both were giving me a full 12 MP of information.

Last week I did something similar, covering the Kansas City Chiefs game against the New Orleans Saints. I again carried the D300 and D3. This time, though, I used them based on where the teams were on the field. When they were fairly close, I put the D3 on my 500mm lens, to get a standard 500mm view. As the teams moved away from me, I switched to the D300, which now gave me a field of view equivalent to 750mm from the same spot. Using them this way let me vary the framing of the action based on which camera I was using.

Sometimes choices are hard to make, but I find this one easy – I like having both full-frame (FX with Nikon) and cropped frame (DX) cameras, because they let me do more with my photography.