I was standing on line at Microcenter, waiting to buy a Canon SL1 for $750. Got tired of waiting and left (note, I love Microcenter, this was a cosmic sign!). I sold my Nex-7 and 50mm 1.8 prime because I wanted to do more portrait type work. Manual focus on mirror-less cameras is a frustrating affair. I figured the SL1 would be a good compromise–DSLR type focusing and hopefully passable auto-focus in video. That afternoon I e-mailed about a Nikon D600 and Tamron 24-70mm/2.8 lens I saw on Craigslist. The owner said the lowest he’d go down to $2,500. You can see where this story is heading!
Part of the reason I bought a new camera was to take photographs of my wife (photography is an insatiable consumer of laughable rationales). She started a fashion blog for women over the age of 50.
I took a comparison shot between the D600 and my Nex 5N with kit lens. I shot at 2.8. According to Cambridge In Colour I’d need a 50mm at f/2 to achieve a similar depth of field (unfortunately, sold lens before I could test that). However, the smaller sensor would lag in color saturation.
Here are the photos. No processing. JPEGs that came out of camera. First, the APS-C.
Now the Nikon full-frame.
Here’s the full-frame image lightened a bit.
Although much lower resolution, I believe the Canon 5D and 85mm 1.8 prime would have taken as good a photo, for the web. In fact, I considered just getting that setup again. But I try not to go back to a camera I have already owned.
I took some video with the D600. In shallow depth of field situations it looks much better than the Nex. However, high f-stop shots are more difficult to tell apart.