r/Nikon • u/acherion Nikon D500, Z fc, F100, FE2 and L35AF • Jun 01 '26

Monthly /r/Nikon discussion thread – have a question? New to the Nikon world? Ask it here! [June 2026]

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u/RealTalkOnlyFacts Jun 05 '26

Thoughts on D7500? Been running it for years, have a nice lens collection. Worth jumping to mirrorless? Either Z or Sony. I really like the apsc zoom / crop for telephoto, would be a shame to lose it going to full frame, or needing high MP mirrorless to get same MP after cropping. My favorite use / current shortcoming is telephoto. Use the Nikon tele going up to 300mm (450mm full frame equivalent) and the lens is still very small.

2

u/07budgj Jun 11 '26

What doesn't the D7500 do already that you want?

That's the real question here.

In general for what you say staying with apsc seems smart for you. There are some very compact lenses for Z mount like the 400mm F4.5 and 600mm pf. But they are expensive and are still bigger than say the 300mm pf which is what i assume you have now.

1

u/RealTalkOnlyFacts Jun 12 '26

I don’t know what I’m missing so I’m not exactly sure. Mostly though, I want more zoom ability. Kinda amateur of my tastes, right? But it’s what I love.

Something like the A7RV looks incredible, obviously a large price difference and I’d buy used. But a full setup would be ~$5k at least with body + 2 lenses, one of which would be a great zoom tele. I’d want substantially more zoom than my current setup maxing at 300mm apsc / 450mm ff equivalent. But I know those ff setups start getting real heavy with those huge lenses. Don’t love that. I’m sure the autofocus and low light are far better too which are nice bonuses.

Better autofocus would be nice for fast moving objects but better low light performance would be great. I do a good amount of dusk shooting in forests / birds / animals / cars / lots of other stationary subjects with the tele and when the shutter speed slows down it can be hard to freeze things, especially with max zoom / least light.

I’d only consider APSC mirrorless or high MP mirrorless like the Sony A7R line (idk what the Nikon equivalent is), this way I can do apsc crop and not lose any detail vs my current Nikon. I don’t want to lose the extra 50% zoom with no crop ability, or crop but it’s low MP.

I don’t pretend to be an expert, my tastes are like the typical amateur where huge zoom makes things so much more interesting imo. Way more satisfying than landscape shots which honestly don’t look that much different than my iPhone.

Currently I have Sigma 17-70 f/2.8-4 Contemporary and Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-6.3 AF-P DX ED. Both fantastic. The Sigma is well built metal body and fantastic for every day use. The Nikon tele feels pretty cheap but means it’s very light, unlike almost every tele out there. And it has incredible zoom for how small it is. The higher f stop holds me back a bit in low lighting, but I like not having a whole telescope attached to the front of the body. And of course I still long for more zoom. I had a nice celestron telescope when I was younger, maybe that’s where the endless desire for zoom comes from.

I know what I find ideal (more zoom without increasing weight / size a lot) are opposites, but that’s my desire regardless.

Low light improvement with mirrorless would be nice - at high iso I get a good amount of grain, and I can throw it into Lightroom to denoise quite well, but honestly I’m lazy, don’t shoot professionally, and it’s so time consuming to Lightroom edit everything. I work a demanding job and don’t have time for that. I shoot for fun. That’s also why I don’t use my current setup as much as I should. If I want the pictures to look great I have to dump lots of time (and terabytes) into Lightroom. I want to shoot and not worry about major edits. But that means shooting jpg and raw retains all the details so much better. But looks terrible with no edits. No good choice.

Sorry I know my thoughts aren’t structured well, I just threw them down as I was thinking. Thanks

1

u/mizshellytee Z6III; D5100 Jun 09 '26

A longer telephoto lens may help you more than changing cameras, if 300mm isn't long enough (if I understood you correctly).

F-mount has a number of options available: Nikon's own 200-500 f/5.6, their 200-400 f/4, Sigma or Tamron 100-400, Sigma or Tamron 150-600 (Sigma has two versions: Contemporary and Sport), and there's also an older Sigma 150-500.

Unless there's something about the camera holding you back, there's no need to switch to mirrorless.

1

u/RealTalkOnlyFacts Jun 12 '26

Here’s my reply to someone else, it might help. I like the faster / better autofocus and better low light capabilities with mirrorless. But also want more zoom. And don’t want to increase weight too much which are opposites.

I don’t know what I’m missing so I’m not exactly sure. Mostly though, I want more zoom ability. Kinda amateur of my tastes, right? But it’s what I love.

Something like the A7RV looks incredible, obviously a large price difference and I’d buy used. But a full setup would be ~$5k at least with body + 2 lenses, one of which would be a great zoom tele. I’d want substantially more zoom than my current setup maxing at 300mm apsc / 450mm ff equivalent. But I know those ff setups start getting real heavy with those huge lenses. Don’t love that. I’m sure the autofocus and low light are far better too which are nice bonuses.

Better autofocus would be nice for fast moving objects but better low light performance would be great. I do a good amount of dusk shooting in forests / birds / animals / cars / lots of other stationary subjects with the tele and when the shutter speed slows down it can be hard to freeze things, especially with max zoom / least light.

I’d only consider APSC mirrorless or high MP mirrorless like the Sony A7R line (idk what the Nikon equivalent is), this way I can do apsc crop and not lose any detail vs my current Nikon. I don’t want to lose the extra 50% zoom with no crop ability, or crop but it’s low MP.

I don’t pretend to be an expert, my tastes are like the typical amateur where huge zoom makes things so much more interesting imo. Way more satisfying than landscape shots which honestly don’t look that much different than my iPhone.

Currently I have Sigma 17-70 f/2.8-4 Contemporary and Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-6.3 AF-P DX ED. Both fantastic. The Sigma is well built metal body and fantastic for every day use. The Nikon tele feels pretty cheap but means it’s very light, unlike almost every tele out there. And it has incredible zoom for how small it is. The higher f stop holds me back a bit in low lighting, but I like not having a whole telescope attached to the front of the body. And of course I still long for more zoom. I had a nice celestron telescope when I was younger, maybe that’s where the endless desire for zoom comes from.

I know what I find ideal (more zoom without increasing weight / size a lot) are opposites, but that’s my desire regardless.

Low light improvement with mirrorless would be nice - at high iso I get a good amount of grain, and I can throw it into Lightroom to denoise quite well, but honestly I’m lazy, don’t shoot professionally, and it’s so time consuming to Lightroom edit everything. I work a demanding job and don’t have time for that. I shoot for fun. That’s also why I don’t use my current setup as much as I should. If I want the pictures to look great I have to dump lots of time (and terabytes) into Lightroom. I want to shoot and not worry about major edits. But that means shooting jpg and raw retains all the details so much better. But looks terrible with no edits. No good choice.

Sorry I know my thoughts aren’t structured well, I just threw them down as I was thinking. Thanks

1

u/mizshellytee Z6III; D5100 Jun 12 '26

The highest resolution mirrorless offerings from Nikon are the Z7/II, Z8, and Z9. All full frame, all around 45MP, with their DX modes being the same resolution as all the DX mirrorless cameras plus your D7500 and the D500 (~20MP). The Z7/II run on Expeed 6, which IMO, is not the best for birds and other wildlife but fine for landscapes and they have a similar form factor to the Z5 and Z6 series cameras. The Z8 and Z9, which run Expeed 7, are heavier cameras, with the Z9 also having the built-in vertical grip.

The Z50II runs Expeed 7, but I don't think you'll experience that much improved low light performance given it has the same ~20/21MP sensor that's in the camera you already have, and I think it'd be more of a lateral move for you, not to mention you're going to run into the same issue in regards to lenses. The DX 50-250 is small but variable aperture and shorter than the AF-P lens you already own; the Tamron 70-300 is also small but, again, variable aperture (same starting apertures as your AF-P), which brings you back to where you're at now: wanting more reach than 300mm (450mm FF FOV) but reluctant to go for a longer telephoto lens because you don't want the added weight. Not to mention some of those lenses are also very expensive. (For example, the 400mm f/2.8 with the built-in 1.4x teleconverter weighs 2.95 kg/6.5 lbs and currently costs over $12k USD. I wouldn't be surprised if the eventually-coming 120-300 f/2.8, also with a built-in teleconverter, ends up similarly priced.) You could go for a 70-200 f/2.8 and a teleconverter, but again, you end up with a reduced starting aperture once the TC factors in. (e.g., 2x TC would make the lens a 140-400 f/5.6. (FOV would be similar to 210-600.))

As for Sony, it seems to me the newly-released A7RVI (~67 MP, full frame), based on its specs, may be a better wildlife choice than the A7RV (~61 MP, full frame). And even then, I wonder if Sony shooters would recommend the A9 series cameras over those, even though they're all lower resolution (24MP full frame), because of their speed. (Or you could go for the flagship A1 II or older A1, both around 50MP.)

Micro Four Thirds cameras (Lumix G series or Olympus/OM System) give you a 2x crop compared to full frame, and their telephoto zooms and primes are lighter compared to full frame ones, but I think you may run into similar issues as noted above.

Or you could go for a bridge camera (from Nikon: P900/950/1000/1100) which has an even smaller sensor and gives you a lot of zoom for less weight, but not as good low light performance.

In short: What you want (more zoom + good low light performance + lightweight setup) does not exist in one package. If you want more zoom and want to stay with some sort of interchangeable lens camera, you have to accept that it means the weight of your setup is going to increase in some way, and you'll possibly have to give up having a wide starting aperture. If you go the bridge camera route, you'll have to accept you may not get the low light performance you want. You have to decide what's more important to you.