Nikon D5600

I’m invested in Nikon lenses but am looking to upgrade from a D3100. Will I be happy with a D5600? Seems like a decent upgrade option fir < £500. Looking to use it for mainly outdoors/cycling photography.

I bought a D7000 for my son via MBP for about £230 6 months ago.

It absolutely smokes the little old Pentax K100d I own and even the brand new Canon EOS2000 college gave him. Work has a D3000 that’s never seemed that inspiring.

I ended up doing a bit of research when we bought it. I think the D5600 is a step up in megapixels again, but the suggestion was there wasn’t a huge step up in image quality otherwise even though it’s 5 years newer. I think there are useful things like articulated screen etc – which for us we weren’t that bothered about.

I always say this to people worrying about what camera to buy: all modern Dslrs are great. Look for ergonomics and controls first, then, as Matt says above, buy second hand. It’s amazing how cheap cameras are that were hundreds if not thousands of pounds a few years ago.

That will be great value for money for a new camera. I have a 7200 and love it but would dearly love the flippable screen on that.

But – and it’s a big but…….if you shoot full manual having 2 wheels, front and back is imo a must and that’s not a thing on a 5000 series. I very rarely shoot anything but full manual and find the 3000 and 5000 series cameras at work very frustrating. I know it’s only another button press but for me it ruins the intuitive nature.

The biggest difference in image ‘quality’ is down to the sensor size rather than anything else given that, as supernovae says, all dslr’s are pretty amazing these days.

The 7000 is a great camera but it’s still has a dx sensor, the d600 is a large fx sensor version of the 7000. I know you’re probably locked into the dx lens system but you could pick up a good second hand d600 and 50mm lens for £400-£500. ( then trade in old camera and lenses for other fx lenses?). The larger sensor gives you a larger field of view, so a 50mm lens will get as much in the picture as a 35mm on a dx camera before distorting and image crop options give you a couple of ‘effective’ telephoto lengths. Bigger sensors aren’t about better detail they’re about seeing things ‘more biggly’

After shooting on smaller dx sensor cameras the step up to fx is like moving to medium format, the difference is night and day. The pictures will look more professional more because of this than any other technical characteristics save the lens quality (and the 50mm fx lens is just about the best lens there is and it’s cheap as chips owing to its ubiquity.)

As Matt suggests, MBP are a great place to get a camera from, properly checked over and excellent reviews. I think the best option is to go for one of their ‘excellent’ rated second hand camera with a very low shot count.

+1 on MBP – we bought body and two lenses. I deliberately went for the highest rated second hand – all were boxed, manuals and all but new looking. The body had a couple of minor marks, that’s it.

I’m now looking for a lens for the boys birthday in the new year, and I’ll use MBP again.

Inkster, whilst I agree with much of that for the OP I’m not sure it’s relevant. No one with a 3000 series is going to have FX lenes so that would be a start again. And to make the most of the FX body you’d have to buy reasonable glass. The total bill will be orders of magnitude more than the <£500 they were looking to spend. Even if you did find something FX and really old that did the job whilst reducing the yawning budget difference the poor quality IQ at high ISO and the lower FPS of older dslrs might well negate the change for the OP’s specific use. Also outdoors photography – FX is bigger and heavier to lug around.

A good quality fast (F2.8 straight through) 2nd hand lens added to the DX body will make a huge difference and make up some of the difference to a FX setup.

Just bought one myself (also from MBP) 3 weeks ago. Excellent quality camera although the box was a bit battered, otherwise very happy with the service they provided (sold a canon mirrorless, equally good service, would highly recommend).
Spent ages researching and for me the flippable, moving screen was a must have – got dodgy knees and having the screen really helps shooting from unusual angles without having to get in unusual positions!
When I started researching didnt think I would settle on a camera that was 5 years old, but nothing else really provided what I wanted, even though I was prepared to pay a couple of hundred more for the right model.

Very happy with the purchase so far …

Thanks all guess what is not in stock at MBP 😕

You could always go a little further down the d5 range and spend some money on lenses instead….

https://cameradecision.com/compare/Nikon-D5600-vs-Nikon-D5300