my new camera

Spec is the least useful thing to work out what body to buy... Spec is about the limits, most photography is done in the middle. I.e. sure low-light stuff is nice to have, but it's not the ONLY thing you're going to shoot. Same with fps, having higher continuous modes is great, but you aren't going to fire off four bajillion shots in half a second EVERY time you press the shutter release. Etc, etc etc.

The sheer fact is that most shots, even great looking ones, are shot somewhere in the mid-range of all available parameters.

Finally, camera body spec is very likely to change in the future. Today's $2k body is tomorrows $1k body, and a week later, $500. The features filter down, too.

 

My body doesn't date though, it gets better with age.

Though the depreciation is terrible, I only get 5c a go these days .

P.S. I had much fun and good results with my aged D90 + a 20ish year old 80-200/2.8. One of the classic Nikon push-pull (aka: wank) zooms. No VR, slow focus... and my god, it worked brilliantly. For a $450 second-hand lens it's not shabby. Still wouldn't mind a 70-200VR but I can probably push that back a few years.

 

There's good glass, and then there's good glass, and then there's GOOD glass.

As an example, here is a study of motorcycles at speed.


D70 (which is, what, $200 second-hand or something? Mine sits unused in a cupboard; with the kit 18-70/3.5-5.6 --itself not a bad kit lens as far as they go -- it was a $2k camera in 2004) + $100 70-300G. Pretty much the crappest zoom in Nikon; it's cheap, nasty, and focusses slow as shit (the AF-S 70-300 is a fair bit better in terms of focus).
So that's not even good glass, but ho-hum glass.


D90 + 18-200VR
Lack of sharpness is mainly due to insufficient light with the slower lens.
Good glass, it does a fair bit very well, though action isn't its forte.


D90 (fuck knows on used price, but it's what steampunk has) + 80-200/2.8 push/pull zoom (~$450 used)
That's a brilliant set of glass. The 70-200/2.8VR (esp. VRII) is a bit better than the 80-200, but not in the conditions I used it.

Happy to post 100% crops from the last 2... not sure I can dig out pics from 2005.

Body is the least distinguishing feature in those pictures. Lens helps, the 80-200 is that bit sharper everywhere, and that bit sharper at wider apertures.

Don't shop on spec. Shop on what works in your hands, what you can afford, and what lets you expand (which are most systems; some are more equal than others in this regard, but I don't want to tickle this dragon on here).

 

Yeah a D7000 is a good pickup.

Any reason why you went the 1.4 vs. the 1.8? I thought they did an AF-S 1.8 these days too... I don't see much point upgrading from my 50/1.8 AF-D though. The dx 35/1.8 is worth picking up. I did all the shooting up at the F-X round with the 80-200 and the 35/1.8, and didn't swap that often. 50 tends to be a bit longer than I want on a crop body.

(in fact, before I bought the 35/1.8 I actually bought a very cheap second-hand 28/2.8, which sees much action doing my mechanical writeup stuff).