After a very quiet photography year 2024 I saw that there was a »march against the right« scheduled in my city. Since I really enjoy photographing protests I thought it would be a good opportunity to take the neglected equipment out for a spin again. It was a lot of fun, but I found myself limited by my gear. The slow autofocus and lacking low light performance of my entry level D3200 really showed itself while trying to capture the marching protesters who set off only after sunset. I actually lost some pretty good shots that evening to motion blur and sluggish focus. So, a new body was in order!

Since I didn't want to spend all that much, I limited my budget to 300€. So no brand new full frame mirrorless camera for me! Another consideration for buying a new body is the brand. This is less important if you are a first time buyer, but if you have already bought yourself into an ecosystem of lenses and accessories you will have to think about if you want to ditch it all, or stick with what you already have. I decided to stay loyal to Nikon. So combining those factors in addition to my existing DX/APS-C lenses I was looking at something in their D7xxx range. If you aren't familiar with Nikons APS-C DSLR lineup, the first number determines the "class", 3 for entry-level, 5 for mid-range, 7 for prosumer. The second number is generations 1-5. Then forget all of that for the professional models which are only differentiated by generation; D100 to D500.
But back to my purchase. The D7500 was outside my budget, leaving only two to decide between. The upgrade from D7100 to D7200 was minimal, the main changes being a bigger buffer and a faster image processor. I ended up going for a D7200 because of availability.

Note: I started writing this in April 2025 just after I bought the camera but stopped writing here. The rest of this post will be more of a retrospective than the direct comparison I had planned originally.

A direct comparison between the D3200 and the D7200.
The D7200 has served me really well this past year; the faster and more accurate autofocus is really noticeable, along with the added controls allowing for quicker setting changes. You can see the extra wheel under the shutter button and a couple extra buttons on the images above, plus the LCD display for your current settings that I have partly broken from a clumsy drop...
An event where the camera has really shined was the rally I attended early this year, where cars came whizzing past all at different speeds. The faster burst mode and larger image buffer allow you to get more shots of fast moving objects giving you a better chance of capturing a good one. Faster autofocus is also a huge plus when shooting cars coming towards you. Having to wait even half a second for the autofocus to hunt could mean a completely missed shot. (To be fair, missing the 20th Skoda Fabia or Toyota Yaris plastered in ads isn't a big deal, but you woulldn't know if the next car is someones Audi Quattro or Subaru WRX STi passion project or not until they're powersliding into your viewfinder.) I've created a gif out of one of the cars entire run below.


You can see that the car is in perfect focus throughout by just holding down the shutter button. This camera doesn't have object tracking in the viewfinder, only regular focus points. Object tracking is only available in live view, which uses the inferior contrast detect autofocus compared to phase detect in the viewfinder. So we viewfinder enjoyers have to be smart about where we place our focus points and make good use of the AF-lock. This problem has been solved with mirrorless cameras but those are, as I briefly mentioned earlier, still too expensive for your average hobbyist.
Pure image quality is only marginally better since there is no generational gap, there is slightly less noise on the D7200 but this doesn't really affect the final image in regular viewing conditions.

I have also bought an AF-P 70-300mm lens later because I wanted to get into birding. Though I have yet to actually shoot a bird with it, sadly wielding a long lens does not make birds just appear around you. It's faster and quieter autofocus motor is also a huge benefit.