Digital cameras forum: Is it worth/necessary upgrading D3000 to D5000?

thanks. that makes perfect sense. I am quite accustomed and happy with the D3000. I believe you are correct that Nikon would not dumb down the image quality.

I have a couple good lenses so far, hoping to have a good AF-S one pretty soon.

I'm shooting in pretty normal lighting conditions, but this year I'll be traveling quite a bit. Ideally, I would like to be prepared with a cam that shoots well in low light in combination with the glass I have - if the opportunity presents itself. This is partially why I'm curious about the D5000. Live view and video are not a priority.

As you know, the lens makes a lot more difference in image quality than the cAmera body. There are always better glass to have. Night or low light shots will need some fast glass. If you really own all the nice fast glasses you ever want, then you can see whether you can upgrade the flash, this is another accessory that will make a bigger difference than upgrading to a D5000.

Personally, I think it is wasteful to upgrade from one entry level to another entry level camera. Upgrading to full frame D700 or at least D300s/D90 will be worthwhile.

Usually I try to use ambient light as much as possible. I use flash to get rid of unwanted shadows. Sometimes shadows are needed to give a photo some depth. So one needs to choose when to use flash carefully and discriminatively.

Night photography often does not need flash if you are taking night lights, just need a tripod and preferrably a fast glass. But flash is useful when doing portraits, either as a main or fill flash to soften shadows. A flash diffuser is very useful in softening the light. The Gary Fong lightsphere is my favorite for portraits whereas the Sto-fen is more portable.

I also use flash during daytime, even in bright sunlight, when I want to remove unwanted shadows (fill flash). But be careful when using flash in bright daylight. Auto and Program modes are not a good way to use fill flash in bright daylight, due to slow synch shutter speed in these modes, ending up with blown out highlights in the background. I usually use high speed synch flash in these situations.