Photography Thailand Forum

[jons]

Dear Forum Members,

I've been a long term Nikon user, and now preparing to make the big move from 35 film use to digital. Most pros I speak with say bail out from Nikon and invest in Canon...what I wonder is if it's worth dumping my old Nikon pro lenses and starting from scratch with Canon? Also, wondering which high end/pro Canon SLR digital would be a good starter. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

Jons

[johnkphotography]

Dear Forum Members,

I've been a long term Nikon user, and now preparing to make the big move from 35 film use to digital. Most pros I speak with say bail out from Nikon and invest in Canon...what I wonder is if it's worth dumping my old Nikon pro lenses and starting from scratch with Canon? Also, wondering which high end/pro Canon SLR digital would be a good starter. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

Jons

There are many things to consider when making the switch and really, you can get excellent results with canon or nikon gear, but there are always trade offs.  Your best resource for this might be dpreview.

Here is the review for the 5d  http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos5d/
Here it the review for the d200  http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond200/

Go over them carefully and decide for yourself.

[David Salmanowitz]

As far as which is better Nikon and Canon both have fine products, though one can find fault with both of them. Digitally I think Canon is way ahead, and I wonder if Nikon will ever catch up. Canon always seems to come out with new technologies first, then Nikon follows. The image stabilization/vibration reduction lenses is just one example. As far as PC (perspective correction) lenses except for the 85mm which is tilt/shift, Nikon has just one other lens, a 28mm which is shift only. Canon has a 24mm, 45mm, and a 90mm--all tilt/shift. Canon has two different full frame sensor cameras, Nikon has none. Canon manufactures their own sensors, where Nikon has to have someone else make them. Nikon invested in real estate in the 80's and surely took a bath, perhaps the money would have been better spent on R&D. I was a Nikon guy for many years and also wanted to switch but the cost held me back--then I had a musical instrument do well on Ebay and then I just took the $ and bought a 20D and a few lenses. I was still using a Nikon film SLR underwater as the company I thought would make a housing for the 20D did not. I have since purchased a 5D and every company is trying to make housings for it, as it is a landmark camera. So now I am a Canon user beneath and above the water. As I had previously stated, both companies make fine cameras but you perhaps can tell I am a bit jaded towards Canon--yet ultimately it is who is behind either brand of camera that is responsible for a good photograph.

[Marc Schultz]

I think you covered it perfectly David. Those are all the same exact points I would have made.

I was trying to think of some area where Nikon does have the upper hand over Canon in terms of either possibly technology or functionality to try and balance the scales a bit on the topic of this thread, but unfortunately, nothing of any significance comes to mind.

The D200, which is Nikon's latest offering does though feel pretty light weight in the hand. And except for the micron pixel pitch being very low, it seems like a good value for someone who wants a 10MP camera. I guess the one argument in favor of this camera over a Canon full frame DSLR body is that if you shoot birds, sports, or other things where you need a lot of telephoto power, the D200 will give you very high res images and add about 50% focal length onto all your lenses.

Unfortunately though the D200 doesn’t have a very professional looking build in my opinion whereas the Canon 5D seems to a hardier build by comparison, not to mention its full frame sensor and that it has more than 25% higher resolution. But the price of the 5D being close to double is a big difference too. So I guess for someone who is heavily invested in Nikon lenses, and does not have the budget to buy a 5D, let alone a whole new wardrobe of lenses, the Nikon D200 probably still makes a lot of sense rather than switching over to Canon.

The D200 will have wide angle limitations though, but I guess in a practical sense, with the money saved on the D200 body versus buying the 5D body, a Nikon 12-24mm f/4.0G DX AF-S Nikkor lens cvould be purchased to help with wide angle needs.

There was though a problem at one time with Nikon holding back a lot of the RAW file technology information from Adobe, which had at that time caused Camera RAW to only have limited RAW file processing capabilities with Nikon RAW files. But I think I read somewhere that recently Nikon agreed to finally hand over the information Adobe was needing on the Nikon RAW file format so that Camera RAW would be able to do more with Nikon RAW files.

[murray]

One big thing that many people forget about -- If you are used to shooting Nikon and use manual focus a lot  -- that switching to Canon can drive you crazy until you get used to twisting the focus ring the other way.

I shoot professionally with a Nikon D2X (12mp) and a Kodak SLR/n (14mp).  This is because of 25+ years of Nikon use and the fact that I already had 6 expensive Nikon lenses.  My good friend (also a pro) has both of the $8000.00 Canon 11 & 17 mp cameras.  In the end our photos look pretty much the same -- even prints at 5 feet wide -- I have really enjoyed the $7K savings. 

I will agree that Canon has been ahead of Nikon in many ways the last few years and if not for the full frame Kodak cameras I would have switched myself -- that said -- if you have a several Nikon lenses there is no reason to switch to Canon now that the D200 is out.  If you are buying everything fresh then I think that Canon is a little better and will likely stay in the lead.

I started digitally with a D100 6mp in 200 but never used it on a job.  Then I moved on to the Kodak 14n which I have used on many paying shoots and now the D2X and the SLR/n.  Several serious amateur photo friends have been shooting with the D70 but they are all moving to the D200 -- which is what I suggested when they asked me.  I have not shot with a D200 myself but I would think that the image quality will compare nicely to the D2X which I think is very, very good.

Steve

[gregoire]

I got my first DSLR quite recently after reading tons of reviews and forums but in the end, how I managed to finally make up my mind was to go to the shops and play around with the cameras for a while. This is not ground-breaking news but I think sometimes it's good to have someone remind you that the internet is a great place to research cameras but a terrible place to try to make up your mind!

[bjorn slis]

....and there is that same discussion again, the Nikon user will say Nikon is the best buy, and the Canon user will tell you to buy Canon. Both brands have very good camera's, if you already invested in Canon lenses, buy Canon if you have good lenses for Nikon buy Nikon or the Fuji S3 pro (i talked to a couple of pros that work with S3 and they love it). For me I decided after going to the shop and trying them because imo it's also very important how a camera feels.
btw Nikon just came with the D80http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=2&productNr=25412
so if you are looking in that price range that might be an interesting option.

I agree very much with david "yet ultimately it is who is behind either brand of camera that is responsible for a good photograph"

[David Salmanowitz]

Photokina will be held next month in Germany, and I believe it is the biggest of the photo trade shows. All the companies bring out their new stuff, and it is only held every two years. If you are not in a real big hurry you might want to wait until you see what shows up. Actually, I am surprised Nikon did not wait until then to strut out the D80--maybe they got wind of something and wanted to get a head start trying to get orders for the D80, which is not supposed to be available until September.

[gregoire]

I think it was to stall people considering the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 DSLR which is already in store (in Europe, Japan and the US if not here).

[Marc Schultz]

David, I think the speculation on what the camera companies are going to do next, as well as what sort of marketing strategies come into play, is fun to contemplate.

Good point you make and hard to say why Nikon let the D80 out of the bag 30 days before Photokina. But surely there is a marketing strategy there as you suggested.

It seems though that Nikon is no longer trying to compete with Canon at the high end DSLR market. For one, it seems they are not going to enter the full frame DSLR market for the time being so their strategy seems to put out inexpensive DSLR cameras with crop factor sensors and putting as many pixels into the sensor as they can without being too concerned about pixel pitch.

Sort of smart I guess. Basically trying to find their own niche in the market since Canon's major focus seems to be more the full frame sensor DLSR market at this point.

My speculation is that at Photokina we will at least see a major announcement from Canon, which I assume will be some sort of upgrade/replacement to the 1DS Mark II since Canon has not released any DSLR cameras at the top end since the 1DS Mark II came out at Photokina in 2004.

[bjorn slis]

Hmm, I don't agree with Marc that a camera with a DX size sensor can not be "high end".
I think Nikon is waiting untill the FF sensor is good enoug to put in their cameras.
Wheter that is a good idea I don't know but if you look at "the wide angle issue" on this page http://www.naturfotograf.com/D2X_rev06.html#top_page there is something to be said for using a dx sized sensor untill that problem is fixed,

[Steve McKee]

I have gotten a chance to try out a Nikon D200, as well as A Fuji S3 Pro, and Canon 5D. As far as usability, I found that they were all essentially on par with each other, and the ergonimics of the bodies are all very similar. Between the Nikon and Fuji bodies, the Fuji has a slight advantage because of resolution, and was thus Nikon was out of the running. Then the question comes down to a same resolution match between Canon and Fuji. I found that the Canon sensor was superior (in color at least) and that the fancy lenses became the deciding factor. The Nikon 85mm PC micro lens is neat, but it is a stop-down lens, and engaging and disengaging it could become old really quick. The Canon image stabilizing feature is a simple switch, and it works well. We tested it by shooting a page of text about 6 meters away. (ISO 100, 1/16th at f 5.6, under ambient light) we then took shots with and without image stabilization on the 5D, and a control shot on the Fuji S3. With the Canon, the image stabilization made a noticeable difference, without the text was readable, but blurry, and puntuation marks were almost missing. The Fuji S3 gave similar results, but greys and whites were noticeably yellower than the Canon, which rendered very neutral greys and whites. With image stabilization on, the Canon rendered the text not only readable, but serifs and punctuations were clearly visible, though still not 100% tack sharp. We still ended up getting an S3 because of the range of lenses, but we also got the Canon, which gets used much more often. So, for my money Canons technology has the edge for the time being, so if I had to say switch or not, I would say switch, as Canon seems to be a leader, where Nikon and Fuji are trying to play catch-up.

[Mike Horner]

When i got into digital about 2 years ago, I went through the same dilemma. For every Nikon fan there is a Canon fan ! In reality, both seem to be very high quality, and long may there be the 2 of them, because we consumers will benefit from the competition.
I went Nikon - reason being local manufacture (trying to support Thailand) and excellent sales support - Nikon Silom Road, Sunny outlets. Good English spoken, knowledgable and helpful people etc.
Didn't find same support etc for Canon.
I am 100% happy with camera (D70), and several lenses. Only hiccup is the Coolwalker, which I'll comment seperately - don't think this will be around too,long.
Mike

[Marc Schultz]

Good points Mike, and not trying to be cheeky here, but for every Nikon fan I understand there may be as many as 2 Canon fans or more based upon camera sales figures I have heard. As a general gauge, for whatever it is worth, look at the http://www.dpreview.com/ web site and on the right hand side of the main page, about half way down the screen, it shows the 10 cameras that get the most clicks on their web site. 6 out of those 10 cameras are Canon and 2 out of the 10 are Nikon. 

Best wishes...

[bjorn slis]

I challenge all the canon users to prove that they make the better photographs with their technotoys by putting some superior photographs in the appropriate parts of this forum  :P
Us poor nikon nitwits will sit back in awe  :-X

Mark, yes they sold millions of 300d digital rebels, ixus, and powershots