Coming to nikon from canon

acroshaw

Hi everyone, I thought I'd post something here because every nikon user I know ( and there are a good few) , loves to hear about someone jumping over the fence from canon !!! I'm a semi pro, turning pro next year, who shoots with my identical twin brother , our website is mikecroshaw.com , we do weddings , lighting courses, and lots of portrait work so, why the switch ? I was shooting with a canon 5d mk 2, and then changed to a fuji xe1, which is a fabulous camera, but unfortunately I found that a lot of clients were not impressed when I turned up with the tiny fuji ! It's a sad fact that appearance still matters, and paying customers still want to see a mean looking dslr hanging from your long suffering neck , so we both looked at getting the same systems, the idea being we could swap lenses when necessary. Here are my main reasons for gong to nikon,
1) value for money . Sorry canon , I love the kit, but I picked up a d800 for £1600 , brand new !
2) the speedlights - Nikon speedlights rock, and I love the CLS system
3) image quality . If you have good technique, and patience , the d800 can produce jaw dropping studio work.

Since I've started using the d800 I've absolutely loved it. It's not perfect, no camera is , but it has a lovely interface, and so far I'm very happy to have made the switch, it helped not having any canon gear left, I can understand if you have a few l series lenses my reasons may not be enough, but for me , and my brother , it was an easy choice.
I have done a few pro shoots now, and still getting used to where everything is, but so far so good!

Golf007sd

Welcome to the NRF and to Nikon.

We here and NRF, help each other regarding photography itself, followed by the gear needed to obtain the task at hand. Sure we love (and dislike) our Nikon equipment at times, but we, as a community, focus in helping each other. In fact, there have been many times that we question the move a shooter is making from Canon, given the amount of gear he or she informs us about in having. Hence, NRF objective is not about get Canon shooter to leave Canon and go Nikon.

We look forward in having your input given your new interface. Moreover, those that have Canon and are considering the path you have taken.

kyoshinikon

Welcome. Unfortunately size still does matter. One workaround is tobring your dslr and xe1and purpose one for the formal shots and the other for the moments. I typically show up to an event with 3 camera bodies...

shawnino

Indeed. I think I mentioned my schtick in another thread. My 200-400mm f/4 now comes absolutely everywhere with me on a job. Baby pictures? Check. Interior real-estate? Uh-huh. CEO portrait? An absolute must. I was asked to shoot some house-rooms that would appear roughly 1" by 1.5" (about 2.5 by 3.75 cm) B&W in a low-res newspaper and "just" brought a D800E and 20mm f/2.8. I got laughed off the job before I could start. Owner had a D3000 plus kit lens of her own, what kind of scam was I trying to pull?

Photobug

Shawnion...unbelievable story. Size does matter for the wrong reason.

WestEndBoy

The cameras leapfrog each other every generation so I don't really care about them. What motivates me is the lenses. Canon and Nikon are both very good and I tell people that they won't go wrong with either as long as they first determine what lenses they need.

My choice is Nikon for three reasons. One is history. When I was a kid shooting moose, dear, mountain sheep and bighornes with my 7mm Remington Magnum I used a Bushnell scope. When I was about 9 years old I started getting really good on the range and was getting three shots in the same hole at 100 yards 50/50. I could never hit a 6 inch gong at 1,000 yards. I then upgraded to a Nikon Scope and immediately started nailing the 100 yard target 100% of the time and the 6 inch gong at 1,000 yards about 50/50 and then improved after. That was a very early lesson in the benefits of great optics and it instilled an early loyalty to Nikon.

After that it was Nikon Roof prism binoculars - I currently own a Monarch 10 by 42 DCF. There was also a variety of Newtownion Reflectors (none Nikon of course) that I used for astronomy, but no longer own. When it came time to purchase a serious SLR, it was a Nikon F80 with the 28-200 3.5-5.6 that I bought in Tokyo. My only departure from Nikon since then was about 4 of the Pentax Optio S compacts that I "lived with" until a digital camera came out that I was sure would provide better image quality than film for a reasonable price - my D800 (though in hindsight, the D700 would have been fine). There was never a moment that I ever really wavered from Nikon. The Pentax exception was still tempered by the fact that Pentax was a real camera manufacturer, not some Sony or Samsung junk. A note on Sony, I was into high end audio when I was younger and Sony was regarded as "cheap consumer crap" in my crowd. Not sure anything has changed.

The second reason is this - I have a sense that Nikon has "a little more consistently" produced "a little better quality" products than Canon. I still acknowledge that Canon is great stuff, but feel that Nikon has a bit of an edge.

The third reason is that Nikon is the camera company least distracted by other lines of business. Sure they have a stepper business, Canon and Sony etc. are into a whole bunch of other things. "Nikon is relatively pure." I also acknowlegde that my statement does not do Leica, Mamiya, Hasselblad etc. justice, but I have never been in the market for those (I would be in the market for Leica if it had auto-focus).

My two, well maybe ten, bits.

ThomasHorton

Welcome Acroshaw. I am also a recent transfer from camp Canon. I wonder how many more of us will be joining the ranks of Nikon before long?

spraynpray

I have to say that I have mixed feelings on the subject of lenses as a Nikon DX shooter. Apart from the 17-55 and wide zooms, Nikon have woefully neglected the DX range when it comes to pro grade lenses whereas my friend who shoots Nikon has 'L' lenses aplenty to choose from - and with IS (VR) too. Canon 'L' lenses are no slouches in performance terms!

acroshaw

Thanks for all your comments! Nice to find a friendly forum, did my first proper shoot with the d800, just blogged it here..
http://www.mikecroshaw.com/2013/12/13/first-shoot-with-d800/

it's just an amazing camera. I ummed and arred about the d610, and I'm sure I would have been happy with it, but I am sooo happy with the d800:)

WestEndBoy

Spreaynpray, I think Nikon has neglected the DX line for professionals because:

1:
They want a pro to buy FX.

2:
FX is coming down in price. In 3 years the 7XXX series will be FX. In 6 years the 5XXX series will be FX. In 9 years the 3XXX series will be FX. Nikon is even ready for it NOW with a solid consumer line of FX lenses.

Then there will be no point to DX. I predict that the last DX lens upgrade will be in less than 5 years.

One thing, I think that there would be a niche for a DX sensor in a interchangeable lens mirrorless compact that focused on consumers that want good quality in the smallest possible package. I think it will be a shorter flange to focal length (like the Coolpix A) that will work with "old" DX lenses with an adapter, but future lens design would be based on the shorter flange to focal length. DX would be a good size as smaller sensors will be competing against camera phones (yes, I think the Nikon 1 format does not have legs).

Golf007sd

@acroshaw: Nice write up on the D800 and Nikon gear, I enjoyed reading it. As far as your first day shoot, well done, I like what see.

Photobug

Acroshaw, excellent review of the D800 and a nice model. Thanks for sharing the article and your enthusiasm for your new D800.

I have got to leave a response to jshickel's message. Over the past several months I was buying in that has FF DSLRs come down in price there would be less DX DSLRs. However, my opinion changed today.

I spent two hours with a Nikon representative today and at one point we were talking with the Canon representative and the Nikon rep said that Nikon said several years ago they wanted two lines of DSLRs, a DX and a FF series. Based upon what they saw at the last sales meeting, Nikon is planning to continue to both the DX and FF series. The Canon rep said that that is the official position of Canon as well.

So I asked about some of the FX lens that are old and need upgrades, coatings and VR. He acknowledged that there are many FX lens that need to be upgraded and that the weather and earthquake impacts has slowed the process of these lens and the D400.

Okay granted, I was talking to two sales representatives and they are not allowed to comment on new products, such as the D400. But what I found interesting was the committement to stay with the DX and FF formats.

WestEndBoy

Photobug, the comments of the Nikon rep (and Canon rep) are interesting.

I also concede that my view is an opinion that I acknowledge is making some speculative assumptions that may not prove to be correct.

However, I would consider two things:

The Nikon rep would probably get fired if he hinted that he agrees with my view. Nikon talking down the DX line would likely damage sales significantly. I appreciate that his views may be genuine, but even he is not privy to the thinking of Nikon's senior management. I would therefore take his view with a grain of salt.

Second, my view is not based on what I think that Nikon is thinking. Purely relating to DX's future (I consider my view on a "DC Compact" very highly speculative), DX's demise seems like the only logical outcome given that some day the cost difference between DX and FX sensors will be a negligible. Camera manufacturers are looking for every edge and why wouldn't they adopt the extra image quality of an FX sensor when the difference is only a few dollars (given Moore's law, it should be possible to forecast when this will occur for a given price). There is little inherent weight or size difference, as DX and FX have the same mount diameter. There must be people at Nikon that see the logic in this.

Put another way, if I was Canon's president and believed that Nikon did not see this, I would exploit what I thought was a potential weakness in my competition.

Msmoto

The advantage of smaller sensors is in the telephoto range and f/stop advantage. I played with a Leica V Lux 3 with a sensor the size of a finger nail, zoom equivalent of up to 600mm and f/2.8. This is why we will most likely continue to see crop sensors.

WestEndBoy

I guess that I don't see the "telephoto range" as an advantage. It is easy to crop, especially with a D800. Hmmm......maybe a consumer will see that as an advantage, but I imagine any cheap DSLR can crop, so that seems an educational issue that marketers are exploiting

What do you mean by the f/stop advantage? It seems to me that larger sensors have the f/stop advantage as they have a narrower depth of field - it is easy to stop down but there is a hard limit on how much you can stop up. Maybe what you mean is that when you shoot with a smaller sensor, the depth of field can be enormous which could be an advantage in landscapes?

Ironheart

@jshickele, it is an oft repeated misconception that Moore's law applies to camera sensors. It doesn't. Moore's law simply states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. This allows chip manufacturers to squeeze more chips onto a single die (wafer) because the features (transistors, etc) get smaller. So if I can get 100 chips out of a wafer today, I can get 200 chips out of the same wafer tomorrow (the chips get physically smaller) This tends to drive the costs down over time for computer chips. Camera sensor chips have a known and fixed size :-) The only thing that Moore's law will help with on a sensor chip of a fixed size is increasing the MP count. Cost of a camera sensor chip is driven by many factors, but Moore's law ain't one of them.

WestEndBoy

I disagree Ironheart. My cell phone computer, more powerful than all the computers that powered the first moonshot, is a hell of a lot cheaper than those computers. Consider the cost of the sensor in the D1 compared to the cost of the sensor in a D3200. Way better AND cheaper.

Unless you are arguing some technicality such as "Moore's law for camera sensors" is a 24 month law, not 18 months, I think that you have missed the big picture in a very dramatic way as it applies to computers, including camera sensors.

Or maybe your technicality is that I applied Moore's law to price when it should have been applied to transistors and on that narrow technical interpretation you are probably correct. However, I think anyone knowledgeable about Moore's law and its CONSEQUENCES would acknowledge that declining prices for equivalent quality is a corollary of Moore's Law.

Ade

@Ironheart

In fact, Moore's "law" has been shown to apply to camera sensors, in a number of ways, including the cost of the sensor. E.g., Barry Hendy (formerly of Kodak Australia) noted that the pixel cost per dollar has doubled every 18 months since 1990:


Moore's Law applied to Sensor Pixel Cost, Wikimedia

Moore's law is an observation about economics, not transistor count (density) per se. Over time, one can improve transistor density at the same cost, and as a corollary, keep the same transistor density at a reduced cost. Hence sensors of all sizes will get cheaper in time all else being equal.

Ironheart

@jshickele, Moore's law was clarified as being 24 months by Moore himself in 1975. I've worked in the semiconductor industry my whole career so not much of this is lost on me :-) There is no doubt that this has cost implications, but much of that is also due to the decreased size of the resulting chip. The chips in your cell phone are way way way smaller than the electronics in the Apollo days.

@Ade, I see what you did there ;-) I wasn't talking about pixels per dollar, I was talking about the total cost of the sensor, which of course will go down as well, but if pixel counts keep going up, these two factors will be mitigated. I'd love to see the extension of that graph past 2005. And I think you meant to say "halved" rather than "doubled".

I will amend my previous (somewhat) extreme position and say that Moore's law has some effect on the cost of a camera sensor, but it is not the only factor. We still hear Nikon reps quoting the sensor cost as a major driver of camera cost, as recently as the Df.

We should probably take this to a different thread as it is pretty off-topic.

Photobug

Photobug, the comments of the Nikon rep (and Canon rep) are interesting.


The Nikon rep would probably get fired if he hinted that he agrees with my view. Nikon talking down the DX line would likely damage sales significantly. I appreciate that his views may be genuine, but even he is not privy to the thinking of Nikon's senior management. I would therefore take his view with a grain of salt.

Okay, you can take it with a grain of salt. I was there and I chose to disagree on this point.

Nikon laid out a plan 4 years ago and according to the Nikon representative, they have stuck to it except for the retro Df.

WestEndBoy

A plan? I wonder what the plan is? I hope it includes a Neica!

Msmoto

@jshickele

Sorry to be so slow to respond to the "f/stop advantage". As focal lengths for a specific sensors are shorter as the sensor gets smaller, the lens can be much smaller for an effective "full frame" equivalent. The example of the Leica V Lux 3 which has from about 18mm to 600mm equivalent at f/2.8, yet is a very compact camera is specifically at the extreme example of what I was referring to.

WestEndBoy

Ah!!! I see what you mean.

manhattanboy

I guess that I don't see the "telephoto range" as an advantage. It is easy to crop, especially with a D800.

I routinely crop photos from the DX camera 7100 after already shooting in 1.3 crop mode. What good is an FX full frame camera for that purpose? You are only capturing pixels you don't need. IMHO the major advantage of the DX is the crop factor and resulting smaller sized lenses needed to get a specific image. Granted the reverse can be said for other images like landscapes or portraits where full frame cameras rein supreme. However, to think that an FX camera can fully replace a DX is wishful thinking. For me, wishful thinking is that Nikon will start to release new DO supertelephoto lenses (either FX or DX) that are sharp, small, lightweight, and affordable. Here's to dreaming....

PB_PM

The thing is a telephoto for DX wouldn't be much smaller than the FX version. Making such a lens would be pointless for all intensive purposes.

ChasCS

Hahaha, that sounds aggressive!!
@PB_PM, I'd hope that You meant to say " for all intent and purpose"... Smile

How come you guys & gals love to debate and banter so much, about lens and camera qualities,?
Ah, instead just go and shoot somebody, Or film something, practice more and preach less?... I guess.

Though it does help the rest of us, to decide purchases wisely. Thanks...