DizzyV6P
19th of November 2007 (Mon), 13:43
An interesting post from my Nikon fanboy friend in my car forum's photography section. This was in reponse to a poster who asked whether to get the Nikon D40x or the DRebel XTi. I had bitched and moaned about my 300D many times. After playing with the 40D for the past week, no more BM'ing about fast adjusting my settings. What do you think my reply should be? LOL.
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Why don't you tell him about how many shots you missed while fiddling with the slow menu driven fully manual ISO settings on your Rebel 300D, which is still the same on the newest Rebel 400D/XTi. And the menus making sense is important since you need to be able to dive into them and adjust the fully manual sharpness, fully manual contrast, and fully manual saturation, all of which is AUTOMATED on the Nikons for years now, including a fully auto and programmable Auto ISO. The menu systems on the Nikons along with the built in help system is so good that you don't NEED to read the manual, which is great when you need to set some specific control and are 1000 miles away from home without your manual. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
OK in all seriousness...
Yes, Canon's AF system is better. The consumer grade Nikon AF-S lenses are pretty quick, but I've still yet to experience a Nikon that will *SNAP* to focus instantaneously like a Canon will. So if shooting sports or action is your thing, Canon has the clear edge here.
Low noise at high ISO? Dunno about that. The XTi and 30D (and 40D as far as I'm aware) and D80 are all similar. Good at 800, gritty but passable at 1600, and last resort iso3200. The Canons do "look cleaner" than the Nikons, but that's because they smudge out more details. I think the D300 is a full stop better at high ISO than any of these cameras, and goes up to iso6400 now. iso1600 looks clean on the D300, 3200 is passable, and 6400 is the new "last resort", which would put it a stop ahead of all of these. The 40D is light years beyond the old Rebel 300D, but not some of the current players. I think it'll get beat easily by the D300 in noise performance, but then again the D300 is a $500 more expensive camera I think. You're paying the premium for more advanced sensor technology.
I like Canon lenses better: They have fast focusing prime lenses. Most Nikons are fairly pokey screw driven AF-D types and not AF-S. Canon's lens selection is also more to my personal (subjective) liking. Their EF-S 10-22mm wide angle is optically a better performer than Nikon's 12-24mm and is also cheaper. I lust after the 70-200 f/4L IS telephoto. Nikon has nothing equivalent in their telephoto zoom lineup. With them you either have slow f/5.6 stuff, or brick heavy and expensive f/2.8 beasts that I'd rather not carry around . Sometimes I'm carrying the baby and all of the baby gear since I'm less likely to trip than my wife and she's carrying my heavily padded camera bag. I prefer a lighter camera bag and a heavier wallet. The super telephotos are significantly cheaper in the Canon system, enough so that some Nikon guys go and get a cheap Canon body and shoot with those and still come out ahead money wise.
Of course you usually won't figure out what sort of lenses you want before you already have a fairly sized investment in one system or another and you're pretty much locked in. I was pretty close to dumping my Nikon gear for Canon just based on liking a lot of Canon lenses better, but decided not to based on liking the Nikon bodies way better than I disliked their lens lineup. Of course this can work the other way too. I'm sure there's a bunch of Canon guys that all lust over Nikon's 18-200VR "miracle" lens. I personally don't care for it, but others might. Canon also doesn't have a fisheye lens for their EF-S consumer line (and 30/40D) bodies. Nikon has the 10.5mm DX fisheye that I just got and love already.
Nikon's Creative Lighting System is said to be the envy of all Canon wedding photographers: Another friend of mine who also just got a 40D said the newer Canon flash system is much improved, but still not as good or as flexible as Nikon's CLS system. Dunno what it is, but whenever I use my flash on my Nikons I get consistently outstanding results. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif And since I'm using the flash almost 100% of the time now that it's dark out by 5pm, that's pretty darned important.
Nikons work better on the fly than Canons do: This is the biggie for me. Fully programmable Auto ISO, Auto Contrast, Auto Sharpness, Auto Saturation. Add em up, it all makes a big difference, especially when you consider that your eyes will automatically adjust to a lot of this stuff and won't necessarily notice an overly contrasty scene where you need to manually reduce contrast on your camera, or the opposite. Nikon takes care of this for you. My JPGs come out looking great in situations with a lot of changing light, and I see the Auto Contrast and Sharpness (and ISO!) being jerked around all over the place to give the best results. Canon will have you getting bogged down in the menus switching this all around, or you'll just have to shoot memory card and disk space clogging RAW and sort it out later. No need to on the Nikons for the most part. All of the automation on the Nikon bodies ensure that you'll have a pretty darn good picture straight off the camera, and what little adjustments you might need to make can easily be done on the JPGs - no need for RAW. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
Size, Shape, Feel, Ease of use, incl Menus, etc: Just try em out. The D40 and XTi are small for me. The D80 feels just right. The 30/40D and D200 are a bit big. But all of these are still probably smaller than my D80 with the MB-D80 grip on it (see post #359). I can still handle that fine, but why have a big bulky camera if you don't need it? I'll use my grip if I know I'm going to be out shooting all day (the zoo), or if I'm doing a lot of portrait mode shooting where the grip with the extra buttons just for that purpose are a ton more comfortable. Menus Nikon is awesome, Canon stinks, period, lol. Either it'll bother you or it won't. It bothers me. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
So there's pros and cons to both systems. If you don't have much invested in equipment then NOW is the time to re-consider if you're going to jump ship to another system. Already did that and I'm sticking with Nikon. What I like in the Nikon system outweighs what I dislike, and is not enough for me to jump ship over to Canon. YMMV. This year and in previous years the vast majority of Nikon to Canon switchers did so for the superior pro level bodies like the 1D MkIIN and now the 1D/1Ds MkIII's with larger sensors, and much better high ISO performance. That stuff blew Nikon's pro level stuff away, and Nikon had no answer at all until the D3 was announced, which isn't even out yet. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/laugh.gif Somebody who wants to shoot their daughter's indoor gymnastic events needing high shutter speeds in a poorly lit gymnasium with no flash allowed TODAY is still gonna want to go out and get a Canon pro body. A D300 might just barely work with passable but gritty iso3200, but that isn't even out yet either (this week, we're told. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif)
In summary: http://forums.maxima.org/images/smilies/rolling_eyes.gif
------Post----------
Why don't you tell him about how many shots you missed while fiddling with the slow menu driven fully manual ISO settings on your Rebel 300D, which is still the same on the newest Rebel 400D/XTi. And the menus making sense is important since you need to be able to dive into them and adjust the fully manual sharpness, fully manual contrast, and fully manual saturation, all of which is AUTOMATED on the Nikons for years now, including a fully auto and programmable Auto ISO. The menu systems on the Nikons along with the built in help system is so good that you don't NEED to read the manual, which is great when you need to set some specific control and are 1000 miles away from home without your manual. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
OK in all seriousness...
Yes, Canon's AF system is better. The consumer grade Nikon AF-S lenses are pretty quick, but I've still yet to experience a Nikon that will *SNAP* to focus instantaneously like a Canon will. So if shooting sports or action is your thing, Canon has the clear edge here.
Low noise at high ISO? Dunno about that. The XTi and 30D (and 40D as far as I'm aware) and D80 are all similar. Good at 800, gritty but passable at 1600, and last resort iso3200. The Canons do "look cleaner" than the Nikons, but that's because they smudge out more details. I think the D300 is a full stop better at high ISO than any of these cameras, and goes up to iso6400 now. iso1600 looks clean on the D300, 3200 is passable, and 6400 is the new "last resort", which would put it a stop ahead of all of these. The 40D is light years beyond the old Rebel 300D, but not some of the current players. I think it'll get beat easily by the D300 in noise performance, but then again the D300 is a $500 more expensive camera I think. You're paying the premium for more advanced sensor technology.
I like Canon lenses better: They have fast focusing prime lenses. Most Nikons are fairly pokey screw driven AF-D types and not AF-S. Canon's lens selection is also more to my personal (subjective) liking. Their EF-S 10-22mm wide angle is optically a better performer than Nikon's 12-24mm and is also cheaper. I lust after the 70-200 f/4L IS telephoto. Nikon has nothing equivalent in their telephoto zoom lineup. With them you either have slow f/5.6 stuff, or brick heavy and expensive f/2.8 beasts that I'd rather not carry around . Sometimes I'm carrying the baby and all of the baby gear since I'm less likely to trip than my wife and she's carrying my heavily padded camera bag. I prefer a lighter camera bag and a heavier wallet. The super telephotos are significantly cheaper in the Canon system, enough so that some Nikon guys go and get a cheap Canon body and shoot with those and still come out ahead money wise.
Of course you usually won't figure out what sort of lenses you want before you already have a fairly sized investment in one system or another and you're pretty much locked in. I was pretty close to dumping my Nikon gear for Canon just based on liking a lot of Canon lenses better, but decided not to based on liking the Nikon bodies way better than I disliked their lens lineup. Of course this can work the other way too. I'm sure there's a bunch of Canon guys that all lust over Nikon's 18-200VR "miracle" lens. I personally don't care for it, but others might. Canon also doesn't have a fisheye lens for their EF-S consumer line (and 30/40D) bodies. Nikon has the 10.5mm DX fisheye that I just got and love already.
Nikon's Creative Lighting System is said to be the envy of all Canon wedding photographers: Another friend of mine who also just got a 40D said the newer Canon flash system is much improved, but still not as good or as flexible as Nikon's CLS system. Dunno what it is, but whenever I use my flash on my Nikons I get consistently outstanding results. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif And since I'm using the flash almost 100% of the time now that it's dark out by 5pm, that's pretty darned important.
Nikons work better on the fly than Canons do: This is the biggie for me. Fully programmable Auto ISO, Auto Contrast, Auto Sharpness, Auto Saturation. Add em up, it all makes a big difference, especially when you consider that your eyes will automatically adjust to a lot of this stuff and won't necessarily notice an overly contrasty scene where you need to manually reduce contrast on your camera, or the opposite. Nikon takes care of this for you. My JPGs come out looking great in situations with a lot of changing light, and I see the Auto Contrast and Sharpness (and ISO!) being jerked around all over the place to give the best results. Canon will have you getting bogged down in the menus switching this all around, or you'll just have to shoot memory card and disk space clogging RAW and sort it out later. No need to on the Nikons for the most part. All of the automation on the Nikon bodies ensure that you'll have a pretty darn good picture straight off the camera, and what little adjustments you might need to make can easily be done on the JPGs - no need for RAW. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
Size, Shape, Feel, Ease of use, incl Menus, etc: Just try em out. The D40 and XTi are small for me. The D80 feels just right. The 30/40D and D200 are a bit big. But all of these are still probably smaller than my D80 with the MB-D80 grip on it (see post #359). I can still handle that fine, but why have a big bulky camera if you don't need it? I'll use my grip if I know I'm going to be out shooting all day (the zoo), or if I'm doing a lot of portrait mode shooting where the grip with the extra buttons just for that purpose are a ton more comfortable. Menus Nikon is awesome, Canon stinks, period, lol. Either it'll bother you or it won't. It bothers me. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif
So there's pros and cons to both systems. If you don't have much invested in equipment then NOW is the time to re-consider if you're going to jump ship to another system. Already did that and I'm sticking with Nikon. What I like in the Nikon system outweighs what I dislike, and is not enough for me to jump ship over to Canon. YMMV. This year and in previous years the vast majority of Nikon to Canon switchers did so for the superior pro level bodies like the 1D MkIIN and now the 1D/1Ds MkIII's with larger sensors, and much better high ISO performance. That stuff blew Nikon's pro level stuff away, and Nikon had no answer at all until the D3 was announced, which isn't even out yet. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/laugh.gif Somebody who wants to shoot their daughter's indoor gymnastic events needing high shutter speeds in a poorly lit gymnasium with no flash allowed TODAY is still gonna want to go out and get a Canon pro body. A D300 might just barely work with passable but gritty iso3200, but that isn't even out yet either (this week, we're told. http://www.v6performance.net/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif)
In summary: http://forums.maxima.org/images/smilies/rolling_eyes.gif