Consolidating with Nikon?

Hello Folks,

I am a Canon digital user (1D Mark III and 5D Classic) plus a film user (still)! On the digital side, I mostly use the 1D for sports: my sons rugby, cricket and hockey matches. A long reach (lens-wise) is important - especially with rugby - and I recently bought a 100-400L lens, as I was disappointed when using my 70-200 F4L IS with a 1.4 extender. The new (old) lens has been an improvement in one regard (reach) but it does suffer in low light. I guess this is because the 1D series rewards users of F2.8 lenses (in terms of focus accuracy) as the majority of points revert to 'non-cross type' at F4 or above. This - I believe - is an advantage of the D3 and later Nikons, where F5.6 lenses still 'enjoy' cross-type focus accuracy.

As a film user too, I tried to stay with Canon, and went through a number of FD cameras (AE1, AE Program, A1 and F1N) before realising that I didn't really like the bodies for one reason or another. Additionally, I tried to use the FD lenses (with an adapter) on my Canon digital cameras, and found the results to be a little haphazard. As such, I tried other models (Olympus and Minolta) and eventually settled on Nikon. I really like using these cameras for fun on holiday, and they proved to be reliable last year when I used slide film for the first time.

My obvious course of action is to sell-off my Canon gear, and buy a Nikon D3 with a 70-200 F2.8 and the 1.7 extender. Instead of the 130-520 F4.5-5.6 range that I currently have, this setup would allow for a 119-510 F4.8 (approx.) range, with the longer end utilising the DX crop function. For everything else, I could either use my older cameras, or the older manual focus lenses on the D3. This seems pretty appealing to me, but would involve selling all of my Canon gear in order to fund the switch. Obviously this is a risky business, and I don't want to 'back the wrong horse.'

Has anyone any experience in using both the D3 and Canon 1D Mark III, and can comment on:

• frame rate - I have read that the D3 runs at 9-11 fps, but has a buffer that is small, meaning only 2 or 3 seconds capture is possible. If this is true, then the Canon is better with a 110 jpeg burst at 10fps providing approximately 11 seconds of 'action.' Is this correct?
  
• I also read that the frame rate is highly dependant on the camera settings - i.e. higher ISO values slow things down, as does using the Auto ISO function (which I like very much!). Can anyone comment on this?
  

1. 1D Mark III
   
2. 5D Classic
   
3. 1V
   
4. 17-40 F4L
   
5. 70-200 F4L IS
   
6. 100-400 F4.5-5.6L
   
7. 1.4 Extender (Version II)
   

1. F4
   
2. F3
   
3. FE
   
4. 28, 35, 50 and 105mm mm Ai lenses
   

Wow: 89 reads but no answers! I must have asked a hard question!

I'll try another. Does anyone have experience of using a D3 and a 1D Mark III in low light - i.e. indoor stadiums or evening hockey games? Which is the better of the two in terms of focus accuracy and tracking?

I never shot with either body your asking about.

Have you thought about a D3S or D4? They have been coming down since the D5 is around the corner.

I do like the fact you can use all the older AI and AIS lenses on the nikon with no issues And some of that old glass is still really sharp.

I've since bought an F2S and an EOS M: neither of which have helped me to make a decision

haha. I really, really like my D4 and as mentioned above, it will operate AI and AIs lenses. The D5 rumours are getting stronger and stronger recently with some "actual pre-production body" shots being posted too, so that may help to push prices of used D4 and D4s bodies down a bit more. For me the D4 is a much better body than the D3/D3s all round, the only drawback being the expensive XQD memory (though once you've put a heap of photos through it, the memory card is cheap in comparison to film )

The D4 (and D3/D3s), actually every Nikon DSLR to date, is constrained in its AF array in that the nice cross sensitive points are grouped in the centre of the frame. I'm dreaming the D5 might remedy that.

The 1D3 has cross sensitive points spread pretty evenly across the frame including right out on the edges, in fact from my reading all 19 user selectable points are cross sensitive and f/2.8 sensitive to horizontal contrast (the remaining 26 assist points are not). I remember the 1D3 had a very good reputation for servo tracking in low light conditions too. Better than a D3 or D3s? I don't know but I'd be surprised if the Nikons were better. Fwiw I remember a number of complaints when the 1D4 was released that its AF was not as good as the 1D3 in low light

To your questions about frame rate:
I haven't used a D3 or D3s but did have a gripped D700 before upgrading to the D4. In jpeg only the D700 would never fill its buffer at 8fps (with the D3 battery in the grip) but would run into a software hard limit of frames (maybe 200). The D3s had a larger buffer for shooting raw/NEF than the D700 and D3. I think the D700 (and I'm pretty sure the D3 as well) would get to something like 19 raws (raw only, no duplicate jpg) before slowing as the buffer off loaded to the CF. This may be where the 2-3 seconds you read comes in. The D3s goes further thanks to its bigger buffer. If you're thinking of shooting jpeg only you won't have to worry about the buffer though.

Frame rate, the D3 shot at a max of 8fps and the D3s at a max of 9fps, in both cases maintaining AF drive between shots in AF-C. The D4 will get up to 10fps with AF drive between shots and 11fps without.

I can't talk to slowing of frame rate due to high ISO but did use AutoISO on my D700 pretty much all the time and can't remember any slow down with that.

Hope that helps a little

smythie wrote in post #17820279
The 1D3 has cross sensitive points spread pretty evenly across the frame including right out on the edges, in fact from my reading all 19 user selectable points are cross sensitive and f/2.8 sensitive to horizontal contrast (the remaining 26 assist points are not). I remember the 1D3 had a very good reputation for servo tracking in low light conditions too. Better than a D3 or D3s? I don't know but I'd be surprised if the Nikons were better. Fwiw I remember a number of complaints when the 1D4 was released that its AF was not as good as the 1D3 in low light

I think that the 'drawback' for the 1D Mark III and IV is that the cross-type sensors only work with lenses of F2.8 or better. For 'above' that, they are horizontal sensitive only. I think the Nikon sensors are cross-type up to F5.6 - something that only changed for Canon with the 7D Mark II and 1DX and 5D Mark III