One of the more frequent questions to arrive in my inbox roots itself in the great debate of Canon vs. Nikon: “Why do you shoot with a Canon?”
The answer is simple and based in convenience, not research. The majority of my friends these days are photographers. And the majority of those friends shoot with Canons. This means that a free exchange of lenses generally occurs when we are out shooting together.
For the above shot, I had taken the day off from work to go shoot the California Academy of Sciences with Thomas Hawk. As we entered the Rain-forest exhibit, Thomas offered me usage of his 100mm macro lens. “Get really, really, really close,” he said.
The tip of the lens was literally 2 inches from this butterfly’s eyeball when I pressed the shutter release.
I’m not trying to start a flame war, but I believe comparing nikon to canon is comparing apples to apples. Nikon and Canon both excel in their fields (as well as leica/olympus/sony etc) It really isn’t the camera that makes the image it is the photographer. That being said, I am a canon shooter myself. When my old canon Rebel X bit the bullet in 2007 ( I was late to the digital game) I had three EF lenses that needed some more canon love. Thus i purchased an camera that was compatible with my lenses.
Bmw and mercedes both make great cars
-L
ps.
I forgot to mention pentax
superfantastic bats1234 has a great eye and certainly knows how to play with light. He has some fantastic images from his pentax.
http://www.flickr.com/people/bats1234/
I’m with you. I’ve used Nikon and Canon but both on a very limited basis. I didn’t use either for enough time to truly weigh on on the differences.
However, over 90% of my friends who have DSLRs, use Canons so therefore, that’s what I bought. Advice, help, support and sometimes lenses. It’s just the best option for me. If I bought a Nikon, there would be 1 guy I could turn to for help so that’s what made sense.
I have been looking at those Sony cameras lately. The full frame ones. They are cheaper than a 5d mkII. Sony dSLRs are technically Minolta (Sony bought Minolta) so all of the legacy Minolta lenses work with the system. All those lenses, which are of fantastic quality, are pretty cheap on Ebay these days.
As someone else pointed out, the image difference between the three different brands (at this level of camera tech) is not that different. It just comes down to budget and bells & whistles.
Funny…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnwf2RShNV0
ive used only Canon point-n-shoot’s and an XTI for the past 3 years. my favorite personal shot to date was from a point-n-shoot.
just recently i upgraded to a 5D MKII to help me shoot after work during the winter. there were so many images that ive missed stopped down to 1.4/ISO 1600 on the XTi, my frustrations with the technical limits cost me $2699. it seems to be a pretty powerful camera so far. with the range is currently have (17-35 F/2.8, 50 F/1.4, 28-135 F/3.5, 135 F/2.0) i dont see myself spending much more on gear for a while.
well, maybe another 1TB internal HD to handle those 21mp RAW files
bats1234, is making some beautiful images with his Pentax. it never ceases to amaze me with him!