Re: Last Photographer Standing #2
Wow! Thanks everybody for your nice words on my pic!
That really made my days. Yeah, it is amazing what you can do with a macro lense.
Megan, I use the world's best starting into SLR photography camera - a digital SLR Canon 350 D with the standard 18-55 mm lense coming with it. I could try out another wideangle lense from Sigma for some time, but couldn't afford to buy it til now. Can't really specify what it was, but it was in any case better than the crappy one coming with the cam! I also have the above mentioned 60 mm EF macro lense and another 128-330 mm tele. Though the last one is an actual analog 80-200 mm lense for my old EOS 300 that works pretty well on the digital version.
I am CANON camp, I am just completely convinced about the camera's greatness
, though I have also extended experience with the NIKON D70s and even my heart doesn't hang on it with passion, I can tell that it is a very good camera as well.
Pro's Canon:
- Best colour adaption on pics I have ever seen on SP format level
- Small weight
- If you are used to Canon settings on a small or SLR cam, then you will easily be able to adapt blindly to the new camera
- on 400D - Self cleaning censor
- Low image noise, even on high ISO
- Quick cam, on doing pics, doing settings, loading flash
- filters are fitting from most of old analog cam/lenses (Ø 52/ Ø 56cm, no idea what this is in inches, about 18/20 I guess)
Con's Canon - yeah, also Canon has its flaws...
- 350D has sometimes autofocus problems, can't find focus point, especially when it's dark. You have to try several times to get to the result. (If you can focus on the right spot, then chosen spot is sharp!)
- Sometimes, for no obvious reason, my cam has a disfunction and doesn't work anymore. It shows me some random error number. Then I have to take out batterie, CF Card, wait for a minute and then get things back on. Happens, when I do loads of pics in a row, no obvious coherency to lense, flash or settings.
- Body has a weird textures, that gets a lot of "scratches" on, such as from finger nails and stuff. Can be cleaned easily, but always looks somewhat dirty. Can't really explain. Body isn't really plain, like unruffled, you know?
- 18-55 mm lense that comes with cam is crap. Replace it with a cheap from Tamron or Sigma and you will already definitely have better results on sharpness and on large aperture worked pics.
Pro's NIKON:
- Easy Flash settings, e.g. rear flash on quick setting button
- More focus points to choose from (11 instead of 9), therefore never experienced autofocus problems with that cam.
- lense coming with cam (18-70 mm) WAY better than that crappy thing from CANON. Greater range as well!
- cam body is better processed than the one from Canon
- Extremely quick cam in getting started and doing series shoots, very nice for sports photography, though somewhat slow on accepting setting changes.
- Extremely short shutter speed time (1/8000 s) (but also risk of Vignette on the pic's fringes)
Con's NIKON:
- Only from ISO 200 starting, no ISO 100 - weird to me...
- Big lense diameter but small censor results on large image noise even on low ISO
- pretty heavy-weighted, especially for small women hands!
Side strap would be helpful
- Colours are less impressive, typical NIKON problem, always was, always will
- Some buttons for settings are not really easy to access when you are already shooting. You have to take your other hand for help. As well buttons are not really intuitiv to use. Can get annoying, but maybe that's just because I am Canon camp and had trouble to get used to it.
- Hard aperture, results sometimes also in noisy pics as mentioned above. Depth sharpness is low even on larger aperture (around 6-8). Nice for art photography, annoying for random people photography.
- Big lense + UV filter results in reflections on actual pic when photographing directly into the sun such as at sunsets etc. (Can happen on CAnon as well, but not as often)
- As well amount of lense flares in pics is higher, user of "sun cap" is recommended.
Summary:
Bear with me, I am not an expert, just pretty ambitious on photography!
:lol: That's all just based on my personal experience and preference, so I won't vouch for its complete correctness.
If you like to travel and take loads of random shoots ony our trip, you will have more fun with Canon, cause it is small in weight, easy to handle and pretty alright for about every situation.
If you tend to do more art photography under studio conditions and use it for close ups and set ups such as portrait photography, Nikon has its advantages. For travel I didn't like it cause it was so heavy on my neck.
In any case with both cams, you can't do anything wrong.
Hope it helps.