@ebiggs1 wrote:
The biggest and formost reason to go Canon is its lenses. Nobody makes the lens line-up Canon does.
I was just thinking the same thing.
Tony Northrup did a youtube video that touches on this topic. He prefers some of the Nikon bodies ... but when he evaluates which lenses he needs and uses every day to do his work... nobody else has the glass.
He compares a number of lenses, but he (like me) prefers to use the 70-200mm f/2.8 when shooting portraits. The long focal lengths produce a gorgeous result. But when you shoot a long focal length for a portrait that means you are using something near the max end of the zoom range... but focusing near the short-end of the focus distance range. This creates an issue called "breating".
All lenses "breath". When you move the lens elements inside the lens to focus, you also effect the true focal length of the lens. It means that if you zoom to the 200mm focal length and focus the camera to "infinity" your focal length probably really is 200mm (or very close to it.) But when you zoom to 200mm and then focus to minimum focus distance (or at least a focus distance comfortable for portrait framing at 200mm) the "true" focal length of the lens drops.
How much does focal length drop?
With a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II... the lens becomes at a 70-195mm lens. A loss of about 5mm from the long end.
With the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II... the performance is a bit different... a mere 60-130mm of focal length range.
That's a huge difference. The lens isn't anywhere even remotely close to a 200mm lens unless you focus at or near infinity. That means you lose the compression, the depth of field and background blur change, and the lens is no longer nearly as desirable.
He goes on to explain that even if you look at other brands (Sigma, Tamron, etc.) ... they don't make anything that can compare to Canon lens either. He considers maybe he could just use a prime... Canon makes a 200mm f/2.8 prime. Nikon... no such lens.
He goes on to make comparisons about other lenses too. But the ultimate conclusion is that Canon has the better lens lineup. It doesn't matter if you like Nikon's cameras better.
What I find interesting (and trying to be objective because at the end of the day I think that the most influentual factor in how good your images are... is your skill and not the body) is that THE thing that everyone likes about Nikon cameras... is their sensor. And ironically... they don't make that sensor -- Sony does. They do make everything else (so far as I know) but of their "everything else" -- it's not quite as good as what Canon makes (e.g. their shutter performance, their focus system performance, their flash/lighting system, and ... most importantly... their lens lineup.)
I hear the "dynamic range" thing over and over, but when I look at the examples people have to give, they REALLY have to go to extremes to make the point. I don't see it in my shots. I also see data that shows that as you go to high ISO the sensors trade places (Canon's top bodies have better DR at high ISO -- they only lose at base ISO).
I do like my Canon gear, but I fully recognize there is a lot of great gear out there and compared to the gear available when I was younger, even the gear you might reject today is better than what we had available not so very many years ago (photography has come a LONG way.) I think that many new camera buyers agonize more than they need to about their purchase decision. Frankly it's hard to buy a "bad" camera in 2015.
Most of what influences your images is (and I've ranked these in order)
1) YOUR skill. It doesn't matter if I buy a Steinway concert grand piano that's better than anything else on the market... if I don't know how to play the piano then it's going to painful to listen to me play it. YOU are the most important factor. If your gear is rubbish then it might be holding you back. But most modern gear is not rubbish and it's probably not the gear holding you back.
2) Lighting. I think this gets far less attention than it deserves. A bit of time setting up good lighting will net far more impressive results than a new camera body.
3) Lenses. I think this topic confuses people. They go on about "how sharp is it", but there are so many factors that have to be considered. "Breathing" being the one that Tony Northrup described (how many people shopping for a lens even know to check out the impact that "breathing" has on the lens performance.)
4) Camera body. And here it is... in last place. If skills are solid, lighting is there, and you've got a nice stable of quality glass THEN a new body might provide some improvement. But nearly every thread I see on camera shopping goes straight to the discussion about the body and ignores everything else.
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
