Nikon – A New Hope
Posted by: Fast Air Photography
Tags:
General Photography, Nikon D300
Posted date:
October 2, 2010
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6 Comments
Going over to Nikon is commonly referred to as ‘going over to the Dark Side’. A reference to the black lenses of Nikon against the white lenses of Canon combined with more than a hint of Star Wars thrown in (hence the New Hope title).
That’s exactly what I’ve done. I don’t want to make this post about if it was the right choice or which camera system is better. Those questions can only be answered by the photographer him or herself so it would serve no purpose for me to write about that.
Instead I’d like to write about my personal experience of moving to Nikon. Ever since I went to DSLRs I’ve been shooting Canon, I’ve never shot with any other brand. So, to move to Nikon means to learn a new system. First of all, the range of lenses for Nikon isn’t as large as Canon so I had to make some choices about which lenses to go for. For some this was easy, my Canon 300 f/2.8 L IS could be directly replaced with a Nikkor (the brand name Nikon uses for its lenses) 300 f/2.8 VR but for others such as the 24-105 L IS and 100-400 L IS there isn’t an equivalent.
I decided to replace the 24-105 L IS with the Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8. On paper a very different lens but I had tried the Canon version before getting the 24-105 but an incompatibly with my 7Ds had made me switch to the 24-105 so I knew what to expect.
The 100-400 L IS was replaced with the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR which I plan to use some of the time with a 1.4x teleconverter. The 70-200 was more of a risk as I’ve not shot with that lens before but the zoom range from Nikkor didn’t offer many options. The lens has a good reputation so I confident it will be a good choice.
The first problem I faced was the different layout of the controls. In some ways it reminded me of my first taste of the Canon 1D range where the controls and the menu system didn’t match up with the common system on the xxD and xxxD range. Even simple stuff like viewing the histogram for a photo had me pausing for a few minutes and more than a few occasions having to look in the manual.
Canon’s menu system is build around a selector wheel on the back with an ok button in the middle, a mode selection wheel on the top left and a dial on the right hand side to control the selected option e.g. shutter speed.
Nikon’s menu system has a primary selector dial on the back right hand side, a secondary selector dial on the front right and a multidirection button on the back. In addition to that is a selector for exposure, a selector for focus mode and a selector for AF mode.
The selectors make for a different experience when shooting and I stuffed up the first Hawk I shot because the AF mode selector was on the wrong setting. Easily done when the setting isn’t displayed on the LCD top screen or on the LCD display on the viewfinder (also the same for the focus mode). An area that Canon is clearly ahead of Nikon.
These shortcomings are offset by the auto-ISO setting which allows you to set the maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed and ability to set the FPS shooting speed.
With the settings dialled in it’s time to start shooting. The focus speed seems comparable with Canon kit, the tracking speed seems improved with a higher keeper rate than what I would usually expect (maybe partially down to the lower user selected FPS shooting speed) and of course the improved metering that had made me move. With my Canon kit I use to shoot using evaluative metering and dial in exposure compensation as needed after checking against the histogram. Shooting with Nikon I decided to allow the camera to take care of everything to see how it performed. This would give me a basis to work from and also tell me how well the LCD screen on the back represented the true image (the 7D LCD image was darker than the true image). My first outing with the camera produced some good results with the vast majority of the images metered well despite not making any adjustments to the compensation.
Physically, the build quality of the Nikon is very good. One noticeable improvement over the Canon kit is the top quality hoods that lock into place, compared to Canon’s (excluding the high end L primes) cheaper plastic hoods that are just screwed into place. One let down was the battery grip that covers but does not replace the internal battery. Meaning you have one battery accessible in the grip and another in the camera you have to remove the grip to get to. Canon’s design of having both batteries in the grip is much, much, better.
It’s still early days for the new system and a badly need to test it in the very challenging low level photography discipline but the initial results are promising.
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Hi Davide, I decided to change because I think the Nikon D300 suits my needs better than the 7D did. Whilst the 7D, and Canon on the whole, has served me well there has been a number of things I wasn’t so happy about. The biggest thing for me is the metering. There is no doubt in my mind the D300 meters better than the 7D, despite the 7D having a colour based metering system. The difference in good conditions is marginal but situations where it is tricky like being backlit the Nikon system does a better job. I’ve been aware of this for a long time but just put it down to one of those areas that Nikon is better than Canon. As time when on and I had a few chances to shoot side by side with a D300 & 300 f/2.8 photographer and compare photos under the same conditions. I could see the difference. The D300 was hitting the mark without needing to compensate. Where I was having to keep adjusting my setup to keep up with the conditions and not always succeeding. That started me thinking about if I could actually make the change.
I read up on the D300 some more and features like auto-ISO, the ability to choose your FPS, increased dynamic range and a smaller number of megapixels appealed to me. I’ll just highlight that last one. 18MP on the 7D is just overkill. Whilst thanks to the dual CPUs it handles the noise well over ISO 800 and still returns a good burst rate it has lost some of the advantages of the Digic IV chips just to give the marketing people a number to tout about.
These features were welcome but it is and always has been about the metering. It doesn’t sound a lot but it is crucial. Correct metering on a photo can mean the difference between a usable shot and not. The vast majority of the time I’m shooting in constantly changing lighting conditions so metering is very important to me. For a studio photographer with control of the lighting making this move wouldn’t have made sense. For me, I think it is.
I’d be interested to hear exactly what your “compatibility” issue was with the Canon 17-55 and 7D as I have this lens myself and am planning on upgrading to the 7D soon.
Hi Toby, the 17-55 f/2.8 IS would lock up both of my 7Ds when shooting with IS on, especially if shooting at a very low shutter speed. I would get anywhere between 2 or 10 frames shot then a lockup that require the camera to be powered off then on. I tried different firmware versions but the problem still occured. I wasn’t having the problem with any of my telephotos with IS so borrored a 17-85 IS to compare and that worked fine as well. Rejected the lens. The lens was tested on other bodies (non 7D bodies) by the shop and worked fine for them. I did google the problem and found other people with the same issue and others who had no problems with the 7D. if you can test the body before buying I’d take along your lens and give it a test.
Hi Gord
I too was interested in your move. I’ve stuck with Canon and for my sins gone for the 5DII, to be fair I’ve struggled with it, but prior to that I nearly shifted to Nikon. The reason being seeing some of the material TJ has kicking out seems to surpass much of the tradional Canon” users. Intrested did you notice the same?
Hi Chris, interesting question. There are a few notable names on the aviation forums, TJ being among them, that are producing some great images using Nikon kit. It would be hard not to notice and TJ was one of the people I spoke to about Nikon before making up my mind to move. That’s not to say there aren’t some great photos being shot with Canon kit but it does seem that the eye catching photos tend to be shot with Nikon at the moment.
Social Media
Hi Gordon, I’m following you on Twitter and I have followed your “change of side” of your equipment… but I don’t understand what caused that decision. Could you please tell me it? I’m still a Canon user and I’m really fine using it!
Thank you.
Bye
Davide