Tom Feiler

Considering the big news from Canon last week, and the persistant rumblings around the studio of how “Nikon is on its way back”, todays TGIW will be a WrestleMania of sorts.

Ladies and gents, please meet your warriors.

Some thoughts from studio staff when posed with the simple question, “Canon vs Nikon, 5DMKIII vs D800, who wins the fight?”

Ryan Enn Hughes

I’ve been a Canon shooter since I started taking pictures, but switched just this past Fall to shoot Nikon. I think both companies make great products that cater to a wide variety of photography applications. I made the change when I came to the conclusion that a fast and reliable autofocus system was the most important thing to me and my style of photography when shooting with a DSLR. At the time I had a 5DMKII, and while the files from this camera were incredible to work with (really impressive actually), I found the autofocus system (in my model at least) to be consistently inaccurate despite factory repairs, and lens micro adjustments. I ended up testing Nikon’s D3 and it just worked – every image was sharp. I decided to purchase a Nikon D3, and have been very happy with it. While I have switched over to a Nikon system, I still do rent Canon gear at times, as there are some advantages in shooting with a Canon 1DMKIV over a Nikon D3 or D3s – particularly with burst rate and buffer times. I’m pretty excited about the new camera systems being released by both companies – I’ll have to test them for myself before I can come to any serious conclusions.

George Simhoni

I used to shoot Nikon when film was my forte, and immediately went with the 1D when it came out because it looked the most like film to me. Since then I have been a Canon fan.I tried Nikons along the way, but really didn’t like their chip size because of my lensing aspect ratio issues.
I have stuck with Canon in motion as well because it holds up. I did a piece called Sambaheads and the result was amazing, thus I have no reason to switch at this stage.

Gabe Nivera (George’s 1st Assistant)

It doesn’t matter.

Let me qualify that statement. Both Canon and Nikon make great products and both companies have dropped the ball on products; be it in failing to implement new technology fast enough or crippling their own products to keep the pro-level products more desirable.

To date, both have an excellent line up of bodies and lenses; the prosumer grade products are just as at home in the gear bags of our photographers as the top level cameras and lenses.

If you want to get all technical, go over to Dx0 Labs and they can tell you which sensors are best, which lenses are sharpest, or more neutral, have least amount of fall off or aberration, technobabble that people seem to get hot and bothered about. But to be honest, we like certain lenses for their flaws because we get great images from them. We have purposely kept a soft 16-35 L lens and not upgraded it because it’s soft in the corners and distorts; it gives images a storybook feel vs a technically perfect image.

Ergonomics matter too; I personally like how Nikons feel in my hand and how their menu structure is formatted, but that’s all a matter of preference and habit as other people love how Canons feel. Both these companies are industry leading and will be around for a while; you wont be making a mistake picking either.

In the end, it’s a tool; pick a platform and invest in the glass. There a jobs where we use only 35mm format because of the portability and low light capabilities. Then there are jobs where 35mm format is totally unsuited for the file delivery requirements. You should worry more about properly lighting it, exposing it, and processing the image.

Tom Feiler

Not being the most technical guy in the world I like things simply. Like apple pie simple versus the mathematical concept Pi. That being said I was a huge Nikon guy when there was a Kodak in the world, but they let me down in the dawning digital age. I’m with a new lady now and her name is Canon and this is for her.

TGIW children.

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