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Author Topic: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?  (Read 52816 times)

Craig Lamson

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #80 on: December 04, 2018, 12:07:02 am »

The thing is there are a lot of photographers who are heavily invested in Canon lenses.

And many of us make very nice livings using those “obsolete and DR challenged” Canon cameras.  The constant chase for the next best thing can often be a fools errand.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #81 on: December 04, 2018, 02:53:13 am »

And many of us make very nice livings using those “obsolete and DR challenged” Canon cameras.  The constant chase for the next best thing can often be a fools errand.

It goes without saying that talent can compensate many product shortcomings.

Now the question remains, why did you pick Canon in the first place (my guess: because they were the best when you selected them) and do they still fit the bill?

Cheers,
Bernard

Rado

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #82 on: December 04, 2018, 06:30:50 am »

I've just picked up the EOS R. So far I'm very happy with it. Being able to AF fast lenses accurately all over the frame makes me giddy with anticipation for portrait shoots. I'm tempted to borrow the old 85/1.2L pickle jar and bokeh everything into oblivion in the next few months. Fun times ahead.
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JaapD

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #83 on: December 04, 2018, 06:44:12 am »

It goes without saying that talent can compensate many product shortcomings.

Now the question remains, why did you pick Canon in the first place (my guess: because they were the best when you selected them) and do they still fit the bill?

Cheers,
Bernard

Hi Bernard,

Don’t you (or we….) do exactly the same? You choose Nikon but in let’s say 4 year’s time  someone may ask you then “Now the question remains, why did you pick Nikon in the first place (my guess: because they were the best when you selected them) and do they still fit the bill?”.

I like your saying which brings me to “product can compensate many talent shortcomings”. Of course I’m going to deny this but what do you think, am I completely honest to myself here?

Regards and much respect for your photography, referring to your H6D-100c images in another thread, especially the one with the narrow street, houses with lanterns and foggy mountains.
Jaap

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hogloff

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #84 on: December 04, 2018, 10:11:44 am »

It goes without saying that talent can compensate many product shortcomings.

Now the question remains, why did you pick Canon in the first place (my guess: because they were the best when you selected them) and do they still fit the bill?

Cheers,
Bernard

You picked the z7...is it the best mirrorless camera...especially if one is not vested in Nikon lenses? It always comes back to what system you are vested in...not what is the best...otherwise you would have moved to Sony years ago as it was ( still is ) the best mirrorless system.
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jeremyrh

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #85 on: December 04, 2018, 10:15:22 am »

Thomas Heaton non-review of the EOS-R

https://youtu.be/VQJWYJ0bXyE
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Craig Lamson

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #86 on: December 04, 2018, 10:47:00 am »

It goes without saying that talent can compensate many product shortcomings.

Now the question remains, why did you pick Canon in the first place (my guess: because they were the best when you selected them) and do they still fit the bill?

Cheers,
Bernard

Why did I pick Canon in the first place? (when my equipment shelf was full of Horsemans, Sinars, Hasselblads and Nikons)  Because it was really the only game in town...the original 1Ds.  Why did I stay?  Because it continued to do the job and earn me money.  Never once, since I purchased that 1Ds and went full digital has a single client asked me to use anything specfic.   

I shot with an old 5dII until about 2 years ago and had it been repairable I think I still would be using it. I never had a complaint about image quality.  I bought an 6D to replace it and backed it up with my 1DsIII. I continued to use that 6d until I decided on a 5Ds (which I bought used), because the 1DsIII was just too much camera to carry around.  My clients never noticed the difference when I began using the 5DS, and I'm only using it for the ability to crop.  Amazingly, given all of this "subpar" equipment I still enjoy a healthy client list.

My competition uses Canon, Nikon and Sony and none of us gets hired based on the camera system we use.  The upgrade chase is costly and rarely has a ROI.  I know it all too well because in the beginning of digital world I played it too.  No longer.   Back in the film days 20 year old cameras and lenses were the norm.  Ektachrome changed very little and boy did it have a narrow DR.  Somehow we continued to produce images our clients wanted to buy.  I'm not really finding any "product shortcomings" in the Canon cameras I continue to use to feed my family. 

Now if you feel the need to chase the dragon, for whatever reason, more power to you.  But here is some real world experience.  Canon cameras still create lots of valuable images and continue to create wealth for a of photographers.

Of course, YMMV.

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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #87 on: December 04, 2018, 01:04:17 pm »

I do understand and agree with you Craig.

Now, for the sake of the discussion, what were the elements that led you to think back in the days that the 1Ds was the only game in town relative to other cameras?

Cheers,
Bernard

Dan Wells

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #88 on: December 04, 2018, 03:54:40 pm »

While I'm not the person the question was directed to, the 1Ds had the first major-manufacturer full-frame sensor (and this was before the current crop of APS-C ultrawide lenses - you could get to 16mm pretty easily on full-frame, but the widest APS-C lens was also around 16mm, so you were limited to a ~24mm field of view). It also had by far the highest resolution of any major-manufacturer DSLR at the time(the hedging is due to the weird Kodak DSLR (14n, SLR-N and SLR-C) line that used low-quality consumer bodies, but a FF sensor that actually out-resolved the 1Ds). According to the reviews, it was real pain to shoot, but capable of very good image quality for the time if you stayed within their narrow parameters (which pretty much meant staying at base ISO with shutter speeds under a second). The restrictions for decent image quality were unlike the 1Ds, which was heavy, but otherwise a very flexible camera that produced images several years ahead of its time...

What's happened now is that all reasonable interchangeable lens digital cameras (again, for the sake of completeness, this doesn't apply to Pentax Q cameras with tiny sensors, nor to some of the odd cameras we've seen with "Polaroid" or "Kodak" nameplates that have nothing to do with those companies, and maybe not to the Nikon 1) produce images so good, and are so flexible that they are perfectly usable way outside the use cases they were meant for...

The Nikon Z7 is really a landscape camera - and it's a great one... It's pretty much 4x5" level low-ISO IQ in a tiny package that'll take most any weather, with some sharp lenses that fit nicely in a backpack. Think of it as a 4x5" field camera that happens to get a few hundred shots in its film holder. Who'd ever shoot sports with a 4x5"? Very few people since Oskar Barnack first stuffed movie film into a metal cylinder - and certainly nobody outside of a few iconoclasts looking for a very different image since the first Nikon F with a motor drive. Yet a Z7 will do a credible job as a sports camera - there are much better tools, but if all you've got is a Z7 or two, an FTZ adapter and a couple of long lenses, you could go right into the camera pit at Fenway Park and shoot the game (while wishing you hadn't forgotten the D5 at home - it tracks focus a lot better). The most inappropriate possible current camera to shoot a sporting event will still do a better job than any film camera ever could, and better than any digital camera more than five years old.

Conversely, Micro 4/3 is the worst possible currently manufactured choice for high-detail landscape. It gives up resolution and dynamic range to any larger sensor - in return for speed you don't need for landscape. If you're standing on a mountain with nothing but an E-M1 mkII (really a dedicated sports/action camera) and a decent lens, use it! You probably got there with that gear because you were shooting skiers, for which the fast, rugged Olympus is a perfect choice, but want to grab a few scenes as well... Yes, it's the modern-day equivalent of shooting landscape with a motor-driven Nikon F3 with 800 speed film (about as likely a choice as sports with a wooden field camera), but it does a much better job than that... Again, the most inappropriate possible choice today is better than any 35mm film, and as good as any possible digital camera until late 2008 (a very expensive D3x could solidly beat the much newer Olympus at high-detail landscape).

Not only can two specialized cameras do a credible job at each other's specialties, but the broad range of ~24 MP generalist cameras will do a great job at most photographic tasks. Whether you have a Canon 6D mk II, 5D mkIV or EOS-R, a Sony a7 mkII or mkIII, a Nikon D610, D750 or Z6, a Fuji X-T2, X-T, X-Pro-2 or X-H1, or (for the iconoclast) a Pentax KP, you have a camera that does just about everything darned well. Navigate slightly sparse APS-C lens lines and you can add Nikon's D7x00 and D500, Canon's 77D, 80D and even the high end of the EOS-M line, and Sony's A6x00 line to the list. Dealing with both sparse lenses and limited controls, the inexpensive Sony A5100, Canon Rebel (anything from the past bunch of years) and Nikon D3x00/D5x00 lines also produce excellent images.




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Craig Lamson

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #89 on: December 04, 2018, 07:26:34 pm »

I do understand and agree with you Craig.

Now, for the sake of the discussion, what were the elements that led you to think back in the days that the 1Ds was the only game in town relative to other cameras?

Cheers,
Bernard

It was quite simple.  It was the only game in town.  Can you suggest another camera of that era to compare it with?
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hogloff

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #90 on: December 04, 2018, 07:40:53 pm »

It was quite simple.  It was the only game in town.  Can you suggest another camera of that era to compare it with?

Yep...it was in the era where Nikon was asking "who needs full frame".
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #91 on: December 04, 2018, 08:11:43 pm »

It was quite simple.  It was the only game in town.  Can you suggest another camera of that era to compare it with?

I probably wasn’t clear enough. What were the characteristics that made it the only game in town? Being FF in itself isn’t a useful spec IMHO, this is just a means to an end.

Cheers,
Bernard

Craig Lamson

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #92 on: December 04, 2018, 08:33:38 pm »

I probably wasn’t clear enough. What were the characteristics that made it the only game in town? Being FF in itself isn’t a useful spec IMHO, this is just a means to an end.

Cheers,
Bernard

Maybe not a useful spec to you. It was of utmost importance to me. As stated by another poster, the Kodak offerings were simply not up to the job.  Nothing else existed.  I shoot (and still do) confined space interiors.  Crop cameras of the day were not useable for my needs.

The 1ds was a really great camera.  I’m still amazed when I look at the quality those 11mp captured.  It was a game changer.

I found some old files the other day, a test still life scene, captured as a test using the 1Ds and my Betterlight scan back on a Horseman.  I’m guessing this was around 2003 with going back to find the files.  The 1ds file held up surprisingly well campared to betterlight scan.  The Betterlight back, as cool as it was, left a lot to be desired with studio tungsten lighting.  It never was a valuable tool for me.  That original 1Ds however.....






« Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 08:41:24 pm by Craig Lamson »
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hogloff

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #93 on: December 04, 2018, 08:41:31 pm »

Maybe not a useful spec to you. It was of utmost importance to me. As stated by another poster, the Kodak offerings were simply not up to the job.  Nothing else existed.  I shoot (and still do) confined space interiors.  Crop cameras of the day were not useable for my needs.

The 1ds was a really great camera.  I’m still amazed when I look at the quality those 11mp captured.  It was a game changer.

Very much the same with the original 5d...the quality of those pixels still amaze me.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #94 on: December 04, 2018, 09:20:18 pm »

Thanks for your feedbacks.

I used to own the Kodak and it was very limited indeed, but great within what it could do well. It took 10 years and the D810 at ISO64 to equal the cleanliness of the Kodak files at ISO6.

I have to confess that the Betterlight never worked for me...

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 09:23:42 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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Craig Lamson

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #95 on: December 05, 2018, 12:28:39 pm »

Thanks for your feedbacks.

I used to own the Kodak and it was very limited indeed, but great within what it could do well. It took 10 years and the D810 at ISO64 to equal the cleanliness of the Kodak files at ISO6.

I have to confess that the Betterlight never worked for me...

Cheers,
Bernard

In case you are interested, here are the samples I was referencing.  Both are 100% png's.  I really have no clue as to the post processing that was done on these images, other than the 1Ds file was processed with C1 v3  Please note that the Betterlight file is about 144mb.

http://www.craiglamson.com/sample/betterlight.png

http://www.craiglamson.com/sample/1Ds.png

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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #96 on: December 05, 2018, 10:28:36 pm »

Shot on the original 1DS at 1250 iso. At the time this was a revelation for me. Full frame so all wide angle lenses suddenly available and I had not seen anything including film that could shoot like this in the dark. Seems ordinary now. January 2004, Kathmandu
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hogloff

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #97 on: December 05, 2018, 10:57:48 pm »

Great photo no matter what camera took this image...yesterday, today or tomorrow.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #98 on: December 06, 2018, 03:40:37 am »

Shot on the original 1DS at 1250 iso. At the time this was a revelation for me. Full frame so all wide angle lenses suddenly available and I had not seen anything including film that could shoot like this in the dark. Seems ordinary now. January 2004, Kathmandu

Nice image indeed, thanks for sharing.

I had to wait until 2008 and the D3 to be able to visit Kathmandu (in fact I think this one was shot around Phurte if I recall correctly).  ;D



Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: December 06, 2018, 03:48:40 am by BernardLanguillier »
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Ray

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Re: Mirrorless war - Canon vs Nikon - who is the current winner?
« Reply #99 on: December 07, 2018, 11:00:45 pm »

Nice image indeed, thanks for sharing.

I had to wait until 2008 and the D3 to be able to visit Kathmandu (in fact I think this one was shot around Phurte if I recall correctly).  ;D

Cheers,
Bernard

Interesting photo, Bernard. But why did you not raise the shadows, especially considering that the D3 was renowned for its ground-breaking low noise?  ;)

Is this version not better? Hope you don't mind.
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