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Articles and Reviews
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Nikon
versus Canon
I use Nikon equipment but I like Canon equipment too. There I’ve said it and I haven’t been struck by lightning. The Nikon gods have not cursed me and I don’t think Canon really gives a rat’s ass one way or the other if I were to switch over to their system. Now if my name were Moose or Galen, you can be damn sure that they would and Canon would probably pay Moose or Galen a bucketful of money and a truckload of equipment to do the switch with a huge, splashy advertising campaign to promote the switch. Probably an artsy type of ad with a black and white photo of me holding an enlarged color print of one of my creations with Canon equipment and a few quotes that I would have been paid to utter to trump up the Canon technology and…oh…I’m sorry, that’s already been done. I forgot the shameless selling of out Art Wolfe, et al in the various print ads running currently. I’m kidding now with the above paragraph and I don’t want it to seem like I’m disparaging the fine photographers who have made equipment changes. However, the sarcastic tone of the paragraph is typical of the diehards from both sides of the 35mm fence trying to duke it out for supremacy in the brand wars. With my own inherent biases, I get the impression that Canon and its users have an inferiority complex. The most voracious comments seem to come from them and Nikon supporters are certainly no slouches at slinging mud. Canon the company seems compelled to highlight the virtues of their technology and attempt to justify technology for its own sake with shallow endorsements from pro photographers. Marketing seems to be the major directive of Canon and it appears to have been very successful among the low-end consumer market, re: the ignorant consumer market that neither knows nor cares about eye-controlled focus or USM or Silent Wave or whatever else is being flogged by any camera company. If it loads film easily, if it focuses when the button is pressed and if the exposure is automatic then great but otherwise leave the entry-level consumer out of the debate. Actually, that’s why APS was derived but that’s another essay. Be that as it may, for all of Canon’s inferiority complex marketing, the company does make some fine and very innovative products that are of real use to photographers in various fields. Let me try and define some of these from my perspective. Ultra Sonic Motors. Ultra silent in focusing but not necessarily ultra fast in focusing as the Nikon F90x is about the equal of the EOS 1n in focusing speed and this despite the F90x’s old style screw-type focusing method whereas all EOS lenses utilize a lens motor for focusing except for some special application lenses such as the Tilt/Shift lenses. Silent operation can be misleading as the mind can be led to believe that silent focusing is equated with instantaneous focusing but various tests and comparisons reveal that old style screw focusing can be every bit as fast. A number of hands on users and owners of the newest Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8 AF-S lens upgraded from the last of the old style version, which was the two-ring, tripod-mount one. They report that the focusing was only just faster then the older version but other advantages of the AF-S version helped to make the very large increase in price more palatable. These advantages are obviously available on the Canon version also. Since I last wrote this I have had the opportunity to try some Canon USM lenses and have found some differences but nothing particularly meaningful between them and top notch screw mount lens drives so far as focusing speed is concerned. Full time manual focusing is a bigger deal than the AF speed of USM vs. screw drive. The advantages of the USM or AF-S lenses are less hunting in focusing then the old screw-type, silent operation so less intrusion in a given environment, and the most important, the ability to override the autofocusing and revert to manual focusing instantaneously. The last advantage is something that most autofocus Nikon users have desired ever since Canon developed the technology. It’s just that they were unable to acknowledge that any company could trump big N although Canon users like to point out that big C has done it a number of times. Although Nikon has eight AF-S lenses and counting Canon still enjoys a major advantage in implementation of the lens motor into a large number of lenses. Nikon must still continue to support the F mount for a long time to come and that means being able to mount new lenses on older bodies. I didn’t appreciate this virtue until I bought my own manual focus Nikon body and two manual focus lenses. By staying away from the truly old pre-AI designs I can mount any lens to any of my bodies and vice versa. It makes for a cost effective way to enjoy lenses that I wouldn’t have otherwise bought new such as my AIS 200mm f4 Micro lens, a lens that I use mostly on my autofocus bodies. This backward compatibility has liabilities too though. By having to work within the constraints of the dated F mount Nikon engineers probably had a more difficult time in implementing the newer technology into the lenses and still maintain compatibility with mechanical bodies and state of the art autofocus bodies. By design or by policy even the latest AF-S lenses are not compatible with one of the most recent bodies the F60 and its predecessor the F50. Rightly or wrongly Nikon decided that entry level consumers would not mate cheaper bodies with very expensive Silent Wave designs. Nikon has created a two tier mount by taking away the ability to use Silent Wave with lessor bodies and in essence has already come up with a new mount that is F in name only. This seems to mimic Canon to a certain degree, which I’ll discuss more in the Canonization of Nikon section. This could also be seen as testament to Nikon engineers who are able to implement the latest technology into the F mount instead of giving up on it a la Canon. From this example it would seem that Canon could have kept the old FD mount and implement autofocus as Nikon did. What the two tier mount policy and the requirement for backwards compatibility suggests is that Nikon will not be putting lens motors into every lens such as Canon. Only the very best and most expensive designs will receive the AF-S designation in the future while the consumer quality designs will continue to use the screw blade for focusing. What every Nikon user wants though is for Nikon to hurry up and revamp the entire lens line up to reflect the shift to AF-S in all the top designs outside of the super telephotos and pro-quality zoom lenses. I don’t necessarily disagree with Nikon in keeping Silent Wave in only the best designs but like everyone else I wanted it yesterday. We should keep in mind that Canon uses the best version of USM in their premium L series lenses and that some of the lower end lenses from Canon may not have the benefit of Full Time Manual focus control despite the use of USM. The unwashed masses who buy the lowest-end camera kits are worse off as they are stuck with a Micro Motor for slow and sometimes noisy autofocusing too. Canon's consumer line of lenses has a number of sexy lenses that incorporate USM along with IS.
Update April 2006 - Canon filed a patent in 1986 for their IS technology. This doesn't necessarily mean that Canon is the sole pioneer for image stabilization technology, as other companies were working on their own IS technology. It's interesting to note how such similar technologies can be patented by so many different companies based on minor changes or nuances here and there, eg. Canon's USM and Nikon's AF-S lens motors. Photo journalists and sports photographers will all love the idea of having a higher percentage of sharp images when they use IS capable long-lenses handheld or on monopods. Wildlife photographers who see minute vibrations soften their images of animals or birds will appreciate being able to counteract the wind or other causes of vibration on their tripod-mounted super long lenses. The ambient light photographer would love the idea of being able to handhold a lens at least two stops slower then he would have to for a given focal length. Should Canon ever introduce IS into their super fast wide angle lenses then I should imagine a whole sector of photography writhing in orgasmic delight at the idea of being able to handhold a 24mm f1.4 lens at 1/8 of a second and still get a sharp image. I know I would go crazy over it but I have to keep in mind that such a hypothetical lens would be outrageously expensive if actually produced but could you also imagine the possibilities of IS on Canon’s 50mm f1.0 lens? The newish Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L USM IS lens has been highly touted and I admit to salivating over it myself. Fantastic zoom range at a very reasonable minimum aperture value and apparently very good optics too. Nikon simply can’t answer on this front and indeed Nikon can’t even give its users a much clamored for 400mm f5.6 lens with autofocus, never mind Silent Wave or any sort of IS. Since this writing Nikon has introduced the 80-400mm VR lens but user reports indicate very slow AF speeds thanks to Nikon's continued resistance to incorporate AF-S in anything except their best and most expensive lenses. Note though, Moose Peterson has apparently sold his 80-200mm AF-S in favour of the 80-400mm VR, interesting. IS is a very real and useful piece of technology that I and many other users would be happy to have access to and I think all the ranting from Nikon users is simply a jealous mask that also showed its ugly head when USM was being derided, until Silent Wave came out of course, then every Nikon user saw the virtue of full time manual focusing control. I should state that given my own shooting needs, I would like to have IS more in fast, wide-angle lenses with fewer requirements in long lenses. I’m not sure why Canon hasn’t come out with IS in the pro class of zoom lenses yet. If they did that then they would dominate the press market again by giving the PJ a very real tool to use in the range of lenses covering 17-35, 28-70 and 80-200 all f2.8. I thought it was because the lenses were too small for two motors but they have already put IS and USM together in the 100-400, which is about the same size as the 70-200 and the 28-135mm also has USM and IS together in a lens about the same size as the two smaller pro zooms. Curious but if and when they do that will be a killer combo and make me really agonize over a switch. Canon is apparently preparing to introduce the IS version of their excellent 70-200mm f2.8 lens for Fall 2001 - just in time for trials at the Winter Olympics. Since Nikon has introduced the Mark II versions of all of their super telephotos this spring, do not expect to see VR with AF-S anytime soon if ever. Nikon may have some technical difficulties trying to mate the two lens technologies successfully. Eye-Controlled Focusing. Of all the innovations that Canon has developed this one is the most gimmicky but also the one that holds the most promise for the future. Every piece of technology has to go through various generations to mature and become accepted and viable by the mainstream. Computers started off as huge mainframe devices that had to be housed in special air conditioned warehouses and had less power then my no-longer current PIII 700 MHz. Nobody could afford them in the beginning and I believe it was the president of IBM who declared that the entire world only needed five of them way back in the 1940s when computers began their life span. Eye-controlled focus or ECF is the same IMHO. ECF began as marketing hype in its original implementation in the A2E (EOS 5). I have a brochure on the A2E and at least 50% of it is about ECF with cursory explanations on what the rest of the camera could do. Many users, especially those wearing glasses found that ECF didn’t work for them and they turned it off. Then ECF was improved and came out in its second-generation iteration in the Elan IIE. The Elan IIE only had three focus points but this time ECF worked for more people but still not quite acceptable. Now we have the third version of ECF in the EOS3 and perhaps now it has reached the point where ECF will work for most people who will take the time to calibrate it properly. However, I’m of the opinion that ECF now is still not worth the trouble until Canon realizes its logical and fully functional state when 100% of the viewfinder will be ECF and not just 25% as in the EOS3. This may well be what is coming with the anticipated release of the EOS1n’s replacement but then again maybe not. It should be a realistic expectation that any EOS2 (or whatever it will be called) would have a larger ECF zone then the EOS3 and perhaps it will only be 50% but the writing is on the wall that 100% coverage is going to be coming and not if. So much for my abilities as a pyschic as the EOS 1v uses the same type of AF and exposure metering as the EOS 3 without ECF. Canon probably received enough feedback from their pro users who generally eschew frippery such as ECF, not to incorporate ECF in their flagship camera. I still like its potential for the future though. ECF fully realized would not be a make or break situation for capturing great images but it will, as with USM and IS, make it easier for the photographer to concentrate on the subject and not the equipment. I’m fully used to the Nikon focus shuffle of locking an off center subject first and then recomposing the shot. Unlike Art Wolfe, I haven’t felt it to be so terribly hampering to my ability to get a shot because it has become a natural technique for me to do so but I would enjoy the ability to just simply compose the shot and then look at my subject to get it in focus. Again, until the viewfinder coverage is 100%, ECF is not a big deal, but it will be very big when it is. Technology in General There are going to be two major reasons to buy into Canon, the lenses and the technology. The lenses I’ll talk about below but first the technology. If you buy into Canon and don’t buy into the technology available then you will have wasted your money, in my humble opinion. In other words any major camera manufacturer is going to have the goods available to satisfy your low end needs, not just Nikon but Minolta and Pentax too. Since we’re all serious photographers here let us cut to the chase and let me lay it all out. Anything less then an A2E from Canon is going to be a waste and I feel the same about Nikon too. Anything less then the F90x is not worth looking at because anything less will not serve the needs of a serious photographer as well. I say this even though I own a F70 body as a supplement to my F90x but I would sell of the F70 even though I have a soft spot for it because it’s not built as well as the F90x, it has a slower sync speed, and most annoyingly, it takes expensive lithium CR123s that don’t last as long as regular AA cells in the F90x and that’s with not using the built-in flash of the F70. For Canon, I see nothing compelling about the Elan II except for it quiet operation but other then that it has the same failings as the F70. This is not surprising given that they are both mid-level bodies competing for the same consumer market. I know a few people who have bought Elan II bodies and like them but none bought the ECF version and when they go on about how good Canon technology is I roll my eyes because they cheaped out and opted out of one of the major raison d’être of Canon. This is just as well though since the ECF is pretty narrow in coverage in the Elan IIE so why bother spending another $100 for an unnecessary feature. Speaking of savings, this is another major reason why the people I know who bought Canon did so. Canon products are generally cheaper then their Nikon equivalents especially in the Rebel line of bodies. Lots of features in the Rebel bodies but take out the glass prism for a mirror one and then take out the metal lens mount for a plastic one then make the body out of plastic instead of hybrid metal/plastic and you can see how Canon was able to lower the cost. You get what you pay for and mucho plastic build can come back and bite you on the ass. Reports of built-in flashes failing to pop up when required or sub command dials failing with little use do not make for confidence inspiring use. The EOS3 supposedly carries on this rather questionable design trait of significant plastic content but when I hefted it at the store I was impressed by the weight and solidity of it and given its apparent excellent weather sealing, should provide very durable usage. Unfortunately, Nikon has been cheapening their line of consumer bodies, as Nikon has followed the trend towards smaller and lighter bodies made almost wholly of plastic materials. IMHO this is NOT a good thing and I do not see the F65 or F80 being long-term worthy possessions, despite their improved feature set over their predecessors. If I were to buy into Canon, the EOS3 is the minimum I would settle for just as any new body I buy from Nikon would have to be the F100. And with that EOS3, every lens I purchase would have to be an L series lens otherwise there would be no point. This is all theoretical because I don’t have the money to buy any of this and this is simply idle daydreaming on my part but I’m just stating that if a person were to do a switch over in camera systems then he/she should go for as big a bang as he/she could. Switching over from say an F70 over to an Elan II would be stupidity and frankly the same can be said for any body in either system (if for non-pro use). I would only change over a system if I lost my Nikon equipment through some catastrophic means such as theft or damage beyond repair. Otherwise the cost of switching would be far too prohibitive to do so merely on a whim of technical innovations that are great by themselves or together but in the end still wouldn’t make me a better photographer. I still buy Nikon equipment and will continue to do so happily as I’m satisfied with the kit but given the opportunity to do things over again… The Lenses
There have been a few reports about why Canon paints their long lenses white/cream color. Some say for free marketing and others say for keeping the fluorite elements cool and stable from expanding due to heat build up. Who can say for sure but given how many hard using pros are out there using Canon lenses and the few reports being bandied about of failures in the field I don’t think I would have much to worry about any type of use or abuse that a lightweight user such as myself would do. Canon lenses are also highly regarded for being among the sharpest out there and in some examples of being the sharpest there is and with decent bokeh too. As much as some Nikon users like to disparage Canon glass I think to do so is specious given how good both companies are at making lenses. Whichever company one goes with the user can be assured that they’re getting great optics but only if they stick with the best of either companies’ lineup and stay away from the consumer grade stuff. A recent experience with Canon lenses revealed no meaningful differences to the Nikon lenses used for comparison purposes. They may as well have come from the same factory with different labels on them. Flash
Flash photography is quite important to me and if I was to ever do a switch I would have to be comfortable and confident with what Canon had to offer. In theory it seems that it does as Canon’s flash technology is tied into the ambient metering as well as the flash metering with pre flashes just like Nikon but so too is focus point and subject position. This I assume would mean that Canon is doing some kind of distance detection like Nikon’s 3D flash metering but trying not to call it distance detection and having Nikon connotations. Until I get my own shot at trying out E-TTL in a variety of shoots and direct comparisons to Nikon then I’ll have to reserve opinion on it. I still have not had a meaningful opportunity to try out E-TTL and probably won't for a long time to come. My current opinion is that it is not worth worrying about and whichever system you own, you will learn the strengths and weaknesses and adapt or compensate for them. The Canonization of Nikon Many Nikon users will be up in arms over any suggestion that Nikon has had to revamp their products to match what Canon has produced but my observations would suggest that this is exactly what Nikon has done. Custom Functions were not in the Nikon lexicon until the F5 and F100 bodies made it a standard feature. Custom Function was used to describe certain user changeable features in the F90x and its computer hookup but the term has always been more closely associated with Canon and the number of user options available to the user. The most popular of which appears to be the ability to disassociate the autofocus start from the shutter release button and having a separate AF start button at the back of the camera where the right thumb would sit. This allowed the photographer a conscious choice to choose to AF when desired but of course it is a feature that requires a lens motor for best results as the full time manual focus feature of USM and AF-S lenses made it a usable feature. Without lens motors then the user must disengage AF via a switch on the lens and/or body which wastes time but with USM and Custom Function #4, the lens can be left in AF all the full time with autofocus only when the user wanted it. Another Canon-like feature that has made its way onto Nikon bodies is the second control dial for the aperture value selection. Nikon didn’t copy the large dial on the camera back door as Canon but they did add a sub control dial to the front of the right side hand grip to complement the standard rear control dial. The ability to move the aperture control to the sub dial means not having to fumble around with the small mechanical aperture ring on the lenses. With normal sized lenses it wasn’t too much of a big deal to use the lens’ ring but with larger lenses such as the pro zooms and super telephotos it would be difficult to access the ring easily. The sub dial also allows for greater control of the aperture value in 1/3 steps instead of full or half stop clicks. These are very practical control features that make the picture taking process more convenient and it’s easy to see why Canon has been lauded for the ergonomics of their bodies. The EOS 3 is of course another fine example of that heritage except for perhaps the mirror lockup which I believe requires a custom function setup that is a bit tedious to access in conjunction with the self timer. This was Phillip Greenspun’s observation with his own EOS3 bodies but they may be easier to deal with individually instead of together. What we seem to have is an evolution-convergence of the two major brands and if you look at the Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 9 body then the three companies actively seeking the professional market offer very fine and very similar products on an overall basis. The new Pentax MZ-S seems to have some innovative features going for it too and its build quality is in the same league as the F100 and Maxxum 9. Nikon/Canon Stories to Tell I had the lucky chance to talk to a staff photographer from the China Daily News in my regular shop on one of my buying trips. We both dealt with Henry so he introduced us and we both picked up the new Canon brochures on the EOS3 and the L series lenses while we were there. This led naturally to the topic of which system was better and even though all three of us were Nikon shooters we all came to the conclusion that if we had to start all over again Canon would probably top the list of the potential replacement system. It was great to talk to an actual pro who did PJ work as well as sports on a regular basis so I was able to glean what one typical working pro required for his needs. He shot with F5 and F4 bodies and had recently bought the 400mm f2.8 AF-S lens but he was chagrinned at doing so just before Nikon announced the D1 digital body. He admitted that given the opportunity to redo the purchase he wouldn’t and would have wait for the D1 to come out and buy that. Score one for Nikon because of the exciting D1. I asked why a heavy duty Nikon shooter was bothering with collecting brochures on Canon products and he said IS. He was salivating over the prospects of Image Stabilization in the super telephoto range of lenses to which I asked why bother with IS in such lenses since you couldn’t handhold the heavy glass and would need a good, solid tripod to get the best out of them. He said yes, on a tripod IS is not useful but with a monopod it would definitely be a worthwhile option to maximize the percentage of sharp images especially when panning. I didn’t argue that point and nodded like a student being admonished by his master. Score one for Canon. He then went on to wax poetically about the exciting prospects for the Canon 550EX flash and its slave capabilities. He didn’t have much to say about comparing Nikon flash technology with Canon’s except to say that the 550EX is better then the SB28. Score two for Canon. As for the EOS3 and its 45 point AF sensor, he couldn’t have cared less as he was more interested in how quick the shutter release was in terms of lag time. The pro mentioned how, through the F3, the F4, to the F5, shutter lag was minimal and he never worried about lag time but with the F90x he noticed the lag big time when he was covering sports and had to adjust his shooting style to compensate. When he looked over the F100 body he noticed the same slow lag time as the F90x and wouldn’t bother with it over his F5’s. With the F5 he could shoot a three frame burst and in almost all cases he would have the key first shot and sometimes have the second shot usable too but rarely the third frame. With the F90x he would never get the first key shot on and would end up having to use the second or third shot due to the shutter lag of the F90x. When he mentioned this I was taken aback a bit since I couldn’t ever recall not having a fast enough response from my F90x but that was at first thought. When I thought about it a little more I did recall that I, a non-serious and non-heavy user, did experience a lag when shooting candids at wedding banquets. I would setup for a shot and on the odd occasion that I was doing a burst shot or needed to capture a very quick shot I did notice that the F90x did not seem as responsive as I would have desired. In these situations the concept of time slowing for me while the rest of the world goes by in a blur is appropriate to describe what I felt. Time slowing down for me can be filled with anxiety as I worry about being able to get a shot or if I’m in the middle of rewinding a roll of film while action is going on around me. So I understood what the pro was saying when he stated shutter lag was very important for his sports coverage. I think that because Nikon introduced the D1 and couple that with the pro AF-S zoom lenses, the pro I talked to would continue to buy into Nikon for his equipment needs. He seemed pretty happy that Nikon had finally decided to come to their senses and put out a 17-35mm f2.8 lens but he shook his head when he described the folly of Nikon with their old 80-200 f2.8 lens and the lack of a tripod mount leading to a virtual cottage industry of after market products to address this need. I am also an annoyed user of said lens and I did purchase a Kirk EZ360 to address my needs for a tripod mount on this lens. Both lens and Kirk mount are now gone in favour of the two-ring 80-200mm f2.8 lens (not AF-S). The conclusion to the conversation I’ve already given away, as the pro would go with Canon if he lost his Nikon kit. Henry, my regular salesman, has a number of Nikon bodies and lenses for his semi-pro and freelance work and would also go with Canon should misfortune strike his Nikon kit. Me, well, I’ll explain a bit more in the conclusion. Another conversation in another photo store occurred when I was buying the MD-E winder and E Series 28mm f2.8 lens. This time I was talking or rather listening to a serious amateur who seemed the stereotypical yuppie photographer who has more money to blow then sense. He overheard me asking about the lens and commented that they were fine products with very good optics but lessor build quality to the AI or AIS lenses. Okay, sure, already knew that, thanks anyway. I asked which Nikon body he shot with and he responded he didn’t because "we" all switched over to EOS around the same time because it was better then Nikon. But, he still kept his F and F2 bodies because…well you gotta have a Nikon, just not the new stuff. I smiled at that one and then asked how he liked the Canon system and in particular the flash system. The gentleman responded that he couldn’t say since he didn’t do flash photography, he only shoots ambient light and truth be told he couldn’t even remember when he last used his Canon. He did go on about how good Canon’s flash metering system was since it uses 16 segments to Nikon’s seven or eight. This set off some warnings in my head that this guy was all bluster since he didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. Canon indeed uses 16 segments in its ambient light evaluative metering but only three segments for its flash metering in the EOS 1n and A2 bodies. Irregardless, Nikon may use less segments for Matrix ambient metering but it still seems to be regarded as being slightly ahead of Canon’s and Nikon flash technology with subject distance thrown in the mix is also regarded as being a bit better. I’m sure the guy does know a lot when it actually counts but he mixed up his information when I talked to him. After going on about how good Canon was he showed off his 1930s vintage Leica and new 20mm Russian lens along with another very old fold down camera that was also mechanical in operation. Afterwards he mentioned his old Hasselblad 500 C/M and Mamiya Pro 645 systems which began the pissing contest on his part to show off how many pieces of equipment he had. At this point I didn’t take him seriously at all and thanked my luck that he decided to wander off while waiting for his film to be processed by the one-hour developer in the store. This again made me think less seriously of him since he shot negative film and had it developed and printed at a place that seemed questionable for quality results. I think this situation, which was very recent, revealed that I’ll still get very defensive about what I have and stiffen my back when told that my equipment is inferior. It’s the same attitude that I despise from Internet newsgroup participants and showed that I still have a long ways to go before I become an objective photographer who sees the equipment as that, equipment that are tools and not as some phallic extension of my body. Does It Really Make Any Difference? Does it? My conclusion is no it doesn’t matter whether it is Nikon, Canon, Minolta or Pentax because the way I use my 35mm equipment all the technology in the world will not make me a better photographer. The technology will make it easier to take photos in certain conditions and I think that is an edge and one that I would like to have because it’s human nature. I’ve stated before that I would switch over to Canon if I had the money to blow or if my Nikon kit were destroyed or stolen. I should qualify that a bit more and flesh out what I would want. If cost were no object then I would go with Canon and buy a whole slew of L series lenses running the gamut of very fast primes (24mm f1.4, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.0 and 85mm f1.2) to specialized lenses (24mm f3.5 tilt/shift, 180mm f3.5 macro) to pro zooms (17-35mm, 28-70mm, 70-200mm all f2.8 constant) to IS lenses (100-400 f4.5-5.6 IS and 300mm f2.8 IS). Couple this with a couple of EOS 3 or EOS 1v bodies along with three or four 550EX flashes and flash controller and I would be a very happy camper. Since my last name isn’t Bronfman or Reichmann (ultra rich Canadian families) I have to live within constricted means and my wish list has to be sliced significantly. It means not being able to buy the fast primes, the specialized lenses or the super telephotos and having to look at the pro zooms as being the most I could affordably get. That means that my poorman’s Canon kit would not have any significant advantage over a replacement Nikon kit or even my present Nikon kit. It makes a switch over from Nikon a bit harder to justify since a realistic future Nikon kit would probably entail a F100 body, the 17-35mm lens and another SB28 flash to go with the existing 35-70mm f2.8 and 80-200mm f2.8 lenses along with all the other pieces I have for a versatile kit. For me at this time the hypothetical jump to Canon is about potential. The potential that Canon will put IS in more and more lenses and that ECF will become even better in future generations, all which will cost even more money down the road. So yes, if I had to rebuild a 35mm kit from scratch I would go with Canon due to that potential and not because it is overwhelmingly superior to Nikon because it isn’t. Adding further headache to this neurotic debate is that I don’t take 35mm photography very seriously anymore since buying into medium format. Instead of blowing $10-15,000 on a format that won’t provide satisfactory results beyond 11x14 why not fill out my Bronica kit to the max and use it for all the serious shots that I would have used 35mm before. I’m not a PJ despite my dreams of becoming one and the closest I get to any action these days is chasing my son around the house or yard. It becomes more serious when I’m chasing Chinese couples around a restaurant during a wedding banquet but these shoots aren’t a regular part of my photography. My favorite subjects outside of my kids, are nonmoving landscapes save for the flow of creeks and rivers and it’s hard to see the use of USM and IS in these situations. The camera’s built in meter is not even trusted in these shoots since I usually bracket scenes and the best fill flash is not derived by the camera’s computer but by the photographer doing some minus compensation to the TTL flash. In such non-hurrying shoots technology takes a back seat and experimentation and contemplation are the order of the day. Adding a little bit more to IS, I wouldn’t be much of an outdoor photographer if I handheld all my shots and relied on IS to keep it sharp. A good tripod and head are more important then IS or USM. But for street shooting then IS and USM can be very effective tools but then so too can a quiet, manual focus camera. My desire for trying the grass on the other side of the fence is based upon greed and materialism and not really by actual shooting requirements. I had to try and justify why I would switch and if I ever do get a lucky break in which photography becomes more then just a pastime (or if I won the lottery) then the decision making process would really start cooking. I go back and forth most of the time. One month I drool so much over Canon and curse my conservative Nikon kit and other times I dis the plastic-spastic Canon bodies and the marketing machine behind the company. In the end though when I have the camera in hand I don’t find myself thinking about the equipment but on the subject and what I’m trying to do with it. Perhaps we should all be doing more of this. Readers Comments Hi there Edwin, From:
"Garland Cary" Hello Edwin, My name is Garland Cary, an American residing near Seattle, WA in the pacific northwest. Once a professional shooter, I am now an advanced amateur interested in breaking into fine art photography. Until about two years ago, when I began experimenting with Nikon and eventually switched over entirely, I was as rabid a Canon EOS system advocate as you're likely to encounter; and having a technical background, I have an intimate understanding of the particulars of the EOS flash system and its inherent fallicies. E-TTL, considered the technology to level the playing field between Canon and Nikon flash capabilities, will sadly likely not see fruition until three critical things happen: 1) Canon will have to introduce 100% picture coverage for it's Eye Controlled Focus system. 2) Canon will have to incorporate some method of evaluating the lighting level of a given scene. 3) Users/photographers will have to use the system, exclusively where flash exposures are concerned. You see, Canon's AIM system presumes that the intended subject falls on the selected focusing point, in which case it simply achieves greater exposure accuracy by biasing both ambient and flash exposure toward that point in the composition. Understandably, this advantage only holds if your subject can be covered in the composition by one of the focusing points since E-TTL flash metering uses all the zones of the ambient light sensor, rather than the simpler 3-zone sensor used for A-TTL flash metering. You conjectured in your Nikon vs. Canon essay that Canon was secretly incorporating subject distance information into E-TTL's exposure calculation, but to the contrary it simply relies on the ECF system to determine the subjects placement in the two-dimensional on-screen composition. This same holds true for ambient light metering, where exposure determination is based heavily upon the luminance reading from the meter segment coinciding with the active focusing point. With diligent use of ECF or manual selection of focusing point to coincide with your subject, it has the potential to produce fine results. However, a knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of reflected light meters (i.e., their desire to render subjects as 18% gray) and judicious use of exposure compensation, is essential. Compositions where the subject falls beyond the focusing points present problems, particularly for E-TTL flash metering. Thus, it is imperative that Canon move toward full screen coverage to further improve the systems capabilities. Once full coverage has been achieved, the next hurdle will be getting ECF to function universally, for all potential users regardless of viewing accessories, eye color, orientation, or any other such variables which have traditionally been problems, for as you see from the above information, use of the ECF system is critical to the overall AIM system's success. And with potentially hundreds of focusing points deployed across the viewfinder image, no method of manual selection I can imagine would be simple enough to preclude simply using a central point for focus and then recomposing. However, even if these are achieved, Canon's metering scheme is limited in a way that Nikon has shrewdly managed to avoid: Canon's AIM system places all its faith in I fear overly simple mathematical applications of data derived from a reflected light meter, without taking into consideration at all, beyond the placement of the subject in frame, the photographer's likely intent in making the picture. This is the AIM system's major failing compared with Nikon's Matrix Metering and 3-D Matrix Balanced Fill Flash, which rely not only on brightness data from the metering sensor and information about the overall scene brightness level, but also, and most importantly, a painstakingly acquired database of photographs by real world photographers against which those data are compared to determine what type of scene the photographer is most likely to be photographing. This results in a much better application of the data under a wider range of lighting conditions, in turn resulting in greater accuracy than any evolution of Canon's Evaluative Metering up to, and including, the AIM system. This points to an insightful difference in philosophy between these two companies: Canon relies very heavily on technology to lead humans to higher photograhic achievement, while Nikon uses human experience to develop technologies that enhance their proven photographic techniques. Nikon's system automatically incorporates the corrections an experienced photographer would make under a wide range of circumstances, which Canon's demands the photographer's involvement for consistent and good results. Granted, because of these very limitations, Canon's system is far easier to override predictably, but doesn't it defeat the purpose of automation to have to intervene at all? Mightn't you be as well served truly taking control of both your aperture and shutter speed through either spot or center-weighted metering in the first place if you have such knowledge and experience as to second-guess the automation? The need of such frequent adjustments was the reason I very seldom used my Canon's in their automatic modes, regardless of the number of segments in their Evaluative Metering sensor. In fact, being utterly confident in my own manual abilities, I switched to Nikon because I can trust its automation to achieve nearly the same results as I would, even under difficult circumstances, without any input from me whatsoever. When I need to shoot quickly, I can depend on Nikon's Matrix Metering to deliver outstanding exposures 95% of the time. I think that's very smart; that's the way things ought to work. Free of manual input is, by definition, the way automation should work. Hope this offers some insight to the inner workings of Canon's AIM system and E-TTL Flash, and perhaps helps you understand why, independent of extreme meter segmentation and a proliferation of focusing points, Nikon's system continues to trounce Canon's in performance. It's a matter of philosophy as much as it is one of execution. If more of us allied ourselves with brands based more on corporate philosophy than technical application, we'd have far fewer episodes of brand defection, far less need of advertising, and many more consumers satisfied with the products they choose to buy. Best Regards, ~Garland Cary September 4, 2004 - A question from a reader about my original Nikon verus Canon article, in which I stated that if I had to do it all over again, I would switch to Canon. This was written back in 1999 and the reader asked if my statement still held true, five years later. My response is below:
Read my about my time with some Canon gear |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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I
had been meaning to type up this essay for some time but given how
this subject has already been flogged to death on the Internet, I
thought it would be redundant to go over this topic again. However,
I can’t help myself and I feel compelled to add my own thoughts to
the debate, however useless and undesired they may be. 
Image
Stabilization. Technical wizardry or sorcery that is intended
to fool the consumers again? Is it really needed for lenses sitting
on a tripod? Does IS actually soften an image over a non-IS lens?
As much as Nikon users bitch over this Canon innovation, of which
Canon may not have actually invented – perhaps Sony for video use
originally, Nikon users will gladly accept IS the day that Nikon introduces
its own variant. Why? Because it is far enough along in implementation
and generation cycle that it works quite effectively and is a real
benefit to those who require every last bit of stability they can
get from long lenses. The
origins of IS is shrouded with some mystery. Appearances are that
Canon is not the true originator of this technology but Carl Zeiss
is and licensed the technology to Sony for their camcorders (remember
the jitter-reduction feature) and then perhaps to Canon, but then
again maybe not. There is another unsubstantiated rumour that Canon's
IS technology is actually licensed from Nikon who has had IS/VR for
a number of years but did NOT feel it was marketable. This has been
given some credo by Bryan Geyer of Really Right Stuff fame and may
have some truth to it, as Nikon did have a point and shoot camera
from the mid 1990s that incorporated VR technology. The P&S was
the Zoom 700 VR, introduced in 1994 with a 38-105mm f4.7-8 lens. The
Zoom 700 VR was known as the Zoom-Touch 105 in the USA. I
am not confirming the rumours, merely passing them along for some
thought. 
The
other major reason for a switch over is the lens selection. Canon
has a very good selection of lenses that many Nikon-user would love
to call their own. The pro zooms are no longer as enticing as once
they were since Nikon came out with the AF-S versions of their own
but the very fast wide angle lenses and the tilt/shift lenses are
very compelling. Nikon only has one very fast autofocus wide-angle
lens, the 28mm f1.4 and a moderately fast 35mm f2 with no ultra fast
50mm in autofocus dress. Nikon does have the 50mm f1.2 manual focus
available and did also have the horribly expensive and specialized
Nocturnal 58mm 1.2 (discontinued) as well as the 35mm f1.4 and 24mm
f2 but again manual focus only. Canon however, has a 24mm f1.4, 35mm
f1.4, 50mm f1.0, 85mm f1.2 and a 200mm f1.8, all L series, all USM
and all very expensive pieces. But and this is a big but, all available
for purchase here and now and not in some far off and not so clear
future as with Nikon. If your thing is ambient light photography with
slowish films then the Canon offerings make for a very compelling
purchase decision and to reiterate my previous wish-for item, if Canon
put IS into these very fast lenses I would have to look long and hard
at whether or not Nikon would actually continue to serve my needs. 
This
is perhaps the only factor that has made me think twice about Canon.
I don’t have experience with Canon flash but I’m working on alleviating
that and seeing if it’s as tricky as many suggest it is. Near universal
criticism of Canon’s old A-TTL flash technology which was apparently
unable to deal with off-center subjects forced Canon to rework it
and come up with E-TTL implemented in the Elan II and EOS3. Now E-TTL
is being called almost as good as Nikon’s flash technology and some
say even better. Phillip Greenspun who knows both systems and is perhaps
the most objective in this vitriolic debate still gives the nod to
Nikon. Incidentally, Greenspun also thinks Nikon’s ambient Matrix
metering is better then Canon’s evaluative metering. 