Canon vs Nikon – Part 1
Nikon & Canon living happily together!
I am about to start shooting for an upcoming exhibition on various aspects of Malaysian life. This project will involve at least 6 months throughout Malaysia. Initially, the choice of equipment was a no-brainer. I have been using Nikon equipment for a number of years and I was pretty settled on the Nikon D3s, D700 and a couple of lenses. These lenses would be Nikon’s f/2.8 lenses like the 14-24mm f/2.8G, 24-70mm f/2.8G and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II. Then I remembered a shoot I did up in Yunnan, China where I had questioned myself about whether I really needed a heavy large aperture lens. At that time, Nikon didn’t really have any zoom I wanted to use apart from the f/2.8 zooms which I have. The Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G VR zoom wasn’t something that was going to make it into my bag although at the back of my mind, I remembered a friend of mine who was always raving about his Canon 24-104mm f/4L zoom.
At this point, I started to seriously consider my options. If I used Canon equipment, what would my equipment list look like? I would definitely get the Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens. To lighten my load, I’d also pick the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens. Lately, I’ve found myself gravitating towards lenses with builit-in stabilization.. Either VR (Vibration Reduction) on Nikon lenses or IS (Image Stabilization) on Canon lenses. With the 24-105mm f/4L IS and 70-200 f/4L IS, I would have covered 90% of my needs leaving the Canon 17-40mm f/4L to take care of the ultra wide spectrum.
If I stayed with Nikon, I would use the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 ED VR instead of the 14-24mm f/2.8G but I would not have anything for the normal to telephoto range. The Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED VR lens nor the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR is something I want to carry on location. For starters, these are not Nikon’s professional level lenses and I don’t like variable aperture lenses.
As you can see, the choice between Canon and Nikon really isn’t that simple. What about camera bodies? I wanted to reduce the weight of my gear. Canon certainly seems to have that covered well. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II would be an ideal camera for me. This exhibition of mine does not involve sports or action photography so I am not really concerned about the speed of the camera. However, reliability is definitely an issue for me. I wanted a professional level body. I suppose 5D qualifies but it is certainly not on the same level as the EOS 1D series. However, the current EOS 1D Mark IV body has a cropped sensor; specifically an APS-H size 1.3 cropped sensor. I expect the maximum size of my enlargements to be 40 x 60 inches so sensor size should not be an issue.
With the Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens attached on the EOS-1D Mark IV, I’d be getting a 22-52mm f/4 zoom instead. 22mm would certainly be wide enough but if I needed a wider angle, I could fall back on the EOS 5D Mark II which would be able to utilize the full range of the lens. After all, very few professionals leave home with just 1 camera body!
A critical advantage of the EOS-1D Mark IV over the EOS 5D Mark II is that the 1D uses a smaller part of the image circle of the lens. This will certainly translate into a superior image as far as edge-to-edge sharpness is concerned.
Over the coming weeks, I will compare both systems as I fine-tune my equipment choice for my exhibition. I am certainly comfortable with using both systems on location but not necessarily duplicating all the lenses. At this point, I am shooting with the following equipment:
Nikon D3s body
Nikon 16-35mm f/4G VR lens
Nikon 50mm f/1.4G lens
Canon EOS 1-D Mark IV body
Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens
Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens
Canon 70-200mm f4L IS lens
The choice of lighting gear will be covered in a future article as will my comparison reports between the Canon and Nikon systems.
