Oh, How I Hate to be Wrong

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

— Isaac Asimov

I generally pride myself of doing a fair amount of research before I make a major purchasing decision. But, it appears that, in the long run, I’ve done a pretty good job of mucking up when it came to deciding to switch from Canon to Nikon five or six years ago. And, I perpetuated the problem last year with the purchase of the D70s body. It’s not so much that the Nikon’s are all that bad, it’s just that the Canon’s turned out to be that much better in the long run!

So, what started me down this road — to change in the first place, and now, my realization that I screwed up so badly?

Admittedly, at the time, I made what was probably the best decision I could have with the available information. The deal is this. Canon has always relied on motors within the lens for auto-focus. Inexpensive lenses had less powerful motors, and hence, they focused more slowly. If you wanted fast focus, you had to spend a lot of money. Nikon, on the other hand, put the focus motor in the body, so one lens focused just as fast as another, and, for the most part, lens price didn’t enter into the equation with regards to focusing speed. Additionally, Canon had done away with aperture rings on lenses altogether. Nikon was beginning to, but “D” series lenses still had an aperture ring. So, I became convinced that the Nikon way was the better way. I supposed that at least some Nikon cameras would retain the functionality of the aperture ring. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case — aperture was controlled by a camera dial, as on the Canon.

Now, it appears that Nikon have changed their collective minds about the focus motor, too. Recently (meaning the past couple of years), they’ve been producing lenses with internal focusing motors, while phasing out the older-design lenses. And now, with the release of the D40, they appear to be phasing out motors within the body.

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY
The question of image quality came up again this past week. Donna is concerned that we’re not giving our wedding and portrait customers the absolute best that we can. I had already explained to her that, in low noise situations, a D200 wasn’t going to cure any problems we’ve had. “There must be a reason that wedding photographers seem to prefer Canon,” I said this time around. As it turns out, there is. And, it seems that many nature and landscape photographers (George Lepp, Richard Day and Rick Sammon, to name a few) prefer them, too.

Part of the Canon advantage is in the use of a CMOS image sensor, instead of the CCD favored by Nikon. The CMOS sensor, coupled with Canon’s superb DIGIC II processor, produces an image that is far less noisy, especially in low-light situations. In fact, the 10.2 MP Nikon D200 appears to be noisier in low-light situations (yielding an image that appears less sharp) than the 8.2 MP Canon 30D.

COMPARING IMAGES
I really like Steve’s Digicams for reviews and comparisons of cameras. One of the big reasons is that the folks operating the site try to make the same images with every camera reviewed, allowing a pretty true “apples-to-apples” comparison. After some pretty thorough review of the information and images on his site, as well as on dpreview.com, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a visible difference in the quality of images made under marginal lighting conditions.

(Note: copyright restrictions prevent me from displaying images from Steve’s Digicams and DPReview on the site here. Links have been provided so that you may look at the same information and images I used for analysis. The linked images are very large, and will take some time to load. Please be patient.). In the images of the same subject under pretty much identical lighting conditions on Steve’s Digicams that have a very broad dynamic range, the Canon 30D clearly shows better shadow detail than the Nikon D200. Further, comparison images a DPReview show the 30D to be sharper, and far less noisy at higher ISO settings than the D200. This image was made at 3200 ISO! Wow!

OTHER CANON ADVANTAGES
While Nikon has been busy trimming down their product line, both in terms of lenses and bodies, Canon continues to maintain a wide range of both film and digital bodies, as well as a very large selection of lenses – Nikon now have only two film bodies, as opposed to Canon’s five models; Nikon now lists 46 AF lenses, as compared to 62 Canon lenses. Canon’s cameras and lenses are of equal or better quality, and often cost somewhat less for equivalent items.

CONCLUSION
The kick in the pants is that the 30D is now $240 less than the D200 (at B&H, body only). An even harder kick in the pants is that the Canon Rebel XTi yields a picture that is every bit as good, if not better, than the 30D, and it’s $667 less than the D200 (at B&H, body only), though it lacks a couple of features that might be important to me (spot meter, real PC connector, etc).

I think you can see where this is heading. From a professional standpoint, I can’t not move back to Canon, and the 30D appears to be an excellent choice at this point to be the jump point. (But, man, if I thought I could get away with walking into a wedding shooting a Rebel XTi … I’d buy two!)

We presently have two D70s bodies, and a selection of lenses and flashes, some of which we very recently purchased. The plan at this point is a “one at a time” transition. In other words, replacing one of the D70s bodies, and a couple of our older lenses.

At this point, the plan is for me to get the 30D, and new 12-24 f/4 and 28-75 f/2.8 lenses, along with an inexpensive 70-300 f/4-5.6, flashes and accessories; then sell my D70s body and an 18-70mm “kit” lens, along with a 70-300mm zoom, and maybe an SB-600 flash – a fairly nice starter kit for someone moving into a D-SLR. Donna will retain her D70s for now, and will inherit the existing 28-75 f/2.8 as well as the 12-24mm f/4. Once that transition is complete, and mostly paid for, we’ll transition Donna over to a complimentary Canon setup.