Background
Introduction
Welcome to my photography weblog(blog). If you aren’t interested in the background of my photography hobby, please stop reading now. otherwise, if you follow, this is the place where I share my thoughts and experience also images from the beginning of my road to photography. The reason I used friendster as my media is simply because it works, first reason is almost most of my friends are here in friendster network so they can get update notification though their first page when they login and second, the images I post are arranged nicely and exif data are presented nicely reading from the jpeg file. Exif data is the exposure information of each pictures taken such as shutter speed, aperture, exposure program etc. which is embedded in the image files, in this case JPEG format and friendster retrieves this data and presents it nicely. The reason why exif data is important here is that it shows how I took the shots technically, as it will be a reference for me and maybe others who might be interested and maybe someone would be nice enough to tell me what i’m doing wrong and where by giving comments. Third, this blog is free, although ok, it has advertisements and such, but as long as these advertisements are displayed at an acceptable rate, I will continue using this unless I can get a better offer because i’m too cheap to pay for those pay hosts. Oh, and I do all this to relieve my stress here.
Canon VS Nikon
Before I purchased my Nikon D70s kit camera, I was quite in a dilemma between Nikon and Canon, I mean who hasn’t? They both provide great and quality cameras. According to my budget at that time and my knowledge of the prices, I had to choose between NIkon D50 and Canon 350D. I was more interested in Canon 350D by its features mostly because my dad has a 300D which I could then share lens with him, the 8 megapixel over 6 megapixel, the minimum ISO speed of Canon which was 100 and was smaller than Nikon which was 200(note that smaller ISO speed has higher image quality and detail) and finally, the Digic II processor that the Canon 350D used which is also used on the most expensive professional SLR camera, the Canon 1Ds Mark II. But after a recent discovery, I learned about the Nikon D70s which is more advanced than the Nikon D50 and costs slightly higher.
I began my research on comparing between Canon 350D and Nikon D70s. I started reading reviews and such until I remembered a friend, Mas Sigit, who once asked me about SLR cameras although that time I wasn’t interested at all. So, I waited him to get online then I started asking questions about these two to him and he immediately replied “Nikon!” and I immediately knew that he has a Nikon system. So I explained my situation especially about my dad’s system and I was still in favor of the 8 megapixel of Canon compared the 6 megapixel of Nikon. He told that the megapixel didn’t matter, the difference between ISOs doesn’t matter etc etc but then he told me to get the Canon 350D because my dad uses the Canon system. So here I was more confused as the gap between the two got thinner. He referred me to Ken Rockwell’s site and some other sites which I don’t remember well.
After reading Ken’s website, I was quite influenced by his writing and was a little in favor on Nikon as he explained in his site very detail about the difference between the two which mainly to me was ISO speed and the megapixel make almost no difference at all. Also, Ken was a little in favor of the Nikon. In his site, you will read good things about Nikon, although Canon too, but Nikon better, err… you’ll know what I mean when you read it. So finally I took my role as other’s have kept telling me “the choice is up to you, whichever system you choose, they are good”. I took a sample of Canon 350D and Nikon D70s, uploaded to my powerbook and used aperture to compare. I looked at the bokeh(bokeh means blur in Japanese, which is the blurness of the unfocused area) of both image, using the similar lens(my samples were taken using 50mm f1,4 lenses from Nikon and Canon) from the resized image(on my 1024 x 768 pixel screen) it looks exactly the same, the sharpness, tone, quality although the Nikon was using ISO 200 and the canon was using ISO 100 so I agreed that ISO speed and the megapixel isn’t an issue. But then I zoomed the samples again to about 400% and noticed the uneven and inconsistant pixel on the Canon, while Nikon pixel’s are even and consistent. I still wasn’t convinced and tried to compare the consistency of the pixel using the Canon 1Ds Mark II and surprisingly, its uneven and inconsistent. Ok, actually its not big of a deal to most people as viewing 100%-200% size of the image, they both were almost identical, but for me, as its not a small amount of money i’m investing on I simply want the best so that I won’t regret it in the future. My heart says “go to the heart of the image (Nikon);P” but my logic says “Canon is your family system” but I remembered one thing: lens compatibility. As far as I know(AFAIK), Nikon uses its prominent F mount system, used since the 50’s up to now and the far future(their lens catalog mentioned it anyway), while Canon had made 2 major changes in their mount system, please correct me if i’m wrong(CMIIW). I remembered well how my dad was disappointed that his old Canon lens didn’t work on his EOS 300D. So I figured, SLR cameras are about lens, I will definitely start buying lenses and lenses lasts forever although your camera body won’t, you will get a new body and use your existing lenses. I know I can’t risk it, I definitely couldn’t afford another lens mount change, and purchasing a used Nikon lens would surely won’t be as complicated as purchasing used Canon lens. So I finally made my decision and purchased my Nikon D70s Kit which includes Nikon Nikkor 18-70mm f3,5-4,5 AF-S DX ED IF for 37,000 baht on February 25th, 2006. Up to now, I still don’t know about the Canon lens mount, I heard that the Canon 350D lens kit, the 18-55mm will not work on any other body.
So that’s how my journey begun, I hope this brief story be beneficial to you readers, especially the ones that has the same problem I had, to choose between Nikon and Canon, you know what to choose;)
Regards,
Aditya Pamungkas
Leave a Reply