Professionally, I am a web user interface and user experience designer. At times when heavens cuts loose, I was given the extra role of a photographer in a couple of Organizations I have worked. I had the good fortune of working with some trend makers in photography. Each one had individual outlook on their subjects and they used an array of equipments. One interesting factor I learned from them was they all wanted to use a Nikon Camera but for some reason they all were using Canon camera.
At an unsettled career point of mine way back in 2005 to 2007, were my mind was ambushed by technology and its jargons, there was little time to think and was forced to act, basically to follow the beaten road of my seniors. Later when things were getting clear and when me too started talking more in meetings and did very less in project as there was an ample amount of juniors in the line raging wars to take the load, my research life with cameras started.
It was time for me to buy a DSLR. The real world thunder bolt / question struck me, which brand to choose – Canon; the current prof. pick or the Nikon; the photographer’s extra eyes.
Well my areas of photography were not so limited too, they includes:
1.Micro photography; Here my subjects were under highly controlled environment. Mostly on my desk with some good LED flood light, white, silver or very rarely golden reflectors, white canvas background, tripod and a remote triggering unit.
I had all the time in this world to correct my shoots, test the photos in the screen and if needed retrigger the camera. Life was simple & I loved my shots too. Here I found Nikon excel the task. Nikon’s colour tone was too sexy for my frames.
2.In studio Subject clicks; I could really feel the shiver in my knees when some very high profile subjects were in front of the camera. Many didn’t want to waste time, with an amateur photographer, well you can’t blame them, it’s their revenue source so time had to be managed.
In many ways I am a lucky man, life took me to may be all possible passion roads in life and even prevented me from some abuses. My caseins thought me a great deal in this area, three of them all ready to pose, in return they wanted a printed photo in fairly good size (12” * 19”).
Here there are no free meals, life was hard, sometimes even the worst will come by none of your frames will be the way you wanted. Slowly, very slowly, when all the fallen apart things are joined and stick to basics in hardcore style, frames slowly starts to smile.
While shooting brown tone subjects, I always wanted to have a very small tint of yellow, which really boosted the subject. Color tones of both the cameras are very different, one a bit yellow, other a bit red, interesting both the cameras even treat the simple white color in a very different tone. Only recently I started using a full frame camera, this really gave the edge to shoot in very low light and in a bit more relaxed manner.
Canon was fast between frames, but took time in focusing, very good in fairly lighted conditions and really under performed in high and low light condition. Canon and Canon compactable lens were costly when compared to Nikon.
Key factors: a.) Canon APS-C censor is a bit smaller to Nikon. So better details and better frame coverage in Nikon.
b.) Focus Point - system in Canon is very far behind Nikon. This helps in achieving a unique color pattern with perfect details in Nikon.
c.) In body AF Motor – the whole point of Canon EF lens mount was to take the motor to the lens and the body without AF motor. This makes the Camera body lighter and Cheaper in terms of cost. But each time when you buy a Lens for you camera you end up in paying for the motor too, a costly deal. Even though some entry point Nikon cameras like D5000, D5100, D5200, D3000, D3100, D3200 (price range Rs. 25,000 to Rs.60,000), lag in body AF motors. There are simply legends in Nikon lineup with cost effective entry level, mid level & Pro level products. I prefer AF motor in lens which makes the AF fast and smooth. One important question I like to answer is if both Camera and the lens have a AF motor, to the best of my knowledge, AF motor in lens will be used.
The outdoor, landscape Shoots;
My love in photography started in late 90’s with the legend in film photography industry, “Pentax” and the legend in my home, my “Father”. My father had a Pentax MX camera with a standards 50mm lens. It was a costly love, as revenue had to be found for buying films and then after shoots, film washing and printing.
Don’t know why many of the printing studios at least near my area, was specifically fine tuned for a films brand, so forth most of my shoots were on Fuji Film from 100 to 400. The color and the quality of the 6 * 4 frames was always the best.
Outdoor shoot of my interest were not greenery or stuff like that. I am drawn towards the deep blue oceans, beaches and the very sweet, polished and angel mannered, best lover of mine, the backwaters. Blue and yellow tones were the prime focus and in many occasions my camera stunned me with the results, the slightly tickling current flow in head and the punch in the heart when you see such frames, was like the moment, when the above said lover wanted to resist my trespass, but in vain close her eyes.
Transition period were the prime shooting time for beaches and cloudy days and peak mid day for back waters. Here the deal is mixed, some time free meals, sometime high hunger. I love beaches like Dhanushkodi, India and think twice, before shooting in backwaters like the Alappuzha, kerala. As many of Nikon Camera’s are weather sealed and some models are compactable with external wireless transmitters, that transfer the frames to the laptops, mostly everything was a smooth trade. Good lens filters made life easy and on beaches if with human subjects, golden color reflectors else silver are my choice. If with a good budget contract which normal won’t come to people like me, but one’s I had the opportunity to use a ring flash on the beach and found worth using it.
Since my employer was from a very different domain – a virtual university for agricultural trade, my passion for beaches and water were never favored, instead I was asked to go to Tea estates and cover greenery stuffs.
Experiments with Nikon have always helped me professionally. Mostly Nikon D7000, with different lens was my saver and I love the menu arrangements and the dual card slot. In all the above three areas of photography I have used Nikon and love to carry on with the same, unless Canon comes out with a better Nikon Out performer.
Well I believe in a simple theorem: if you want a goal to be achieved its 50% effort from you & a 50% bonus from the heavens (if there is anything like heavens). So for the equipment and the operator using it has to be equally good enough to produce magic.
So according to me you should choose a camera system: 1.The nature of your photography you are involved with, · Frame to frame Speed for areas like Sports. · Complex lighting patterns as in a jungle, in day time, were beams of sun light pouring out of leaf gaps light the surface and rest left blank. · As modern day DSRL’s comes with both Still and Motion world goodies, your main platform for work output is to be evaluated very thoroughly. If your frames need to be printed in large hording or very large formats, output oriented devices have to be considered.
2.The community of photographers you are with, · helps when you wanted to share Lens or stuff like that.
I am a happy Nikon fan, a recently launched model D7100, predecessor of the legendry D7000 have much in it to make a full frame duck. Am just waiting for a Model between D7100 and the Full Frame D600, hope this will happen soon.
Hope to see you next time with my own Full Frame Nikon Camera and with yet another subject, till then let me dwell in peace with my backwater angel. Happy Shooting and Thank You
Revision: November 2019 Currently am keeping off from both the giants & am now in love with Mirror less Sony A6500
