BlogHer - Canon, Nikon or Independent: the Camera Candidates - Comments

Loyal to no particular camera

lucrecerb — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:05:52 -0500

I currently shoot with a Rebel XT and I happen to really like it, but I do not like the Canon prices. I intended to move to Pentax, until I saw the Nikon D90. Then, I saw the Canon 50D. I am waiting until October to hold the 50D in my hands. I already have great glass I can use with the Canon bodies and I may stick with them only because of that. After all, it is all about the glass, isn't it?

Lucrecer Braxton

Art Slam

www.candidartanddesign.com/artslam

Here's to the Dinos!

Octamom — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:43:53 -0500

Hope you have an opportunity soon to dink around w/medium and large format film---although my digital shots are spoiling me (shhhhhh--don't tell the real shutter bugs I said this) the ability to immediately see what I have shot on digital and the ability to manipulate the image so specifically....it's just amazing....I know, I know, Ansel Adams would be very disappointed in me...but I may be becoming a true convert to digital....did I just type that?!?! ;o)

Excited to see your flickr steam with all your new stuff!

Octamom

www.octamom.com

the musings of a mother to a multitude

Thanks, Octamom.

lauriewrites — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:45:22 -0500

It really was disappointing. And of course today I see the sales circulars from the Sunday paper and the D80 is down $200...so I'd likely have made a different decision this weekend. But oh well. Only a camera. I'm okay with being back in the Canon column for now.

I love medium and large format, although I have very limited experience in shooting/processing with them. Some of the older Mamiyas are great - when I have time to play again, ever, I'm going to learn bow to handle them. My ultimate goal is to be one of those dinosaurs that they trundle out to show the totally digital generation "how film worked."

Laurie

I need a lens-sharing friend.

lauriewrites — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:43:00 -0500

Awesome! : )

I thought about the D40...but I have to make this money last til January so eh, not so much. I think this one'll work just fine though. (Scoping used lenses, though...)

Laurie

Canon 40D

Octamom — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:04:07 -0500

So sorry about your camera--

I just recently purchased the Canon 40D--and am thrilled. I shot a Mamiya medium format 645AF for several years and found the Canon reminded me of several of the feautres and organization of the Mamiya--so far, so thrilled!

Octamom

www.octamom.com

the musings of a mother to a multitude

Yep, we bought the Rebel

no_I_am_zoe — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:41:01 -0500

Yep, we bought the Rebel XTi. We were spending freelance money to put back into a small web design business my partner has with a friend. Our friend had already bought a Canon EOS 40D. The thought was that they could share lenses if we bought a Canon too. So that was sort of the deciding factor for us. That and that we could get a great deal if we also bought a Speedlite flash and a 75-300mm lense. It's the perfect camera for us.

Did you get the Rebel, Zoe?

lauriewrites — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:36:50 -0500

Or another model?

It does come down to holding cameras in your hand to see what feels better for you, I think. The displays on the Rebel are much less confusing for me for some reason.

Laurie

I seem to love the Rebel and D80 for different reasons.

lauriewrites — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:35:32 -0500

I'm hoping once I get another lens or two for this one I'll be even happier with it. Now I just need pennies to rain down from heaven. :)

Laurie

Yes, a complete drag. :(

lauriewrites — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:32:58 -0500

I'm really serious about the lcd...I have terrible vision and even with glasses/contacts my eyes strain very easily. Plus I love knowing quickly which pictures to ditch before I give hard drive space over to a download.

Let me know what you decide, Kalyn. :)

Laurie

We just went through the

no_I_am_zoe — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:03:20 -0500

We just went through the canon/nikon purchase decision process. We started out thinking we wanted the nikon and ended up with the canon. I'm sure both are excellent cameras and we'd love the nikon just as much as we love the canon if that would have been the choice we made.

Now you are really tempting me!

Kalyn Denny — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:01:00 -0500

I'm just old enough that some of the LCD displays on my Rebel are hard to read. I was wowed by how big and clear they were on the newer model.

And forgot to say, very sorry to hear about your camera being stolen. What a complete drag.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

Bi Cameral

Pam — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:52:30 -0500

Heh.

I bought a Rebel several years back and loved it loved it loved it. Schlepped it everywhere and was always happy with the results. But when I landed a "real" photo gig, I thought, time to switch back to Nikon because I have a bunch of older Nikon lenses that I thought I could use with my new Nikon DLSR - and I had a legit opportunity to buy a pro level camera.

I love that one, too.

I wouldn't buy a Sony. Why? Coz they're not a camera company. They might make a good camera, dunno, but I like to get my cameras from camera companies. Yeah, I know, I know. And my guy has a Panasonic Lumix and whoa, it's a GREAT little camera, Really, really great.

Sideline: Camera theives sit next to bicycle theives in hell. Insert profanity directed at both low lifes here.

Nerd's Eye View

Thanks, Elizabeth

lauriewrites — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:30:56 -0500

I was and still am very upset about it - I really need a camera to function in my work so as an extra business expense it was no good. Plus it's just upsetting when things like that happen anyway - I don't steal from other people so I don't anticipate that it will happen to me (naive and idealistic maybe but that's just how I am.)

I agree that the brand doesn't so much matter, I just think it's interesting how allegiances are developed and grow over time.

Laurie

LaurieWrites

The LCD is excellent.

lauriewrites — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:26:52 -0500

It's my favorite feature on the XSi, by far.

Laurie

LaurieWrites

Canon

glossarie — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:24:10 -0500

i've been a canon girl since the mid 1970's when i got my canon ae-1 35mm film camera. it is dubbed 'old trusty'. :) my husband surprised me with a olympus digital camera about 4 years ago. when i was ready for a digital slr i went back to canon. i guess it really doesn't matter what brand you use. with me it mainly had to do with features and PRICE. sorry your camera got stolen. i would be sooooo pissed if that happened to me.

Elizabeth

please visit me at

http://glossarie.tentcitynetworks.com

Canon, Nikon or Independent: the Camera Candidates

lauriewrites — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:14:16 -0500

What's the difference between a Laurie who shoots with a Nikon and a Laurie who shoots with a Canon again?

NO, not lipstick, silly - just a jerk of a camera thief at the DNC.

I am to cameras what is known in political parlance as a "GDI." (Great, darling Independent, of course.) My first camera as a photography student a few years back was a Canon film SLR, which I still love although I am so pressed for time that my relationship with film has dwindled - temporarily, I hope. Just months later, I scraped together my pennies and bought a Canon Digital Rebel, and somewhere along the way I got a Canon PowerShot point and shoot too.

Early Canon Rebel buddhas, San Francisco, 2006.

I loved the Rebel deeply and without reservation and used it daily, until it died just a month out of warranty, I was grad-school broke and couldn't even afford the $250 that the company wanted for my joy of sending it to New Jersey for them to just look at. Plus, I was angry. I made do with the PowerShot plus another model that I got, and still consider them among the most solid cameras you can buy.

Moving more into photojournalism and school and in my work, I needed a new DSLR. I was wary of getting another Digital Rebel, even though a couple generations of them had come and gone since my experience. I didn't have many lenses yet, which in the D/SLR world usually determines what brand one sticks with. Plus I knew some excellent shooters who worked with Nikon.

Chevy/Ford? Toyota/Honda? Paper/plastic? These are easy debates compared to this one.

In the end I decided to switch it up, and see how the other half lived, while maintaining strong allegiance to my PowerShot. So with some help from my student loan, I bought a Nikon D80 this February.

I thought I'd settled down. I loved that camera. I took a picture of it before it came out of the BAG. I took it everywhere. The kit lens (i.e. the lens the manufacturer sells to you in the initial package) was excellent - a much better bet than the Rebel's. I was off and shooting again. I took it to Vietnam. To New York. To BlogHer.

At BlogHer I connected with some great women and photographers, many of them Nikon shooters.

New Nikon Buddhas, San Francisco, 2008.

I joined NikonSisters on Flickr, led by Karen Walrond and Stephanie Roberts. I'm hoping I can still be an ally. Shooters particularly striking me in that photostream right now include Kirsten aka iheartnewyork, SewFab Martha (link to her blog plus sewfabmartha on Flickr), and Kristin/aka MaineMomma.

Enter Denver and the DNC a couple of weeks ago. I was looking forward to shooting the whole event for work and for fun, and things got off to a good start - until the D80 was stolen on the second night in a series of events that I will not detail here lest I sob again.

A few days after I got back from a trip where once again a Canon PowerShot saved my photographic ass, I bought a new Canon - this time a Digital Rebel, after a quick text to Aimee Greeblemonkey, one of my favorite photographers regardless of brand, who responded quickly and helped me nail my decision down. Cost factored into it, with the Rebel a bit cheaper than the D80 and the Canon 40D just beyond my reach. Add a Labor Day deal that threw in a telephoto lens and it was a done deal. I looked forward to the chance to use my film camera again.

I've used the new camera a few times since I got it, not much yet, but it's served me well on one story assignment and I think it'll work out just fine. It's nicely light, but not flimsy. The image quality is good. I'll get some new lenses. I'll try not to let it out of my sight.

Because the reality is that if a jerk hadn't stolen my camera (I mean,
really, did that have to happen?) I'd still be shooting with the D80, which tempers the new-camera joy just a bit.
And although I'm getting used to the Rebel XSi, how it feels in my hand
and how the images look on the screen, I'm still really sad that one of the few material goods I really valued and used so regularly was lifted. There are many worse problems to be had, I know, but some things are just disappointing.

And all of that said, clearly the
brand doesn't so much matter to me as the ability to express myself in
images does. It turns out I really do reach across the aisle. If a rocking Sony or Fuji presented itself I'm sure I'd use that too.

*******************************************************************

The Nikon/Canon debate doesn't so much rage as simmer elsewhere on the Web:

Alice Teh at Hello My Name is Alice splits between a Nikon D40 DSLR and a couple of Canon Powershots too.

Tessa at Conquering Motherhood thought the Canon dslr was too "heavy and long" for her hands so she chose a Nikon D40 as well.

Canon has over 53,000 (53,000!) groups on Flickr. Nikon almost 51,000. At least one group has "Canon Girls vs. Nikon Girls," which kind of scares me (and there are many, many more non-gender-specific brand competition groups.) It could get hot in there, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to deal. In my experience there is beautifully photographed room for everyone.

Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites and will soon be updating a sadly neglected Flickr stream with all manner of Canon power shots.