A rant based on Flickr threads here and here.
I think my feeling about which dSLR camera someone should purchase is, to apply Louis Armstrong: “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.” The simple reality is that after a year and a half, the D70 is still too much camera for me. Maybe one day I’ll reach the point where I am limited by the D70 and not my lack of talent, but it hasn’t arrived. Both the Canon Digital Rebel (300D/350D) and the Nikon prosumer dSLRs (70D/50D/70Ds) have electronics even more sophisticated than Nikon F-series cameras up through the early 90’s. Some pretty amazing shots were taken by pros back then. Have they suddenly lost their value because their camera sucked?
No. That’s because at the end of the day, a camera body is just a light-tight box with a adjustable hole and a flap. Digital sensors may be different, but they are more limited by the state-of-the-art during the time it is built and simple physics than by anything else. What is going to be the most important thing is how it feels to the operator.
That’s why I can be a touch short with people who diss a camera choice with one breath and then take cover by calling anyone who disagrees with them as spewing “cult garbage.”
A computer, a camera, a bandwagon maker…
I have dissed the spec-sheet approach to consumer purchases, especially cameras. Perhaps I should start by explaining why, by anecdote.
My brother bought a notebook computer. It was a Dell. I see that all the time, but let’s be honest here: Dell is only one circle above Sony VAIOs in notebook hell. So it begs the question of why an otherwise brilliant professor of Economics would end up with a Dell notebook instead of say an IBM Thinkpad. (Yeah, you caught me. I recommended something other than a Apple to someone.)
Well the obvious reason is convenience: the University of California makes it very easy to purchase a Dell off of grant money, but not nearly as easy for an IBM. But my brother took my suggestion and went the extra mile to get a AMD dual-Opteron Linux workstation for serious number cruching, something Dell does not carry for only two reasons: AMD and Linux. So why?
Well when you crunch the numbers, you see the obvious separation between the AMD Linux box and its two competitors: Sparstation and Pentium 4. But those numbers aren’t that different between the Dell Lattitude, the IBM Thinkpad or Apple Powerbook.
So then you fall victim of the advice of the friend. What did my brother’s friends and colleagues recommend? Why what they owned, of course!
So it is with cameras. If you read the reviews and visit the sites, you find that, on paper, there is very little difference between digital SLRs in the same price range. The consumer doesn’t want to hear that any dSLR will be more than enough camera for him, that he’d be better off buying a digital bridge camera or a point-and-shoot, that the lenses he chooses are more important, that different design decisions went into each camera for different sorts of customers, that at the end of the day he just is plunking down $1000-$5000 on a light-tight box with a flap (no adjustable hole, that’s in the lens). So they look to the high priests to tell them what to buy—the clear, take-no-prisoners, best all-around dSLR ever.
I’ve already covered what happens when the high priest is a computer or electronics magazine. But what happens when it is your favorite enthusiast—you know, someone like that opinionated web engineer in the next cubicle who is an amateur photographer?
Why they recommend the camera they own.
When the high priest is an idiot
During one such discussion, a user linked this comparison by the always-opinionated southpaw Nikon photographer, Ken Rockwell. Ken Rockwell is sometimes very wrong, but I’ll be the first to admit he’s a gajillion times better photographer than me.
A followup post pointed out, rightly, that Ken is a very biased photographer. But then he used his position as a former owner of a Nikon D70 and new owner of a Canon 300D to state that:
- “If you have to resort to flash you’ve lost already;”
- “The Rebel XT blows the D70s away in a number of other areas of performance”: higher resolution and more sensitive and accurate sensor being the biggest and most obvious of these;
- Ken is guilty of “pure Nikon cult garbage;” and
- he’d take the “XT over the D70 any day of the week and twice on Sunday;”
Thems is fightin’ words.
The Smackdown
Yes, Ken Rockwell is biased, and sometimes he’s a total idiot. However reason #1 was not about flash sync, it was about startup lag which was/is a big complaint about the 10D/300D (though I believe is fixed in the 20D and 350D). That was a serious failing. Ken Rockwell admits he’s a biased Nikon guy. He also gave an excellent review of the Canon 20D in the same article.
Flash sync speed is a step backward in the 5D and when Canon finally adopts Nikon’s electronic curtain system and creative lighting system, we’ll hear every Canon user saying how great they are.. Just like how Nikon users have finally said great things about VR and SWM, where before they derided them as bells and whistles. (How is a Nikon user saying “who needs Image Stabilization when you should be using a tripod” any different from a Canon user who claims “when you resort to flash you have lost already”?) Umm fill flash? catch lights? documentary work? macro photography? lightbox?
More resolution? You realize that 8 megapixel is a 15% greater realized image resolution right? That’s laughable. My 10″ print @ 300dpi can be blown up to a whopping 11.5″ print!
My opinion is that either body is good and you should probably go to the store and try them all out in your price range. For instance while the D50/D70 and Digital Rebel look the same on paper, they feel very different. One of those will definitely speak to you more. The same goes for the *ist Ds and the Dynax 5D.
Nikon (Fuji/Kodak), Canon, Minolta (Sony), and Pentax (Samsung) all have pretty complete lens systems at this point. Once you get one body, you will be locked into its lens system, because that is what you will be spending your money on.
FWIW, I’m a Nikon D70 guy and I can defend my purchase any day because I seriously considered the 300D and potentially waiting for the 20D before making my choice. And though I chose a Nikon, you won’t see me dismissing a photographer who is an order of magnitude better than me of “pure Canon cult garbage” nor will I ever go around saying I’d take a D70 over an XT “any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
If I were to have gotten one today instead of a year and a half ago, it’d probably be a Minolta Dynax 5D.
Take care,
terry
An apology
Okay so I’m ripping a new asshole in a poor newbie who just started six months ago so what I did should qualify as cruel and unusual. And the 300D is probably the better camera for him—it is an lot more like my Olympus C-2500L and IS-10 than the Nikon D70 is! (But then, he launched his attack from his obviously world-shakedown experience with the D70 for all of… how long?)
Also it bears repeating that just because I defended the honor of the D70 by bagging on the Canon 10D, doesn’t mean I don’t think that people such as Sara Heinrichs don’t kick my ass any day of the week “and twice on Sunday” just because she has to wait an extra few seconds for her camera to start up.
But which camera should I buy?
Hmm, that’s a toughy. Ryan Brenizer, who happens to be a far better photographer than me, write in a thread linked above: “For the record, I recommend tychay’s camera.” So like a little lamb, I took his wise pronouncement and did just that.
I bought my own camera.
Whoa! The universe is a small place! I have no idea who you are really, or how I ended up putting an RSS feed for your blog in my browser, but I enjoy reading your stuff. I agree with most of what you say about politics and photography, although you spend a hel of a lot more time eloquently writing down what you’re thinking than I do. And you live only a mile away from where I used to live. (I’m still in the valley, but not right there in the Central/Rengesdor area anymore.)
And then I see you mentioning Sara Heinrichs! That is proof that the world is a small place! Do you know Sara, or just admire her photography from afar? Personally, she’s inspired me as a photographer and I look to her images for advice. Check her blog – big news recently and she could use the help of people like us that are employed.
BTW, I’m a Canon Digital Rebel (300) guy, and I have a whole lot larger investment in glass than in the body. I’m waiting for the 20-D replacement to be announced at PMA in January, and then I’ll lay the plastic down.
— sparky
Computer geek
Canon shooter
Technology enthusiast
Blog reader
Sparky,
No, I don’t know Sara personally, I was just holding her as an example as a Canon 10D user who kicks ass. Coincidentally, I blogged about her and Ryan in this entry yesterday and Ryan blogged about Sara in his entry today.
I am glad you find my blog interesting even if I do dip a little too much into scatology. 🙂
(For reference to others: this is Sara’s website and this is her blog. I linked her Flickr photos above.)
This is the article you are referring to and I am sorry to hear what is happening to her (and, unfortunately, many others in America). Malcolm Gladwell recently published an article in the New Yorker about why this has happened. 🙁
The Canon Digital Rebel is a neat camera and it sounds like you are a little ahead of me on the curve. I bought the Nikon D70 in order to get a feel for things with the intent of going up the SLR curve sometime in the future. The Nikon D200 is coming out this October, and I’m skipping that one. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet and it looks like it might be a while until then.
If someone told me five years ago that there would be a >6mpixel digital SLR for <$1000 I’d have thought they were smoking crack. And yet here we are with a bunch of them and two companies on their second iteration (Nikon: D70/D70s/D50, Canon: 300D/350D). Canon is an impressive company that makes great products so I’m sure you’ll be (or are already) taking awesome shots with your Rebel that will humble me. It has an an amazing history: from Leica knockoffs to Xerox ones to the dominant player in both photography and office.
Someday they’ll be saying in photography, “nobody ever got fired for recommended a Canon.†(If they aren’t already.)
I guess I’m the guy who got “ripped a new asshole”. Yawn.
1. My response in that thread wasn’t about bashing on the D70. I started by saying that the person would be happy with either camera. I was ripping the crazy, totally biased link that a previous commenter had left.
2. The limitations of shooting with 1/250th or 1/200 maximum flash sync are, for most uses, wildly overemphasized by Rockwell’s comparison.
3. The big difference between the two cameras we were discussing, as I emphasized, was the quality of their senors–not the higher resolution that you focused on. I’ve used both and found that the XT’s sensor produced better output in similar circumstances across the entire ISO range, but particularly when I had to torque up the ISO in low light.
4. I own an F4 and a fair bit of Nikkor glass, and I had that D70 for a couple of months, thanks.
5. Have you actually shot both the D70 and XT? For someone who is ripping me for giving an uneducated opinion about them, you sure sound like an expert. I’ve shot both at length, so I know how they performed in my hands–have you?
Have fun, and try not to take yourself quite so seriously,
Greg
P.S. I’m sure that you are in fact the genius you think you are, it just doesn’t show here somehow.
Yes you were the guy. I’m sorry I singled you out and I apologize. In my blog entry I tried not to mention you by name because of my shame in picking on you.
1. “I’m going to say one thing and then go do the opposite.â€
2. And I’m supposed to listen to this drivel from someone who claims that “when you use flash you’ve already lostâ€? First, the D70 (D50 and D70s) have a flash sync speed of 1/500th, not 1/250th. The 5D also has a sub-par flash sync speed vs. the 20D (but I don’t think that’s going to stop anyone from buying it). You can also push a little past the maximum sync speed (I don’t know the purpose of it, but Life photographer, Dave McNally seems to use that feature.) The better sync speed is because Nikon flips open the mirror and the mechanical curtain and uses a digital curtain at high speeds, something Canon and others do not do. I have no doubt Canon will one day adopt the Nikon flash sync system (when Canon engineers work out the kinks of getting it working in CMOS) and i-TTL just like it adopted a version of Nikon’s matrix metering and Nikon swiped VR (Canon IS) and SWM (Canon USM). Before Nikon did that, you can read a lot of Nikon users saying how you didn’t need VR because of a tripod and SWM was overrated because the focus rings no longer stopped. Now those same people are buying VR/SWM Nikkor glass in droves. The same goes for Canon photographers like you. (For the type of photography Ken Rockwell does, sync speed is a deal-killer. No it isn’t a deal-killer for you and me, he is a much better photographer than both of us.)
3.Yes, the XT produces marginally less noisy output. That is why I process my shots through DxO. If we are going to be measuring dick size, the Nikon D50, cheaper than both the Nikon D70 and the Canon Rebel XT, produces less noisy output than both. BTW, sensor output differences are the same amount at all levels of ISO—the difference is only noticeable when “torqued up in ISO in low light.†Howso? Because a sensor reads the same at any ISO. Various ISO settings are applied by gaining up the sensor electronically after the photons have been collected.
4. Proving my point. You own (and I assume have used) your Nikon F4. All of a sudden the D70 is shit even though it has the exact same CAM1300 autofocusing and 1005-cell metering system as the Nikon F5? The D70 also has a superior flash and flash metering system to every film camera out there.
5. No. I used the digital Rebel, not the Rebel XT. (I have used the XT in the store, but that shouldn’t count.) I really like the setup as it reminds me a lot of my old Olympus and when I borrowed my friends film Rebels. In the end, I chose the D70, not because it was superior but because it is set up just like their D2 series and I liked the heft. The Rebel feels too plasticy for my taste, but if I bought the Rebel instead of the D70 I would have been happy.
Have fun, take great shots. I’m glad you own a Canon. But you sound more like the Mac zealots I know who switched to PC, so it appears I am not the only one who needs to take myself less seriously.
Yes, I went to the top science school in the country, but it doesn’t make me a “genius.†I’m just remarkably consistent in my message which is:
1. I suck as a photographer.
2. The differences between digital cameras now in the same price range is minimal.
3. I like the camera I purchased given my budget.
4. I personally didn’t like the feel of the Rebel.
5. You can take great shots with any camera.
6. I can’t stand hypocrites.
Well, you’ve gotten it wrong again–and misunderstood what I wrote again, for that matter–so let me try one more time, in simple English that even you should be able to understand:
The D70 is a fine camera, and I never said otherwise. I said I’d take the XT over it 8 times a week, that’s all.
The 1/200th I was referring to was the Rebel’s.
And finally, the one person playing high retarded priest of uninformed opinion in that thread was . . . wait for it . . . *you*. Suck it up–I’ve shot both cameras at length, and was commenting on the bias of a review. *You* were the one shooting off your mouth, not me. Talk about hypocrisy.
I’ve been a photography hobbyist for less than a year, it’s true, but this is an example of the one grating thing I’ve noticed about photography. Unlike some other hobbies I’ve enjoyed, photography seems to be filled with know-it-all assholes who want to shove their holier-than-thou attitude down your throat at every opportunity. As I said in that thread, both the Canon and Nikon nuts seem cult-like to me.
I’m just a guy with a camera, trying to learn and have fun. You should give it a try, it’s more fun than being a hypocritical asshole.
Your buddy,
Greg
Here was your post:
1. “I’m from the camp that believes if you have to resort to flash you’ve lost already.â€
2. “the Rebel XT blows the D70s away on a number of other areas of performanceâ€
3. “that link is pure Nikon cult garbageâ€
4. “As for my opinion (someone who has owned both a D70 and a digital rebel, and is now trying to convince his wife to let him buy a $3000 5D)â€
5. “How often does a hobby photographer need flash sync faster than 1/200 . . . just about never”
6. “I’ve shot both and I stand by this.”
7. “I own an F4 and previously had a D70”
8. “You, on the other hand, come off a bit like one of those zealots I was talking about when you post comments like that”
9. “Yawn.”
10. “Yawn”
11. “The limitations of shooting with 1/250th or 1/200 maximum flash sync are, for most uses, wildly overemphasized by Rockwell’s comparison.”
12. “I’ve used both and found that the XT’s sensor produced better output in similar circumstances across the entire ISO range, but particularly when I had to torque up the ISO in low light.”
13. “I own an F4 and a fair bit of Nikkor glass, and I had that D70 for a couple of months,”
14. “Have you actually shot both the D70 and XT?”
15. “I’ve shot both at length, so I know how they performed”
You have said otherwise many times. It was the inconsistency of your message that was the trouble: For instance, “I’m not going to devote more time to this silliness†and then doing the exact opposite. It’s a lot like me saying that I apologize for ripping into you and nitpicking all your technical errors. I never claimed that the Canon didn’t have a better sensor, I claimed that 15% greater realized image resolution is negligible. I never claimed that the D70 had less noise than the 300D, I claimed that it was negligible and if it was such a deal-killer we’d both have bought a D50 and saved $100 and $200.
As for who is guilty of hypocrisy and being a “high retarted[sic] priest of uninformed opinionâ€, I think readers can read both of us, query Google on the facts, and judge for themselves.
I’m sorry you feel like a jilted-lover. Maybe your Nikon D70 was off-axis or you got a Blinking-Green-Light-Of-Death. Maybe you bought your F4 just before the F5 came out. I don’t know. What I do know is that in addition to being “just a guy with a camera” you feel it incumbent on yourself to poo over someone else’s blog and add nothing to the discussion other than name-calling.
On a different note, after a discussion today, Dru sent me this link about doing pinhole photography with the dSLR. Guess you don’t need the adjustable hole in the lens to turn that light tight box with a flap into a pretty good camera.
Viva Ansel Adams!
excuse my typos, I was watching brain-sucking television that was more interesting than this conversation when I wrote that.
As for pooing on your blog, my apologies, but you pissed me off.
Feel free to flush this if you’d like, I’m done now (really!).
I don’t have a blog for you to crap on in return, but you’re welcome to frag my crappy photostream on flickr if you’d like. Take care,
Greg
Ok. My turn! 🙂
My opinion, for what it’s worth. . .
I’m not a photographer. To give you an idea, my photo camera is a Casio EX-Z750–not exactly in the same class as a D70/Rebel.etc. 😛
I am, however, a filmographer (my cute, fancy way of saying “videographer”). Unlike most creative people, I have no camera brand loyalty whatsoever. I own 2 Sony cameras (FX1 & HC1)–not because I love Sony (actually, I think they include a lot of goofy gimmick features), but because they currently happen to have the best (and 3 of the only) high-definition video cameras available. The other HDV options are the JVC HD-10U (which I used to own) and the soon-to-be-released Canon XL-HD1.
The JVC camera had very serious issues with low-light performance (35 lux, ick!), which is why I bought the Sony FX1 (3 lux, yum!) for event shooting.
The Canon has not yet been released. I have no doubt it will be an excellent camera-even better than the FX1. I will most likely not buy it because: [a] too expensive for poor ‘ole me (almost 10k!); [b] too much camera for me at this point (still learning my FX1’s features/settings); [c] I have an admittedly anti-Canon bias. Yes, it’s silly. I’ve handled the XL series, and the camera feels sublime. I just have this thing about using what everyone else uses. . .
What I have noticed from camcorder reviews is pro-Canon shooters exhibit characteristics very similar to what Greg here is showing now. They rail into defects in other manufacturers’ cameras, while overlooking the same flaws in Canon’s offerings. Or bash features from other manufacturers (esp. those of Sony–though some of that is deserved), and bring out the red carpet when Canon “innovates” with these same features.
The example that comes to mind at the moment is ragging into Sony for including only 1/3″ CCDs, but proudly announcing Canon’s new 1/3″ 3CCD camera.
I think this is where Terry takes issue with you, Greg. It’s not that he disapproves of your choice in camera; he just does not like your Canon-like attitude toward people who chose the anything different (ex. D70).
A camera is a personal preference. We all shoot better under different circumstances. Though I’d admit Spielberg could kick my butt – no matter what camera I had – just using my Casio photo camera’s video feature.
For reference about Greg’s invitation to crap on his photostream.
Greg modified one of his photos with the caption:
Obviously since I don’t even own a macro lens, he is a better macro photographer than me. His reference was when I took objection to his blanket statement: “if you have to resort to flash you’ve lost already†by pointing out that flash has its place in macro photography or else setups like this wouldn’t exist. He thought I mean the flash-sync difference which is a non issue for macro photography.
I fail to see where I said he should buy a D70, but I did say that if a subtle low noise performance was such a deal-killer that one camera “blows away†another, he must be buying a D50 because it bests the D70 and the Digital Rebel. That was a bit cruel.
Time to go poo on is comments.
Please excuse me for jumping in without having read every single word of these previous posts and for posting such a long story. I just have something to say about the D70.
I bought mine 16 months ago (November,’05) and was absolutely thrilled to move up from my 5 year old Olympus E-10. I do professional product photography, portraits and real estate Virtual Tours and it improved the quality of my output immediately.
It would probably still be my primary camera except for 3 small drawbacks.
(I use Paul C. Buff White Lightning 800’s for studio work and I got a job shooting yearbook photos for a school. I was looking at over 1200 portraits to shoot over a 5-day period).
(1) NO sync connector on the D-70. The hot shoe adapter I bought made the strobes fire every time I touched the camera and
(2) I couldn’t make the D-70 match the color temp of the strobes. The shots always came out too magenta which meant a lot of Photoshop time.
(3) I had a contract to shoot custom houses and they wanted 14X20 prints, which I had to fudge up in Photoshop when using the D-70 shots. (You can do this but a critical eye will notice the loss in sharpness).
My local camera store’s proposed solution was to sell me a Nikon D2X body. Sure! You just want my $5K! My girlfriend (bless her astute business heart) was with me and said, “Will this camera make you more money?” This was 30 minutes after closing time at the store (bless their mercenary little hearts) and I had to start the school portrait shoot the following morning.
I said, “Yes. It will.” She said,” Buy it.”
The D2X made the difference in the school portrait shoots and the architectural shoots. It increased my confidence to take on magazine cover and layout shoots. It has easily paid for itself.
I still use the D-70 as a back up and for all of my “panorama for the web” work because the software has a built in accommodation for the 18-70 lenses with the D-70. It is dependable and will stay a part of my toolbox even though I have a love affair with the D2X.
What is my Point?
Buy what you need to get the job done efficiently and never let your tools limit you.
@Randolf: Not at all. Greg and I were having a little fun nitpicking each other apart. Next time, I’ll probably be defending Canon and he Nikon. 🙂
It does sound to me that a D2X, D200, or 1DsMkii, or 5D would be more along the lines of what you needed (14×20″ prints!). Actually, given that you do portrait and architectural shoots, I would think the Canon EOS 5D or even medium format digital (Mayima, Hasselbad, Pentax?) might have been slightly better (but you probably already have a huge investment in Nikkor lenses).
Definitely the lack of a sync connector in the D70 is going to be a big pain. I’m not too sure what sort of hot shoe adapter you had. I know that for a while a 3rd part was selling a cable release that would cover the IR port of the D70, but thankfully the D70s fixes this problem.
The original article’s intent is to buy the camera that speaks to you, not what other people tell you to buy. Cameras, unlike computers, do not have a huge network effect which forces people to move to a single “platform.” More than computers, they are expressions of your own personality and outlets for your own personal sort of creativity. For instance, I don’t do architecture or portraits like you do, or macros and action like Greg does. Who am I to advise on that? If someone asked me honestly why I chose Nikon, I couldn’t answer that honestly.
I guess for you the D2X spoke to you. I’m very happy to hear that the D2X has paid for itself—it’s a wonderful camera. I’m sure Greg and I are very jealous.
I’m a fan of the Cannon SLR personally.
However I do hear ya loud and clear – there are loads of solutions out there, so why buy what everyone else tells you to buy?
You’ve inspired me to do a little more research before my next camera purchase. Thank you!
Hopefully, this article is more tame than this harsh blog entry. At the time, I was very angry with the review and I took a lot of it out on the Rebel XT.
There is a rumor that the Rebel XT will be revised for Photokina. I expect a larger LCD, bigger buffer, spot metering and the like. If they replace the penta-mirror with a penta-prism like the Nikon D80 does, it’ll be a pretty good camera.
He is biased, and that is coming from a Nikon Lover!
He is unrealistic too, the amount of times he says something like just save your money and buy the…. which may be hundreds of £/$ more!
Some of his reviews, much like this comment are more like rants, he seems to miss the point, he is writing for himself, not for the reader.
I had to laugh at his view on the Nikon Flash series, the sb400 is a glorified pup up, totally useless.
I think it’s embarrassing, quite fankly, that he begs for money all over his website, what he should be doing is making money for himself instead of pestering other people for theirs!!!
Well at least he doesn’t spend other peoples money carelessly, he uses it to buy camera gear, which he reviews. On the other hand his stingy, tight, hermit attitude must be fun to live with. I prefer to live life, make my own money, and treat the loved ones in my life. I don’t find that tight and scrounger are words I would use to describe any guy I like.
Rant over