[Leica] To Sell or Not to Sell now Canon/Nikon (Douglas Cooper)

[dysmedia at gmail.com (Douglas Anthony Cooper)]

Well, I've been a Canon partisan most of my life -- even when I shot
mostly Leica LTM, the body was as often a Canon IV Sb as a Leica IIIf.
 I bought the hype, re:  Canon glass having superior bokeh to Nikon,
etc.  (In fact, the hype generally goes:   Canon has superior glass.)
So I'm kind of astonished with myself:  after a *ton* of research, I
just sold all of my Canon gear, to buy a D700 and a kit of Nikon
lenses.

My reasoning?  Well, the choice was between the smaller high-end
bodies -- the D700 and the 5D Mark II -- as I don't need to carry a
boat anchor.  And the more research I did, the more it became clear
that Nikon has pulled ahead:  especially with regard to quality
control.  This is the article that made a lot of people nervous:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/antarctica-2009-worked.shtml

Hardly scientific, but when a trip to Antarctica manages to deep-six a
number of 5D Mark II bodies, while the D700s plough on through without
a hitch... gives you pause.

Pretty much everyone agrees, in fact, that the build quality on the
D700 is superior -- the 5D series is still being treated as a prosumer
line, whereas Nikon knew from the start that professionals would be
extremely keen on the D700, and beefed it up accordingly.  The
autofocus system, as people have noted, is no contest.  The Nikon
flash system has of course been superior for decades.

So, it was a question of lenses.  I'd never questioned the argument
that Nikon lenses had inferior bokeh; after doing a fair bit of
research, I can honestly say that this is absurd.  It is *entirely*
dependent upon which lens you're discussing.  Canon has the 85/1.2L
and the 135/2L -- both masterpieces.  But an equal number of Canon
lenses are dogs out-of-focus:  check out the extremely popular
70-200/4L, for instance.

Nikon, it turns out, can more than hold its own, with a group of
lenses spanning all of the requisite focal lengths.  For bokeh, the
180/2.8 is on a par with the best Canon lenses.  The manual focus
105/2.5 and 85/1.4 are legendary.  (And, in contrast to Canon, Nikon
permits you to *use* MF lenses on a digital body.)  When you get to
the wide end, the Nikon glass trumps Canon in almost every department:
 the 14-24mm is an optical marvel -- the most advanced wide zoom in
the world -- *and* it has acceptable bokeh (not that this matters
hugely at 14mm).  The AF 24/2.8 has superior bokeh.  The AIS 28/2.8 is
a worldclass lens, with some odd characteristics:  it stands out at
*close focus*.  Etc.

In terms of optics, I'd say it's a wash -- I'd probably stick with
Canon if I were using monster telephotos (but even then, Nikon's more
reliable AF might tip the balance).  And, as I say, if you want to
shoot old manual focus glass (and I do), then you pretty much have to
go with Nikon.

The professional market share is something of a mystery -- the
companies' statistics aren't broken down according to whether buyers
are consumers or professionals.  It is by no means clear that Canon
still has the edge among pros, however; I've read articles suggesting
that Nikon probably dominates in Europe, for instance.  Certainly,
chatter on the internet suggests that a *lot* of Canonistas have been
doing the same research that I have, and crossing the floor.

I don't mean to Canon-bash -- they've made me happy most of my life,
and they're still producing fine gear.  But they're going to have to
do some work to hold on to the faithful:  better QC and reworked AF in
particular.  I don't think it's game over, by any means -- I suspect
that the next round of high-end Canon bodies will be vastly improved.
(Canon's said to be deaf to user complaints; but I suspect they listen
to their accountants.)