I wonder if, in certain professions, the same questions appear over and over. The way a sore elbow is asked about when someone says “Actually I’m a doctor…”.
For me, the question is, “So what camera do you use?”
There are a lot of reasons people ask me this, but I think the biggest is that a lot of people are constantly shopping for a camera, but never buy one because the choices out there are overwhelming. SLR or point and shoot? Canon or Nikon? Which lenses do I get? How much memory? What is a megapixel?
I’m guessing some people think if they ask a professional photographer what camera they use, that might be a magic bullet. If she uses a X900, I’ll get an X900, or maybe an X900 JR.
When I answer the question I loose half my audience right off the bat; because if I say Nikon and the person asking is a Canon user, then never mind. And visa-versa. It seems a person’s preference in one of these two major manufacturers is stronger than politics or Mac vs. PC, and maybe a little more ingrained than religion. (There are other manufacturers out there of course, just as there are always cults out on the fringe. But we don’t want these people taking our picture and we certainly don’t want to ask them about cameras. )
We almost expect to hear a knock on our door, and two well dressed young men saying “Good morning, we’d like to talk to you about Pentax….” Slam the door!
I’ll get it out in the open right now. I use Nikon D700s. I’m guessing some people are saying “Hmm. Too expensive for my tastes.” And others are saying “Hmm, wonder why he doesn’t use the D3? Or the new D3x?”
Here is my answer to both. (Canon users and the rest of you, be patient. Much of this applies no matter what brand you use.) First, the D700 is a “full frame” camera, meaning it has a much larger imaging sensor than “DX” cameras do. By full fame, I mean the sensor is the same size as a piece of 35mm film. There is nothing magical about this size. It is, in fact, an arbitrary size in the digital world, but it is now a standard for larger sensor sizes. So to me, the $3000 price tag for each camera body is worth it.
Why not the D3, Nikon’s top of the line? If I shot sports, or something else that required the D3’s incredibly fast frame rate, I would. But I don’t and I am too hard on cameras to spend an extra $2000 on features I don’t use. I was in Cameroon waiting for a plane full of medical supplies to arrive when my camera rolled off a small ledge and broke the whole lens mount off the frame of the camera. (That my 70-200 lens wasn’t broken was a true miracle.) Fortunately I was with a group of doctors, including an optometrist, who had a nice tool kit and some superglue for fixing glasses. The camera made it through that trip, but if I’m going to trash camera bodies, I need a good reason for that to be a $5000 loss instead of a $3000 loss.
In the near future, there may be a technology gap between the very highest cameras and the D700s that warrant the extra price tag. But right now there isn’t.
For you Canon users, let me say I almost put my whole Nikon collection up on EBay not long ago to make the jump. The release and incredible performance of the D700 stopped me at the last minute.
I, like many of you, stuck with Nikon in the jump to digital because I shot with Nikon film cameras. But truthfully, until Nikon released the D3 and the D700, Canon had it all over Nikon in the digital world. The playing field is now about even. For most things, I’d prefer Nikon. If I was suddenly thrust into the world of fashion photography, I’d probably jump to Canon.
When shopping, make sure you compare FX cameras to FX cameras and DX cameras to DX cameras. There is quiet a price jump between the two.
Next time: which camera is best for you?
Keep shooting,
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com