Canon vs. Nikon - Intro DSLR

The choice of a camera is a personal preference.
Want to compare different models you are interested in?
Go to dpreview.com and peruse the site.

Canon and Nikon spend the most money on advertising, so they naturally have the most sales. They also make good equipment. Nikon has the quietest shutter.

My personal choice 30 years ago was Olympus OM-2 SLR's for helmet mounted skydiving photography because they were the smallest and lightest SLR's on available at the time. I continued to add lenses as time went by.
When it came time to decide to purchase a DSLR, I selected Olympus again because they have an adaptor which allows me to continue using all my old lenses.
I purchased a Olympus E-510 a year ago in July and have been pleased with the experience. I passed on it's predecessor, the E-500, because I did not feel the features offered were what I wanted. The new E-520 model offers some additional new features, but Olympus needs to up the sensor to be competitive with Nikon and Canon new models.
The advantage of the Olympus 4/3 sensor is the effective 2x multiplier of a 35mm lens. This is why Olympus is still the lightest body/lense system available.
All the manufacturer's make different grades of lenses.
The standard lens (f3.5, under $300) that comes with the camera (kit lens) is the a good lens, but it the lowest quality-wise available. The next step up is a mid-range lens, offering a little faster lens (f2.8, $400 to $1000) and better optics. The step above that is professional quality, (usually f2, $1500 and up) faster auto-focus, highest quality optics. Optics do make a difference. If you can afford it, purchase a camera body and the intermediate lens to start off. The shots you will be able to get with the better lens will save you money in the long run.

My daughter has taken more photos (over 7000) with "my" than I have in the past year. To see what a 15-year old can do, check out her gallery at skybreeze.deviantart.com.
The images are shot in RAW, and post-processed in Photoshop Elements or iPhoto.
 
john smith said:
Want to compare different models you are interested in?
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Well, I would, but then Leslie would need to kill me! :)

So far, my little Canon P&S (or POS) has been sufficient. However, departing 6Y9 this year the lens malfunctioned, and the camera, with about 15 months on it, is toast, with a 12 month warranty. Since I got it with the AmEx card (actually, Membership Rewards Points), their extended warranty may save me, but it's still a hassle.

The thing I wish it had was Image Stabilization, like Elizabeth's has.
 
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gprellwitz said:
The thing I wish it had was Image Stabilization, like Elizabeth's has.
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My P&S is a Canon SD700IS. I got it because of its size and because it has image stabilization. It's been just fine as a camera I can throw into a briefcase or flight bag and go.
 
jmaynard said:
My P&S is a Canon SD700IS. I got it because of its size and because it has image stabilization. It's been just fine as a camera I can throw into a briefcase or flight bag and go.
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Yeah, mine is the Canon Powershoot SD900. Elizabeth's is a Powershoot too.
 
I,ve got a little Kodak EasyShare Z1285, 12mp & IS with Schneider optics, does a pretty decent job.
 
My P&S camera is an Olympus C-740. Had it for about 5 years now. 3.2 Mpixel, but a really good 10x optical zoom lens. And it fits nicely in my laptop bag for trips where I don't feel like dragging the camera bag with the A100 along.
 
What is the adapter the Olympus people speak of?

I opted for Nikon over Olympus because their bodies would not accept all my lenses from my OM2 which I still dearly love. I figured if I had to get new lenses I might as well switch to Nikon which appears to support their products better.
 
smigaldi said:
What is the adapter the Olympus people speak of?

I opted for Nikon over Olympus because their bodies would not accept all my lenses from my OM2 which I still dearly love. I figured if I had to get new lenses I might as well switch to Nikon which appears to support their products better.
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Olympus offers the MF-1 OM adapter for the FourThirds camera bodies. It's somewhat limited by the lens's lack of electronics; it's used only in stop-down metering mode, and only manual and aperture-priority autoexposure modes are available. There's no autofocus, either. Still, it does have its uses; I've used mine with my 50/2 OM Zuiko Macro, which is probably one of the best macro lenses ever made. Works fine for what it is.

Olympus originally resisted offering an OM-4/3 adapter, because they claim that digital SLRs need lenses designed to have the light coming out of the back of the lens be aligned as closely as possible with the optical axis to avoid color fringing and aberrations. The Digital Zuikos are all designed this way. Obviously, Canon and Nikon disagree.

Even so, I did consider getting into another system for the same reason: my OM-series lens collection is extensive. As it turns out, I didn't find a Canon or Nikon DSLR I liked to handle (or, indeed, anything else until the E-410). I kept dithering and using my E-10 for serious photography; when the E-410 became available, I snapped one up, and haven't regretted it.
 
woodstock said:
That's great Ghery!

I can't handhold for more than 1/10 of a second even with IS with my P&S and roughly 1/30 with my SLR with IS lens.

These were taken with my little P&S but on a tiny tripod for one second:

You can take decent pictures with a P&S, you just have to take it off of automatic settings.
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Very nice Beth!

Reminds me a bit of this recent night scene series done of London.
 
Thanks Rich!

I love night photography - just get a stable place to sit your camera and let er rip!

Doing it from a helicopter though - wow!
 
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/oima_slr_accessories.asp?product=1386&acccategory=all

MF-1 OM Adapter (OM to 4/3 Lens Adapter)
Item: #260231-410
Permits the adaption of certain Olympus OM lenses to be used with any E-System Digital SLR.

Autofocus(AF)is not available.
Stop-down metering is used.
Spot metering does not work properly.
Although it is possible to use A (aperture priority AE) mode in auto exposure, the aperture display is not available.
The aperture display in M (Manual) is not available.
In P (Program AE) or S (Shutter speed - priority AE) mode, the shutter releases, but the auto exposure control does not work.
The distance scale on the OM system lens may not indicate the actual distance. Always use the viewfinder for focusing.
 
mantakos said:
No. But if crank up the ISO, that increases the noise, and if you then down-sample the image in post-processing (either in-camera or out), that does tend to reduce noise.
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No CMOS imagers can actually bin pixels on-chip. As you point out, downsampling does reduce noise but it's not really necessary to increase the ISO for this to work as long as you have manual control of the exposure time and are OK with the original image being rather dark. OTOH, other than the typical cumbersome UI approach to changing ISO there's no downside to boosting the ISO (gain).


Almost all DSLRs are CMOS, these days.
Almost all DSLRs have "Bayer" pattern sensors, so a 10MP sensor has 3.3 million red pixels, 3.3 million green, and 3.3 million blue.
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Actually the Bayer photo mask pattern has 2 green for each 1 blue and 1 red pixel. This is because our eyes have more resolution in luminance ("brightness") than color and they are more sensitve to green. The colors are arranged so that every group of four adjacent pixels includes the 2 green, 1 blue, and 1 red combination so a 10 MP color imager actually yields 10M color pixels. There is a reduction in luminance (black/white) resolution with a Bayer color imager but the effective black/white resolution of a monochrome imager is a bit less than twice what you get with a color imager of the same total pixel count.

For anyone curious about Bayer pattern coding Wikipedia has a good article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter[/quote]
 
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Personal preference. I like the way the Nikon feels. My professional photographer friend swears by canon
 
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