Seeing as this is a popular debate between pretty much all of my friends who own a DSLR, I thought I'd post the reasons why I chose the Nikon D5000 as my first DLSR. The reasons now seem somewhat ridiculous now I know more about photography... but I don't regret it.
There were three reasons that made me choose my Nikon, the first was that my employer had previously bought a Panasonic Lumix GMC-D2 for the interior photography of the properties we advertised. It became clear immediately that they'd made a mistake as it had such a small sensor it was impossible to get decent wide angle images! This led me to Nikons 'crop factor' of 1.5x over Canons 1.6x... trivial I know!
The second reason was that it seemed more newbie friendly, it had visual representations of aperture, and had a handy info button to explain what each setting was and how it worked. I'm unsure if Canon cameras feature either of these features, I'm sure they have something similar. I was still torn at this point and had found good deals on both a D5000, and a Cannon equivalent from Jessops.
However, as is usually the case with most things, it came down to price. I was surfing eBay one day and found a brilliant deal on a factory refurbished D5000 and that was that...
I've written this post VERY quickly whilst on break at work... so I apologise if it makes no sense in places!
What do you shoot with, and why? Leave a comment!
I shoot mainly with a Nikon D80 - but as to why - well.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was moving from a 35mm SLR (a lesser known clone of the Pentax ME super) to a DSLR I spent ages looking at technical specs, reading reviews, talking to people about what they shot and why...
I came to the conclusion, that for the money I was about to spend there wasn't a whole lot to chose between Nikon, Canon, Olympus (I don't think Sony had a DSLR at the time, and Pentax didn't have anything in the same league)
The technical differences were minor, and well - I'd spent years shooting full manual on a 35mm SLR with a dodgy light meter and no auto focus. If I can cope with that, I don't really need features like "smile recognition"!
So, I went into a shop and tried some cameras. I picked the one which was comfortable to use, where the controls were laid out in a manner which made sense to me.
My reasoning was, if it's comfortable to use. I'll use it. If it's not comfortable to use, it'll get left in a drawer and I'll have wasted the money.
So, having bought the camera, I set about using it. I did photo-a-day for a year and shot with the D80 every single day. Had it not been comfortable for me to use, I doubt I'd have lasted.
At some point, I'll need to replace the body, and I'll go through exactly the same process then.
To me, photography isn't about the camera you use. It's about what you point it at and when you press the button.
Subject. Composition. Timing.
The best camera is the one in your hand.
The one in your cupboard can't take the amazing scene you're looking at.