I thought we were mostly through with the brand rah-rah (or is it raw-raw?) Internet chatter regarding high end cameras. Silly me. Apparently the fan folk were just catching up on their sleep while the quake and floods delayed key products.
So which is better: a D800 or a 5DIII? A D4 or a 1Dx?
Trick question. None of the above. They're tools. How well you'll do with one of those tools depends upon how well you study their capabilities and how good you are as a tool user. Simple as that.
Yet every hour I get new emails from one camp or another touting how much better X is than Y, or how terrible the things they see in a pixel level view in a poorly captured sample look, or how a missing setting ruins the whole product, or sometimes just outlandish (and often incomprehensible) claims that appear to be fueled by to much H and OH bonded to their carbons.
Of course, you'd think by now that the camera makers would know that they probably ought to really think through their sample image production. When you pick a location with stained, peeling, and bubbling paint, some people will mistake those things for "pixel defects," after all. And if you miss your focus point, even by a tiny amount, the AA filter must be tuned incorrectly.
Still, the simple truth is this: at the levels the high-end cameras (and even some of the lower- and mid-level ones) are today, there's little to separate Brand A from Brand B. That doesn't stop even some knowledgeable pros from seeking out even one smallish push forward in performance, whether that be in dynamic range, noise, focus, frame rate, lenses, or whatever. Frankly, planning, preparation, and patience tend to gain me more than what the camera makers are gaining in their latest tweaks. Don't get me wrong, I'll always take improvements, but is there any chance I care to switch brands to gain a small improvement in Items A,B, and C and lose it in Items D, E, and F? Nope. Heck, not even for reasonably big gains. Both Nikon and Canon have user interfaces that some of us have decades of experience with. Just the handling change alone is often enough to make me lose a picture.
I do use the competitive brand from time to time, usually borrowing it from a pro friend or two. But I try to make sure I only do that on work that isn't for pay, as I've sometimes found myself staring at the camera wondering where the heck a button or menu choice is, or worse still, what some item's name in the menu system actually means. Do that at a paying gig and you won't have many more paying gigs to worry about.
So let's boil some of this down:
- Does it make a difference whether I can work at ISO 6400 or 12,800 in getting the same noise level? No. Not to me it doesn't. First, I'm not working at those levels except under exceptional conditions where there is no other choice. I'm already at least three stops better than I was with film, and I managed that kind of photography in some pretty tough conditions without ISO 102,400. Or even ISO 3200. Even where a camera is indeed a stop better (and I doubt that these pro cameras are that far apart), at high ISO values I'm having to apply noise reduction anyway, and with care the difference is mostly moot.
- Does it make a difference whether I have 51 or 61 or 135 or some other amount of AF sensors? No. What matters with autofocus is how well I know the system, period. Autofocus isn't a crutch. It's a nuanced tool that needs to be embraced. Do I miss images from time to time? Yes, but almost always because of something I did or didn't do.
- Do I need 1 or 2 more fps? Absolutely not! In fact, I'd argue that there's evidence that these gains tend to come at the expense of autofocus performance more often than not. For what? At 1/500 second, which is usually the minimum of where I'm at when I'm firing any kind of burst, the difference between "getting the image" at 4 fps versus 12 fps boils down to not a lot of advantage: 1 in 125 of a chance of getting "the image" versus 1 in 42. Meanwhile, if I actually use my senses to carefully time a single frame, I find my odds go up significantly, to something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. Which do you think I prefer?
- Is 36mp better than 22mp? Or 18mp better than 16mp? I suppose if I were blowing my images up to compete with Peter Lik's galleries, I might prefer 36mp. But then again, I'd probably just use MF if I were going that big on non-moving subjects. I have plenty of resolution in the 16-24mp range. Most of my clients need less.
I've written it before and I'll reiterate it here: we're at the peak of DSLRs. I can't really think of a photo I'd like to take that can't be taken and produce good results with this latest round of cameras. I'll be happy to argue the nuances at the pixel level with anyone, but we're definitely in the realm of nits. So don't be a nit-come-poop: either you need top level capabilities or you don't. If you don't, why mouth off?
That said, as usual both Nikon and Canon have managed to include enough irritations in their new products that there's definitely something to complain about from everyone. I'm still convinced that the camera designers don't really know how people are photographing (or perhaps trying to dictate how people photograph). I'll cite one example: HDR. On the Nikons, you have exactly one choice: create a two-frame HDR JPEG or not. If you choose not, the bracketing system will fight you in setting up exactly the sequence you want. Neither option (automated or on your own) gives you any help in defining where the "edges" of your scene's brightness are. In other words, none of the engineers seem to actually have captured an optimized HDR sequence. They do know how to combine a dark and light image, though, thus the JPEG two-frame combo. I'll reiterate my offer: I'm willing to take a dozen Japanese engineers out photographing for a few days and show them the way things are actually done in the field. My only goal would be to make sure that the camera engineers actually here real user demands.
Meantime, the Canon and Nikon pro photographers are doing just that: photographing. All they need to know is whether the new stuff gives them any advantage in actual use than the stuff they're currently using. The answer is almost certainly yes in both camps. D4 users, for example, get more pixels and more reliable autofocus. Who would balk at that? Not me.