I bought the bullet and got a Full frame, FX
sensor Nikon D600. I am always looking
for better low light performance and dynamic range and this will up the
performance over my current D300s. Less
blow outs and dark spots in landscape/outdoor shots, which I primarily use mine
for. I was waiting for the D600 body to
get down to $1600 or so, but I saw a sale at BJ photo (NOT a porn site :) in Waterloo for $1800
that also included a full version of Lightroom and Photoshop Elements as
well. Not a bad deal. Seems I can still get around $900 for my
D300s… either that, or I can buy a
couple lenses and become a wedding photographer. Or not.
My other concern with
this is it’s a 24.9 megapixel camera.
The raw sizes are going to be quite huge and I wonder how processing
will be with my 5+ year old computer.
After my 18-200 lens for my D300S died a
couple months ago, I was wondering what I wanted to d, since I was without a
lens as that was my only one. I wanted
to upgrade a full frame camera, but the lenses for FX sensors are not only more
expensive, they are heavier as well, which is a concern when backpacking. I decided that was acceptable as a tradeoff,
but the question was also what brand. I
am certainly not a Nikon fan by any means, although I am familiar with
them. Canon is not so much better either
from what I read online, they are both dicks about warranty, and picking and
choosing what they feel like repairing, and squeezing out the little repair guy
by not selling parts to anyone, which I detest, but there’s not much choice,
similar to the mobile carrier situation in Canada – they are all in collusion
and all are evil, out to screw their own consumers.
That aside, I was
considering Canon as well. Might as
well, not like I was tied to any lenses and I heard some good things about
their products. So, it was the Canon 5D
Mark III or the Nikon D600. Glancing at
the stats on paper, the 6D has some extra bells and whistles such as WiFi and
GPS, which I don’t care much about. I have no problem plugging in a USB cable,
and for the GPS, I do geotag shots quite a bit, but I prefer to carry my
handheld GPS instead of keeping the camera GPS on between shots and sucking the
battery. So neither of those are draws
for me. There are some differences, the
Nikon has higher resolution, more autofocus points, shot speed and a 100%
viewfinder advantages. One other large
difference for me is the Nikon as a built in flash, whereas the Canon requires
an external flash. The 6D has battery
life, maybe some better low light capabilities (based on lower resolution/less
noise at higher ISO), and possibly better white balance correlation. The low light performance is a difficult question.
Low light performance can be two different things and is a complicated issue. Either high dynamic range (pulling details from shadows), or just plain old high ISO performance.. less noise at high ISO, faster shutter speeds allowable when there is not much available light. The Nikon is certinly better in the huigh dynamic range, whereas the Canon _may_ be better in the high ISO, which many people seem to say. DxOmark does scientific sensor tests, labeling the D600 as the best, but that's just the sensor itself. After that there's processing, if you save your photos as JPG and not RAW format. There's also the low light autofocus performance to consider. The consensus is that at east in JPG mode the Canon is better, and it may be a bit better in the low light autofocus department as well. If that's not complicated enough, there's the difference in megapixels, since downsampled photos always are sharper and have less noise. It's the photoreceptor per pixel ratio. So - it is a difficult topic, although the general consenus is the Canon is better at low light high ISO performance. In the end both are capable cameras.
But one thing tipped it over for me to decide on Nikon in
my mind, which people don’t tend to talk about in reviews I’ve read, is the
types of lenses available. After using
the all purpose ultrazoom 18-200 lens quite a bit on the D300S, I am a fan of
it. When traveling or backpacking, I am
only taking one lens with me. End of
story. I am not taking a while bag of
different lenses. Some people hate these
all in one lenses because, I admit they do have some tradeoffs in distortion
and the like, but it suits my needs well for situations where I want a wide
lens and when I need to zoom in on wildlife or some details far away. The equivalent lens in FX is the 28-300mmNikon lens. Canon doesn’t have a lens
like that. Well, actually they do have a
20-300 lens but it is ultra expensive and much heavier than the Nikon version,
and performance isn’t all that great.
Sure, I will get some prime lenses, some low f stop lenses for certain
occasions when i have the luxury of carrying around a bag of lenses with me, but like I said, I do like the all in one lens for traveling, and
canon just doesn’t have a lens that is in this category, so the Nikon it is.
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