I SWITCHED FROM CANON TO NIKON TO M

I SWITCHED FROM CANON TO NIKON TO MEDIUM FORMAT TO CANON AGAIN

June 25, 2015 · Tom Barnes 15 Comments

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I love Canon cameras, I really do and it was with great regret that I moved away from Canon last year after being an EOS system user my entire life. I started when I was 5 years old on my fathers EOS 300 film cameras and have then enjoyed every camera up to and including the 5D MK3, but there was a problem.

I’m sure it wasn’t just me, I’m sure a lot of other pros felt like Canon wasn’t listening. The fact that it felt like I had been abandoned by the system I’d bought ito throughout my career hadn’t come at a great time – I was at a crossroads in my career and wanted to make the jump into medium format, I couldn’t then still have my Canon cameras as they weren’t a viable backup with the vast difference in resolution – to me the only option looked to me to jump over to Nikon and use their D800 bodies as backups for my Mamiya Leaf & Credo system that I had bought into. I wasn’t the only people thinking about the switch, it was a conversation that was becoming more and more common when I caught up with other photographers, there seemed to be a general feeling of frustration at Canon.


For those not familiar with my work I’m a music and portrait photographer based in London specialising in press shots for artists, labels and magazines. Over the past ten years I’ve travelled the world with bands on tour or for portrait commissions, I now shoot for a whole host of people and changing focus of my work toward more commercial and advertising arenas but still portraiture. I’ve used most cameras in the market and owned all the Canon cameras from 10D to the 1 series, I’ve also owned Hasselblads (Hassle Blads) and have shot medium format for a few years alongside my 35mm format work so have experience of all the main systems.

The feeling of abandonment was frustrating and I wasn’t the only pro feeling that we were being ignored by Canon and I decided to dive in headfirst and move towards the high megapixel arena. When the switch happened, I sold all my Canon gear (all L series and 5D MK3’s) and dropped some serious cash on the Leaf System and Nikon backups, there was then the inevitable learning curve of learning how these cameras differ from something you’ve used your entire career and then differed from each other. It felt like the high mega pixel vote had been left for dead by Canon – it had been years since the launch of the D800 and then Nikon released the D800e which went unanswered by Canon. As well as the Leaf & Nikon kit I also bought a Fuji X100T for behind the scenes and to use as a daily camera.

Here’s the main Nikon kit

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And here is the main Mamiya setup

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So that’s what I switched from and to, did I enjoy the new kit? Yes, but only for a few months, I think the novelty and the learning carried me through but there were somethings done differently, some that weren’t done at all and some that were just awful. The main points I’ll go into below broken down into the different systems. I don’t want this to be a bashing piece – I will say that the quality of the Nikon was good and the quality of the Leaf is phenomenal but to me there is more to using a camera than the finished file. I didn’t get into photography because of the output – of course that’s a large part of it but I’ve always loved the process, the clunk and whirrs and the feel of the camera. If I don’t like using a camera then it’s a struggle to enjoy shooting with it!

Here are my good, bad and the ugly points about the Nikon and Leaf systems.

NIKON SYSTEM

Good

Good Image Quality
USB 3.0 Tether
Comfortable to use
Deals with rear-curtain flash well
Bad

Slow to use
No preview on rear screen whilst tethering
Skin tones look weird on rear screen
Picture profiles are not as nice as Canons
Unreliable tethering – had to power cycle often
Can’t save to card whilst tethered
Locking of flash/trigger isn’t secure as Canon
Cannot skip images 10 at a time
Button not as good/fast as Canon wheel
AF slow and inaccurate
No preview on rear screen whilst tethering
Cannot skip images 10 at a time
Button not as good as Canon wheel
MAMIYA SYSTEM

Good

Amazing Image Quality
USB 3.0 Tether
Touch screen
Screen Quality
Tethers well to Capture One
Bad

Slow to use – really slow.
slow to skip through images
Autofocus inaccurate
Autofocus slow and hunts regularly
Awful battery life
System freezes a lot
Multiple battery types/chargers
Lenses are very fragile/sensitive
Auto WB – not accurate
Small line of lenses – V. expensive
Not comfortable to use
Repairs take weeks – sent to Denmark
Fires flash early in about 1/10 shots
Single memory card slot
LS Lenses add noticeable delay to shot
Locks up/freezes and has to be reset
Firmware requires battery grip (£1000)
Firmware a mess – locked my back up
Awful noise in low light (CCD back)
No picture profiles for preview screen
No pro service like CPS/NPS
Hard to use menus on back
Custom functions are a nightmare to change
As you can see – I haven’t really enjoyed using the systems above – there are multiple problems that I didn’t like and it meant that I wasn’t enjoying using the cameras – I’d consider this the biggest downside of the systems, I just didn’t like them. Imagine spending that money and then finding out you aren’t really a fan (I had used both of these systems before – hired in on jobs but it’s one thing to hire them for a day and an entirely different one to live with them) Both of the systems were very slow and difficult to review images on. Annoyingly they both had image review issues – I know it’s not a common issue but I always put picture profiles on my images in camera but Nikons picture presets are basic and made skintones look awful, the Leaf back on the other system doesn’t have any picture profile support – in the latest firmware they have enabled a black and white preview mode but when I installed that firmware it wasn’t compatible with my body firmware and caused the back to crash, I rolled back and my previews were stuck in black and white – not ideal. In the end I found myself shooting in black and white on the Nikon as I simply could not get skin tones to look how I wanted them to – it got quite boring explaining to people that the shots were in colour but displayed in black and white.

So, to summarise – both systems were slow and frustrating to use. I wasn’t getting the look I wanted and I couldn’t get my head around the rear screens. I started to not enjoy using the cameras and they were relegated to tools that I just had to use through necessity rather than desire. On top of that the Medium format kit which had cost me a huge amount of money was very fragile compared to the Nikon and Canon systems, it locked up a lot and was generally not massively reliable to use – the picture quality was truly amazing but it’s the journey to get it that was uncomfortable, I was getting increasingly paranoid about the gear failing or breaking on an important shoot.

Then the bomb dropped earlier this year when Canon announced the high mega pixel body that I had been after for the past few years. I got straight onto the guys at Calumet at Drummond Street in London and pre-ordered two bodies and a full set of lenses knowing it wouldn’t be shipping for months – it gave me a bit of time to prep the swap and figure out what I was going to do about the other gear and how I would finance it. Probably should note at this stage that Canon and Calumet have had nothing to do with this article, what happens next was paid in full and I did make a loss on the gear, I’ve not been compensated in any way for this piece – always nice to be up front about things like this.

I ordered two of the Canon 5DS cameras – I had thought about the R version but I didn’t want to run the risk of added Moiré. Lens wise I decided to go for slower lenses as I felt I needed the image stabilisation more than the speed and opted for three lenses – the 24-70 F/4 L IS, 16-35 F/4 L IS and the 100mm F/2.8 IS L. So far I really like all the lenses, I’ve never really shot too wide but it’s useful to have the IS – I think I definitely made the right decision and so far haven’t missed the speed – I always stopped down anyway so not a problem!

A couple of things made the swap a little less painful – Calumet were offering a trade in bonus for bodies towards the 5DS and then on top of that Canon were offering a summer cashback on all the lenses I wanted to get hold of – thanks to both of those things I found it all a little easier! I chopped in all my Nikon equipment and that really helped – I should quickly thanks Jon and Jamie at Calumet for all their hard work and my unending list of questions!

Here’s the Nikon kit sitting sadly in the corner, do I miss it? No.

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I’m a week in with the 5DS, that’s 4 full day shoots and 4 shorter shoots, it’s not skipped a beat, it’s faster than the D800 and the AF is so much better. I haven’t been able to tether it properly yet as I’m waiting for Capture One to release an update to support full tethering support but if tethering is anything like the 5D MKIII then I should enjoy it – it’ll just be much faster thanks to the USB 3.0 – I’ve heard some rumblings that the USB port is delicate (aren’t they all) so maybe getting something like Tetherblock or a Jerk Stopper.

Here is the new setup

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Just to give you an idea of the quality achievable from the Canon 5DS I have taken a shot on my Mamiya full setup with the 80mm lens and compared it to the same shot taken on the Canon. A lot of talk has been made about this being a ‘medium format killer’ etc etc, I’m not so sure but have a look at the files below and see what you think. My rather fetching model is called Ken and he lives permanently in my studio as a pre-light or to scare people as as a prank.

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