Why do professional photographers use canon

Their CCD stuff can be used better as paper weight. That's funny, I thought most pros used the Minox lineup for it's extreme portability and phenomenal image quality. Keith, Minox indeed. Now that's just plain silly. Minox doesn't offer an interchangable lens lineup. You know Pentax Auto is the choice of pros. As I said before, it's all about the glass! If not, might as well be. Roger, my only complaint with the pentax is that it doesn't support the M mount.

Just imagine what you could do with an M lens on film. I'll take a 2 minute silent pause to imagine Pros use Nikon and Canon because Nikon and Canon are the only two companies who successfully made it through the AF Wars and early Digital Wars who make professional cameras. It's like asking why race car drivers drive certain cars It's because those companies make the products and they can afford them and need them, so they buy them.

Are you conducting a survey or selecting a camera based on what pro's use? If you are selecting a camera for your own use, buy the camera that fits your needs. I see more Nikons in the hands of professionals than Canons. Your observation may be true of young photographers.

But the guys that I see, that have been shooting for decades are married to their Nikons because every lens they own fits every camera that they own. I would suspect that if you conducted a survey among the highest paid proffessionals, Nikon users would far outnumber the Canon users.

Canon is a good camera, and dollar for feature they are a good value. But to say that Canon and Nikon make the best lenses is a bit of a stretch. Canon and Nikon have a very wide selection of really good lenses. So if you are looking for good lensmakers that fill the most needs Canon and Nikon are obvious choices.

So if you prefer a Canon or Nikon for quality and selection you are making a good choice. But to say that they make the best lenses, that is not an argument that you are going to win. Actually, back in the film days Nikon ruled the roost, and the change over by many photographers from Nikon to Canon began then. I myself began with Nikon, switched over to Canon, and just recently returned to Nikon. I believe that a lot of it may have had to do with Canon's lenses being next to Zeiss, about the best lenses there are.

I've seen much hard data to back up that claim by the way, but its only generally true, not true in the case of every lens. To me, now that Nikon has caught up to Canon on the digital front they will most likely be selling as well among Pros as Canon, but because of the investment lenses represent it may take a while, or not.

Not anymore. Nikon have overtaken Canon in sales, pro's included. If you check the specs of all series for Nikon and Canon you will notice that Nikon is offering a much better diversity for selection. For me Nikon's are superior now in every way.

There focusing is far better, shutter speed is faster on most models, lenses are better quality. Build quality is far superior and basically most things that make up the camera and picture quality is superior on the Nikon. You see Nikon have been more patient than Canon, since Canon have quickly come out of recent with camera's that are not heading in the right direction. The mkD 5II for example is slow and has poor focusing. The 50D has trouble with noise control and again focussing not so good.

They really do research what people want rather than trying to make quick cash like Canon. All these Nikon camera's have excellent focusing, fast shutter speeds and superior quality. You will be making a huge mistake changing to Canon. Do the research yourself and you will soon realise. Good hunting. I wonder how much Nikon paid Michael for his post Beware the angry Canonite!

Suffice to say he doesn't visit forums anymore. I personally chose Nikon cue Heavenly Trumpets because they produce sharp jpegs straight out of the camera, which is important to me. What's important to you? When the EOS 1 was introduced Canon gave outfits to high profile photographers, such as sports photographers covering events where they would be seen on television.

They were able to buy these after a while at a fantastic discount. Many photographers chose to do so because, at the time, the system was ahead of what Nikon had to offer.

The new mount was designed to accomodate future development and, indeed, in the early days not all the contacts were used. This gave them a head start with auto focus etc. Canon made a great stride forward in terms of professional use and it has taken a while for Nikon to catch up again. There is no doubt though that they have. Nikon chose to go the route of staying faithfull to their lens mount. This may have been a mistake in some ways but with the reduction in size of electronics and advances in optical design they are now able to compete with Canon.

None of this means that one system is better than the other, both have their devotees and both are capable of taking equally good photos.

What matters is always, are you happy with the camera in your hand. If you are you will get most pleasure and use from your system. The debate about which system is best is meaningless, it is only what is best for you that matters and one mans meat, as they say, is another mans poison.

If you are contemplating a new purchase, go try the options, maybe by renting, and then you will be able to decide what is to be your choice. I used to work for Nikon, I now shoot Canon because I wanted to try something different, both take great shots!

That was a pretty immature comment about Michael, Daniel. There have been a couple of snipes at the F Mount. But at least its investment protection. Apart from the generic lens manufacturers like Tamron, Sigma and Tokina, its also interesting to note that both Zeiss and now Voigtlander are making versions of their lovely manual lenses in F mount too. And you can also buy an M mount to F mount adapter.

I don't see them choosing the Canon mount. That says something. All eyes are on Canon now to see what they do for the 1D range replacement. If they screw it up then it's very serious as they are making losses right now which will make them very conservative with development funds and also risk averse.

If Nikon do release the MX series soon in medium format digital then it could just be a mortal blow to Canon's top end. Stephen, That was a pretty immature comment about Michael, Daniel. His post was the immature post of a fanboy, filled with ignorance and exaggeration. Pure drivel from someone who has obviously not used both and therefore shouldn't be talking.

It's his kind of brand worship which turns questions from new users into flame wars that fail to help anyone. Stephen, there won't be any mortal blows inflicted by either Nikon,or Canon on the other you can be fairly certain of that.

Forty years ears ago I shot film with a Leica 3G. My father useed a Liece 3M, an Alpa and a Nikon FM2 and a Mamiya medium format for wedding and insurance as well as personal photography. All were great cameras with great lenses. On Feb. The control over the in-camera options for photographs is amazing, and the lack of digital noise at high ISO is phenomenal. It is solid , but not overwhelming I'm only 5'1" and have small hands. Personally I would look at a very high end camera like the Leica as a "fine arts" camera, not something I would take on Safari and bang around in the rough and tumble rush of sports and journalistic shooting.

They are compact, solid and wonderful to the touch. I'd love one, but I haven't won the sweepstakes yet. Anyone want to buy and carry a spare digital Leica body on the job? Compared to the Leica class, Nikons and Canons are almost affordable throw-aways.

Nikon and Canon lenses are among the best, and within the line-up, some lenses are much better than others. I would take stock of your personal pocket-book, go out and try - event rent a new D or Canon equivalent and see which one fits your personal preferences One thing about Nikon is that when they build their lenses, they make them forward-compatible.

They know what features are planned and make the lenses "ahead of their time. Both systems are fine and Nikon leads in marketing. I've used Nikons, while they have done a good job recently, last couple yrs. There are some things untouchable from Canon for me the combination of a 1dmk3 and a mm f2. Thanks everyone good comments so far was a good read. I use Nikon and I am very happy with my gear. However, I am not a pro. Maybe the real deal is that for Pros the camera is just a tool.

I know mine are. I still sometimes use a D2Hs. Sometimes a D3. Sometimes I shoot film. Amateur golfers share something in common with amateur photographers. If I can only get the newest driver i'll hit them longer straighter and softer than ever before. If only I had Megapixels I could make pictures just like Olsen. Perhaps others have experienced this but I am frequently asked what digital camera to buy.

My stock answer is "if you have lenses already buy the one that fits them". If not either is fine. Might I also suggest that some if not most beginners would have more fun if they spent less on equipment and more on seminars and events to learn and practice thier new hobby. It sort'a goes like this: A new D 40 Kit costs about bucks. Go for the cheaper camera and you can take a seminar in wildlife photography and fly to Nirobi for a once in a lifetime safari. As soon as you get back you can take another workshop in travel photography and spend a couple weeks in Europe.

You may not win any style points for gear but you will have pictures and experiences for a lifetime, that most of us with our fancy gear would envy. I like Nikons better than Canon. Not because they are better but because I have used Nikon since and I am comfortable with it. I even use some of the old lenses I bought then. Why change? For the OP. I think your premise is bad. I see about equal numbers where I am. When photojournalists speak to one-another it is not a Canon vsrs Nikon flame game.

Many use what their newspaper or magazine issues. Two of our local papers issue Canon so thier PJs are Canonites. One up north issues Nikon. Think about this. Your D70 does something neither of the 50D or 40D will do.

This could be a big deal on occasion and a real convenience sometimes. Not a new gizmo. Since I used Olympus film in my studios I wanted to get Olympus when digital came about. But due to a completely new camera I didn't want to wait so I bought Nikon. It's alright but I'm going to go Olympus in the near future.

They have great glass and feel so good in my hands. I don't know why Olympus is not accepted more than it is. Given that any statement presented as fact is a setup for substantiation or defense, I will only respond with the observation that the subject is the most critical component in any image, followed by the photographer.

The equipment is only a tool. Couple of years ago when Canon was really storming the market with top-of-class bodies in every class including the full frame 1Ds , I was doing nightshots on basic 6x6 BW film when a pro crossed my path with the Canon 24 TS lens a a rather professional looking body. We had some smalltalk, I asked what the body was and he looked at the front saying something like "well he doesn't really know a new camera Bottom line: when you got a really good camera that does the job, details like the make and model are irrelevant.

Incidentally, I shoot mostly Nikon, just because I think Nikon's ergonomics are better. Digital is evolving so rapidly that I never really think about switching, today Nikon might have the best image quality out there, tomorrow Canon, but what's important is that the quality is high enough. A real pro PJ once told that the Nikon D1 delivered perfectly sufficient quality for newspaper work. Everyone is entitled to their opinion Daniel.

And how on earth could you possibly know i have not used both systems as you dont know me from Adam? Anyway i've never said that Canon were bad camera's so you have no reason to be upset and then bad mouth as unfortunately the minority do on here but i explained in my own rightful opinion whether people agree or disagree than Nikon produce a better all round system at present.

Now hopefully you will read this with a logical stress free mind. It's pretty simple: Nikon lost its leadership in the pro market because they were several years behind Canon in introducing a useful autofocus. That was particularly crucial for sports shooters, but photojournalists of all kinds found Canon's AF useful, and Nikon's sadly lacking, for most of the 's. Other than that, it hasn't mattered much what system you use.

Canon has been ahead in several other areas, like image stabilization and full-frame sensors, whereas Nikon has held a bit of a lead in metering and flash systems. But the differences are small, and either system will work fine. If Canon is still ahead and I don''t know if they are it's largely a legacy of Nikon's sloth with respect to AF in the 's, and a relatively brief and more recent period where Canon had clearly better digital bodies. Oh, and I agree with Daniel's "fanboy" characterization of Michael's post.

When you read something like that, it's very hard to take the poster seriously as well you should not. I agree with most of the inputs here regarding the historical reasons for it. Canon took several more or less risky decissions to try to get some of Nikon's market share and they were successful.

End of story. Now Nikon has striked back and seems to be back in an F5-like era: nowadays they make better bodies, but Canon still seems to maintain a slightly better offering in terms of lenses.

Don't buy "reasonings" like: Canon gives photographers equipment for free, and a car, and a beach house for shooting Canon. Or Canon is evil, and at Nikon they are angels. Or Canon evolves and Nikon just stays still. And the like. They are big companies Canon is bigger and they behave the same way, for the good and the bad. I don't understand this fan club for either one of the brands. I don't miss digital nor autofocus and some other things.

I am very satisfied with my equipment and it works for me pretty well. If you are satisfied with your D70s a hell of a camera , I don't see the reason to "move up". But well, I am the kind of guy that once he finds what works for him, sticks to it. I prefer to evolve the art if what I shoot can be called art than the equipment. Michael Moore, And how on earth could you possibly know i have not used both systems as you dont know me from Adam? Because nobody who has actually used Canon equipment would be so ignorant about it.

Anyway i've never said that Canon were bad camera's You just lied about their capabilities and build quality and made it sound as if Canon cameras were 2nd rate junk that could not produce the same images as Nikon. Want me to go through it point by point? So does the Canon 40D. What about lower end? Perhaps you ment shooting speed? If you look across the line at various price points the Canon and Nikon bodies are very evenly matched.

Sometimes the Canon is a bit faster i. This is absolute nonsense. Both companies make great, good, and a few not so good lenses.

But if you're buying their primes or pro zooms you're generally getting great glass. Canon is not behind or 2nd place in any way on lens quality. Given that they have maintained the lead in the introduction of exotic glass for over a decade now, Canon is arguably the most technically advanced lens designer in the world. Nikon also makes top notch glass. But for the photographer on a budget Canon simply has more options. Build quality is far superior More absolute nonsense. I'm sure you get this from drooling over forum debates about 5D II's in Antarctica.

Shall we instead discuss frozen D3's at NFL games? The same artist shooting both will produce images that look identical. That's how similar the sensors are and how important the photographer is. Canon camera quality is top notch. I'm not going to say it's better than Nikon's because I have time shooting Nikon equipment and they also make very high quality cameras. They are pretty evenly matched here. The focusing on both of these bodies is excellent.

Kudos to Nikon. But additional points does not necessarily mean faster or more accurate acquisition and tracking. They often mean problems as the camera tries to sort out what's what and gets confused by other elements in the frame. Additional points are useful for some specific shooting situations. But most of the time you will actually get superior AF performance with a single point or a small cluster of points selected.

Most of the time the number of points is not important, the acquisition and tracking speed of any single given point is key, and Canon's mid range bodies are quite competitive here.

Lenses play a huge part in this. This discussion group is probably atypical in that respect. If Canon had an advantage when digital photography graduated to professional use, then it still has an advantage due to inertia. If you don't believe this statement, look at the computer graphics area.

Apple had a clear advantage when the field began. Yet the Mac still dominates that market. I am not saying that Canon is necessarily past its best-before date. I am saying it will take a lot more than slight technical advantages to dislodge them, if indeed they do dominate the professional photography field. It usually takes some major paradigm shift to make people rethink their options. Wordperfect dominated wordprocessing when the environment was character-based.

It did not survive the transition to Windows because it was inferior in a Windows environment and everyone had to retrain when they switched to windows anyway.

As a result, users rethought their options and picked the best technology available at the time. They are unlikely to change again unless forced to. Notice how slow adoption of Linux is even though there are now many users who could function just as well in that environment as in Windows. Most people are unwilling to switch to Open Office even though it is free and is largely compatible with Microsoft Office.

The lens on a D2X body wasn't anything special, but on a D3 and it's AF capabilities it literally kicks ss. But we're up to some big changes in the near future, I'm sure, mostly due to all these high quality products Nikon is and will continue to launch. So fasten your seat belts, 'cause Nikon is ready for take-off! Robert Capa said 'you can never get close enough'.

Well, he did I find that statement a bit wrong too. I'm a semi-pro photographer. I use Nikon. We produce our own calendars, do our own website photography and just recently i secured an assignment to do photography for the Dept of Conservation here in NZ. Most of the photographers i know who do any pro work have started out using canon but recently last few years are switching to Nikon. They are easily bought-every camera shop sells canon.

A good friend of mine works in movies and he uses medium format as his hobby. I don't know of a Nikon medium format cam? Or Canon? I thought they were mostly 35mm or Digi equivalent?

Correct me if i'm wrong as often i am. A hell of a lot of fashion photographers use medium format too. As do some landscape photographers. At sports events you will currently see white tele lenses. My wedding photographer used a D and a D and the pic's were bloody awesome to be honest-The sign of a good photographer. Not really anything to do with the equipment he used. I imagine he would have got similar results with Canon equipment or a yakimoto snapalot.

Pro's will use the best tool for the job. Whatever that tool is is what they will use. The manufacturers label has little to do with it if your trying to earn a living.

Canon may have been the choice of sports and tabloid gutter press in recent times but things change with time. Nikon are breaking the rules now whereas Canon were a few years ago.

Leaving aside the question of whether it is true, why would it be important? Professionals may prefer one type of equipment for reasons quite irrelevant to non-professional users professional drivers, eg, often choose cars for work that are not the ones anyone would choose for private use. It is also possible that they are wrong. In areas where there is an external standard of judgement eg, medicine we know that professional choices are susceptible to advertising and influence and often wrong.

Popular Photography magazine tends to present reviews of Nikons as 'on Canon's tail' or 'giving Canon a run for the money' at least a few years ago. Also, I've always had the feeling that Canon was the innovator and Nikon was the improver. I switched from Canon to Nikon back in the 90's and again chose the D70 over the Rebelxyz when the 70 was introduced and will most likely stay with Nikon when I upgrade after this next round of product releases.

Is there any reason a person would choose one brand over another aside from an existing lens collection? Canon made a number of design decisions that turned out to be soundly-based: a use a new lens mount with all-digital communication; b put the actuators motors for moving parts, e. And of course in Canon had all this patented very tightly; it took a number of years for competitors to find ways round the patents.

I'm not going to argue that these days any particular camera is especially better than any other, in the same market - the D3 is excellent but there again so is the EOS1DsIII. But between and the end of the 90s, the successive 35mm EOS1 cameras simply were the best, and their market responded. That is very sad. How about an article about 'Why I chose a Pentax camera' would be a more enticing article to read.

In this case, the Canon was best for me, but for another photographer, it would be something else. The point of the article is that there is no such thing as an outright best. Great that you chose Canon, but honestly, how is this an interesting article?! There's millions of photographers out there making choices of which camera system to buy.

Do I want to hear about their choices and reason? I don't think so. The point of this article was to highlight my surprise at choosing Canon and the realisation that each photographer is going to have a different camera that is best suited to their needs. I wanted to highlight the importance of considering your own needs when choosing a new camera and not the generic needs that vloggers cover. I hope that message came across. It is most certainly not a defence of Canon or a brand loyalty post.

Very smart article, Jonathan. And yes you bring up some very real world issues. Like the idea that specs don't tell the whole story. And that a reviewer's point of view may not align with the way real world users operate.

And the idea that experience using a particular brand of camera counts too. Roger Cicala of Lens Rentals noted that for some, they do not want you to be happy unless you choose the same gear they did. I think you are seeing that phenomenon with some of these comments. The only way to not experience this is if you shoot only with tripod and bracketed shots. Again though, this applies to me and my situation. I get that this is a major consideration for other photographers.

I've shot Canon for years and changed to fuji. Once i got to the fuji system, i quickly changed all the settings to what i had gotten used to in my 5D. I haven't shot canon in 3 years now, but i'm pretty sure i'd still feel at home with it. What i'm trying to say is - i understand the point of view of this guy and probably so do a lot of people that used canon for a long time. Depends entirely on what you're shooting.

If you're regularly shooting in high DR situations, then having your shadows 6 stops underexposed doesn't necessarily mean that you exposed the image improperly. I agree that every manufacturer is making good cameras today, but it's important to be realistic about the capabilities of your camera and take them into account when you're shooting. For Canon shooters, that will often mean turning to HDR, exposure blending, or a ND grad filter before some other shooters in such situations.

Depends entirely on what kind of scenes you're shooting and whether you care about preserving detail in the highlights and shadows. Not useful to everyone, but not useless either. Pushing 3 stops with 6 stops of latitude available will have better results than if you pushed 3 stops with only 3 stops available where you are pushing your sensor to its technical limit.

That having been said, I've been in situations where I didn't have a fill flash or using a flash would have been inappropriate and it was good to be able to pull a shade of detail out of what might otherwise be pitch black. Obviously, it's best to try to get everything right in camera, but not all situations allow for this. You represent the 0. The market should focus on constantly improving products in all aspects of performance.

I vividly remember a time when people used to say that 6 MP was all you really needed. Then it was 12 MP is all you needed. Truth be told, they were right. Of course not, but aren't you glad that camera manufacturers decided to continue to develop their sensors regardless?

Resolution, color fidelity, dynamic range, etc. Companies should be striving to improve everything all the time as improving technology allows.

Does having more dynamic range hurt you? Then shut up and enjoy the improved capability. Photographers won't start shooting 9 stops underexposed because their new model has 25 stops DR.

If you think that's where photography is heading you're deluded. That said, of course, the market will continue to develop.

I bet you like the ability to whether you actually need it or not. Now you're saying that you agree that it's all just the natural course of technological development. So which is it? Are camera companies unreasonably focused on edge cases or are they just trying to make better all around equipment and people shooting in more extreme situations simply happen to benefit from these increased capabilities? If the former, you might have an argument. If the latter, then I have no idea why you are complaining about the high DR of new cameras.

Actually, I have no idea why you're complaining about it either way since nobody's holding a gun to your head and telling you to underexpose by six stops. Just live your merry life and stop telling the rest of us how we ought to be exposing our scenes or manipulating our images.

A good photographer is not limited by their equipment. Do you seriously believe that the better equipment you have, the better your photograph can be? No one boosts by 6 stops. This is idiotic. When you see an amazing image not only is it impossible to tell if it was done on a specific camera, but most are actually shot on Canon because it is by far the most popular brand. Most of the people on the internet crowing about specs barely even take actual pictures. They spend more time on the internet reading about photography than actually doing it.

Meanwhile pros are out there getting great shots on 6 year old cameras because they know how to run a business and they know how to take great pictures.

If you re-do with an smaller step, results will also put Canon behind. After that, all you said don't invalidate and is not related to the fact that Canon do have worse DR, and that photographers will have worse output. Maybe they will have to crank up noise reduction, or rely on bracketing. For me, that usually shoot concerts and festivals, having a camera with worse DR is unthinkable. Here's an example from a concert I shot last week. The first is the out of camera. See that I exposed correctly for the highlights moving lights.

The last part is the final image. If this was shot on Canon, it would look just bad, as obviously you can't bracket this. Or I would have to overexpose and lose information on the highlights, the LED panel would be blown out for instance. My camera is a Nikon D I shoot live community theatre, which almost by definition is lousy lighting for photography, and mostly musicals which have a lot of motion, on a Canon 6D.

So, I don't buy that Canon or any relatively recent camera can't handle these situations. Pixel peeping will just drive you mad. I see a photo where you raised shadows by a large amount because you could, not necessarily because it made a better picture.

The final image would have a more clear subject and focus with shadows raised less. The blown out image in the middle is almost a better photo than your final image because at least there is a clear subject. My only reservation about calling the middle photo "better" is the red tint. The lights on the final image are effectively blown out. I'm sure if I went and took a color checker most of the values would be slightly below but they'd be pretty high and the effect is pretty much the same to viewers.

If I took the same image on a Canon 1 stop brighter, viewers would notice the lens quality and processing WAYYYY before they noticed that the highlights are a tiny, tiny bit less white on your image.

This is because viewers aren't thinking about the technicals at all, they are thinking solely about the art. And when you forget the technicals and focus on the art, blown out highlights can actually look really cool!

The middle photo you gave is almost an example of this, but taken to an extreme. What looks more epic and exciting, the final image where I cannot focus on any elemnt, or the middle image where light is exploding everywhere and the crowd creates vanishing lines leading into this light explosion? I was actually disappointed with how insignificant the increase in DR was, giving the hype from internet commenters about how important DR is.