Nikon Sony And Canon Camera Gear
I wanted to write about what I’ve done to transition over into Canon camera equipment. For the longest time, I was shooting with Nikon cameras. And I’d always really liked doing that.
I started with a Nikon D 40. 2007 is when I bought it. Although the camera probably came out earlier than that, I enjoyed picking up something like an entry-level DSLR at the time.
I sold that off now years ago and moved it over into other camera equipment over time. While I was in college, it was a perfect camera for me to learn on and learn some of the fundamentals of working with a digital camera. I had fun working with that made it like a ton of photographs with it, then pretty soon after that, I tried to switch over to something more of a professional body.
I bought my first professional body, that Nikon D2H, and at that time, that was already a pretty old camera. It was suitable for a long time. I was thrilled to use it and happy to learn about that camera. They had a ton of features. I probably go back to that, that whole professional body of Nikon. At the time, I was trying to get a job at a newspaper. And that job was excellent. It was excellent working for the student newspaper. You get to go to different locations and take some exciting photos out of something that’s probably not very interesting. It’s generally a person talking to a classroom with beige walls and low-level ceiling light; you get to go to a football game every once in a while.
It allowed me to work with different lenses, lighting, exciting, and dynamic subject matter. So that’s why I bought that Nikon D to H and then to a company that I think I tried to save up some money in college that was hard for me to do.
I tried to save up, I think, like $150 or something like that to buy the 50 millimeter one eight lenses that were like I don’t know the version of nifty 50 that they have over on the Nikon side was great to use. The D2h and the 50 millimeters were what I used to take photographs for the next many years. It is an excellent camera kit to have, and it worked well to take, I think, like the incredible landscape that I did on the first couple of trips they did were just both with that setup.
I switched over to an even or just a different camera, a Nikon n 80 film camera because I was doing a ton To start with, with film and film roles at the time. Then I bought a Nikon f4 s another film body camera from the 90s. I think it was when that one was manufactured; I think it first came out in 1988.
I worked with these film bodies for a while, then I tried to switch out, and I bought a Sony A seven R, which was interesting. I was interested in what Sony was doing with mirrorless systems that they’re creating this the interchangeable lens cameras that are out. I use a Sony camera at work to do the production photography. So I bought the Sony A7r to work with at home and work with on all the landscape work.
It’s a 36-megapixel camera, which is mind-blowing and astonishing when you think in comparison to the 4.2 megapixels I was working with with the Nikon D2h. I liked that camera, and I probably shoot something like that. But, again, it reminded me more of the Leica model of cameras, and it seemed more like a rangefinder camera. It seemed like it wasn’t a pretty complete DSLR replacement at the time. And I think that’s not what they were aiming for by the design of it. We shot a couple of weddings with it, made some beautiful photographs, and had some great lenses that I’ve worked with.
But some things were lacking on I think I talked about that in earlier episodes of this podcast to where they’re they’re just problems with the autofocus. If you wanted to go through and, in a pretty short amount of time, hammer out a couple of 100 frames that were all available, raw images just had a more challenging time getting that done. You couldn’t reach for and grab at those professional unnecessary photography features quickly as you would want to the way the buttons were laid out and the way the menu was laid out.
All those newer Sony line mirrorless cameras have exciting features. I think now there are way more dynamic video features way more dynamic auto-focusing systems. There are some seek problems, that’s what I had. You’d focus on the image. And then the autofocus point wouldn’t grab onto a thing that you needed it to. Then when you take a photograph, you would lose sight of the photograph that you were taking. You’d have a blackout light because it’s a digital representation of the image in the viewfinder instead of a through the lens single-lens reflex-style view of it. And then if you were trying to hammer a few frames all at once, it would just stay black that whole time, it was about a second to process, and then you take maybe two or three frames a second. So you wouldn’t see anything the whole time that you were trying to get the image. So I was noticing that the digital model wasn’t really what I wanted.
I wanted to move back toward the DSLR system anyway, and I wanted a more professional feature set where it was weather sealed or set up to hammer out of frames on it for work all the time. Sony and cameras had some issues with the battery system they used on those first couple of models. It was pretty small, and the camera was power-intensive because everything was always running a screen. Either on the back of the screen for the viewfinder or for the viewfinder itself that you’d look through with your eye. It would run through your battery pretty quickly.
It was a weak battery system. I think some mentioned the same problem with it all the time that it was just an issue that people would run into, especially people trying to work a professional job. If you wanted to work with a camera for a whole day, you would run into problems, and you’d have to have batteries to run through it.
Overall, it wasn’t a camera system that I could use for some of the jobs I was asked to do. So I’m going to have to switch over to something that I can use more as a tool all the time. Fast forwards to me in the fall of 2018. I’m looking around for another camera purchase because I was going to be moving. I would be taking a job where I would be working every day doing family portrait photography and wedding photography. So with the five D Mark three that I decided to pick up us that had the compact flash card slot, and it also had the SD card slot, and you could record video and take 20 mp photographs.
You could do a high frame rate burst series for photographs.
I was trying to find something like a good workhorse camera, where I could always count on it, and it seemed like it was a great work camera. The battery system and the memory card and the lens arrangement that would be available to me that I could just be hammering away on frames, and then be bringing those in editing them and then delivering them to clients in a pretty fast manner. I thought that would be something that would help me out, And I think I was right.
I noticed about the Canon US market that there are better prices in the used market. Canon is because it’s a more prominent company, and they’re selling more cameras out there. It was remarkable that there’s just so much used gear out in the market. If I were looking for a D100 on the Nikon side or a D4, it would be pretty hard to find those bodies at the same low price.
It’s been exciting moving system to system, from Nikon to Sony and then over to canon. I’ve learned different button layouts of how the camera works and all the different associated features. Little maneuvers now are those muscle memory pieces that are maybe one of the hardest things to learn when you’re changing your gear system from, say, one brand to the following brand of Canon camera manufacturer.
I hope you had an excellent time reading about some different Canon camera opportunities that are out there. Check out your US market if you’re interested in trying to pick some up. There are some inexpensive items out there where you can get stunning quality images. Also, if you’re a student or just starting or trying to get into photography, there’s an opportunity to pick up some exciting canon equipment for pretty low prices.
Nikon Sony And Canon Camera Gear
If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work, or a podcast interview, please drop me an email. Drop Billy Newman an email here.
If you want to book a wedding photography package, or a family portrait session, please visit GoldenHourWedding.com or you can email the Golden Hour Wedding booking manager here.
If you want to look at my photography, my current portfolio is here.
If you want to purchase stock images by Billy Newman, my current Stock photo library is here.
If you want to learn more about the work Billy is doing as an Oregon outdoor travel guide, you can find resources on GoldenHourExperience.com.
If you want to listen to the Archeoastronomy research podcast created by Billy Newman, you can listen to the Night Sky Podcast here.
If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography: you can download Working With Film here. Yours free.
Want to hear from me more often?Subscribe to the Billy Newman Photo Podcast on Apple Podcasts here.
If you get value out of the photography content I produce, consider making a sustaining value for value financial contribution, Visit the Support Page here.
You can find my latest photo books all on Amazon here.
Link
Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/billynewmanphoto
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/billynewmanphotos/
Twitter https://twitter.com/billynewman
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billynewman/
About https://billynewmanphoto.com/about/