Moving to FF, should I jump camps?

[carrotbottom]

I am ready to take the plunge into FF. I'm not sure if i want to jump camps from Canon to Nikon. I need a little advice because my situation is not very straight forward.

Canon gear: 70D. Crop Lenses: Canon 10-18STM, Sigma 17-50 2.8.

FF Lenses: Tamron 70-300, Canon 50 1.8

Misc: Younguo Flash, Remote Triggers

My FF options are the Nikon D610, or the Canon 6D. The added options and higher dynamic range in the D610 sony sensor appeals to me. I gain wifi, & higher ISO in the 6D. I'm not crazy about the 9 point AF in it. I feel as if its a step back from my 70D.

With the Nikon budget I can get the D610 w/ 24 120 F4, & 50 1.8G.

With the Canon budget I can get the 6D w/ 24 105 F4 (+$100.00 over the Nikon setup) but I retain the 50 1.8, tamron, flash & triggers.

I shoot the family, action, low light, a little video, architectural photography, astrophotography.

Any advise will help.

 

[waday]

Does your budget include money from selling your current setup?

 

[carrotbottom]

Yes it does. The budget is based on available money and used pricing for my current gear. The budget is less for the canon option due to keeping the canon gear that will work. Nikon is staring from scratch.

 

[Derrel]

It's getting harder and harder for people to ignore the real-world exposure possibilities, and the software exposure recovery and adjustment capabilities that come with the new Nikon,Sony, and Pentax cameras...the Sony Exmor generation ushered in a whole new era in what is possible with state of the art sensor technology. It is going on five years now that I saw the first demonstration on-line of what the Exmor sensor technology meant...it was a Pentax crop-body shot (sony-mader sensor in it), and the owner had his ISO set to ISO 200. He accidentally under-exposed the shot, to the tune of ISO 51,200, a mere eight stop recovery from a raw image file. NO, the shot was not 'perfect', but it looked actually usable at small sizes, and not horribly plagued with patterned luminance noise, and not too bad in terms of chroma noise (colored speckles).

 

[Vtec44]

FYI, Nikon is dropping the price of the D750 tomorrow.

 

[Derrel]

And currently the Nikon D610 is $97 more than the stripped-down, econo-body 6D. PLUS, it's being sold with another battery, a 16-gig SanDisk class 10 memory card, a photo backpack,a free Vello wireless remote release, AND MB-D14 multi-battery grip, which gives you another trigger and control wheel for shooting talls...not to mention this body has a pop-up flash and can serve as a multi-flash flash commander...

Nikon D610 DSLR Camera Body 1540 B H Photo Video

 

[carrotbottom]

And currently the Nikon D610 is $97 more than the stripped-down, econo-body 6D. PLUS, it's being sold with another battery, a 16-gig SanDisk class 10 memory card, a photo backpack,a free Vello wireless remote release, AND MB-D14 multi-battery grip, which gives you another trigger and control wheel for shooting talls...not to mention this body has a pop-up flash and can serve as a multi-flash flash commander...

Nikon D610 DSLR Camera Body 1540 B H Photo Video

Precisely my reason for the possible switch. That is a fantastic deal.

 

[carrotbottom]

FYI, Nikon is dropping the price of the D750 tomorrow.

Fantastic. One option I did not put in my list was a little bit of groveling to the Mrs. and stretching the budget for the D750. That seams to be an incredible camera all around.

 

[Derrel]

Yes, the deal is very sweet...I was unsure if the free battery grip and accessory deal was still ongoing, so when I checked up-to-date pricing out on both cameras at B&H Photo, I decided to mention the Nikon's current pricing and incentives. $1399 for the Canon versus the $1496 with those accessories makes the D610 deal as you said, "fantastic", and I agree...fantastic deal!

 

[GlennT]

You don't seem to have all that much holding you in the Canon camp. The 70D is still very current, with many people coveting it, so should still sell well. I honestly would have considered switching before I bought my 7D, but I love my 70-200mm f/2.8L and almost all my close friends and family use Canon. I didn't feel at all compelled to switch. Given your situation, if the Canon option is the 6D, then I'd very likely go with the Nikon option.

 

[carrotbottom]

You don't seem to have all that much holding you in the Canon camp. The 70D is still very current, with many people coveting it, so should still sell well. I honestly would have considered switching before I bought my 7D, but I love my 70-200mm f/2.8L and almost all my close friends and family use Canon. I didn't feel at all compelled to switch. Given your situation, if the Canon option is the 6D, then I'd very likely go with the Nikon option.

Thanks! The 70D has been a great camera. I find myself wanting a little more out of it here and there.

 

[ORourkeK]

My god... I wish I could afford that 610 bundle. That is an incredible price!

 

[fjrabon]

One thing I will say for the 6D is that its central focus point is a beast. But other than that, the D610 is just a better all around camera, IMHO. To me the deciding factor would be if I was going to need fast telephotos, where I think Canon still holds an advantage in big telephotos (300mm f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 L lenses being world beaters, IMHO).

 

[TCampbell]

The Canon side holds an advantage in quite a few lenses -- and especially in the most commonly used lenses like the 70-200mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8.

I looked at the difference in dynamic range and, to me, it's just not enough to be compelling given what else you'd have to give up. People seem to cite DxO as a source for this, but DxO doesn't show you "data", they show you "scores" and they don't reveal how they come up with those "scores". Every time I check a different site that DOES show real data (and sample images) the differences are (a) not significant and (b) trade places at higher ISOs. Given that DxO won't reveal data, show sample images, and seem to get conflicting results from everyone else who will show data and sample images, I find that DxO lacks credibility.

The Canon 6D has an AF working range of EV -3 to 18. The Nikon D610 has an AF working range of EV -1 to 19. So the 6D can lock focus in merely 1/4 of the light that the D610 requires.

For astrophotography there's a much bigger gap. The Canon does exposure simulation on the liveview screen... the Nikon does not. Focusing a DSLR through a telescope is usually done through the liveview screen so this is a really big obstacle. If you try to focus, say... the Moon... you'll see a white "blob" on a black field and nothing you can do to focus will reveal any contrastable details that will help you focus. (The new Nikon D810a corrects this -- that camera has exposure simulation in liveview mode so that you can focus through a telescope using liveview, but it's unique to that camera's firmware. Hopefully Nikon puts this in every camera. Canon and Sony have had it for years.) You'll also find that every astrophotography application that can control the camera for image acquisition supports Canon. Only a few support Nikon (and almost nothing supports Sony, Pentax, Olympus, etc.) It's just never been a popular platform for astrophotography. The only way I managed to get the Nikon to focus through the telescope was by using a Bahtinov focusing mask and a bright star... but even that was a challenge because the software that performs the focus didn't support Nikon. I ended up having to take a deliberately over-exposed image, inspecting the diffraction spikes created by the mask, adjusting focus and taking another test shot, and repeating this numerous times until I thought the focus was close. It was very difficult and time consuming (but it can be done.)

The folks who make Backyard EOS (probably the most popular image acquisition software for astrophotography using a DSLR) have finally released Backyard NIKON (I haven't seen it yet, but they advertise that it's available.) These apps are about $50 and probably worth every penny. If you do choose to go Nikon, you will definitely want something that can help you with focus (Backyard EOS has a built-in focus-assist that uses the "full width / half-max" method (FWHM)). FWHM works well if you have exceptionally stable skies. If not, the slight "wobble" that a star does due to atmospheric instability (the stuff that causes stars to "twinkle" -- astronomers call it "atmospheric scintillation") will create the illusion that the star occupies more pixels ... tricking the focus software into thinking that it is not focused. This makes it a challenge to focus using FWHM if the atmospheric "seeing" conditions aren't good. A Bahtinov focusing mask over-comes that problem (a physical device you put on the front of your scope (like a lens cap) that has special slits in it and it can help you focus.)

I generally don't think the camera platforms have a very significant difference... your own skill, composition, lighting, technique, etc. will easily be THE factor that determines how well your images turn out. I think people get a little wrapped up on the technical side, amplify specific details (and forget to consider other details), etc. For normal usage, I doubt a case can really be made that any major brand is truly "better". It's hard to buy a "bad" camera these days. That's why, when I see people talk about dynamic range, I feel that frankly all major brands are entirely lacking. When you need dynamic range you'll be using HDR or reaching for your Gradient ND filters regardless of which brand you use (even the Nikon guys).

 

[JerryPH]

The Canon side holds an advantage in quite a few lenses -- and especially in the most commonly used lenses like the 70-200mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8.

I would say that this is possible in some areas but not in others, but there is definitely little to no advantage for Canon in the 70-200 and 24-70 ranges when the top lenses from each side shoot head to head. With the best variations of these lenses from both Nikon and Canon camps, the Nikon versions give results virtually identical.

I always like to add that for me, ANY lens comparison is pretty much inconclusive unless one adds the factor that leach lens has been optimized via focus adjustments done via computer/software to he camera that it is sitting on.