Prime Lenses: Canon vs Nikon, Who makes them best?

[Derrel]

We really ought to talk about which is better--the metric system or the English system: is a half-inch open end wrench really as good as a 12mm open end wrench? Both will loosen and tighten pretty much the same exact size of nuts and bolts...but one is Metric, the other uses the old English system of sizing...

Or maybe we ought to discuss which is better with whisky? Coke or Pepsi??? And, depending on where one is from whisky is spelled either WITH or WITHOUT an 'e' before the y at the end. (whisky versus whiskey--quite a debate there).

Prime lenses are so many and so varied, but Canon versus Nikon's primes is a lot like the Ford versus Chevy debate. Both companies have some average lenses, and both have some fantastic lenses, and some in the middle.

I like Canon's 85/1.8 EF--super value, light weight, good build, very fair price, good optics, a superb value for the Canon system. I let my Nikon 85/1.8 go (gave it to a friend some years back) since their 1.4 model is so much better, and he needed a Nikon f/1.8 short tele for low-light newspaper work. Sw1tchFX's point about Canon's 100mm f/2 getting no credit is a good one--it's a nice-shooting lens. A guy I know has one, and I've seen loads of good work from that Canon prime.

For those that want to hear about a Canon "win",and who love to hear about how Canon's lenses are superior to those made by every other company, a good case would be the Canon 200/2.8 versus the Nikon 180/2.8 AF or AF-D: the Nikon is old-style, mid-1980's in mechanical and optical design, and has a VERY slow, slow AF system. It's difficult to leverage in situations where fast AF is needed...it's just a clunky focusing lens that was designed in the early days of autofocusing...it's light and compact, but the Canon 200/2.8 is a slicker, newer, better-handling design, with a prettier image "look".

Canon's 300mm f/4 is another lens category where Canon pulls slightly ahead: Canon has an IS 300/4 and a non-IS 300/4. Their non-IS variant is felt to be the superior lens, optically, but the stabilized lens has IS, which can be pretty handy when panning, or in the wind, or when you're a bit out of breath, or are shooting from a boat or other moving platform.

Many older Nikon designs (not the newest of the new) have aperture ring controls on each lens, allowing them to be adapter mounted onto Canon bodies, with the aperture control done the old-fashioned way, on each lens. This makes Nikon primes much more useful on micro 4/3 bodies, or when adapted for use on EOS bodies than lenses which have no aperture control rings.

One of the newest areas where lenses with aperture control rings on EACH LENS is a big deal is when shooting video with a d-slr...serious shooters want to be able to set the f/stop in use, and so Nikon and Zeiss manual focus and Nikon AF lenses are being used by quite a few videographers. An "old area" would be macro and reversed lens shooting, where Canon's lack of an aperture ring on all of the Canon EF lenses means that reversing a lens and getting aperture control is a major biatch to deal with, requiring a hokey work-around or a $400 Novoflex adapter instead of a $39 BR2A reversing ring that just works...

I was glad to see a poster or two who actually read the specific situations I was referring to vis a vis the 85/1.2-L's bokeh signature...and who didn't take a specific context and turn it into a blanket condemnation.

 

[JustAnEngineer]

Why do you think that its always a sea of white lenses at major sporting events?

I don't know about that... I see more black & gold than white (these are from the Beijing Olympics):

In Vancouver, it was about 80-90% Canon at the events where I noticed. Watching the speed skating, I was amused to see between 20 and 30 big white super-telephoto lenses pivoting in unison on their monopods as the skaters passed by on each lap.

 

[KennyW]

Well it would seem that things are changing.

I know you know what I am talking about though. Over the last 10 years I have seen lots of the shots with mostly white canon lenses.

Maybe this is a sign of more pros switching to Nikon. This will be food for thought.

I heard that in the past reports got special discount in buying Canon gears, that's why Canon tele-lenses dominated the market. Now it seems to me that the pro may feel that the Nikon D3/D3s + Nikkor tele-lenses are somehow 'sharper' than the Canon counterpart. Both 'sharpness' and ISO performance are important for the reporters, I think. And Nikon wins in these aspects with D3s plus, say, Nikkor 400/f2.8 VR II.