Why did you choose a Nikon brand camera?

Tom - 2015 said:

And not a Canon or some other brand?

(following on from this thread on the Canon forum).

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No one buys a camera by name brand buy it for what type of photography you do. A p&s camera can do the same thing as a DSLR on a basic level.

Do you want a system camera or not and how involved are you in photography is it is job or hobby

The name of the camera does not matter at all. the end result after you take the image what you need to do with it

Tom --

Oh gosh; an unfair thread opening question. But, since you asked . . .

In the very early 70s i was a part-time PJ in college, and stringer for local papers, etc. i shot mostly Nikon Fs owned by others. Clunky, heavy, but always worked; stone-cold reliable actually. At the time i always suspected that the Canon FDs were better (particularly their lenses) and good-golly-miss-molly were the OMs sexy; almost like a Leica. Pity that the shutter dial was around the lens collar (which, after some years of shooting, i couldn't abide).

I graduated and didn't pick up a camera for almost five years. When i wanted one I boiled it down to an OM, Pentax MX, or the then-new "smallish" Nikon FM. i, correctly i think, chose the FM due to lens flexibility and long-term durability. This would be about 1980.

I am sure that my art would look the same with Canon. But Nikon has generally delivered over the decades for me, while being, ahem, a somewhat clueless a company as they are. To this day i marvel at the shadow detail in the Raw files, ergonomics, durability of the gear, and -- a small-ish thing i guess -- the CLS system. When i absolutely must get the image, i reach for the d600.

But if ah gotta carry it all day it is my m4/3 kit; which is another topic.

My biggest knock at Nikon is that i still wish that we had the Canon lens options. I care more about lenses than bodies and would gladly trade the Nikon lens portfolio for Canon's.

-- gary ray
Semi-professional in early 1970s; just a putzer since then. interests: historical sites, virginia, motorcycle racing. A nikon user more by habit than choice; still, nikon seems to work well for me.

Needed more dynamic range for what/how I started shooting, and wanted an affordable entry into FF. Canon couldn't offer either, and after having Sony (A7) I realized that the lens selection at the time wasn't really cutting it for me.

All 3 are capable of doing things that I need, but at the moment Nikon fulfills most of my needs the best.

Started out with a Sony D200, upgraded to the D700. Didn't care for the direction Sony was moving in and the D7000 was announced and had 98% of the features I wanted especially CLS. have not looked back. gave my son the 7000 and upgraded to the 610 and just picked up a 7200 as back up.

very pleased overall.

All else being mostly equal, the D810 had nicer IQ than the competition. When compared to Canon, a brand I shot for a long time, the lenses were a toss-up. Handling was fine with either cam. Controls, well, you get used to whatever you have. Accessories, flashes, etc are also a toss-up. So at the end of the day the differentiator was image quality.

Jrobe said:

it is still 99% photographer and 1% camera.

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Can't tell you how many times I've heard this, and how tiring it is. Gear does matter. Look at what the pros use, and ask yourself this: if gear is only 1% of the equation WHY do they spend so much on those fast teles, sharp primes, tilt/shift lenses, etc. Sorry, gear does matter, and a lot more than 1%.

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I was one of the first to use the Canon F1, that should tell you how long I've been shooting. I never really did get a great picture from that camera. I borrowed a Nikon during a shoot and got AMAZING results. I dumped all my Canon stuff, went with Nikon and never looked back. Nikon has made me a lot of money.

Nikon just has the quaity one would expect from a camera.

Ergonomics. Just felt better in my hands.

I was using a Canon ape-sea camera and decided to upgrade to a full frame camera for various reasons. Since I needed different lenses anyway, I looked at the options and after checking them I decided that a Nikon camera with mostly Nikon (and some other) lenses would give me the overall best "kit" for what I wanted. The name Nikon or anything like that had nothing to do with it.

I chose Nikon because they have the best overall set of features. From IQ to AF to auto ISO, they are leading the industry.

I do mainly landscapes and for the rest the usual amateur general pics. And my kit has to be light light light, it all has to be in front of my stomach for two weeks walking in Lapland.

When I wanted to upgrade my Nikon D60 / 18-200mm I doubted that the D5500 would be the way to go and endlessly searched for a new brand.

Flirted with full frame and looked at Sony A7II or R, those cameras are beautiful and small. But with decent lenses that system would still make my bag a lot heavier and bulkier.

Fuji X-T1 and Olympus E-M1 have a very nice UI. And what a beautiful EVF that X-T1 has. But both have less sharpness, less low-light ISO and less dynamic range than the D5500. And they do not offer a 18-200mm. And their batterylife would oblige me to take 8 batteries.

Canon? At my pricepoint and weight it has less IQ, and no 18-200mm.

So I went to the shop and reluctantly took the D5500 in my hand. And was sold by the new grip. O man, that redesigned grip of the D5500. It's glued to my right hand, even with that awkward 18-200mm. Together with a Tokina 11-16mm and 2 extra batteries I am king of the track at 1640 grams.

(I would love the weather sealing and pro controls of the D7200, but the weight and bulk aren't worth it.)

A camera dealer told me that Canon periodically changes their lens mount and only the newest lenses will work. That would mean buying new lenses for a new camera body. Nikon's basic mount is the same as it was in the 60s. That sealed it for me even though I had no Nikon lenses at the time.

I bought my first Nikon gear back in 1989-1990 : N8008, 35-70, 70-200 and the SB-24 flash. Since then I have been shooting only Nikon. Why I chose Nikon? It was the top brand back then.

At this point, even though I still like Nikon, Cannon has a lot of things to fall in love with. Better prices, some lenses are better than Nikon, they look better as well, great cameras have been introduced lately and their customer service is much, much better than Nikon.

If I had enough money, I will be tempting to move to Cannon or have both systems and decide which one to use the most.

When my Zeiss Ikon, Rollei and Bronica S2A was too heavy or slow, I bought The FE2, a photographers camera, same as my photograph father. Later on f801. Very satisfied with Nikon.

Nikon was 2-3 years ahead of Canon when SLRs first became popular. I bought my first one in 1964 and the Canon offering was not as good. Over time, I "invested" in Nikkor lenses, so it was simply staying with the Nikon brand.

I also like Nikon people a little more than Canon people. Both can be terrible fans of their chosen brand! :-(

For me, it's about their "heart" about photography. Other brand seems to have too many other products lines, that sometimes they lost focus. Best example would be Samsung, they jumps into the pro camera business for few years, and when they are not making profits, they just withdraw the entire pro camera line. Sony makes good hardware, too, but I feel like they are more focus on making the camera look good (stylish), but not too much on image quality.

Remember all those pictures of vietnam-era journalists with a pair of Nikon film cameras slung over each shoulder? It was an image that always stuck with me.

I started with a Canon AE-1p and a nifty-50. Plus the ubiquitous 28-300 cheap zoom. And then Canon went and changed their lens mount.

I was ready for an autofocus camera to shoot my daughter's 2nd birthday back in 1992 when I chose to switch to Nikon. I wasn't tied to Canon anymore since the glass I had wouldn't work on a new camera. Nikon's N8008s looked very appealing to me, and here I am all these years later with a bunch of Nikon lenses and cameras. Still have the N8008s and an N90s sitting in a box somewhere along with other film stuff. (Dad's Stereo Realist, Grandfather's Contax, flash bulbs, Polaroid 103..)

Still have the first Nikon lens I ever bought - 50f1.8AF.

Jrobe said:

it is still 99% photographer and 1% camera.

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A camera with 'no controls'... Yes 99% photographer.

However, the higher the complexity of the gear, the more the gear requires an operator to get the most out of it... Percentage wise.

Yes, you can use single point AF, single frame, matrix... But the permutations for different subjects are many.

No one with composition only, in mind will struggle to get the best out of the scene.

I came from the Olympus 2X cropped sensor. So I needed something with really good high ISO performance for weddings. I didn't like the idea of too many megapixels so I settled into the idea of a Nikon with 12mp and great low light performance. I also loved the idea of being able to use old manual lenses and getting them to work just fine. I couldn't do that with Canon. I don't care about video.