27Mar The Canon 5d mark III, still more affordable then the Nikon D800
A few people have asked me if I plan to spend any time with the Nikon D800 and if I would ever consider switching from Canon over to Nikon. Honestly, I am heavily invested in glass, above is my master prime set from left to right, the Canon 85mm f1.2, the Canon 50mm f1.2, the Canon 35mm f1.4, and the Canon 24mm f1.4. The only thing I’m missing is the Canon 135mm f2, which I would still like to add to my collection at some point.
Even though I’ve found extremely good deals on all of these lenses (thanks Portland Craigslist), that is still about a $4000 investment in lenses, add the price of a Canon 5d mark III to that and you’re up to the price of a very nice used car. It’s still less then half the price of a Canon C300, and at least the investment has paid for itself.
Switching to the Nikon D800 would save me $500 for the price of the body, but what about the cost of lenses? As an example, I paid $1100 used for the Canon 24mm f1.4 II lens, the equivalent Nikon 24mm f/1.4G even used will set you back around $1600. Does Nikon even sell a auto focus 50mm f1.2? The rest of the equivalent Nikon lenses are about the same scenario.
So you’ve effectively saved $500 for a body and will pay $1500 or more extra in the cost of lenses. After all what good is having an excellent camera body if you’re taking photo’s (or video) through low end glass. It would be like using a $100 50mm f1.8 on a $2000 Canon 5d mark II.
Another thing to consider is the video codec. Nikon is still using 24Mb encoding for video, while Canon has upgraded to ALL-I encoding at a much higher 90Mb data rate. Sure Nikon has a clean HDMI output but to take advantage of that you’ll need a HDMI recorder like the Ninja which will add another $1200 to $2000 to the overall cost. Again more money for Nikon over all.
Unless you need the 36.3MP of the Nikon D800, Canon still seems to be the better deal. Canon has done a good job of covering all the angles. Sure there are a few things missing from the 5d Mark III that all of use would like to have seen, but Canon knows that they only have to make a camera that’s enough better then the competition. Sure we might find it frustrating, but how many companies are really competing in this market?
I suspect the next round of Canon’s consumer cameras will have a new sensor and the same features pretty much all around. Just like last time. I hope they prove me wrong.
March 28th, 2012 at 1:12 am
nice videos. My t2i looks grainy in low iso settings with fair light. I’m talking 400 iso. When in a dim room, I expected for this camera to at least capture the lights and leave the shadows dark. But it’s not doing that. There’s a lot of noise. When I first bought the camera, I didn’t notice this? Could it be my sensor? Help me please.
March 28th, 2012 at 9:12 am
The sensor has been known to get noise as the temp increases, but you might also want to check your camera’s picture profile settings. The noise on my t2i doesn’t start to be noticeable until around 800 iso, and is still very usable at 1600 iso.
March 28th, 2012 at 3:41 am
Portland Craigslist…Portland, OR? If that’s the case, then it’s a small world my friend. A small world indeed.
March 28th, 2012 at 5:18 am
Both of my sisters live in Portland. Everytime I head up to visit, I spend my mornings searching craigslist and afternoons on the max picking things up.
March 28th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Awesome. I do see some pretty good deals make their way onto craigslist, but I never have enough scratch to invest when the stuff shows up. I need to get some more work under my belt.
March 28th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Yea most of the deals I’ve found were people that needed cash by such and such a day to pay the rent or cover some bill. But you have to have the money to make the offer and be able to meet them at some coffee shop to make the trade.
March 28th, 2012 at 7:02 am
The Canon 50mm/1.8 II is actually sharper than the Canon 50/1.2 USM L. So no, you don’t have to have $1000 lenses for a 5D mk3 or a D800. A $100 lens will do just fine for many people!
March 28th, 2012 at 8:22 am
I have heard that about the 1.4 being sharper than the 1.2 – though not sure if I believe the 1.8 is also sharper. I own a 1.4 nifty, and it is very good for bokeh – which is what i am told the 1.2 excels at.
March 28th, 2012 at 9:05 am
The Canon 50mm f1.8 II is very sharp around f2.8 and higher, I don’t know if it is sharper then the f1.2 at f2.8 but it’s possible. Wide open it produces very harsh bokeh, and suffers from Light fall-off in the corners on a full frame body. The colors are also a bit washed out. The Canon 50mm f1.4 is the best value out of canon’s 3 50mm lenses, with the 50mm f1.2 above being the most money for the least amount of improvement.
March 28th, 2012 at 9:18 am
Glad to hear u think the 1.4 is the best value, because combined with the 60D – I really think I am getting the best bang for my buck (of course, with ML installed).
But I agree with the original blog post… the money should be spent on L lenses whenever u can. I desperately want the 70-200 2.8 II L.
March 28th, 2012 at 11:28 am
I’ve really been enjoying the 70-200mm f2.8 original. If you keep an eye out you can find them for around $1100 or so on ebay. Not quit as good as the mark II but I don’t think the difference is substantial. That Lens is also the reason I’ll be keeping my Canon 7d body around. 70-200mm becomes 112-320mm on a crop sensor without dealing with the light loss of a 1.4x teleconverter. It would be really nice if canon would implement an EF-S mode on the 5d mark III that would crop the sensor to 1.6x. Sure you’d only have about 14mp to work with but it would be a great feature to have for both video and photography.
Keep your 50mm on the camera, click crop mode and now you have 80mm. Using a 35mm click crop mode and you have a 56mm. I think it would be a very handy feature.
March 28th, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Funny you should mention your original 70-200. I am looking at one right now online (used) for the amount you mentioned…$1,100.
At that low a price, I am tempted … but without IS, I am hesitant. Don’t you miss IS?
March 28th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
My 70-200mm f2.8 has IS.
March 29th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
The ones I see don’t have it … I didn’t know they manufactured the 70-200 with IS until now. I looked on the digital picture.com site:
http://bit.ly/BA72a
So that’s what I definitely want.
March 29th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Yep, that’s the one I have. A very excellent lens!