6 Reasons Why I switched From Canon To Nikon For Wildlife Photography
Taken by Nikon D850, 600mm f/4, 1.4x teleconverter, 1/1250s, f/5.6, ISO 2500m. Need such high shutter speed when she's that close…
(Disclaimer: The following ideas are all my personal opinion, based on my own visual inspection of the image and the personal feeling of using the camera. It's not based on any lab research. Please don't believe in everything I said. Try it out yourself and let me know. It's going to be just a friendly discussion to find the ultimate camera for your own goal.)
I know what you think.
I've been there. I've been a Canon user for 18 years.
I started with the Canon D30 in 2001, a 3 mega-pixel camera. I loved it. Since then, I've gradually upgraded it to the 5D Mark II, 7D, 1D Mark IV, 5D Mark IV, 7D Mark II, 1DX and 1DX Mark II.
Whenever people told me Nikon was better, that they had better “glass”, I would walk away.
Whenever I saw online forums with discussion titles like “Should I get a Nikon or a Canon?” I would laugh.
I was kind of a Canon fanboy. And I knew these cameras were all pretty much the same. Why waste my time? It's all about the photographer. Or so I thought…
Fast forward to December 2016. I went with my good friend Carl to a lava photo tour in Hawaii, led by Bruce Omori, Tom Kualii and Ryan Dyar.
I've always been amazed by Bruce photos of the lava and volcano, which he had a stunning photo that was the category win in Nature's Best Photography, where I met him at the 25th anniversary NBP award ceremony and chatted a little bit. Follow him in Instagram @bruceomori
One morning we took a helicopter ride to get close to the lava. Carl was using a Nikon d810. I was using 5d Mark iv and 1dx Mark Ii. He was sitting in the front and I on the back, shooting out from the removed doors of the helicopter, and we used the same camera setting, 1/2000s is required for the vibration, according to Bruce.
Rick Beldegreen (in our tour group) and another participant in the helicopter flying next to ours. Rick is an excellent photographer. Follow his instagram @rickbeldegreenphotography
That evening, I went to Carl's room to meet up before we headed to dinner. He told me he had just downloaded the photos from this morning onto his Laptop.I took a quick look and … my jaw dropped.
Holy shit.
The photos looked so much sharper and had details in the shadow area that I’ve never seen before in my photos. It looked so 3D I almost got sucked into the monitor and fell into the lava.I was so envious. I knew I would never be able to create image of such quality using what I had, and I'm quite familiar with my equipment.
My whole body was shaking. “What’s going on?” I asked him hopelessly as if he had the answer.”I had the exact same feeling,” Carl said, “It was 2 years ago. I was at a landscape workshop with Marc, and everyone there except me were using Nikon. I sold all my gear the day I got home and I never looked back.”Carl was one of those super calm people. He's the most analytical and detail-oriented I’ve ever known. He did tons and tons of research before he ever made a big decision. Yet he made such a drastic decision.
Long exposure of a lava explosion. Taken with 5D Mark IV.
The next day we had a photo critique session by Ryan. Rick (the one in the helicopter above) shared a photo on his computer. A similar image like this one above taken by me.
The same feeling of falling into a black hole happened to me. I looked at the area in his image where those lava “curves” landed, and it had so much depth and detailed than the one I had visually. I tried to look for a place to hide.
Then Arby in the group showed his photo and it’s so sharp it bleed my eyes. My eyes. I screamed.
Turned out Arby was using a Phase One camera with 100 mega pixel.At least the Nikon photo has a small chance to stand side by side with the Phase one photo. For me, I just want to destroy my camera.”What’s going on!” I asked Carl.”It’s the Sony sensor.”
#1. Sony Sensor for Dynamic Range
Sony?I did some googling. And found out that Nikon, Phase One and even Hasselblad don’t put their own image sensors in their cameras! They all used the image sensors from Sony instead. And the images from these sensors seemed to have so much more dynamic range.But it’s too slow. D810. I need at least 8 frames per second.Why high frame rate is critical.Back to my Alaska tour. Katmai National Park. 6 days no sighting. But a duration of 1 second changed my life.
So this sequence of 14 photos was taken in 1.4 seconds, using the Canon 1D Mark IV which was 10 frames per second. On the 12th frame, I got a photo that won the Grand Prize of Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International. Below is a cropped version for you to see more details. What I want to say is, if I have a camera that has a frame rate slower than 8 frames per second, I probably wouldn't have gotten this shot when both claws were visible, with eye contact, and the water splash just blocking the distracting light colored sandy background behind the bear.
#2. >8 frames/second
So my 2nd requirement is: 8+ frames/second because it suits my passion which is high speed action wildlife photography. And I want one with Sony sensor. However, in 2016, such camera didn't exist. But I heard the rumor of a Nikon D850 coming out soon.
“So why don’t I just go get a Sony? They are probably leaving the best for themselves right?” And I did. I bought a Sony Alpha 7R II. The image quality was marvelous.
But the auto focus was super slow, especially doing continuous AF tracking. The Eye AF was very neat. And rumor is it that it will be available for animal eyes soon. But I didn't like that idea. It's like self-driving car. Think about if you ask a race car driver if they want a self driving car on the race track?
Anyways, the Nikon D850 with the battery grip can do 9 frames/second. It's the only camera that I know of that can do 9 frames per second or above that has 45 mega pixels.
Make sure you purchase the optional battery grip, the dedicated battery (I bought two extras for each camera) and the grip cover, plus the battery charger (total 4 components) in order to get 9 frames per second from 7 frames. Trust me, it's a huge difference.
While using the A7Rii, I realized what I was missing with a 42.4 mega pixel cameras. I forgot. Somewhere I read that a photographer said its pointless to have a camera that's more than 10 mega pixels. That’s true if you only share photos with friends through Facebook Instagram or airdrop.
When I was submitting my files to NBP for large prints to be displayed at the Smithsonian, they wanted to print it at 60 inch on the long side. Just some basic math. Most printers can print 300 dpi, meaning they need 300 pixels per inch. So a 60 inch long print requires 60 x 300 = 18,000 pixels. At the time I was using a Canon 1D Mark IV with resolution 4896×3264 (while a Nikon D850 has 8256×5504 pixels). Though the image was almost full frame with minimal cropping, I still needed to interpolate almost 4 times the pixel on just one side.
Here's a comparison of 1DX Mark 2 (20 mega pixel) and D850 (45 mega pixel) when I took photos of foxes in two consecutive years. I chose photos with the fox similar in size in the frame without any zoom in, and then zoom in 100% to let you see how much bigger it feels with D850 and how much more details it contains.
A master printer friend told me I could get by if I have 75% of what a printer needs, that's still 18,000×0.75 = 13,500. It's still a lot of pixels to interpolate! Even if I have to make a 30 inch print, 300dpi means 9000 pixel required on the long side. With a 20 mega pixel Canon 1D Mark IV, image enlargement still would struggle.
Just imagine during my solo exhibit at HKUST in Hong Kong in 2015, I had to print 4 images of 60 inch and 44 images of 32 inch long. And I was using a 1d Mark iv or 1dx. After some cropping from the raw that’s 4896 pixel I only have 3000 pixels. It was a very tough time to get a perfect print.
But with a 45 mega pixel D850, there's almost no need for enlargement for a 32 inch print. And it would still shine to be printed on 60 inch.
#3. >40 mega pixel
I went to Washington DC to attend the natures best photography award ceremony at the Smithsonian in nov 2018. Very honored to have my fox photo there as a 5 feet print. The photo was taken by Canon 1DX Mark II. Even with only very minor cropping, the enlargement/interpolation was still tough. The image turned out okay.
I didn’t have a chance to look at each photo in the exhibit carefully but two images stood out among all the prints in terms of print quality, meaning sharpness and details. The tonality. They are Steve Mattheis’s and Arby’s. Turned out Steve was using a D850 with 45 mega pixel, and Arby was using a Canon 5DSR with 50.6 mega pixels. So, yes, the 3rd requirement is over 40 mega pixels.
Turned out Arby, who won the African Wildlife Category at NBP, was the same Arby I met in Hawaii few years ago! Small world. We had a nice reunion over a beer. He had two awards in this contest. His winning photo of the elephant is fantastic and powerful. But in this blog post I am talking about image quality, and his aerial shot with the 5DSR that was highly commended in the landscape category blew me away with the clarity, depth, sharpness and tonality.
Arby's photo at the Smithsonian's that I am talking about.
Follow him in Instagram @arbylipmanphoto
And I've met Steve few years ago in Grand Teton. Without doubt he has the best Great Gray Owl photo portfolio on the planet and he's the Audubon Grand Prize winner. His winning shot of the Great Gray Owl was taken by a Nikon D850 and the clarity is mind-blowing. Follow him in Instagram @stevemattheis
Steve's Audubon Grand Prize Winner.
#4. AF Tracking Accuracy
I was testing the Nikon D850 for action photography such as birds-in-flight. What I found was that the AF tracking feel between Nikon and Canon was similar. Canon actually felt faster on initial acquisition but it depended a lot on lens selection and different conditions. However, what shocked me was how many more keepers I had after using Nikon. Before, I would miss shots that I thought I nailed them in the field. I would find out that they were not tack sharp when I viewed them at 200% at home. However, Nikon seemed to do better especially during erratic flight path of birds or unexpected motion of animals.
Almost at around the same time, I saw a blog post by Arthur Morris.
Link to why Arthur Morris switched to Nikon: https://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2018/01/24/why-i-switched-from-canon-to-nikon/
And he talked about the Nikon AF as well.
Then it dawned on me. Maybe it's not the dynamic range. Maybe it's the accuracy of the AF that made the image looked so much sharper thus with more details. Even at extremely low light, like this photo below taken way after sunset, the camera nailed on the eyes of the tiger. With a depth of field so shallow at f/2.8, it didn't miss! (The lens did help a lot) Taken by Nikon D850, Nikon 400mm f/2.8, f/2.81/320s, ISO 3200
#5. High ISO Noise Control
Most of my photography is done in low light because animals tend to be active in dawn or dusk if not nocturnal. So I'm constantly pushing the ISO. You may say Nikon D5 or Canon 1DX Mark II are much better in low noise. But to me, having 45 mega pixel for big prints is a higher priority. And the Nikon D850 is decent as long as I keep ISO below 3200 which is acceptable. So far, it's ok. It's definitely not as good as my old Canon 1DX Mark II which, at ISO 8000, I could still produce decent photo for printing. But I'm okay with decent quality at ISO 3200 as long as it gives me 45 mega pixel files!
#6. Super telephoto lenses selection
As of now, only Nikon and Canon have 600mm f/4. And the longest for Sony is the 400mm 2.8. To my experience, the focal length I used most for wildlife photography is around 800mm. So most of the time I used a 1.4x teleconverter. I am much more comfortable with a 1.4x on a 600mm prime lens than a 2x converter on a 400mm 2.8.
So What Can You Do Now?
With about the same amount of money I would choose the camera that best fits my objectives, which is probably different from 90% of photographers out there, but they are: Sony sensor (for its industry leading dynamic range), best AF tracking capability, >40 mega pixel (so no Sony A9), >8 frames per second (so no 5DSR), relatively good ISO noise performance, and with prime 600mm f/4.
If you don't ever plan to print big, then it will be pointless to get a 45 mega pixel to slow you down. But you never know. I never planned to print big, then I won photo awards and was invited to exhibit and all of a sudden I need to get my files ready for 6 foot prints.
I'm into action wildlife photography, and most of the wild animals are active during low light hours, so I need a camera to produce publishable quality in ISO 3200. And I need the frame rate and AF tracking capability for erratic flight path of birds or animals suddenly jumping and pouncing. And again, 800mm seems to be the sweet spot for most of wildlife I encountered so I need a dedicated 600mm f/4.
As for Sony, I heard the AF tracking of A9 is very good, but it doesn't have high mega pixel. Though the A7RIII has 10 frames per second, I heard from friends that the AF tracking for birds in flight or animals in quick action is hopeless. The upcoming eye AF for animals may work really well. But as I said, it's like asking a race car driver to drive a self-driving car to the track. It just feels weird. You may argue that autofocus is the same way, why don't I use manual focus? 😉 Well, I think I'm okay with dual clutch in driving but not self-driving, unless I don't care about driving anymore.
To summarize and to compare to some other top models:1. Dynamic Range of Sony Sensors: Sony A7R III, Sony A9, Nikon D8502. >8 frames/second: Nikon D5, Nikon D850, Sony A9, Canon 1DX Mark II, Canon 7D Mark II3. >40 mega pixels: Nikon D850, Sony A7R III4: AF Tracking: Nikon D5, Nikon D850, Sony A95. High ISO noise control: Nikon D5, Nikon D850, Canon 1DX Mark II, Canon 5D Mark IV, Sony A9, Song A7R III6. Super telephoto lens selection: Nikon D5, Nikon D850, Canon 1DX Mark II, Canon 5D Mark IV, Canon 7D Mark IIAnd right now, only Nikon D850 satisfies all these requirements. Well, Nikon is not perfect either. In the last few months I've been using it, especially switching from Canon, I had some frustration and its a big learning curve. I will talk about it in future posts. But for now, it's a no brainer. Again, don't believe in me. But do give yourself a chance, rent one, and see it with your own eyes. But make sure to get the optional battery grip to get 9 frames per second.
What do you think? Please leave your comment below.
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