Canon vs Nikon

The eternal debate

Canon

Above is one of the first images I took with the formidable Canon R5 MKll after part exchanging a whole bunch of medium format gear and taking on credit in order to buy it, yes you're reading an article written by someone who isn't a paid professional and doesn't have tens of thousands of dollars stashed away to buy this gear.

The image was an out of the box type of thing, I set the camera up in the same way I would have done any other camera that I've used over the years with manual focus and full manual mode. I didn't even focus stack this image because frankly I wouldn't have known what that was and didn't know the ability to do so existed on the camera! An article about focus stacking will come soon.

The photo was lauded by my peers, many of whom are incredible photographers and award winning visual effects artists. I was rapt that this camera gave me such awesome results out the box and a Year later it still performs incredibly well and makes awesome images, however lately I've become a little bit disgruntled with it as I push further into video work. One of the things that lets the camera down even with stills is the noise, because it's a stacked sensor there is quite a bit of noise once you get past ISO 800 and of course most of this can be fixed in post it is nonetheless annoying to have to do so. I believe the R3 is much better but it has a smaller sensor and is a fair bit more expensive. BUT the most annoying thing for me is the autofocus in video mode, I've tried so many different combinations, watching hours of videos on YT to see if I can find the optimal settings and yet it still hunts at times, generally when you least want it to!

I follow a few guys on Youtube and I noticed a lot of them were using Nikon gear. Nikon was my first choice of camera when I purchased my first SLR 30 odd years ago, but later as digital came along I borrowed one of their first digital cameras and wasn't really impressed, so believe it or not I ended up going with an early version of the stacked sensor technology in the form of a SIGMA camera, less noise and more MP (if you took the 3MP Red and combined it with the 3MP Green and Blue sensors.... lol, whoever came up with that marketing strategy saw me coming!) Anyhow I used this for a number if years and was happy enough, mostly because I tended to shoot film and was wary of the digital tech that everyone else was embracing. But when on a trip to NYC I decided to buy the Canon 20D and was blown away by the quality but I yearned for the dense blacks and warmth that Nikon seemed to capture, Canon always felt that it was cooler and again this can be changed in post and as I understand it Canon has more dynamic range that some Nikons, it's still annoying to have to process this side of things.

Nikon

Sooooo I've reached out to Nikon here in New Zealand and I have a sneaking suspicion they will probably just fob me off to the local camera shop and tell me to organise something via them, because let's face it I'm not exactly a force to be reckoned with in the realm of the internet nor a top tier YT influencer, but I'm hoping they may come to the party and offer me something and that perhaps for once, just once here in New Zealand I might get the kind of help you see overseas where the companies encourage and support emerging artists and help them out here and there...... but we'll see, I won't hold my breath.

27.11.2025 Update:

So The company that imports Nikon gear here did actually get back to me and we were all set to have me try out the Nikon Z8 and a couple of lenses, however due to work commitments I had to switch dates around a bit and then a day or two before I was due to “borrow” the kit I became aware that my insurance wouldn’t cover the gear as it wasn’t mine to insure and despite me jumping through several hoops to try and organize temporary insurance it just wasn’t possible so I had to decline the gear. My honesty (I could have made out I had insurance and just left it at that!) eventually shot me in the foot as I couldn’t borrow the gear and subsequently the sales guy I was dealing with is now blanking me as I tried to purchase a tripod and video head from them! Personally I find this to be a strange approach to possible business but I guess here in NZ that’s how it works…. shame.