Rainstorm

Taking a look at the different systems

The two biggest companies in the business of making Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras are Canon and Nikon. Between them they control something around 85% of the market. The smaller actors are Sony, Pentax and Olympus and the tiny actors are Sigma and Fuji.

Not only are Canon and Nikon the companies with the biggest market share but they are the two companies that have been making DSLR bodies the longest. They have more lenses and accessories available for their equipment than any of the rest. Pentax was a very important company in the Film SLR market. They introduced the first popular SLR camera many years ago. But they failed to get involved in the change to digital until recently. Olympus made film SLR cameras but also is a late comer to the digital world and they also made a very foolish decision when they move to digital. They have locked themselves into a smaller sensor size than the other companies. The use the 4/3rds system which is a half sized sensor.

Sony has made sensors for the Nikon bodies for years but has recently decided to jump into the DSLR market themselves. The top of the line Sony is getting very good reviews.

Lenses

Let’s take a look at what is available in the lens market for the various brands. This will include the manufacturers own lenses and the main third party lens manufacturer’s offerings (Sigma, Tamron and Tokina).

This is not an exhaustively researched table and could well be off a bit.

Canon and Nikon are more or less tied but the others lag far behind. Canon produces about 5 or 6 new lenses a year and they have much more money and a larger staff than the smaller companies. How many years would it take for Pentax or Sony to catch up with Canon and Nikon at the rate of 4 or 5 lenses a year.

Flashes

Looking at available flashes, flashes that fully support the camera electronics and exposure control:

We see the same story. Nikon does a little better than Canon, but all of the others are left in the dust. Again this is a quick reference table from the manufacturer’s websites and B&H. So errors are possible. Sony hotshoes use the old Minolta style that is incompatible with almost all other flashes.

Macros come in different focal lengths, generally running from 50mm to 200mm. The shorter lenses are lighter and cheaper but have a short 1:1 focus distance which makes doing bugs difficult since they fly off. Longer lenses are expensive and heavy but have a longer focus distance. Looking at some popular lenses, let’s see what the availability is for different brands.

Only the manufacturers own lenses are counted. Sony, Pentax and Olympus only have short macros. One of the Canon lenses is a super macro.

Another common lens used by bird photographers especially is  a 300mm lens. These come in two apertures f/4 which is cheaper and lighter and f/2.8 heavier and a lot pricier. Again looking at what the manufacturers offer:

Again Nikon and Canon have the better selection and prices as low of much lower than the other three. The Canon and Nikon lenses have Image Stabilization the others do not.

I just randomly spot checked some of the more popular lenses. I didn’t try to look at consumer grade lenses, I’m sure they all have plenty of 70-300mm and 18-200mm type junk lenses.

Image Stabilization

This is the last subject I’ll look at in my biased overview. Canon and Nikon have both settled on in-the-lens stabilization. The other three have in-the-body stabilization. While at first glance it might seem to be better to have stabilization in the body, that does not turn out to be true for lenses where you really need stabilization.

The reason for that is that the body stabilization can only work on short lenses because these systems work by moving the image sensor to compensate for lens movement. The longer the lens the longer the distance the sensor has to move and once you get beyond 100mm or so the sensor cannot move far enough to compensate for lens movement.

The in lens system works by moving elements inside the lens. Thus each lens is optimized for it’s focal length. Canon has an explanation here. Bob Atkins has a general overview here.

Another benefit of the lens stabilization is that you can see the stabilized image in the viewfinder, not the case with the in-body IS. Of course Canon and Nikon have a big investment in IS lenses so that comes into the calculation too.

The truth of the matter is that you don’t really need IS on short lenses. Most people can handhold a 18mm lens down to 1/20th of a second or so. But those long lenses are heavy and hard to hold and they really need IS.

So What?

So what does this mean? When you buy into a DSLR system you are not just buying a camera body. For example, I have one good camera body and one old one. Say they are worth $1400, more or less, right now. I have 6 lenses, a 1.4X extender and some extension tubes. Total value around $4000. (Darn my wife better not read this). So switching to a new body would be fairly painful, but replacing all those lenses  would be impossible. And unlike a lot of other photographers I do not have a lot invested in dedicated flash units. So a serious photographer can easily have four to six times the cost of the bodies he has, tied up in other gear.

So buying into a system, where you soon hit a wall when you want to add a new item that you just have to have, can cause real pain. If that item doesn’t exist for your system. I just listed flashes and lenses above but there are many other system accessories. Wireless triggers, remote controls, intervalometers, focus screens, vertical grips, wireless transmitters and the list goes on and on.

I mentioned the Sony non-standard flash above.I know one budding photographer who found herself unable to use studio flashes with her new Sony camera. She had to sell it at a loss and buy a different brand.

Think!

So think long and hard about buying into one of the lesser brands if you have the least idea that you will get serious about photography. Yes some of the cameras are decent, and maybe some of the lenses. But overall the systems are not. If you are sure that you won’t ever want to expand what you have, then buy whatever you fancy.

—UPDATE —

Roger Clark suggested that I should point out that Canon has prime lenses in 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 and maybe 1200mm (rumored to be available if you will pay them to make one) and Nikon has 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600mm primes. Sony, Pentax and Olympus all have no prime lenses longer than 300mm. This is important for bird, wildlife (think of that African safari you always wanted to go on) and sports/action shooters as well as photojournalists. They all want and use long prime lenses.

Canon also has a couple of very fast f/1.2 lenses and you can even occasionally pick up a 50mm f/1.0 (used only, since they are out of production). These are popular with wedding shooters who shoot in dark rooms using available light.

—Another Update—

The final step in buying a camera is to go to a shop that has the models you are looking at and try how they feel in your hands. People often have love at first touch with a certain model. And these cameras are quite different in how they sit in your hands. The lower grade models are on the small sized end and may be too small for someone with big hands. But other models may be too big for someone with small hands. The control layouts are also different. How it feels to you is a major consideration.