New dSLR to buy D300 vs 50D

Hello all

new to the forum, just wanted to see peoples opinions on cameras. I appreciate that there is strong feeling between Nikon owners and Canon owners and dont want to start a my camera is better than your camera post!

With regards to canon vs nikon, have seen that the cameras are pretty similar, and generally speaking if you have used a canon before then people stick with canon and same for nikon. I have used digital cameras from canon before for a few years, so i have a bias towards them of course, but not closed to change!

my thoughts intially went to the canon 50D, i love the colour saturations that you can get from canons, is the best by far I believe. but then the comparative nikon model D300 mentions also that the colours out of this camera are pretty stunning as well, although i believe better from 50D. as UW photograhpy, well the stuff i will shooting, is pretty vivd in colour so that to me is a bonus with either camera.

Underwater the subject moves a lot, so might be useful to have a high MP camera, so can crop if the subject moves out of frame slightly. which points towards the 50D again. as for the better higher less grainy ISOs the 50D was better, and once again underwater you are restricted with ambient light, (when not using strobes). the 51 point focusing sounds great with the D300 but maybe the other factors of the 50D outweigh this in this case.

Underwater i guess i shall be mostly doing macro shots for the majority, and some wide angle and landscapes (visiblility dependent), so the fact that the image crop of 1.6 or 1.5 for the canon and nikon respectively, shouldnt pose a problem and may actually be of some benefit, compared to a full frame camera, and the fact that you can get a pretty good wide angle lens for the canon 10-22mm, (barrel distortion aside as not really a problem UW i believe with not so many straight lines, and what you do get can be easily corrected in Photoshop CS2), means that going full frame is not needed at the moment for me.

As for lenses, if was to go with the NON full frame sensor camera, i would have thought that it would have to be the 10-22 mm, so get some great wide angle reef shots, and also can pull in for shooting normal subjects, and then a 100mm macro.

Sorry for the marathon message, was going to start short and well you know what cameras are like, start diggng and you have to keep digging more and more!

Would just like to know what undewater photography guys thought about the pros and cons of each in UW shooting please, from thoughts about the bodies themselves, to lenses, to housings to ports ?

Happy snaps!

I am a Nikon D300 in a Sea&Sea MDX-D300 housing.

I do believe the D300 is better than 50D (of course...),

And here is why:

1) The saturation you get out of a D300 is better than the 50D.

2) The image out of a D300 has better quality than a 50D, in fact the image out of a 40D has better quality over the 50D! (As shown here) and here

3) Usability reports shows that Nikon is a more direct camera, and being faster is very important underwater. These same reports tends towards Canon only in case of image quality, which is not the case in the 50D x D300. Depending on the housing you buy, the better camera design of the D300 allows for amazing simple but helping things like the inclined menu buttons on the Sea&Sea MDX-D300 housing.

4) The D300 has a better sealing than the 50D, and the one-piece chassis is stronger.

5) Macro-wise you are better off with a Nikon. In fact lens-wise Nikon is better for UWP. the amazing 10.5mm fisheye, all the macro lenses capable of going 1:1 without extra accessories and the 12-24mm are the very definition of this. If you miss the 10-22mm buy the 10-20mm Sigma (I have it). Canon shooters are buying adapters to use Nikon lenses!!!

6) The viewfinder is something VERY important underwater. The D300 is better than the 50D at this. Back in the film days a 100% viewfinder wasn't much different than a 95% one, because the slide mount would crop some of it anyway, but in the digital era a 100% viewfinder make a big difference.

This dispute shouldn't be happening if Nikon hadn't allowed Canon to come up to the position it holds now. Back in the 80s, when Canon switched to AF and delivered faster cameras, Nikon did nothing but watch in one of the greatest mistakes of the industry. Just like the 3 times Coca-Cola had the opportunity to buy Pepsi and it didn't.

At the time, a good number of photographers, mainly sports shooters, migrated to Canon.

Nowadays, Nikon cameras are still tougher, became faster again (I do up to 8fps in my D300 + MB-D10), and are still more user friendly.

But the problem is that the great move in the 80s left a lot of photographers with a lot of Canon equipment and to these guys (PROs) it doesn't matter what brand of camera they use.

This is good story about Nikon vs. Canon.

Hope it helps;o)

By the way I have been organizing and running uwp contests and championship back in my home country for a decade now.

Nikon is still dominating the market and the top places. In these 10 years I have seen about 10 moves from Canon to Nikon (from photographers with a full set of DSLR, lenses and housing) and only one move in the other direction.

Yet if you still need inspiration watch this.

A VERY biased review there! This point really caught my eye

5) Macro-wise you are better off with a Nikon. In fact lens-wise Nikon is better for UWP. the amazing 10.5mm fisheye, all the macro lenses capable of going 1:1 without extra accessories and the 12-24mm are the very definition of this. If you miss the 10-22mm buy the 10-20mm Sigma (I have it). Canon shooters are buying adapters to use Nikon lenses!!!

With the fish eye, most people are going for the Tokina 10-16mm anyway, regardless if they're Nikon or Canon shooters. Canon's macros (60mm and 100mm) are both 1:1, so not sure what you're talking about there. The wide angle lens, latest reviews I've read have put the 11-16mm far in front of the Nikon 12-24, although I haven't shot with the Nikon to compare myself.

The Canon Vs Nikon debate is like Holden vs Ford (uh, that's an Aussie reference, sorry if you don't get it). Everyone's got their own opinion, generally based on what they use! Either way you'll be happy. If it makes any difference, the 50D is the newer of the two. I was in your position a while ago, and went with Canon as I'd been using their cameras for years and was generally happy. Don't regret that decision at all!

Good luck with it. Either way, you're going to have a blast!

Ryan.

Sorry, you are right. This is outdated data from when Canon had "life-size" adaptors. You got me, I own you a beer, where you are in Australia?

But anyway you gotta do a better job . Just kidding...

Because basically you discussed ONE item and you have not dispelled it.

Macro-wise Canon got a lot closer, still Nikkor lenses are sturdier, made of metal, instead of the all-plastic design Canon makes.

The Tokina 10-17 is a great lens, with about the same focus properties of the 10.5mm. I want to try one for myself, but at least if you want an f2.8 fisheye for the APS-C sensor Nikon has a great one for you. The other lens you mentioned is another Tokina, it sells for both cameras. Anyway, for WA I rarely shoot with anything less than 180 degrees of coverage.

Some new items:

7) In a basic market research I found that half of the people diving with DSLRs dive with Nikon, the other half divided in Canon (bigger part) Oly, Sony and others. So it is easier to find buyers when upgrading.

8) I have been organizing and running uwp contests and championship back in my home country for a decade now.

Nikon is still dominating the market and the top places. In these 10 years I have seen about 10 moves from Canon to Nikon (from photographers with a full set of DSLR, lenses and housing) and only one move in the other direction.

Yet if you still need inspiration watch this.

To TRY to get some objective evidence, at least on basic sensor performance, look at this

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor. I'm not sure where you got your info on better high ISO performance, but it's certainly not supported by these tests. The D300 appears to outperform the Canon 50D in all measured parameters.

Bottom line.....you will get great images from either camera. If I were you I would go down to your camera store and hold both, play with the controls etc and decide based on which one you prefer from an ergonomic standpoint, placement of controls, feature set etc

Sorry...I just saw Marcelo posted the same link.

Hi

Thanks for all the information there, thats great, so often these threads just turn in camera bashing! i have got to grips with both D300 and the 50D today, and although i am a canon man, albeit point and shoot cameras prior to, the nikon felt sooo much better in the hands, but then when turning it on i could whizz round the menus super fast with the canon but not so with the nikon, but thats just means getting used to it.

does the 300d have much better saturation? i didnt get round cranking it up to the max today ith the nikon, but did with the canon, and the canon was nearly neon it was so saturated!

Please keep opinions and all coming in, all gratefully received.

Hi

 

Thanks for all the information there, thats great, so often these threads just turn in camera bashing! i have got to grips with both D300 and the 50D today, and although i am a canon man, albeit point and shoot cameras prior to, the nikon felt sooo much better in the hands, but then when turning it on i could whizz round the menus super fast with the canon but not so with the nikon, but thats just means getting used to it.

 

does the 300d have much better saturation? i didnt get round cranking it up to the max today ith the nikon, but did with the canon, and the canon was nearly neon it was so saturated!

 

Please keep opinions and all coming in, all gratefully received.

If you are planning to shoot RAW ( which is generally recommended), the saturation issues etc on the LCD screen should not concern you; as these are endpoints you can choose in RAW processing to suit your personal preferences for either camera. If you plan to shoot JPEG, then the in camera processed 'look' that you like is something to consider.

With regard to the menus; the best way to use Nikon is to set-up different presets, Custom Setting Banks and Custom Shooting Banks, for different shooting situations like Underwater , Landscape, Action, etc. Then there is little or no need to use the menus while shooting, except to quickly switch custom presets if needed. I have not shot much with a Canon DSLR but my impression is that Nikon is designed to be fingertip control driven through it's various function buttons etc (which you set up and assign in the menus initially), rather than by making menu choices while shooting.

C'mon guys - this one is easy! The 50D is 15 megapixels and the D300 is only 12. So the Canon wins!

I meant to sound silly - since this is a bit of a silly debate. Both the Canon and Nikon systems (cameras, lenses, housings) are pretty much equivalent.

So the best thing to do is handle them at a nice camera shop (including one that carries underwater housings if you can swing it) and decide which feels right to you.

Cheers

James

For wide angle, Canon's 10-22 is better than Nikon's 12-24 but many people prefer fisheye anyway and the 10-17 is available for both. The difference in crop slightly favors Nikon and there are 3rd party rectilinear zooms. No advantage either way.

For macro, all the focal lengths are well represented on both sides. Nikon's 200mm has the slow focus mechanism but it's too long for cropped cameras anyway. All Canon macro lenses have fast focus and full time manual override. Differences in macro aren't big.

The 50D has more pixels but worse per-pixel image quality than the 40D or D300 from what I've read. I wouldn't consider that an advantage or a disadvantage. The Canon has an ISO 100 base which requires more strobe power for macro but is an advantage for sunball shooting. Unfortunately, its 1/200 strobe sync gives a lot of that advantage up compared to the D300's 1/320 strobe sync. Also, the Canon's smaller photosites make it slightly more susceptable to diffraction so small apertures needed for sunball shots damage its IQ a bit more. I'd say the 50D may be a little better for fisheye shooting or maybe a wash. I've never used a 50D.

Nikon's strobe support offers TTL without requiring 6 pin connectors and it provides rear curtain sync. To me this is the only clear differentiator and it favors Nikon. My personal preference is toward optical strobe sync though.

I don't buy the argument about better "saturation". Both cameras can deliver good color. You should shoot raw underwater so in-camera JPG processing won't matter. The quality of your color will be more a function of your raw converter and the effort you put into it. You have to decide what "good color" means to you. For every person who says Canon color is the best there's someone else who says the opposite.

Don't forget that it's the housing that you operate underwater, not the camera itself. You should care just as much about the housing and ports you use as which system you buy into. Also, your choice of system may come down to which you prefer above water. There aren't great differences below.

HI,

I would agree with James go & play with both with & without housings, go for the one that feels right,

then get ready to spend loads cash!! Good luck in your quest.

Andy

Unfortunately, its 1/200 strobe sync gives a lot of that advantage up compared to the D300's 1/320 strobe sync.

up to 1/250

Flash synchronization at up to 1/320 s (FP) adjustable with Built-in Speedlight or optional Speedlight (will reduce GN)

Differences in macro aren't big.

Nikon has an image stabilised macro lens, which is very handy if you want to shoot balanced light macro. If you don't, less so.

For optical TTL - Canon cameras can drive this with the flash only partly popped up - meaning it can be used in most systems. Nikon flash must be all the way up, and many housings do not support this. Although access to this feature depends on the housing.

Both the D300 and Canon 40D/50D are excellent systems. Of the 12 on my workshop this week we have 4 D300s and 3 40D/50D and both systems are producing the goods (others using D200, D2X, D3, 450D and 5D).

Alex

Thanks for all the great replies, and no thanks for some of the pointless ones!

Unfortunately although I can get my hands on the actual cameras themselves I am going to struggle to get my hands on the hosings, which is a bit of a bugger, as being a very specialist item, these have to be ordered where i am located and that means bought!

I was thinking about going for ikelite housings, I have used them before with video, and thought them to be a good lower cost housing. I would love to buy a nice sea and sea one, but i concur with some other posters that in a few years, when I change dSLR bodies n the future i am able to change housing relatively cheaply! So would make it easier for me to keep up to date with technology.

If i was swaying more towards the Nikon persuasion, would i be better trying to save up for a D700 compared to the D300, looking on that sensor site that was quoted earlier, it appears a much bigger step up, and the low light high iso this camera features sounds fantastic, and although for the price you should be getting more megapixels, but then we all know that isnt everything, but you do have splendid iso performance. any thoughts on that? and if so what lenses? i was thinking a 50mm for above water, 105mm VR macro below, with a 17-35mm for the wide stuff? and maybe in the future even a fish eye for poos and giggles.

thoughts thoughts thoughts?

....If i was swaying more towards the Nikon persuasion, would i be better trying to save up for a D700 compared to the D300....

Shooting FF underwater is quite demanding compared to shooting with a cropped sensor.

I'm lucky to be able to choose between cropped and full frame systems. There are times (depending on the job at hand) that I choose the cropped sensor because it is without doubt easier to shoot UW.

There are a lot of really good lens options for wide angle shooting... the Sigma 10-20, Tokina 10-17 etc.

If I had to have only one system that had to cater for my all-round needs I would probably look at the top-of-the-line cropped sensor.

The strobe sync speed of the 50D is actually 1/250. The standard sync speed of the D300 is also 1/250. You only get the higher sync speed of 1/320 with the inbuilt flash or another Nikon flash. The guide number of the flash will be reduced when using the higher sync speed. From the Nikon USA web site D300 specs with regard to sync speed:

Yeah, Canon says the sync speed is 1/250. I got erroneous data off a review page. As for Nikon's sync speed, Nikon isn't saying that 3rd party strobes won't work at the faster speed, they simply aren't recognizing that those exist. Yes, you have to enable 1/320 as it's off by default.

...If I had to have only one system that had to cater for my all-round needs........ I would probably look at the top-of-the-line cropped sensor....

I should have added.... "and wasn't shooting the occasional billboard"...

"Also, the Canon's smaller photosites make it slightly more susceptable to diffraction so small apertures needed for sunball shots damage its IQ a bit more"

This is going around a bit, but the Canon forums I read seem to be pretty strong on the idea that the diffraction effects are never so large that you end up with less detail overall, its just a change in where it theoretically starts.

I think the idea is the increase in resolution from the extra MP always more than offsets the loss of resolution from the earlier diffraction, its more that the increasing diffraction results in diminishing returns from the increase in MP, it never overtakes it as such to the point where you're actually worse off overall. No doubt I will be corrected if thats incorrect.

Otara

Shooting FF underwater is quite demanding compared to shooting with a cropped sensor.

 

If I had to have only one system that had to cater for my all-round needs I would probably look at the top-of-the-line cropped sensor.

surely if I get a FF body and use lenes that would be same focal length as a 1.6/5 cropped body with shorter focal length then would this not be the same? not sure i understand why shooting FF is a lot more demanding?

i am just trying to work out whats best for both, 'mostly' UW photography and also above water, i hate using flash above water, so the idea of the great iso and real lack of need to sue flash with the d700 with the 50mm 1.4 lens (for example) sounded great!

surely if I get a FF body and use lenes that would be same focal length as a 1.6/5 cropped body with shorter focal length then would this not be the same? not sure i understand why shooting FF is a lot more demanding?

I've found in practical terms, the thing that makes general shooting less demanding is with the cropped sensor camera you get more depth of field at a given angle of view/ aperture combination. Example I have a Sigma 10-20 for cropped and 16-35mm for FF. With the same f number set on each I get more depth of field at a given angle of view with the 10-20. So in many situations where you want good depth of field (UW scenics, 1/2-1/2s etc) the result is achievable at larger apertures (ie smaller numbers) on a cropped sensor. In a way this cancels out the low light capabilities of the d700 to some degree.

Many of the lenses for cropped sensors also focus much closer, thus negating the need for diopters. I would qualify this by saying the esteemed Dr Mustard would say that you always get better results with a diopter, but this is not my experience. You also have access to a lens which, from many accounts here, is a great lens for UW... the Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom.