Help - Which camera - Nikon D80 or Canon Rebel XTi

[Warren_L]

Warren.... good explanation. Thanks....


but as a follow on, is it worth the money for the F4 ? (I guess that's relative though to what you use it for, your budget, etc...)

That's a difficult question to answer. The f/4 goes for somewhere around $9000. So, unless you've got a spare $9000 burning a hole in your pocket or if you're going to be making some $$ with this lens, it may or may not be worth it.

This is a lens that is probably used to shoot sports and wild life photography, amongst other things. Given that it is f/4 it gives you a good chance of using a higher shutter speed to freeze the action from far away. Being a strong telephoto, you're relying on lighting other than from your camera, so having an additional 3 stops is a huge advantage. Not to mention that it is probably somewhat sharper given that it is a prime with much fewer elements than the 70-300mm zoom with TC.

Anyhow, I would suspect that unless you're a pro shooting for money, it's not likely a lens a typical amateur would own....

 

[mike_s]

That's a difficult question to answer. The f/4 goes for somewhere around $9000. So, unless you've got a spare $9000 burning a hole in your pocket or if you're going to be making some $$ with this lens, it may or may not be worth it.

..

$9k. holy cow...... and to think that I thought it was only $6k. oh well. silly me.


I've never financed a lens to what essentialy would be a "car payment" over 24 to 36 months. not going to start now.

 

[pakman]

The D80 has a larger viewfinder.

I agree. When I had my XTi, I remember trying someone's D80, the D80 viewfinder is much larger and brighter. This is just one of the few gripes I had about the 400D u/w.

 

[Larry C]

You can pick up a 600 f5.6 AI-S on E-Bay for about $1500, and word is that they're sharper than the 4.0, but no AF. Another alternative is digiscoping. You can get a sharp 1200+, but you need an external sight to find your target. It actually works better with a P&S, though, due to the smaller lens size.

 

[Warren_L]

I've no experience with the super teles, so I can comment on sharpness. The longest lens I have is the 70-200 f/2.8 VR, which seems pretty tack sharp to me. Now if only my D3 would arrive sometime soon....

 

[Warren_L]

$9k. holy cow...... and to think that I thought it was only $6k. oh well. silly me.


I've never financed a lens to what essentialy would be a "car payment" over 24 to 36 months. not going to start now.

Yah, that's kind of crazy. I'd rather buy a couple of scooters for that before I bought that lens. I had a quick look at b&h and that's what it was going for, but I suppose there may be better deals if you search around on ebay.

 

[limeyx]

I'd suggest that this is probably the biggest factor, IMO. Choosing a decent camera body (in this case Nikon or Canon dSLR), while important, falls down the priority list. For me, it's all about the lenses. Good glass can last you for quite some time to come while you may go through a few camera bodies over the years.

Agreed. And not that this may be that relevant to underwater, but I tried the Canon Xti and the Nikon D40x in the store and to me the canon just felt "wrong" and not as well constructed and awkward. The Nikon was like I'd been using it for years already!

Lenses are definitely going to be the issue though as in general thats where the quality comes from and the $$$ goes to

 

[vondo]

If you're after 600mm then that will work and is cheaper, however, it's no comparison to the 600mm f/4 prime. The 70-300mm @ 300mm is f/5.6 and with the 2x teleconverter, you lose two stops, which brings it down to f/11. You've got 1/8th the amount of light coming through.

I wouldn't do this except in a pinch. Zooms are typically at their worst at the extremes. Adding TCs, especially a 2x will make it worse. Then at f/11 you probably can't use the auto-focus. I don't know about Nikon, but unless you spend >$2K on a body, you can't AF with Canons with an f/8 lens and you can never AF with an f/11.

I've used a 1.4x TC on my 400mm lens. It works, it's not awful, but it's not optimal either.

 

[Larry C]

I believe the D80 will autofocus at higher f-stops. I know my D300 will, and they use the same AF system as far as I know, although the D300 has about 48 more focus points available. I've seen some comparisons of lenses with the teleconverters, and in bright light, the bigger zooms seem to do OK. Probably, you might want to back off from full zoom to about 75%, adding 50% to your focal distance instead of double for a better image.

 

[vondo]

I believe the D80 will autofocus at higher f-stops. I know my D300 will, and they use the same AF system as far as I know, although the D300 has about 48 more focus points available. I've seen some comparisons of lenses with the teleconverters, and in bright light, the bigger zooms seem to do OK. Probably, you might want to back off from full zoom to about 75%, adding 50% to your focal distance instead of double for a better image.

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about what f-stop you set, but what the minimum f/stop of the lens is. So a f/5.6 set to take a shot on f/16 will focus fine. An f/11 set on f/11 probably won't.