Why I Made THE SWITCH From Nikon To Canon
"One day I'm going to switch to Canon" repeated in my mind every so often as I progressed more into my career as a photographer. But how? I have all this Nikon equipment! It would cost me so much money to switch! I just can't! ... Oh but I could, and I did! This is my switch story.
When I bought my first DSLR camera (Nikon D5000) I felt that I invested a lot of money at the time. Following that up with the purchase of a 50mm f/1.8 I thought I was fully invested in Nikon at that point. No way I would ever switch. Little did I know that I would later add a Nikon D600 Full Frame Camera, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.8 & a couple of Nikon SB900 flashes to the collection over the next 6 months. I figured, I want to shoot weddings, I am going all in!
I would shoot portrait sessions and weddings over those months and my images were getting better every time I pressed the shutter, but something just didn't feel right. The D600 felt slightly small in my hands and for short sessions it didn't bother me much, but after 8 hours of shooting a wedding I felt like my shooting hand was going to fall off. The autofocus was also lacking and I knew that my images could be sharper. Overall, I felt the quality of the images I was producing was great but the tools I was using did not (for me). Now, here is the point where someone might say, buy a Nikon D800 and quit complaining. It will fit your hands better and the autofocus is much better then the D600, but I couldn't get rid of this nagging idea that the grass was greener on the Canon side of the fence. Not to mention I don't want thousands of 36mp files eating away at my Compact Flash cards.
A couple photographers I knew shot with Canon equipment and I got the chance to put a Canon 5D Mark iii in my hands. That was the last time I thought about being a Nikon shooter. I literally felt a connection to the camera. The way it felt in my hands was like it was custom made for my grip. The comfortability of it amazed me. The only comparison I can come up with is the way an Apple iPhone feels in your hands. Other smart phones compete with it, but the Apple just feels right! The autofocus was tack sharp and blazing fast, each AF point on the camera felt as sensitive as the center focus point on my D600 and the low light capability was tremendous! Not to mention the placement of the buttons, the more intuitive menu system, and most important - the thumb scroll wheel on the back! I was able to fly through images instantly and honestly, its just cool to be able to do that.
I said to myself... "If I am going to be all in, it might as well be with Canon!" I immediately began selling my Nikon gear and buying Canon gear to replace it. It took about 2 months to make the transition and when the dust cleared, I came away with my current Canon Gear.
To keep this post as brief as possible I will leave it at that. I will save gear reviews and reasons why I bought/use each piece of gear I have for next week. Also I will go into which lenses I bought and sold along the way and why. Basically to put it in perspective, the gear we use as photographers are just tools to create the images we want. I am not saying that Canon blows Nikon out of the water, because Nikon gear is fantastic! Do I think my images are far and above what they would be if I stuck with Nikon? No. But I do believe that the comfort level that I feel with my current gear gives me the ability to focus on the images I want to create and not have to worry about anything else in the moment. More to follow on this post next week.
Kevin