Those close to me know that I am passionate about photography and as a result I often get asked for advice on what cameras to buy. Here’s what I generally tell my friends.

Photography is more about art than it is about science. As a result, the quality and capabilities of your equipment only gets you so far. In the end it’s up to the photographer to make a great photograph. Keeping this in mind I first recommend that people not go overboard when buying equipment (unless you are full of disposable income and a gadget geek – I can truely relate, to the latter point anyway). You should look for certain features that make it easier to make great photographs.

Based on my experience I have determined that the three most important qualities in camera equipment are:

1. Speed
2. Image quality
3. Form factor

After explaining what I look for in these qualities I will give you my recommendations on equipment. I’ll then provide a few links to great resources for learning more.

Also, if you’re interested in what I have to say and recommend please follow my photography profile on twitter (@nikonpro) and/or my personal account (@mdowney).

Speed

I don’t like messing with unnatural lighting like flash units. My style of photography is probably best described as “candid observations of life”. I like to grab my camera and go for a walk – especially when I travel. I look for interesting things and try to create interesting compositions with them. I don’t use tripods very often and I rarely use flash. When  you hand-hold a camera and shoot in low-light without a flash you need speed. You need to let in as much light as possible as quickly as possible in order to avoid blurriness – to get sharper images. To do this you need to make adjustments in your camera that increase shutter speed.

Now, the thing that surprises many of the people I talk with is that speed happens in both the lens and the camera. And when photographers talk about “fast” lenses they’re not talking about how quickly light gets recorded, they’re talking about how much light the lens lets in. This is a reference to a lens feature called Aperture. Aperture is one of the two settings that influences shutter speed. We’ll talk about the other in just a bit.

Aperture refers to the size of the opening in the lens which lets light through to the camera’s sensor. The bigger the opening the faster the sensor can record light. When you’re shooting in low-light situations without a flash you generally want to open up your aperture as wide as possible so you can let more light in more quickly.

The only catch with aperture is that it actually controls two elements of photography – the amount of light exposed to the sensor AND the depth of field. The larger the aperture the less depth-of-field (DoF) you get. More times than not, a narrow DoF is actually preferable to the photographer because it provides that artistic look of the subject being in focus but everything around it being progressively blurred out. The down side of a narrow DoF is that large portions of your photograph will be out-of-focus when you might not want them to be (a group photo, for example).

So to get speed you need to invest in better, more expensive lenses. Aperture is represented in f-stops and the faster, more expensive lenses will have maximum apertures of f/1.2, f/1.4, f/2.0, and most commonly, f/2.8.

One last thing about aperture that throws off everyone who is new to photography. A large aperture (which lets in the most light) is represented by a smaller aperture number. This is because the number, such as f/2.8 is actually the denominator in a fraction. So just remember that 1/2 is bigger than 1/8 and you’ll get it.

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Image quality

This is the biggest factor for me when selecting a camera body. To many people’s surprise, this has very little to do with the number of megapixels that the camera sensor supports. Professionals call this “The Megapixel Myth”. Megapixels are about size, not quality. The only reason to opt for more megapixels is if you plan to crop your photo down – which I happen to do very frequently in order to improve the quality of my compositions. Cropping a 4MP image down to 50% of it’s original size will leave a fairly pixelated and low-quality image to print out. Cropping a 13MP image down to 50% of it’s original size is hardly noticeable. For this reason I generally recommend that people buy cameras in the 8-10 MP range.

Far more important is the quality of the image sensor. The biggest factor in sensor quality is noise. The image on the left has more noise than the one on the right.

(photo taken from Wikipedia)

Noise is increased when you increase the ISO setting on your camera – the second setting for controlling shutter speed. Photographer and popular book author Bryan Peterson explains ISO really well in his excellent book, Understanding Exposure. He suggests that you imagine the image sensor capturing light using little worker bees holding little light-capturing buckets. When your camera is set to ISO 100 you have 100 little bees capturing light. When you increase it to ISO 200 you have 200 little bees, and so on. The higher the ISO the more light is captured while the shutter is open. The only problem is that more worker bees collecting light means more noise in your image.

This is what separates the good cameras from the great cameras. The great cameras deal with noise at high ISO levels really, really well. In fact, the latest batch of cameras have all taken giant leaps forward in this area. I’ve found that most professionals agree that Nikon is the pack leader in this space. This is why I switched from Canon to Nikon a few years ago. Nikon was the first camera maker to take a huge leap forward in low-noise image quality when shooting at high ISO.

Form Factor

This quality is pretty straight-forward. When I’m shopping for an SLR I look for a camera that feels good in my hands, has the adjustment controls in intuitive places that are easy to reach while I’m shooting, and doesn’t feel too heavy or unbalanced. Now it’s important to consider that the overall weight and balance of your camera is heavily influenced by the lens that you have attached to it. I’ve found that the more expensive the lens, the heavier it is. This is primarily due to pro lenses having using more metals than plastics, heavier glass, and wider-diameter lens elements. If you’re going to be doing mostly “walk-around” photography, particularly when you travel, you’ll want to look for a smaller, lighter camera and lens combo. I also recommend finding a lens with a wide focal range (for example: 18-200mm as opposed to the typical 18-55mm cheap kit lens).

In my experience, Nikon has better ergonomics. I’ve heard so many people say that “Nikon just feels better in my hands.” Many photographers also prefer the clicking sound that Nikon makes when the shutter is actuated – but I have a hard time recommending that as a key factor in picking a camera. I will say that the one ergonomic feature that I preferred on my Canon was the position of the exposure lock button. On my Nikon it is just a little too far to the left for my right thumb to naturally find it while I’m composing a shot. Otherwise, the Nikon excels in every category.

The Brand Wars

The world of professional photography equipment includes a religious war that rivals the Mac vs. PC debate. In the world of pro photography there are two players: Canon and Nikon. Sure Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax all make great equipment but they are the RC Cola in the Coke vs. Pepsi war. In The 22 Imutable Laws of Marketing (published 1993 and highly recommended) Al Ries and Jack Trout explain this concept:

Law 8: The Law of Duality. In the long run, every market becomes a two-horse race.

Early on, a new category is a ladder of many rungs. Gradually, the ladder becomes a two-rung affair.

In batteries, it’s Eveready and Duracell. In photographic film, it’s Kodak and Fuji. In rent-a-cars, it’s Hertz and Avis. In mouthwash, it’s Listerine and Scope. In hamburgers, it’s McDonald’s and Burger King. In sneakers, it’s Nike and Reebok. In toothpaste, it’s Crest and Colgate.

As a long-time user of both Canon and Nikon equipment I’m confident in saying that Canon is the PC and Nikon the Mac of the photography world. Canon is a much larger company with a much larger product line and until very recently they dominated the pro photography world. They surely still have more users but over the last two or three years Nikon has been eating away marketshare in a very noticeable way. One of the key indicators of which way the wind is blowing in the camera industry is the photographer line-up at major sporting events. Over the last few years you’ve been seeing far fewer light-grey telephoto lenses (Canon gear) and far more black telephoto lenses (Nikon gear). A quick web search will easily uncover examples of this. I believe that the only thing holding back more pro photographers from switching to Nikon is the enormous investment they’ve already made in Canon gear. A pro setup can easily run tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Switching brands for a professional can be far too expensive to justify the increase in quality and capabilities.

Why do I think Nikon is outperforming Canon right now? I’d say it’s two things: customer experience and quality.

Customer Experience

Canon is a much larger company than Nikon. They do much more than just photography. As a behemoth of a company I’ve found that they 1) tend to lack focus when it comes to customer experience and 2) aren’t very agile in responding to market demands. Nikon, on the other hand, is primarily focused on photography (they also have a big optics business for scientific equipment and such – which is closely related) and has demonstrated a particular skill for innovating, adapting to market demands, providing excellent resources and supplemental materials, and telling a better overall story.

As an example of how focused the two companies are on customer experience, take a look at their respective websites. Even better, visit usa.canon.com and nikonusa.com and just try to find their SLR product pages. Good luck with the Canon site…

In my opinion (I’ve been working on software for web development for the last nine years) Canon has one of the absolute worst product sites from a large company that I’ve ever seen. Not only does it look like a site designed in 1997 but it has horrible usability. Trying to find the product you’re looking for is ridiculously difficult and their navigation system is overly crowded and poorly organized.

Nikon’s site, on the other hand, is easy to navigate and provides well-organized information beyond simply product summaries but high-resolution image samples, tips, tutorials, etc.

I’ve always felt that a company’s website is a key indicator of how focused they are on customer experience – particularly when it’s a technology company.

Examples like this trickle through to product development, support, marketing, sales, etc. Over the last few years Nikon has continued to surpass Canon in their marketing efforts, customer resources, and innovative new product features (they were the first to add HD video recording to an SLR, for example). As a former customer of Canon’s and a current customer of Nikon, I can confidently say that Nikon provides a much better customer experience.

Quality

Both companies make great products. When it comes to quality and features both Canon and Nikon share a lot of similarities and you really can’t go wrong with either brand.

Recommended Equipment

I’ll break this into three categories: 1) Beginner kit 2) Enthusiast kit 3) Money doesn’t matter kit

Beginner kit

• Nikon D5000 with 18-55mm lens (approx $750) – Nikon’s latest camera with it’s latest-generation image sensor technology. This camera includes the capability to record HD video and has an innovative new LCD that flips down and allows you to shoot in unusual poses like holding the camera above your head or at your feet. The big selling point, however, is the image quality. It is fantastic.
• Nikon D60 with 18-55mm lens (approx $550) – only get this if you can’t afford the extra $200 for the D5000. The D60 is a great camera but it’s last-gen sensor technology and doesn’t perform as well as the D5000, particularly in low-light

Enthusiast kit

• Nikon D90 with the 18-200mm lens (approx $1000 + $700) – The D90 is a fantastic camera. It shoots HD video, has a fantastic image sensor that performs beautifully in low-light, feels great in your hands, and has a beautiful LCD viewfinder. The 18-200mm lens in fantastic. It offers a very wide focal range which is perfect for the traveler. I can literally carry this kit anywhere and get just about any shot I’m looking for.

Money doesn’t matter kit

• Nikon D700 with the 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens ($$$) – The D700 is one of the best SLR cameras on the market. It is a full frame camera (no image crop from the 35mm size) and has the same image quality as Nikon’s flagship D3 – in a smaller and more easily-carried package. I have this camera and swear by it. The three lenses in this kit are about the best that you can get. They’re extremely sharp and have a constant f/2.8 aperture – which means they are FAST. This kit weighs a lot though so be prepared to carry a backpack with you.

Well, there you have it. Leave any questions or advice in the comments and I will try to respond ASAP.