Topic: Switching from Nikon to Canon

[Sanjay]

Well I know I was contemplating doing this before I left for China, however I'm back now and still thinking about it.  There was a car accident on the way to the airport (thankfully on the last day) that caused me to lose a Nikon body and a lens.  So I'll be looking to replace them and also taking into account I rarely tape I was thinking of selling it all for cameras.

With respect to low light performance and image quality in general.  I am thinking of switching the following gear I still have left:

Nikon D80, D50
80-200mm 2.8
50mm 1.8
20mm 1.8
28-70 2.8

for

Canon 40D
EF-S 17-55mm IS 2.8
70-200mm IS 2.8
50mm 1.8

Now this would involve getting rid of my schoeps to fund it    However this is my bread and butter and without my main body left and my 28-70 in need of serious repair I wonder if it's the right time.

Anyone here have the new D40?  Thought's on it's sensor for low light.  Also very interested in people's opinion's of the 17-55 IS, I love the thought of IS in a wider angle.

and finally... if you all were in my shoes what would you do?

[stirinthesauce]

Do it. 

As for IS in the 17-55, I think your going to have more an issue of subject movement than hand movement with that lens.  Save the money for the IS on your long glass.  I can see having IS for a 70-200 in low light.  Hell, I don't have problems with my non IS 70-200L f2.8.  I've just been learning how to work with what I got.   If light is an issue, I bump up the ISO.  Noise can be damned, great software to fix that in post.  I'm getting incredible shots, hand held, in low light venues, with this lens.

why though go with the 17-55?  I would think the 24-70L f2.8 would be more useful as a walking around lens for concert photog.  Still fairly wide but gives more room.  And why the fixed 50?  I ended up selling mine because I never use it.  Great lens but I found my f2.8 zoom lenses to be fast enough in low light.  I have always wanted to try the 50f1.4 though.  I hear it is a killer!

My list, of which I'm almost there would include:

Canon:

10-22
24-70L f2.8
70-200L f2.8
24-105 f4 IS   - This as the main walking around lens.  A great overall lens for non concert photog.

Of course, I'm more amateur than pro as I've just recently getting into the profit side of this hobby.  I also appreciate the lens experience/advice you have shared through pm's. 

looking forward to playing with a 40d.  Been thinking of the 5d, which I may still do at some point, but might stay with the 1.6x crop sensors.  Saves me from having to go really long on glass.  Those lenses are ultra pricey    Think I'm just going to trade in my d20 (only 4600 actuations if anyone is interested    ) and go for a d30 body at some point.  Then another 6months or so and get the d40.

[Frank in JC]

Well I know I was contemplating doing this before I left for China, however I'm back now and still thinking about it.  There was a car accident on the way to the airport (thankfully on the last day) that caused me to lose a Nikon body and a lens.  So I'll be looking to replace them and also taking into account I rarely tape I was thinking of selling it all for cameras.

With respect to low light performance and image quality in general.  I am thinking of switching the following gear I still have left:

Nikon D80, D50
80-200mm 2.8
50mm 1.8
20mm 1.8
28-70 2.8

for

Canon 40D
EF-S 17-55mm IS 2.8
70-200mm IS 2.8
50mm 1.8

Now this would involve getting rid of my schoeps to fund it    However this is my bread and butter and without my main body left and my 28-70 in need of serious repair I wonder if it's the right time.

Anyone here have the new D40?  Thought's on it's sensor for low light.  Also very interested in people's opinion's of the 17-55 IS, I love the thought of IS in a wider angle.

As far as the thought of IS on a wide angle does, I'm not sure how worthwhile it is.  You're already in good shape with the "hand-holdability" at the wide end.  Given the rule of thumb that your shutter speed should be at least as fast as the reciprocal of the lens' focal length, say you're looking at 1/15th of a second.  Generally, IS/VR adds about three stops, so your max shutter speed could become 1/2 second.  In such a long span of time, I'm pretty sure you'll displace the camera/lens further in space than the trick shift-lens thingy can compensate for.  My intuition tells me the IS feature won't make much difference until you get to the long end, but that's just my guess.  (But now that I think about it, because of the crop factor, that rule of thumb becomes even less accurate.)

[phanophish]

I'd hold of on any platform switch right now, or at least be sure you consider the new stuff on the way from Nikon.  Nikon recently announced the D300 and the D3.  From the preliminary reports they have finally closed the high ISO noise gap and if you believe some of the beta testers have finally made the Canon guys jealous.  The D3 is a full frame sensor and is pricey ($5000) but the D300 is close in price to the the Canon 40d and most reports show it having better low light performance.  I ran the math on switching to Canon about a year ago and it just didn't make sense to me.  For the most part the Canon lenses run a bit more than the Nikon and Canon's flashes are significantly more.

I totally agree on saving the IS/VR money for longer glass, neither can make up for subject movement which is what you start to run in to in really low light stuff.