I was once a die hard Nikon supporter. In the last 3 years I owned two Nikon DSLR bodies (D70 and D40), one Nikon SLR body (FM10), many Nikon lenses including the famous 70-200 mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR, and both SB-600 and SB-800 Speedlight Flashes. My photography interest includes still life, portrait, nature, events and macro.

After investing so much in Nikon, why did I suddenly change side?

1. Limitation of AF-S lenses on D40

D40 is a wonderful camera. Even though I have already sold it, I still believe so. It has a very light weight, low noise for high ISO (1600 with acceptable image quality), a large LCD for photo review and almost all the functions I might need as an amateur photographer.

D40 also has a rather long battery life, and has a just-nice 6 mega pixel sensor. In fact, I kind of boycott cameras with too many pixels. It is because at the end of the day, I’m going to resize every photo to 640×425, or the most to the size of my desktop. Too many pixels only make memory cards smaller, and make post-processing more time-consuming, and is totally unnecessary for amateurs. Squeezing more pixels in the fixed sensor area means more signal noise too, which causes worse performance at high ISO.

I was fully aware that non-AFS lenses will not be able to auto focus on D40, and told myself it is alright, there’s still a number of AFS, or HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor - Sigma lenses with internal supersonic motor) lenses available on the market.

At first it was really fine for me, I owned the Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM and Nikon 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF DX VR. Then I wanted a large aperture prime lens, and realized the only available prime lens that can auto focus on D40, the Sigma AF DC 30/1.4 EX ASPHERICAL HSM is not quite compatible with D40. I tried many pieces in camera shop and they all suffered a front-focus problem.

Since Nikon is reluctant to add AF-S motors into its prime lenses, I believe many would have been turned away.

People may ask, why didn’t I get D80, which works fine with all lenses? Well that’s because I was low in budget, and need a cheap and small camera. I will mention that in point 2.

2. Lack of budget  (AF-S) 35mm lenses

After shooting the first role of film on my FM10 (which took me 8 moths as manual focus is really a headache while combining with manual metering), I was deeply attracted and decided to start film photography at the same time.

Most of the new lenses by Nikon are in DX format, which can only be used on Nikon DSLRs with APS size sensor. And those FX ones (which work on SLRs) are way above my budget. I know there are old lenses that works fine with SLRs, but I am spoilt by the AF-S lenses that I had been using and could not stand the focusing noise.

Even if I want to use those old and non-AFS 35mm lenses, I will have to replace my D40 with D80 in order to use them, and still suffer the noise. So I might as well change the whole system.

3. Superiority of Canon

First of all, USM or not, all EF and EF-S (for APS-size sensors) lenses have internal motors, so with respect to auto focus, they have no compatibility problem with any DSLR bodies on the market.

There is also a wide range of both EF and EF-S lenses available on the market. Their prices are also more competitive compare to the similar models of Nikon lenses. (50mm F/1.8: S$120 vs S$150, 100/105mm F/2.8 Macro: S$800 vs S$1000)

Specifically, the Canon 17-40 mm F/4 L USM EF, with fixed aperture F/4 only costs around S$850 (second hand), and in comparison a Nikon AF 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED, with no supersonic motor and a varying maximum aperture still costs S$920 (brand new). This is a very ideal lens for people using both DSLR and SLR cameras.

4. Comparison

After using Canon EOS 400 Digital for a few days, I did a simple comparison with Nikon D40 on the factors that affects me.

+ Compatible with any EF/EF-S lenses with no auto focus problems.

+ Slightly better noise control at high ISO.

+ More focusing points, which helps sometimes.

- 400D has a draggy shutter sound, which sometimes irritates me.

- Shorter battery life compares to D40. No exact comparison was done, just a general feeling.

- A button must be pressed first before focusing point can be changed using the arrow buttons. If the arrow buttons are set to change focusing point without first pressing the short cut button, other functions such as ISO and AF mode cannot be accessed using the shortcuts, which are on the arrow buttons.

- 400D has a pixel number more than I need (10MP). It allows lesser pictures to be stored in memory card (especially in RAW format), takes longer time to transfer photos and take longer time for me to edit them. I was quite used to the speed of my AMD 3800×2 processing 6MP photos. And like I have mentioned, at the end of the day, I only need a 640×425.

- No manual flash exposure control on 400D. It was once a must-have on my D40 as I use internal flash to trigger light sensors on my external flash. Not quite a problem now as I am using radio trigger.

I am confident that the ‘-’s will bother me less as I get use to the camera. There are also a lot more ‘+’ and ‘-’ waiting to be discovered.

Once again here are just some personal thoughts on the two systems at the amateur level. Points I have mentioned may not be applicable to others depending on people’s experience, fields of interest, affordability and personal preference. I am just here to share my two cents, which are hopefully helpful for your selection of camera system.

Happy shooting.