Glass vs. Body – My Pick

My family & friends are always soliciting my advice on what camera they should buy.  Most often, my needs and understandings as a professional photographer are vastly different from the needs and wants of my sister’s mother-in-law.  Well, in that case, always different.  I quickly learned that size and ease of use were more important to them than build quality or other technical aspects.  They would listen to me, eyes glazed over, nod their heads and then rush out and buy some clunker POS P&S at Wal-Mart.  For some reason this bothered me so I started saying something along the lines of:” Go to Best Buy, make the sales person leave, look at only Canon or Nikon cameras, decide which one works best for your money and size needs, buy it.”  Problem was, Nikon started making crappy P&S cameras with more noise than a NIN show.  Then Panasonic came out with the Lumix series with Leica optics, so I had to modify my speech slightly.  Pretty sure they continue to ignore my advice, but I’m older now and it doesn’t bother me as much.

When I am out working at an event, most of the times I am surrounded by people trying to poach my set-up shots.  It amazes me that not only do they want to contribute to my lights being shut off, they want advice on how their camera works and how to “set it so it looks like yours”  Sadly, I usually help them.  Not sure why as I am generally not the helpful sort.  In public portrait settings, I have been known to use low level flash to slave trigger my monolights rather than using a wireless sync.  This always helped to blow out mom’s version of the shot when their tiny P&S was asked to deal with 1800ws.  That worked better with film cameras though; today they can see the shot is nuked and then ask me for help.  Kind of a circular problem I guess.  Maybe I need to start using my powers for Good?

Every once in a while somebody asks me a question that I actually want to answer and can feel free to expound upon.  A day or two ago, someone told me they wanted to upgrade their gear and was not entirely sure whether they needed faster glass or a better body.  As always, the answer is: Both, but glass comes first.

You can’t beat good glass. You can’t beat it with a stick AND its more fun than a ceramic Dalmatian.  If I learned anything in my experimental camera class back in the dark ages of college I learned this:  You can put Schneider glass on a pink flamingo and end up with compelling imagery, but putting a pink flamingo on a Sinar is just stupid.

Speak in understandable sentences you say?  Ok.  Assuming your camera body is capable of producing a low noise image and is mechanically sound, your money is always better spent on better glass.  I am sure there are people who will disagree with my next statement, but stick to Canon or Nikkor lenses.  You don’t own a Canon or Nikon camera?  We will speak to that in a later paragraph, but its ok to keep reading.  Yes, Tamron and Sigma, to name two, make decent glass.  In fact I own a Sigma 70-200 2.8.  I wish I had bought a Nikkor 70-200 2.8 instead.  The Sigma is good, but its just not great.  Canon and Nikon do make some crappy lenses as well, so its up to you to preform due diligence and learn about the characteristics of any new lens before buying it.  How is its bokeh, contrast, sharpness? Just because its a 300 2.8 doesn’t mean its sharp at 2.8.  In fact many lenses are at their most soft and without contrast at their f-stop extremes.  Both Canon and Nikon have “no shake” technology lenses; IS and VR respectively.  I know nothing about them as I have never used them.  I have read pros and cons on both and most of the action shooters I respect tend to think it messes up more shots that its worth.  I don’t shoot Canon any longer, but if you are on Nikon, a very good reference for Nikkor glass can be found at  Bjørn Rørslett’s Site.

To review so far:  Spend your money on better, faster, sharper glass and stick to your camera of origin.

Having told you to break open the piggy bank on glass, I now need to tell you to upgrade your body.  Why Canon or Nikon?  Easy, they are the biggest and best.  They constantly upgrade their electronics and firmware, all of the software companies write for their file nuances, they have huge lines of accessories and glass, you get the idea.  I know a few people who shoot Sigma or Olympus and they seem happy.  I know I never am when they work for me; there is always some issue with their files or their cameras wont read a CF card that every Nikon I own will happy write on.

Enough with that.  There is a reason the pro-sumer and pro bodies are more expensive than their cheaper counterparts.  They are better.  They have more adjustments, progammable shooting banks, more focus areas, faster AF, better AF, longer shutter life and are simply made to stand up to abuse.  I have taken my D2X into environments that a D70 would have died in.  Not that you can dunk a Pro Nikon body in a bucket and expect it to shoot underwater, but I bet it would dry out and keep on firing.  Pro bodies are sealed much better to water and other environmental issues such as dust.  (as are the pro line of lenses).  As mentioned, pro bodies have a much longer shutter life rating.  This Site gives you an idea of what I mean.  Having said that, one of my D2X shutters died with only about 30K actuations on it but Nikon repaired it and had it back to me in under a week.  Another reason to pay for quality pro line gear; Nikon and Canon seem to fix them faster.

I mentioned earlier that I no longer shoot Canon.  I switched over to Nikon four or five years ago after shooing Canon since buying my all manual F1 in 1985.  I bought every DSLR Canon made up to the D30 (the 3.1 MP one, not the 30D) and then threw in the towel.  At the time I needed fast, accurate low light focusing and the Canons, even with the AF assist light, spent most of their time seeking.  I bought a Nikon D70, shot happily in the dark and kept on going the Nikon Way.  Canon does make great Cameras and glass and I would always recommend them as well as Nikon.  Its just that, for me, Canon’s low light AF is way behind Nikon’s.

The original question that started this post came to me on Twitter.  I think I would have gone over my 140 character limit with this answer.  Hopefully it has answered the question.  If not, one last try.  Buy fast glass, and then upgrade your body.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: I have been asked to expand this into more specific ideas, so here are a few more things to chew on.

Moving from a f5.6 to a 2.8 lens (I am assuming an AF zoom) will be a huge improvement in many ways.  To begin with, a 5.6 zoom is probably a lower end lens both optically and build wise.  A 2.8 will have clearer optics, fewer elements and be much more solid and useable.  Your camera should focus faster and more accurately and your keeper rate should go up.  The 2.8 will also allow for mush lower light shooting so lower ISOs and faster shutter speeds will be available.  A 2.8 will have a much more shallow depth of field (@ 2.8) and will allow you to separate your subject from any distracting backgrounds such as armco or fencing or RVs.  Good glass holds its value and lasts for a very long time.

Moving from a D40 to a D5000 or D90 is more of a lateral upgrade.  Yes, you will be doubling your MPs from 6.1 to 12.1, but you are doing it on the same size sensor.  The frame rates are higher than the D40, but I seldom shoot with the shutter held down and unless you are a machine gun type of shooter, you probably won’t use the burst rate either.  The viewscreens are larger, but, coming from film, I find that to be a nice feature but not important.  The AF system on the newer models is much better and faster than on the D40 so that might matter to you somewhat.  If the video feature is important to you, it might be worth the money, but once again, I personally wouldn’t use it.

The D90 and D500 are both upgrades to your body, but next year the D400 or whatever its called will also be better.  On the flip side, a Nikkor 70-200 2.8 will still be a great lens and will hold its value.