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Just Curious - Why is Canon so much more Prevalent? (1 Viewer)

HeadWest

Well-known member
As I understand it, Nikon and Canon almost evenly share the market for photography and camera stuff. But when it come to birding and wildlife photography, almost everyone uses Canon. This is visible in the forum here, where the classifieds have 85% canon gear, or in any local setting, where the white lenses are prevalent! Any thoughts? Thanks.
 
As a Nikon user i would sum it up as Canon 400mm f5.6 and 300mm f4 with IS, if you wanted 400mm from Nikon it cost a fortune and its only in the last couple of years they have put VR in a 300mm, even then they had to launch a more expensive one.
Ime not bitter you understand 3:)
 
Canon gained a big advantage when it completely changed its mount design in 1987 when it introduced the EOS cameras. Nikon, on the other hand, has been dedicated to backwards compatability and has stayed with the same basic F mount since 1959. Most important for bird photography, Canon held a clear advantage in supertelephoto lens design for a long time. Their long lenses incorporated fluorite elements and also included image stabilization long before Nikon finally caught up with its own VR supertelephoto lenses (and now, fluorite elements, as well). Today, Nikon's long lenses are as good as Canon's (some nitpickers might dispute this, but any differences are inconsequential in actual use), and the Nikon mount design has proven adequate to incorporate all of the high-tech design features that the EOS mount made possible for Canon. Nikon is generally just a bit behind Canon, though not always (Nikon has released its excellent 200-500mm while Canon has not produced a lens that really competes with it).

As others have pointed out, Canon has the 400mm f5.6 teles, whereas Nikon does not. But I think that Canon's popularity and dominance over Nikon in the sports and wildlife photography areas are due to other factors, including Nikon's failure to keep up in lens design for many years and also Canon's superior support system, including its professional support service. Canon is a bigger, wealthier company. Nikon seems always to be playing catch-up. Nikon has not given new users any really compelling reasons to choose the Nikon system instead of the more popular Canon system.

That said, I think Nikon gear is terrific. I started with Nikon in 1968 and have stayed with Nikon since. I still can use the 50mm f1.4 lens that came with my first Nikon F camera. I think that's pretty cool.
 
As I understand it, Nikon and Canon almost evenly share the market for photography and camera stuff. But when it come to birding and wildlife photography, almost everyone uses Canon. This is visible in the forum here, where the classifieds have 85% canon gear, or in any local setting, where the white lenses are prevalent! Any thoughts? Thanks.
Agree with above post. One reason over the last ~decade or so = Glass.
Lighter Super telephotos, FL glass, and some formats that Nikon doesn't have ie. 400mm f5.6, 400mm f4 DO.

Nikon recently has upgraded the longer super teles (600, 500 f4's, and 400 f2.8 ) to be just a smidgen lighter than their big white counterparts and catch up by including FL glass too. One notable laggard is Nikon's porky 300 f2.8 which is yet to undergo the diet and FL improvements to catch up to the Canon. Despite Nikon's recent introduction of a diffractive optics lens - the 300 f4 PF (Phase Fresenel), it's still short of the Canon's 400mm length. Nikon does have a bit of a jump with their 200-500 f5.6 though.

Canon is working on a 600mm f4 DO, and is rumored to be working on a 200-600mm f5.6, as well as further lightening and improvements to its big whites. Nikon needs to get a wriggle on!

Perhaps there are so many Canon rigs for sale in the classifieds because of all the people jumping ship to Nikon with their market leading recent body releases - the D5, D500, and now D850 ..... :cat:



Chosun :gh:
 
All very interesting thoughts. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. I'm looking at a body and lens upgrade from my current Nikon kit, and was just wondering about this before I proceeded.
 
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