Part of me says Nikon cause im a Nikon man. I have had the opportunity to shoot with both and LOVE that the 5d is full frame. But give Nikon time because now that they arent producing much in the way of film they will have more time to develope their full frame DSLR (D200s???). Im holding onto my pennies untill they do.

You'll have those pennies for a very long time probably. Nikon is a small company without the kind of resources to develop and produce image sensors, so relies on companies like Sony, Because the only application of a 24x36mm sensor is a dSLR the potential market is not sufficient in size for Sony to make that kind of investment. Canon is big enough to do so if only for the prestige of being the No. 1 leader in the field.

I work at Best Buy in Albany, NY and I get surprisingly, quite a few professional photographers in there. I had like 2 people come in today and give me the run down between the 2 cameras, because I am also torn between the two. He showed me that if you want to change a manual setting (color temp, apt., etc...) it's all with holding a button, and rolling the little disc thing. But with the 5D, you have to go into menus, or roll the disc on top, so it will take a few more seconds to change some features. Plus, he told me he likes the Nikon a bit more because it's a little quicker, I guess it has a little bit faster buffer?? So it will use the faster memory cards better... That's my $.02... I think I'm going to go with the D200 now anyway, because it seems a bit more user friendly too.

I just traded in my Maxxum 7D for a D200 and also got the 18-200mm VR lens. I love them both. I really liked my 7D, but the D200 has so much more capability. It barely took any time to get used to the controls. I have no regrets.

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Part of me says Nikon cause im a Nikon man. I have had the opportunity to shoot with both and LOVE that the 5d is full frame. But give Nikon time because now that they arent producing much in the way of film they will have more time to develope their full frame DSLR (D200s???). Im holding onto my pennies untill they do.

I'll Give you a tip, Nikon Will never do a full frame chip in their DSLR cameras. The reason for this is that all F Mount lenses are compatible with all of nikons DSLR cameras and the exit pupil or focusing abilaty of the lens, would dabilitate the image quality, much like the 5ds inability to produce an even tone from edge to edge when shooting faster than f2.8.

Either of those cameras is better than 99% of the people using them.....and when it came right down to it either camera can produce professional results only limited by the abilities of the photographer.

I'd say the same thing if you were comparing a digital Rebel and a D50....

too much concern over the equipment when its the technique thats causing most people all the grief in the first place.

I recently purchased a Nikon D200 which I am now going to sell. I have never really ventured into Digital, but with this camera, all forums and advice was to "buy now!" I did and was disappointed for the following reasons: shooting indoors the White Balance is way off....incandescent light really makes taking pictures with this camera chore. Adjusting WB for different lighting situations seems to me a silly thing to do....maybe this is what digital is all about.

However, the biggest obstacle to overcome for this camera is the noise and sharpness problem. Tinkering with sharpness settings for different shooting environments begs the question of how can I use this camera consistently in a wide variety of light situations.

I rented a Canon 5D and found that the camera had none of the problems I encountered with the Nikon. Issues of WB, Sharpness, and etc did not affect the raw images I shot. I found the camera a more adaptable camera to a wide variety of shooting situations.

The gist of my experience is that I am selling the D200 and saving the $$ for the Canon.

TGF,

The auto white balance should do a very decent job in most lighting situations. If you would shoot in RAW, then the white balance setting wouldn't really matter because you would decide on what white balance to apply when you convert the RAW image. The same goes for sharpening and many other settings; you would decide on those also at the time of RAW conversion. Noise should be very low at the lower ISO settings.

I also believe that, since you are so new to digital photography, you wouldn't see any noticeable difference in white balance behavior, noise, sharpness, etc. when just starting out, wether you work with a Nikon D200 or a Canon 5D. You would need to have a lot more experience to notice any basic differences between those two models. There are advantages and disadvantages to both cameras, although in my opinion most are minor, with the exception of the price.

It looks like you either got a D200 with major problems right out of the box (possible but not very likely) or you need to learn a whole lot more about how to use it (very likely given your newness to digital photography).

Frans Waterlander
pixographer

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Part of me says Nikon cause im a Nikon man. I have had the opportunity to shoot with both and LOVE that the 5d is full frame. But give Nikon time because now that they arent producing much in the way of film they will have more time to develope their full frame DSLR (D200s???). Im holding onto my pennies untill they do.

I'll Give you a tip, Nikon Will never do a full frame chip in their DSLR cameras. The reason for this is that all F Mount lenses are compatible with all of nikons DSLR cameras and the exit pupil or focusing abilaty of the lens, would dabilitate the image quality, much like the 5ds inability to produce an even tone from edge to edge when shooting faster than f2.8.

That's not true. Nikon has stated that they are looking into future possibilities with FF. You don't think that Nikon would like to explore FF? You can only get so many MPs with a cropped sensor and then you have high iso low light issues. Perfect example is the D2X. The pixels are so small that this is it's achilles heel. The 5D does not have an issue with edge to edge tone in the sense that many blow it up to be. It's not noticable in print and the difference in percentage is very low. Your point about the lens doesn't hold up very well either if you look at the results that are produced with a 5D or a 1DsMkII.

I have to respond to TGF's post on his D200. THis could possibly be one of the first run of the camers that had huge issues. As most first run products have issues one should always wait for a second distribution of the said product. I have the D200 and have had fenominal resutls with it in all aspects including white balnace, iso settings and everthing else.

Now as for Comparing the d200 to the 5D. Sorry but thats like comparing Filet mingnon to cube steak. Lets start with the price $1700 compared to $3300 shows you right there. These are 2 completly different products. Full Frame vs Aps sized sensor. again 2 different animals. The D200 is the push for a Prosumer Nikon Model and the 5D is Professional level materail.

But these are opinions and I lean toward the Nikon side of life. It is ashame that companies release products before they are ready but it is a fact of life. Please don't let this discourage other nikon purchases.