# Whats the Best Digital Camera?



## aprillove20 (Jun 5, 2010)

For live action everyday use? For professional use?   Why?


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## NateS (Jun 5, 2010)

5D Mark II in my opinion.  Full Frame 20+mp, ISO performance not far off the D700 (but with nearly double the resolution), etc....  I'm a Nikon guy, but right now, Canon has the "best" everyday use camera in my opinion.  When the D700's replacement comes out, that may very well change again.


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## Derrel (Jun 5, 2010)

Depends what your priorities are. Do you need top-flight autofocus? Do you need high resolution? Do you need high frame rates or instant responsiveness?


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## SwitchFX (Jun 6, 2010)

It's a toss up between the 5D Mark II or D700 for professional use; Battery grip recommended. The 5D Mark II does well, and is what I've seen most "professionals" or whatever your definition of a professional is, carries. Almost all of them use battery grips because of the extended shooting time AKA more frames, it balances the weight between a long heavy lens and the camera, it works for people with large hands. The Nikon D700 does very well in very-low-light conditions whereas the 5D Mark II will have issues, especially when you bump the ISO over 1600, you'll notice minute grain, or at least when I tested them both thoroughly before purchasing both. The Canon brand lenses are cheaper than their Nikkor counterparts, but not by much. It's easy to identify a premium Canon lens with its red or green band. The Nikkor lenses quality of glass is relative to its price, essentially.

The 5D Mark II's autofocus is mediocre when compared to the D700 side by side. The current gen's autofocus is based on the Rebel's, but tweaked for higher performance. The D700 has the same autofocus system as the D3, which blows the 1D out of the water, again from testing I've done. The 5D Mark II also tends to choke because of the RAW file size it spits out. But that's if you're shooting insane amounts of pics enough to fill the buffer. But like I said, the difference are minute, and the real thing you'll gain from the Canon, which I believe is fairly important, is the max resolution. And, well, that comes in handy. 

With the D700, you're looking at from off the top of my head, 34x50 and with the Canon you'll bet getting about 39x59, I'd say. And those are prints which retain quality, so there won't be pixelation, unless you skimped out on image quality before shooting. Clients will never print it out that big, it's expensive, it's big and weird shaped, waste of ink, etc. 


My suggestion is finding a place to rent out both bodies with similar lenses, and then do lots of testing, then purchase. Or you can just buy both. 


Both camera's in-brand flashes will give you about a 1 second delay before being ready using 2900mah or higher batteries. You can up the ante by lowering the power, or running a separate battery pack. 

For everyday action use, an advanced digital set on manual is easy to use or pickup a second-hand dSLR off BH or KEH; Make sure to pay attention to their grade scale and purchase accordingly. Both are reputable dealers and I recommend them. They sell more than just camera stuff, and for quality prices, too. 



NateS said:


> 5D Mark II in my opinion.  Full Frame 20+mp, ISO performance not far off the D700 (but with nearly double the resolution), etc....  I'm a Nikon guy, but right now, Canon has the "best" everyday use camera in my opinion.  When the D700's replacement comes out, that may very well change again.



The D700 is rumored to be freshened up in mid-2011 according to NikonRumors.com


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## Sbuxo (Jun 6, 2010)

Depends in whose hands it's in.


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## Formatted (Jun 6, 2010)

aprillove20 said:


> For live action everyday use? For professional use?   Why?



Nikon D3s
or
Canon 1D Mk IV


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## KmH (Jun 6, 2010)

Best for what? 

If I want to shoot pro night time field sports I use a Nikon D3s. (12.2 MP ISO 102400, 9 fps)

If I want to do pro fashion shoots in a New York studio I use a Nikon D3x. (24.5 MP, ISO 1600, 5 fps)

The best for live action everyday use would be the D3s, IMO.

Obviously few amateurs will be able to afford to buy the best. Most buy what they can afford, camera bodies and lenses.


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## ghpham (Jun 6, 2010)

Best one is the one you pick up every day to get the job needed done.


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## skieur (Jun 7, 2010)

For high level studio use Red 1 with the medium or large format digital module. 

For Sports probably the Canon 21 megapixel Mark II with a good high speed lens.

Nikon D3x for fashion and live action events with celebrities.

Sony A850 for high resolution shots (3350 lines) under good lighting for enlargements and probably the most inexpensive of them all.

skieur


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## D-B-J (Jun 7, 2010)

d3s for low light, definately.


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## Fedaykin (Jun 7, 2010)

There is NO best camera, period. There are only best cameras(notice the plural) for specific uses, and even that can become vague.


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## ifi (Jun 7, 2010)

*Everyday:* Fujifilm INSTAX MINI Film Camera
*Reason: *It comes in pink and blue

*Professional:* Hasselblad CF-39 MS Multi-shot 39 Megapixels Digital
*Reason:* It is expensive



:addpics:


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## Mike_E (Jun 8, 2010)

The one you've got.

If you're asking which to buy then ask yourself how much time are you really going to spend and how much Hard work are you going to put into photography.

It's OK to dream and it's OK to dream big but if you have to think before you write the check think about how much you will be spending per shot and whether you could do just as well at a lower price point.

Unless it's all about your ego then go float a loan if you need to.


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## icbc (Jun 9, 2010)

nikon D-90 may be the best ,
but which style is depends on what do you want to do with the camera,
if you are the professor ,you could choose nikon serise ,but if you only 
record some family ,it is  needless !


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## Live_free (Jun 9, 2010)

NateS said:


> 5D Mark II in my opinion.  Full Frame 20+mp, ISO performance not far off the D700 (but with nearly double the resolution), etc....  I'm a Nikon guy, but right now, Canon has the "best" everyday use camera in my opinion.  When the D700's replacement comes out, that may very well change again.



But it has a low FPS from what I know and has water problems.


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## NateS (Jun 9, 2010)

Live_free said:


> NateS said:
> 
> 
> > 5D Mark II in my opinion.  Full Frame 20+mp, ISO performance not far off the D700 (but with nearly double the resolution), etc....  I'm a Nikon guy, but right now, Canon has the "best" everyday use camera in my opinion.  When the D700's replacement comes out, that may very well change again.
> ...



True....and my answer and your response to my answer proves that this is a ridiculous question in the first place.  For macro, 5dMK2 is much, much better than a D700, for sports, the 5dmk2 wouldn't have a dream of keeping up with the D700, for low light, the D700 wins, for great light and large prints, the 5dmk2 wins.

Even with the D3s vs D3x the same can be done...there is no best camera because there are too many variables.  For me, the best camera would be a 5dmk2 (I don't go swimming with my camera _that_ often).


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## Village Idiot (Jun 9, 2010)

startbattery said:


> Canon 1D Mk IV


 
This guy has my vote of confidence. Right now, it would have to be the 1DIV, imo.

With the APS-H sensor, you're not losing the additional range that you'd get with a crop, it's still larger than a crop, and you're getting larger pixels for better noise control. It's weather sealed and built like a tank.

The camera can shoot up to 10fps, has a great AF system, and with the 1080p video which can do high production value shooting without a lot of extra accessories, it's really the best all around camera right now.

I mean, it can shoot sports, pull anything from studio, to sports, to journalism duty as well as be used for high end video. Vincent Laforet proved that by shooting one of his as usual high quality video shorts at night with nothing but ambient street light.


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## Village Idiot (Jun 9, 2010)

NateS said:


> Live_free said:
> 
> 
> > NateS said:
> ...


 
Why does the D700 "win" in low light? I regularly shoot concerts at 6400 ISO and have very usable photos. If I were to down size them from 21mp to 12mp, then the apparent noise gets even less noticable.


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## NateS (Jun 9, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


> startbattery said:
> 
> 
> > Canon 1D Mk IV
> ...



Forgot about the MkIV being out.  I agree...seems as if this one has it all.


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## NateS (Jun 9, 2010)

Village Idiot said:


> NateS said:
> 
> 
> > Live_free said:
> ...



Every test I've seen shows the D700 to have better high iso performance.  I never once said the 5dmk2 was bad....or even that the difference was big...it's a small difference, but the D700 has that edge.  I will agree that considering it's twice the megapixels, the 5dmk2 coming SO close to the D700 in iso performance is honestly a little sad for the D700.


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## ifi (Jun 9, 2010)

NateS said:


> True....and my answer and your response to my answer proves that this is a ridiculous question in the first place



+1 For it being a silly question.


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## Live_free (Jun 9, 2010)

NateS said:


> Live_free said:
> 
> 
> > NateS said:
> ...



Why is the Md MK2 better for macro?


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## peterson (Jun 25, 2010)

Canon digital SLRs is the best.Its tend to use CMOS sensors.Canon builds a separate motor into each and every lens.Canon has begun building a dust-clearing vibration system into the sensors of some of its cameras.


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## usayit (Jun 25, 2010)

These questions are so pointless... there's no such thing.   On the same token, any camera can be used professionally.


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## KmH (Jun 25, 2010)

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: 





peterson said:


> Canon digital SLRs is the best. :scratch: Sorry, not all of them? Its tend to use CMOS sensors. :scratch: So does Nikon.Canon builds a separate motor into each and every lens. Explain just how it's advantagous to the user to own more than 1 focus motor. Why not just put a focus motor in the camera body. Sounds like an unnecessary expense to me. Canon has begun building a dust-clearing vibration system into the sensors of some of its cameras.


Nikon has had that feature in several of it's cameras for years now. It's about time Canon caught up.

Also, all Nikon dSLR cameras have color-aware metering. Canon has only recently incorporated that feature in 2 of it's cameras, the 7d and the 1D MKIV, so Canon still has a ways to go.

Further, many Nikon cameras have a nice off camera speedlight triggering system built in. Canon has a system too, but it sucks. :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:


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## nchips1 (Jun 25, 2010)

Sbuxo said:


> Depends in whose hands it's in.


:thumbup:


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## Garbz (Jun 26, 2010)

peterson said:


> Canon digital SLRs is the best.Its tend to use CMOS sensors.Canon builds a separate motor into each and every lens.Canon has begun building a dust-clearing vibration system into the sensors of some of its cameras.



*This comment brought to you from the year 2005!*

Like seriously dude, get with the times.


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## table1349 (Jun 26, 2010)

aprillove20 said:


> For live action everyday use? For professional use?   Why?



The one that gets the job done.  Why, what else do you need?


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## Vautrin (Jun 26, 2010)

If I had an unlimited budget I'd buy one of the new phase ones with the 65MP digital back...

Of course the digital back + lenses + software will cost you upwards of $50k all in all if I remember correctly, but they sure look sweeeeet...

Although in all seriousness it depends on a photographer.  Just because you buy an expensive camera doesn't mean you'll take great pictures, and just because you have a cheap camera doesn't mean you have bad pictures.

It's more about who is pushing the button on the camera then the camera...


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## Mike_E (Jun 26, 2010)

usayit said:


> These questions are so pointless... there's no such thing.   On the same token, any camera can be used professionally.



The one you've got.


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## Chris Santucci (Jun 27, 2010)

Without a doubt, Canon 5D MKII. I came up shooting large format film, then Megavision in a studio environment and I'm still awed by the image quality from the 5D MKII every time I edit images.

.


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## JackAlexander (Jun 27, 2010)

Well, that depends. I think Canon EOS is the best as I am using it.


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## Petraio Prime (Jun 28, 2010)

A Leicaflex shooting film and scanned..

.


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## c.cloudwalker (Jun 28, 2010)

Petraio Prime said:


> A Leicaflex shooting film and scanned..




I believe this is the second time you post a photo from your Leica as an example of what to do.

I hate to tell you but it is only a great example that the camera does not make the photographer.

I'm sure some members are impressed that you have a Leica but I doubt that many are impressed by your photography. You are doing a disservice to Leica, imho.

Nothing more to say to this more than often enough asked question. At least, nothing that has not already been said.


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## Derrel (Jun 28, 2010)

Here you go...the best digital camera


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