High end wedding photograhers using Nikon Gear

<p>Susan Stripling is an amazing wedding photographer and uses Nikon equipment.</p>

<p>I too am not quite sure how you define "High End", but I use a nikon D700 as my body and have various Nikon lenses.</p>

<p>You can find my website at http://www.melissapapajphotography.com</p>

<p>Good lord! Judging by the content on his endless blog, Scott Kelby is one of the wedding photo gurus. All Nikon.</p>

<p>Nikon lacks in bright lenses. The one I miss the most is 24 1.4. I can't believe Nikon doesn't have one out yet (AF). Nikon has great equipment for wildlife/landscape/architecture, but in my opinion Canon has better photojournalistic 'hardware'. I still love and shoot Nikon though :)</p>

<p>To those who felt the thread Hijacked, I am sorry for my part. Thought Fred wanted to chat about the use of a system, by high end shooters and such. That was what I tried to answer.</p>

<p>Oh, bother, I just added another useless post... grrr.</p>

<p>Dave Luttman, I generally don't use the A900 over ISO 800 or 1000. But then I rarely use anything over ISO 1000 at a wedding including a D3 ... which is why I sold it. When I do, I'm not overly concerned with noise, and apparently either are my clients. You are right in your observation that the noise has a film grain quality to it.</p>

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<p>I think your missing the point Fred, its not the Camera that takes the photo, its the photographer.</p>

<p>I like how you worded that Mark Anthony..</p>

<p>I agree that sharpness is definetely more about technique and post than Camera brand. I can make most of my lenses look etremely sharp at F8 on a tripod and manual focus. I also agree my Canon 5D Mark II felt clunky compared to my friends Nikon D700. But, like I said I really don't notice that when its on a tripod. I do notice I can get much better focus using the Livevies display zoomed in 100X. I believe this in low light makes way more of a difference than the brand camera. I understand wanting to see samples of others who use the same equipment you do, but there really is no difference in the end result if you know what you are doing.<br>

I can't say I am not a successful wedding photographer because I use Canon when I should be using Nikon or vice versa.</p>

<p>I appreciate all of you photographers out there that gave me some very interesting sites to check out. I'm inspired by highly talented and sought after photographers in the wedding industry. Thanks James Jones for getting my point across since I was just asking a simple question. I love this forum because so many people have very valid point of views and we're all here to help each other out if possible.</p>

 

<p>check out Susan Stripling and Cliff Mautner's (?) web sites. They've both switched to Nikon since the D3 came out.</p>

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<p>Its the other way around out here. Fewer and fewer white lenses. Canon better bring out the 1d successor soon, or they will be in the same place Nikon was in 5 years ago.</p>

<p>Marc, Oh my gosh, I have been ignoring news about new cameras coming out since I have invested heavily enough but your mention of the A850, perked up my ears. I am going to have to check it out. I am already shooting with a few of the alphas since I could use my old Minolta lenses on them, and I really do like them. I also have Canon as well. Well gotta go look up more camera stuff....</p>

<p>Who cares what equipment a photographer uses? It's the results that matter - their technical skills, their judgement and creativity.</p>

<p>Joe Photo uses Nikon, and mostly Nikon primes. And he shoots JPEGs.</p>

<p><em>"One thing that is apparent about sharpness: Nikons Zooms are "FAR" better than Canons, whereas the Canon primes are "FAR" better than Nikons (but then Nikon don't offer any to speak of)."</em><br>

I doubt that the <strong>top line products</strong> from Canon or Nikon are "FAR" better that their respective competitor when considering the level of technology available. I am very pleased with the performance of my Canon lenses. I use the 17-40, 24-70, 70-200 zooms and the 85 1.2 and 24 1.4 primes. All are L series. I also have the non L series 50 1.4 lens. I use a 1D3 and 1Ds3 and both of these cameras have the micro-adjust feature to fine tune the lens/camera focus system. After doing this (I didn't need to as results were fine, but was just "tinkering" trying to squeak the last bit of performance from my system) the results became really superb. In my film days I always shot Nikon for my 35mm work. When I went to digital I converted to Canon primarily for the lens mount and lens technology. Nikon stayed with their original lens mount from the (I believe) late '40's while Canon upgraded their mount to the electronic (non-linkage) design maybe 20 years ago. With this change they also employed a larger throat area to facillitate faster lens designs. Of course this orphaned the older design lenses but Canon boldly made the jump. Nikon chose a different path. It's nice that with the Nikon system you can use the latest top body design with a 40 year old lens (with loss of some features) but in reality how many photographers actually do that? Lens design has grown quite a bit in that time.</p>

<p>My favorite Nikon wedding photographer...occasionally posts here on p net. Aleksandras Babicius from Lithuania. Breathtaking images.<br>

Having trouble posting the link, here's the site address: meninenuotrauka.lt/.)</p>

<p>Add http:// to the above address.</p>

<p>Canon? Nikon?</p>

<p>My other passion is target shooting...... Unique? Walther? Colt? Browning? Smith&Wesson, Beretta? I have owned these brands and others too. But they don't make the difference in my scores <em><strong>I</strong> </em> do.<br>

The guns I have owned are all at the top of their model range...........But the score is always up to me.</p>

<p>Based on some of the responses above, most would agree that the gear does not matter really however the type of gear you use can effect your sharpness, depth of field, and skin tones. I believe Canon is simply ahead of Nikon in some of these regards.<br>

I'm hoping that Nikon will come out with a variety of primes lenses ranging from 24mm, 35mm, and maybe even a 50mm that can compete with the Canon 50mm1.2. Also an upgrade to the 85mm 1.4 with AF-S and all of them Nano Crystal coating would be exciting! Is this something that Nikon is just not interested in doing?<br>

I love the fact that they've upgraded a lot of their zoom lenses. I just wish they would have some great high end primes to go with the awesome ISO cababilities of the D700. To me, that would truely be the best of both worlds!</p>

<p>Fred, you make the point that kept me from getting back to Nikon earlier than I did.</p>

<p>I kept the 5D/2 for the glass that Canon have. I have dropped all my Canon gear now though. I did not see my Canon gear giving better images for most things since half of them would be OOF enough as to be unusable. I find my Nikon glass and bodies are just much better at getting on target.</p>

<p>I wish and often ask Nikon for more primes with AF-S and nano coatings, but alas they don't have enough demand to support the R&D of such things at this time. At least thats what I believe is true.</p>

<p>If I am not mistaken, the <a href="http://www.holritzphotography.com">Holritzs</a> use Nikon.</p>

<p>I did use Bronica ETRSi and thought the lenses were just as good and in some cases sharper than Hasselblad. Now I shoot with Canon and I have used Nikon cameras and lenses. Frankly I can't tell the difference. Rarely do I get a request for an image larger than 11X14, and I have yet to get either Nikon or Canon to fail to give a great product. It's the photographer, not the equipment.</p>