Optimum camera body or optimum camera lens for your money.

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raider2727

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What are your thoughts, is it best to invest £1,600 in a camera body D700 and £700 on 2 lenses like Sigma 70-200 f2.8 EX DG Macro MKI and Sigma 24-70 f2.8 EX DG Macro

OR
Invest £700 in a 50D and £1,600 in a Canon 24-70 f2.8 L and a canon EF 70-200 F2.8 L non IS lens.

OR as the Wife says a Fuji point and shoot and 2 weeks in the sun?
 
As you already have the D700 showing under your name get a couple of good Nikon lenses to go with it, then go on a weeks holiday and have both good glass and a happy wife :lol:
 
Remember, good glass on an average body will still get you very good results, poor lenses on an incredible body will give you sub-standard results.

However, both setups you've suggested are good bodies and good lenses, so you don't have much to worry about. Personally I'd go for the canon setup, because I use Canon anyway and crop sensor is right for me at the moment! But it's up to you, what are you going to be using it for?
 
I would recommend going for the best camera you can afford first , but as Chris says you have to have a good lens to go with it. I have the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 Mk11 Macro IF HSM lens (Nikon version) which really captures fast movement.

Realspeed
 
This is why i asked.

I had a Canon 40D 24-70 and 70-200 canon L lenses and sold it all after being a Canon Guy for 25 years to buy a Nikon D700 Sigma 24-70 and Sigma 70-200.

Now i plan to sell it to go back to Canon as i do not like the metering of the D700, over exposed images, loud colors and Nikon lens prices have made me go running for the canon hills.
To spend £1,700 on a camera you cant trust to take a photo near the sun without it being over exposed is unacceptable, some on this forum set their exposure compensation at -0.7 or even -1.0 all the time to achieve a half decent shot, this just does not happen with Canon in my experience.
But you know what it is like I had decided to sell but just had that niggle was I doing the right thing and that is why I asked the question.

I cant afford the 7D and both used canon L lenses so I am going for a new 50D and 2 used lenses plus a 1.4 extender for the 70-200
 
This is why i asked.

I had a Canon 40D 24-70 and 70-200 canon L lenses and sold it all after being a Canon Guy for 25 years to buy a Nikon D700 Sigma 24-70 and Sigma 70-200.

Now i plan to sell it to go back to Canon as i do not like the metering of the D700, over exposed images, loud colors and Nikon lens prices have made me go running for the canon hills.
To spend £1,700 on a camera you cant trust to take a photo near the sun without it being over exposed is unacceptable, some on this forum set their exposure compensation at -0.7 or even -1.0 all the time to achieve a half decent shot, this just does not happen with Canon in my experience.
But you know what it is like I had decided to sell but just had that niggle was I doing the right thing and that is why I asked the question.

I cant afford the 7D and both used canon L lenses so I am going for a new 50D and 2 used lenses plus a 1.4 extender for the 70-200
 
raider2727 said:
This is why i asked.

I had a Canon 40D 24-70 and 70-200 canon L lenses and sold it all after being a Canon Guy for 25 years to buy a Nikon D700 Sigma 24-70 and Sigma 70-200.

Now i plan to sell it to go back to Canon as i do not like the metering of the D700, over exposed images, loud colors and Nikon lens prices have made me go running for the canon hills.
To spend £1,700 on a camera you cant trust to take a photo near the sun without it being over exposed is unacceptable, some on this forum set their exposure compensation at -0.7 or even -1.0 all the time to achieve a half decent shot, this just does not happen with Canon in my experience.
But you know what it is like I had decided to sell but just had that niggle was I doing the right thing and that is why I asked the question.

I cant afford the 7D and both used canon L lenses so I am going for a new 50D and 2 used lenses plus a 1.4 extender for the 70-200
Click to expand...

went to the dark side :gag: after 25 years? i guess some lessons have to learnt the hard way! :bonk:

what is stopping you from going back to your original 40d. I dont think a new 50d is worth it over the value in a 2nd hand 40d. you'd have £1200 to spend on lens. A 70-200 2.8 L and maybe a Tamron 28-70 2.8 (all 2nd hand).
 
As for over exposed images I rely on the histogram not the camera metering on my D300. Don't know what you really mean by "loud "colours, I find them truer than the Canon ones. Maybe the camera isn't "set up" properly


When I did a comparison check between Canon and Nikon against a white wall the canon produced a creamier picture whereas the Nikon was spot on . It all depends on what your used to, I would struggle with the niggly little button/switches on the Canon. I have to say I am dissapointed with Canon matched with the equivilant Nikon which is the only fair comparison.

Realspeed
 
I think if you have only ever used Canon then you are use to everything Canon and expect everything else to be the same or as good.
I changed as i had heard great things about the D700 and it was cheaper and possibly better than the 5D MKII.
I know the D700 took a while to work out and set up but yes in the end it was set up perfectly, i found that grass looked too bright which made it look wrong, bricks on a building were too red, now to a Nikon user it seemed perfect to me it was something i changed on every photo in PS.
I could have lived with that, however what i found totally unacceptable was the fact that if you took a pic in sunlight 9 out of 10 pics were over exposed.
Now i posted on here about it thinking it was a fault with my camera and to my horror found out everyone had the same problem but were happy to adjust the exposure compensation for every shot by up to -1.0 stop.
To me that is a design fault and something every D700 owner should be asking Nikon to fix, however Nikon owners are obviously use to poor design and would rather find ways to work around the problem than get it fixed.
Hence going back to Canon
 
raider2727 said:
I think if you have only ever used Canon then you are use to everything Canon and expect everything else to be the same or as good.
I changed as i had heard great things about the D700 and it was cheaper and possibly better than the 5D MKII.
I know the D700 took a while to work out and set up but yes in the end it was set up perfectly, i found that grass looked too bright which made it look wrong, bricks on a building were too red, now to a Nikon user it seemed perfect to me it was something i changed on every photo in PS.
I could have lived with that, however what i found totally unacceptable was the fact that if you took a pic in sunlight 9 out of 10 pics were over exposed.
Now i posted on here about it thinking it was a fault with my camera and to my horror found out everyone had the same problem but were happy to adjust the exposure compensation for every shot by up to -1.0 stop.
To me that is a design fault and something every D700 owner should be asking Nikon to fix, however Nikon owners are obviously use to poor design and would rather find ways to work around the problem than get it fixed.
Hence going back to Canon
Click to expand...

I don't think it's poor design - Nikon just expects owners to be able to set up their cameras properly in the first place...
It takes me about a week of experimenting with a brand-new camera body to get the images right...
The Cameras' image-processing-software is just different...not wrong...
If to my eye it looks 'right', that's not just because I've used nikons for ever...

The D1 produced horrible images, as did the early D1x until the firmware updates caught up...but early Canons were the same...
With the D2x, Nikon got it almost right and with the D3x it's as good as I've ever seen...
It's still not quite on a par with Fuji Velvia or Kodachrome 25, which are still the colour/hue benchmarks I use in my head when looking at imagery...but it's close enough...
 
I'd say always buy the best lens you can and I don't think you can go wrong with the top of the range Canon or Nikon lenses.

As I see it, all Canon L series lenses are top class and you'd be hard pushed to go wrong. I'm sure the Nikon stuff is just as good.
 
Conventional wisdom has always stated that you go for the best lenses you can afford and skimp, if need be, on the camera body - this was fine in 'ye olden days of filme' when it didn't really matter what body you used, but is less true today with the features available on DSLRs...

Personally I'd think about organ donation or going onto the Pot-Noodle diet for a few months...rotten teeth can be replaced and scurvy isn't as bad as people say...
 
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