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paulm15

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Paul
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Nikon D5200 vs Canon t4i/t5i

Ok basically I have been doing research on these cameras for a little over a week now and just cannot for the life of me make up my mind. I'm kinda leaning towards the Nikon and my wife is leaning towards the Canon.



Reasons I like the Nikon:

-Better low light pictures.

-Better video

-Better built-in flash

-Better pictures (if you upgrade to the 35mm f1.8)

-39 Focus points

-Color enhancement feature (more my wife than myself)

-For $60 you can have a live feed with your iphone



Reasons I like the Canon:

-User Friendly

-Better Interface

-Better Pictures right out of the box

-Touchscreen (again not me the wife but it is cool)

-Great Colors in daylight

-Awesome Customer Service

-Better Ergonomics***

-Fast Live Feed



Reasons I Don't like Nikon:

-Poor Customer Service

-Non Touchscreen (wife)

-More complex (you really got to mess with it to achieve stellar pics)

-You have to buy a lens because the kit lens sucks

-Not as ergonomic

-Slow live feed



Reasons I don't like Canon:

-Worse video. #1 concern with this one (how much worse im not sure)

-9 focus points

-Built-in flash overexposes

-Not as cheap to sync to iphone

-Concerned once the Nikon has the 35mm f1.8 lens that this one couldn't compete.



I'm so torn. Apart of me wants to have the user friendly/ great customer service Canon offers and the other part of me just wants the best camera for pictures and video I can get. If I could be assured that the Canon could produce equal pictures and videos I would prob jump on it but it seems to me like it can't...



Total newbie here so I'm asking for your all's advice without you all being biased towards the brand itself. I just want the low down on which one is better for video and pictures. And I am willing to buy extra lenses.



The reason I am moving into the DSLR world is because I am about to have a baby and want to capture every moment I can.



Also I am pretty set on Canon or Nikon. My budget is about $1000 after taxes at the moment but I will have more money to invest in extra later.



Thanks for any advice.

Thanks Jayst84 lol

Nikon D5200 vs Canon t4i/t5i
 
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Jayst84 said:
Probably help if you told us which cameras you are comparing.

Although even without that information, I'm going to say you're over-thinking it. For general hobby use, pretty much any modern DSLR is more than good enough for what most people want from it. Just pick them up and see which one you get along with.
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Thanks *facepalm*
 
OK, it sounds to me like you are putting a lot of weight on a couple of online reviews you have read. I bet non of the issues you have raised with either camera would be a problem for you in real life.

I will start by saying I'm not very up on the more recent consumer cameras, especially not the Nikons.

Customer service - you have Nikon as poor, and Canon as awesome. What's that based on if you haven't used either before? Also, in the last seven years of owning Canon DSLRs, I've never once had any reason to deal with Canon customer service. I bought from various shops (nothing to do with Canon), and that was it. Never spoken to anyone from Canon in my life.

Video - Historically Canon has been a long way ahead of Nikon in the video game, that was very evident when video capable DSLRs started to appear. I realise Nikon have done a lot of catching up with more recent releases, but is the 5200 really any better than the 700D? (I've no idea as I don't use those models).

Built in flash is generally a nasty thing, but you can control the basic exposure from it on any DSLR. I haven't heard of a problem relating to the 700D specifically, but would be surprised if there was a serious on-going one which wasn't addressed.

Kit lenses - People like to bash them. And no, they aren't the greatest bits of glass in the world, but there is a good chance it's better than the lens in the compact you may be using now.

You can buy very good quality, very affordable lenses for either Nikon or Canon (and there is a wealth of third party manufacturers supplying both brands). Their general use lens range is fairly comparable, only in specialised lenses such as super telephotos, tilt-shift and extremely wide apertures do you start to see real differences in their offerings.

Colour rendition I think is almost a mute point now, they're both "good". There used to be a lot of fashion photographers who swore Nikon was better than Canon because of the colours and XYZ, just like there were a lot of other photographers who swore the Canon colours were better for what they did. It's really minor differences though, and easy to alter anyway.

As I said before, the only really important thing is how you find it to use.

So, you have user friendly, better interface and better ergonomics under Canon - assuming that's based on your experience and not random online reviews (which are pointless because they're based on the experience and ergonomics of a user who isn't you) then I'd say go buy the Canon.
 
Jayst84 said:
As I said before, the only really important thing is how you find it to use.
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That's it, in a nutshell.

When I bought my first DSLR, I was comparing the entry-level Nikon and Canon models of the time - D70 vs 350D. I terms of specs they were comparable, and I didn't have any particularly niche interests which would incline me towards one system or the other. So I went and handled both cameras in a local shop.

I found that the Canon felt totally intuitive to me. All the controls were in the right place and worked the way I expected them to. The Nikon was bizarrely unintuitive, with confusing menus and awkward controls - even down to the placement of the main control wheel, which I found really awkward to reach and use with my short fat fingers. So as soon as I'd handled the cameras the decision was a total no-brainer.

But - and this is the key point - I know people who made exactly the same comparison and reached exactly the opposite decision. It's a very personal thing. So don't trust any person or any review if it says one has better ergonomics than the other. The only person who can decide that for you is you.

And it's important to get this right because you're potentially buying into a system. Your first DSLR is unlikely to be your last DSLR, and within each manufacturer's range the cameras have a lot of shared DNA. So if you find you particularly do or don't get on well with the Nikon D5200, it's more than likely that you'll have a similar reaction to the D7100 or the D600 or any other Nikon DSLR.

The final point to note is that you are buying into a system and the two systems are not equally capable. In some niche areas one manufacturer will be ahead of the other. So if you have any really niche interests that might require expensive gear at some point in the future, say so now and people here can help you. Otherwise, both systems will meet the needs of 99% of photographers equally well, so buy into the one that feels right for you.
 
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Would you be this picky if you were choosing between two cookers, or would you think that the way you pick and prepare the ingredients is more important to the end result?

A camera is a tool, nothing more. If one camera was fundamentally better than another, this would be reflected in sales and complaints. And while you will, very occasionally, find a duff copy, the quality and ability of all the major makes is pretty stunning, so what it comes down to is the one that you like best, and how well you learn to use it. Honestly, it won't make any significant difference in the long run.
 
Jayst84 said:
Probably help if you told us which cameras you are comparing.

Although even without that information, I'm going to say you're over-thinking it. For general hobby use, pretty much any modern DSLR is more than good enough for what most people want from it. Just pick them up and see which one you get along with.
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:plusone:

They are hard to seperate and they'll both do a job. The only real differetiators here are that the Nikon user interface is a bit more fiddly but most people don't get thier cameras off automatic any way ;)
 
Go play with them in a shop. The control layout is important for how comfortable the camera is to use. I ended up with a 40D as much because it was comfortable and the controls were in the right place for my hands, as because of any reviews or technical specs.

99.99% of camera owners have no experience of the customer service levels of the manufacturer. So I wouldn't weight that too highly.

One other down-side to budget models from Nikon (but only their budget models), they leave out bits needed for focussing from the body so if you want autofocus you have to buy slightly more expensive lenses. Only Nikon does this.
 
consider mirrorless cameras as well. a lot less bulk and weight you may appreciate a lot while handling. look at Fuji and Sony
 
Alastair said:
Go play with them in a shop. The control layout is important for how comfortable the camera is to use. I ended up with a 40D as much because it was comfortable and the controls were in the right place for my hands, as because of any reviews or technical specs.

99.99% of camera owners have no experience of the customer service levels of the manufacturer. So I wouldn't weight that too highly.

One other down-side to budget models from Nikon (but only their budget models), they leave out bits needed for focussing from the body so if you want autofocus you have to buy slightly more expensive lenses. Only Nikon does this.
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Totally agree about going and seeing which feels best in the hand, basically if it feels good to use you are far more likely to use it.

Just to correct the statement re autofocus and entry level Nikons - they all auto focus with AF-S lenses only (HSM in Sigma speak, not sure what it is in Tamron), they will not autofocus with those lenses requiring a screw drive (AFD and AF types) but you can still use them in manual focus mode.
 
I'll offer some friendly advice:
Newbies think it's all about cameras.
Hobbyists think it's about quality lenses
Photographers know it's all about light.

The single most important bit of gear is the 12" behind the viewfinder. The camera is so unimportant you couldn't comprehend from your position.

The only worthwhile point you covered is the built in flash - and the response to that is that the best built in flash in the world will produce **** light so it really doesn't matter whether it's easy to adjust **** light or tricky to adjust **** light.

Sorry that doesn't help much with your question, but it's still really useful advice.

Buy whichever one you fancy, and in 12 months time you'll either have replaced it, be considering replacing it, have bought a load of other gear to go with it, or it'll be stuck in it's box at the back of a closet. Whichever of those is true, you'll have realised how pointless all the research up to this point has been.
 
If you cant, or wont try them both, to see which you feel is more intutive to use, there is a sure fire way to pick the best one.

Get a peice of A4 paper and cut it in half, write both camera names on it, one on each half and lay them on a desk. Turn them over and shufle them around for a good 2 minutes.
Now, close your eyes and plonk your hand on on the desk. Whichever peice of paper is closest to your hand... Go buy that one.

All budget cameras are pretty much the same, bar a few gimmicky extras and marketing .. I can gaurantee you, you wouldnt be able to tell a photo apart from either one.

Both will take great photos, providing the person taking them has some clue about what they are doing.

I took this last week on a D5100, so one "worse" that what you are looking at.


Scarlett Photo shoot by TCR4x4, on Flickr

I also used my very expensive full frame Nikon D700 for the same shoot, and if I didint know which photos I took with which body, I wouldnt be able to tell the difference.

I could have got exactly the same shot with the canon equivilents, the camera didnt take the photo... I did.

As for customer service, no idea where you got that info from. Nikon repaired both my D700 and Nikon 16-35 f/4 for free, even though both were over a year out of warranty.. Chances are you will never even need to contact the manufacturer, cameras dont go wrong very often, and if they do, you'll deal with the shop that sold it to you most of the time.
 
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IIRC, Nikon USA are a little... shall we leave it as "less helpful" than Nikon UK/Europe are.

Fully agree that either would be a good entrée to DSLR photography, although I would suggest that the D7000 or 7100 are a better choice since screw driven lenses are cheaper enough to save the extra body price in a couple of lenses (should Nikon be the choice!) I've used several Nikon SLRs over the past 15 years or so and have never needed customer service from Nikon for the bodies or any of the Nikkor lenses I've owned.
 
Hi,

I'd get to a used camera store and handle... well as many bodies as I could - camera bodies that is. Who is going to be using the camera more? you or your wife?
If you, then you need to find one you get on with.

Donn't be afraid to hold the top end models too.. you never know if you will want to upgrade in the future, so the body for now with a lens for the future...

If you aren't tied to any brands yet, then you are free to try them all :) so go and do that... Take a note pad, or piece of paper to note the ones you liked. Then you can review them on youtube other places, compare prices and perhaps post back here with questions on lenses to look at or bodies you are thinking more of...

Oh and don't let the sales people push you into a brand.... take your time.
 
another +1 for going somewhere that you can actually handle them. & whilst you are at it check out the Sony, Pentax , Olympus & Panasonic options too.
The Nikon kit lens doesn't suck any more than the Canon, Sony, Pentax etc. ones.
At least Sony also offers you a 35/1.8.
 
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