Thirty Three Milliseconds. After 28 years, that’s all it took to make me  switch. When the whole world chose Nikon, I was one of the few who used Canon. Today everyone else does too, so here I am walking the other way. Now I’m sure my psychotherapist would have a few words to say about that.

So have I.

Thirty three milliseconds - that’s the difference between missing the picture and getting the shot, or between my Canon Eos 5D, and the Nikon D700 I’ve just bought instead. The difference between a shutter lag of seventy three milliseconds, and a shutter lag of forty.

You don’t need split-second timing for landscape, portraiture, or even most feature work. But I’m a press photographer. Stopping the action counts, even when doing the most routine tasks, and not just when chasing dramatic news pictures. I frequently shoot speakers at microphones. This can be a real challenge. You know, the ones with no hand-eye-mouth co-ordination. Who close their eyes when they open their mouths, and vice versa. I could illustrate the problem here with one or two of choice examples, but my clients might not appreciate it, so perhaps best not. Suffice it to say that with the D700 my hit rate has trebled. On even the most mundane of jobs, I can once more feel a true professional.

Have a look at this. I don’t do football, but this is a football shot ( sports aren’t just for sports shooters ).

Taken, as it happens, on a council estate. At the opening of its new multi games area. I could never have caught that moment on my old 5D. Or the new Mark 11 either, for whatever else it’s got, it’s still stuck with the same old shutter lag. A few years ago this could have been forgiven. My first digital Canon, a D30, was renowned for its ( far worse ) indecisive moments. But they were a small price then to pay for one of their traditionally futuristic designs. Today it’s quite unacceptable in any camera which claims to be professional.

Are Canon incapable of getting this right? Of course not. They are still where they always were, at the cutting edge. Their top of the range 1D and 1DS bodies are every bit as fast and professional as my new Nikon, and have been for years. So restricting the 5d Mark 11 in this way can only have been a deliberate decision.

Why? Why have Canon got this wrong? Or, more importantly, why have Nikon got this right? Two major changes. One, a few years back, Nikon’s young Turks ( Samurai Turks?? ) appear to have lost the traditional Japanese respect for their elders. They said Things Must Change. The Kodak approach - we’ve just made a great new film, and now you really, really must buy it - was replaced by Fuji’s. That is to say, we’ve worked out what you really do want, and now we’ve made it. Secondly, Nikon’s strategy is now clearly to aim at the market for £2,000 professional bodies. Nikon make the more expensive D3 and D3X for those prepared to pay, but the D700 is still a thoroughly professional body, albeit a professional body stripped to essentials. The Canon 5D Mk 11 is a professional body minus one or two. Canon have decided you have to pay top prices to get the real thing.

Oh no I don’t. Why don’t I just pay up, for their latest version of the 1D? Because despite costing a thousand more it’s not full-frame. Why then don’t I buy their full-frame 1DS Mark 111? Because it costs five and a half grand! For the price of that one body I bought into a whole new system. The full-frame D700, a 70-200, a 24-70, a second hand 17-35 - and a flash gun that works! ( I wouldn’t change systems for a flashgun, but it’s one very good reason for not changing back ). And yes I know the Canon full frame chips are now twice the size, but the right picture on a Goldilocks chip beats the wrong picture on a big one. Nikon is aiming the right camera at the right market.

It’s the right camera I go for. For what I do, the body comes first, the lenses second. Not so for photographers who can afford to take their time. I however simply have to get the picture, otherwise I’d put Zeiss optics on a Sony ( just give Sony a few years by the way ). But, I’m using Nikon glass - so how does it measure up? To my great surprise their new 24-70 ( 2.8 ) is a revelation. Knocks the Canon equivalent sideways, as good as a prime at all lengths. So now I use a 24-70 as my standard lens, which I could never do before. Used it at an award ceremony, zooming in and out wide open, never had such sharp clear pictures from a job like that. Even used it at a very dimly lit reception, where I would normally rely on Canon’s 28 F1.8, an extraordinary lens for which there is no current Nikon equal. And - better results than ever. Professional quality at high ISO’s combined with fast accurate focus made a wide aperture prime unnecessary, and zooming fast made better pictures ( a Nikon 28 F1.8 would still be nice though ). Predictable barrel distortion at the wide end, but I shoot people not buildings, so no problem there. As for the 70-200, it’s as good as they come. I’ve seen it criticised elsewhere, talk of fall-off at the edges, and this may well be true, but I’ve never seen it. Because I’ve never looked. I’m not testing this kit, I’m using it. As I said, I shoot people, so I’ll leave all four corners to the Alamy pixel police. This lens is pin sharp wide open on the eye. Take a look. This was not just shot at F2.8, but with 1.4x converter on the front ( F4 effective ). 200 mil ( 280 effective ), 800 ASA, flash.

- Here is the full frame uncorrected ex-camera jpeg ( standard settings )

And here is the same view from the matching NEF ( raw ) file @100% corrected and sharpened - Stunning.

That was the good news. But I did also buy the Nikon 17-35  ( F2.8 ). Because my standard lens used to be the Canon 16-35 which, for an f2.8 wide aperture zoom, is superb. I got the Nikon replacement second hand. Good thing too! I have to admit it does have the merit of rectilinearity, which even matters to me at the wide end, because there straight lines are in shot whether I want them or not.  But that’s about it. What it lacks in bite it more than makes up for in flare. Awful. And the corners - which, again, do matter to me in wide angles, because people end up in them - wide open, what’s going on? Curvature of field? Whatever, switching to the new 24-70 and back again, as I do on almost every job, the difference between the two just jumps out at you. It’s supposed to have been great for film, but this is not a digital lens.

So why not buy their new 14-24 instead? By all accounts every bit as good as the 24-70, and, very straight lines. Well one day I probably will. But while the new 14-24/24-70/70-200 line up makes some kind of mathematical sense to Nikon, to me it makes no practical sense at all. Yes they can claim to have every single millimetre covered, but I spend all day moving either side of 24. I rarely use 14 mil. So I’m stuck with their old 17-35. They’ve just made a redesigned 50 f1.4, which is great for those who use them, but why not make a state-of-the-art 16-35?

I’ve still got one, because I didn’t trade in my Canon lenses ( who knows, in a year or two they might wake up, and then it won’t cost me to switch back ). So why not stick that on my old 5D? Well, back to where this all started. That shutter lag problem. The right shot with the wrong lens beats the wrong shot with the right one. There is however one good thing to come out of all this, and that is that I find using the 24-70 instead as my standard lens a much better way of approaching the world. Working closer in, however, that obsolescent 17-35 is still essential every day of the week. And a daily reminder of how far lens design has come in the last ten years.

I have one more complaint if they’re listening. After spending five grand on shooting Nikon raw files, I really don’t see why I should have to pay extra just to open them! In the right software, that is. Nikon, like Canon, still insists on using a proprietory raw file format instead of DNG, so really I ought to use their software designed specifically to get the best conversion. In a few years Aperture, Camera Raw and the rest will do it just as well if not better, and their engineers are already moving away fast from a standard de-mosaicing routine to a complete set perfectly tailored to each and every camera and chip.

But they’re not quite there yet. I do have the Nikon software ( Capture NX2 ) there in the box, but it’s a bit like finding meters plonked on what used to be free parking. I can’t quite bring myself to use it knowing I’ll have to pay when the free trial runs out. I think they’d say I’ve got to because they’re now paying outside experts ( Nik Software ) to get it right, to which I’d reply I’ve already paid for third party software. If they won’t convert to DNG, why not just hand the trade secrets over to Aperture, Capture One, Lightroom and the rest, who know all about raw conversion anyway? This really is cheapskate.

Having said that, I probably will end up giving in, just to see the colour. Do Nikon’s raw conversions look anything like their ex-camera jpegs? They are very different to those from a Canon 5D. There is an exquisite quality to the 5D chip, and it shows. My D700 produces jpegs which are straighter, plainer, cleaner - and sort of neutral. Accurate, a bit flat. The difference is like that between Kodachrome 25 ( that’s Nikon ), and Velvia. But not quite so extreme. Maybe Nikon’s Capture NX2 really brings their pictures back to life, but a natural sort of life, if you see what I mean.

Raw conversion apart, there’s nothing I can’t learn to live with. Rings turning the wrong way is infuriating - zooming out fast to snatch a shot, only to end up tight on the head - but adjusting to that is just a matter of time.

Just one thing I haven’t mentioned - Canon’s video. Well, no, I haven’t. Yes, very nice on the 5D Mk 11. Just not worth missing the picture for. Think I’ll wait for Nikon to match it ( on a pro body that is ) or, better still, that long awaited Red videocam shooting raw at 25/30 frames per second. Which should be giving both the Big Two sleepless nights.

Till then, I’ve finally got the still camera I’ve been waiting for. The Nikon D700 is the best I’ve ever had.

And it is - I am - taking better pictures.

©  Andrew Wiard