I present this brief interruption of clothing posts to discuss the new Canon and Nikon mirrorless cameras.
Last month, Nikon announced the Z6 and Z7—their first full-frame mirrorless cameras, with the new Z-mount lens, ZTF adapter for old lenses, and a trio of lenses for the mount (a 35mm, a 50mm and a 24-70mm). It was the first camera that gave me genuine gear lust in years.
Today, Canon has announced their own full-frame mirrorless camera, the R. There is only one, and it was announced alongside four lenses on the new mount (35mm, 50mm, 24-105mm and 28-70mm) plus three lens adapters for old lenses.
I’ve used a Canon 6D, which my wife bought as her main shooter for her photography business, for four years. I liked it so much that I had my boss at work buy one as the general department-use camera (we already had two Canon lenses so it made sense to stick with Canon). We recently had to repair it due to some damage, and while a 6D Mk II would have been great, it wasn’t in the budget.
I grew up as a Nikon person, because my dad was—he learned to shoot in the ’70s when Nikon was king. All our childhood photos were shot on a Nikon FE on one of the various lenses he had (24mm, 50mm, 55mm micro and 105mm portrait). I learned to shoot film in college on that FE. I bought a D60 later in college, and used that for several years. Once I was married, however, and my wife was building her photography business, I realized the futility of having two systems (she was an adamant Canon user who despised Nikon’s digital cameras, which she had to use in college out of necessity) and sold my Nikon.
Over time, I begrudgingly admitted that Canon was number one for a reason—they made better cameras than Nikon. I came to prefer the Canon menu system. As I mention, I love our 6D.
But these new mirrorless options, which are a glimpse of the future, are bringing Nikon back into the game (in my mind).
My hot take: Nikon is trying to make a clean break and appeal to new customers (without forgetting about existing ones). Canon knows they’re #1 and have released something their existing users can get as a second body to ease them into the mirrorless world (rather than lose them to Sony).
Nikon has three reasonably priced lenses out of the gate, the 50mm f/1.8 ($600), the 35mm f/1.8 ($850) and the 24-70mm f/4 ($1,000). Canon has four much more expensive lenses ( the 28-70mm F2, $3,000; the 24-105mm F4 L, $1,100; the 50mm F1.2 L, $2,300; and the 35mm F1.8 Macro IS, $499). Both sell adapter rings to mount DSLR lenses onto, meaning existing users or those who need a lens not represented in the new mount yet can immediately start shooting.
Features-wise, both have pros and cons. The Nikon Z6 beats Canon on price, frames per second, built-in VR and full-frame 4K video recording. The Canon’s autofocus system appears to be better, and the fully-articulated flip-out screen is better.
I still have gear lust for the Nikon; the Canon is boring to me. Maybe that’s good—lusty gear often isn’t as good as the boring workhorse gear that just gets the job done. But right now, the Nikon offerings look like stronger contenders out of the gate.
But in reality, we’ll be shooting on this 6D for a long time yet (it’s the first digital camera I ever bought that I felt I could use for the rest of my life because the image quality was so good), and at work if I want to upgrade in a couple years, it’ll be the Canon system.
