simple is beautiful
Photo Business News & Forum: Nikon vs Canon - Shooting Tethered
2 ... 2 ...

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Nikon vs Canon - Shooting Tethered


For many photographers, shooting tethered is a way of life. Not just studio photographers, but also on location, shooting direct into laptops and large digital workstations. Both Nikon and Canon, to varying degrees, previously failed on this front.
(Continued after the Jump)

Previous Canons constantly had the cord falling out, and my colleagues were inventing ways to make sure it stayed in the camera, with mixed results. Nikons too, had similar problems. In fact, the D2x was a step backwards as far as security of the data cable was concerned. The D1x has a much more secure Firewire 400 port as a solution, and it also came out of the back of the camera.

Canon has addressed this issue head-on, and in the most secure of the two. Canon's USB connects and is locked in place with a silver screw that slips into the side data port, with a place to store the cover on it's top. There's no way this cord is coming out of the camera, unless you unscrew it. The downsize, is that the plastic cable that holds the cable is a seperate piece, so too is the silver screw, and don't loose that data-port screw cap either. In addition to the cord there are three parts you can loose here. That's risky, and I hope that Canon stocks those for it's dealers. One major plus is that Canon includes a small USB cable for when you are using the camera to download to the computer, as well as a much longer USB cord so the camera can be much further away from the camera. This is about a $70 value and should not be under estimated.

Nikon, on the other hand, just wasn't thinking the issue through. They include a plastic piece that snaps onto the USB cord, and is not easily removed. This is a good thing relative to Canon. However, the little black hole next to the USB port on the camera is where the plastic pin on piece you connected the cord to slips in. It's shoddy, and will loosen even more over time. It wiggles and just doesn't make me feel safe. All they would have had to do was put a thread in that hole and make it a screw-pin through the plastic, and the piece would be about as secure as Canon's, with one less piece, and a lot less likelyhood that the pieces would get lost, since they're all securely connected to one another.

Further, and while unrelated to the point about shooting tethered, this photo illustrates it well, the Canon camera keeps you face further away from the back of the camera than the Nikon, meaning less smudge on the screen, and less "nose control" of the back navigation wheel/dial/plate.

Advantage: Canon.


Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.

0 comments:

Post a Comment