In the old days, the Canon versus Nikon debate used to cause much heartburn and many flamewars on what was then the USENET. Since film is, for the most part, dead now, and since Canon has trounced Nikon as well as anyone else in the supremacy for the SLR market (Marketshares: Canon-53%, Nikon-28% as of July 2006), it's time to revisit the Canon-Nikon-others debate.
Ironically, in the digital realm, the Canon EOS mount happens to have one of the smallest thicknesses. This allows Canon digital SLRs to use almost any other brand's lens via an adapter and retain infinity focus. Even more ironically, Canon's own old FD mount lenses are one of the few exceptions that cannot be used. But Nikon, Leica, Zeiss, Pentax, Olympus, along with many other brands can all be mounted via an appropriate adapter on a digital EOS body with full manual focusing and stop-down metering capability. This ability, combined with Canon's undisputed leadership in the digital realm, has brought hundreds of thousands of 'immigrants' to Canonland. And the debates are no longer about whether to buy a Canon camera. It is instead, to endure endless whinning about whether some particular Canon lens is as good as one from a third-brand some alien would like to continue using, manually even.
First of all, I am sick and tired of all of these interlopers who come into Canonland from whatever shitty third brand-land they are from, and who talk trash about their adopted brand, and refuse to assimilate. Of-course, they come to Canonland drawn by the much higher standard of equipment and technology, and because their own brand cannot look after and provide for their needs. But it is simply galling to hear them holding on to their so-called home brands and whinning about the quality of Canon's flashes or wide-angle lenses. I mean, if you don't like it here, and are so attached to your mother brand, why come to Canonland in the first place. Of-course we know why: because those brands cannot look after their own citizienry by providing them with a decent standard of equipment. I really wish that these third-brands would get their act together and raise their own standards so that all these ingrates can go back. But given the dismal state of affairs in these third-brands, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. To wit:
I could go on, but why bother.
Now some of the aperture-ring lovers in Canonland will say that all these new refugees from third brands are good for Canonland, that they add to the variety and increase Canonlands vitality. Complete nonsense! I admit that some of these immigrants will do jobs that no self-respecting full citizen of Canonland will. For example, the stowaways from Leicaland seem to like walking around inner cities taking black and white pictures of random people staring vacuously into space in bus stops. Some of these vagrants could even catch a terrorist plot before it happens if they have the energy to be walking around downtowns endlessly. But on the balance, I would say that these 'apertures' cause more harm than good. Their foreign ideas, their relentless criticsm bordering on hatred of their adopted brand, and ultimately, their misplaced loyalty to their original brand of origin makes them a suspicous fifth column that Canon-society cannot be safe from.
Canon should have a foreign brand-aid program so that these other brands can, if not catch up, at least provide a decent standard of modern equipment for their hapless denizens. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon either, any more than we are going to see a silent motor on all of Nikon's lenses. Until then, here are the rules for the new immigrants to Canonland:
Now, check out my galleries for actual photographs (photographs! in an equipment discussion!), especially recent landscapes in b&w and color, Chinmay's gallery and the India 2006 gallery, both of which are digital (20D) and have EXIF information for almost all of the shots.
Comments, criticisms, praise welcome!