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Canon Vs Nikon lens.

T

Tony Warrilow

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I hear a lot of talk regarding canon lenses on epic but not much about nikon. If I am correct there is mount for both.

Is there a reason to favour the canon gear over Nikon?

Cheers
 
There is not a Nikon mount from RED yet. Probably before the end of the year it sounds like however. Why they went with Canon first I don't know.

The mounts available for Nikon glass as far a I know are currently only available from third party manufactures and are not electronic mounts. Again, as far as I know anyway.
 
I don't think they necessarily went with Canon first, it's just that the Nikon mount (because of the legendary Nikon F Mount) is more complicated to interface with than the Canon mount (if I remember one of Jarred's post correctly) and is taking longer than expected.

Both Canon and Nikon have great glass (and each have some stinkers). I have both mounts (although I just got the Canon mount recently and will just be testing it on Friday for the first time) and have Jacek's non-electronic Nikon mount, which works great with the Nikon glass I have.
 
Another reason for the Canon-cetricity is the dominance of the 5DMII in low budget shooting. Many people moving up to a Scarlet will have some investment in Canon glass because of this. However I think a pretty good majority of Red One owners who used still lenses invested in manual Nikkors or Nikon mount Zeiss ZFs. Going forward the electronic control of the EF and eventually Nikon G lenses will offer some really great advantages for low budget filmakers, especially once the Redmote Pro become available and a real production level of focus control is realized.

Also I've heard speculation from a few sources that the Nikon AF system has 50%-75% more "zones" than Canon, if this is true it may also account for some of the difficulty in creating lens profiles for an electronic mount. However it should theoretically give greater precision and smoothness to focus pulls.
 
It's just a matter of personal taste. Canon lenses tend to produce more contrasty/saturated images, while Nikon is more washed out in general.

Even though there is no RED Nikon mount at the moment you can mount almost any Nikon F lens on Canon mount using either snap on adapters or a permanent solution like Leitax.
 
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Canon's DSLRs movie shooting is slowly but surely over with entering of the new Nikon's DSLRs (D800 and D4) that both offer uncompressed (4:2:2) full-resolution HDMI output to external devices.
 
Sanjin Jukic said:
Canon's DSLRs movie shooting is slowly but surely over with entering of the new Nikon's DSLRs (D800 and D4) that both offer uncompressed (4:2:2) full-resolution HDMI output to external devices.
Click to expand...

Id be very skeptical of the usefulness of uncompressed 1080p hdmi if the cameras still resolve very poorly and use lots of line skipping...
 
I have a huge range of Nikon and canon glass... I mean HUGE!!! . All from my days as a pro sports photographer.

My over all view is after working with both kits for many years is this.

NIKON GLASS is SHARPER... FACT!
CANON AF glass is better (well was until the latest generation NIKON Af glass came out)

Whats going to save NIKONs arse well into the future is that even a 1972 50mm will work on a modern day body. Same with the EPIC.
NIKON glass has a manual (& AUTO) aperture ring.
CANON does not... But the way the EPIC is set up with the side handle controls, it works well not having to take you hands of the camera to set the aperture with the canon glass. That bit I really like.

Pros and cons for both... but ultimately Nikon glass is sharp. (even the old stuff) Thats the short of it...

NOTE: I matched a $540 Canon 50mm 1.4 up against a $12,000 50mm Arri Master prime today...
Quite literally could not tell the difference in RCX... Even at 800%

makes we want to sell alot of my PL glass when I see shit like this,
 
If you use steadicam, jibs, remote crane or anything else with remote focus you need lenses with end stops. Nikon manual and older AF-D lenses have end stops. The Nikon AF-S and most Canon lenses have focus rings without end stops which makes it impossible to use a digital wireless focus system.
 
I shot with Canon 'L' lenses for 10 years. I just sold them all and Im buying the Nikon 'G' Prime lenses for Epic. I love the Nikon's 9 circular blade apeture. Makes the bokeh look like silky butter. (Canon L glass is only an 8 bade urounded apeture, which is fine. But hard edges in the background look a little nervous and distracting IMO.) At T2.0 and T2.8, Nikon Gs are SUPER SHARP, little to no vingetting, and cost around $1700 - $2000 each, half the cost of a RPP. Like any photography lens, they have slight breathing, but a slight counter-zoom in post is an easy solution. I will have the 24, 35, 50, 85 1.4 and the 14-24 2.8 as a full set. The Nikon Gs are as good as cinema PL lenses at a fraction of the cost. I am very happy with them. As soon as my Epic arrives I will be posting some tests. I know Evin Grant has some good looking shots with the Nikon Gs here:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?57078-Nikon-quot-G-quot-1-4-primes-a-mini-review
Andrew
 
Mark Toia said:
My over all view is after working with both kits for many years is this.

NIKON GLASS is SHARPER... FACT!
CANON AF glass is better (well was until the latest generation NIKON Af glass came out)

Whats going to save NIKONs arse well into the future is that even a 1972 50mm will work on a modern day body. Same with the EPIC.
NIKON glass has a manual (& AUTO) aperture ring.
CANON does not... But the way the EPIC is set up with the side handle controls, it works well not having to take you hands of the camera to set the aperture with the canon glass. That bit I really like.

Pros and cons for both... but ultimately Nikon glass is sharp. (even the old stuff) Thats the short of it...
Click to expand...

+1 and have to agree.

Have to disagree with Demetri's comment above regarding Nikon glass making washed-out images. However, I do feel that Canon DSLR's push more contrasty and vibrant images, both in RAW and in onboard processed TIFF/JPEG formats.

The new Nikon D800 and D4 cameras look great on paper, I will see what happens when I get my hands on them, but they look to be the best offerings Nikon has had in a long time.

Generally speaking, I feel that since the tide has shifted to digital systems, Canon has made the superior cameras and Nikon has maintained their edge with lenses. And as great as the D4 and D800 look, who knows how they will compare to the next round of Canon offerings...

In film/video circles, Canon has gathered a large following due to the 5DmkII, 7D, etc.. Nikon has been playing catch-up in the video DSLR segment ever since. The D7000 and D5100 last year finally got them there and now the D800/D4 look great. How well they perform and how long they will be king of the hill in terms of specs remains to be seen. Canon has a knack for releasing new products on a whim, just to stay ahead... I smell a 5DmkIII coming real soon.
 
I've been tryig to get ahold of a prolock to test the Gs on my Epic but have been otherwise occupied shooting my film.
But here's a publicity still my wife took with the 70-200mm VRII Nikkor...
Mia_pub.jpg
 
That is a good question concerning the matte box. There are very limited options for matte boxes that use 4 x 5 filters to accommodate barrel movement on older Nikon lenses (and Leica R as well).
 
If you are prepared to use 4 x4 mattebox (ok except for really wide lenses) then somewhat surprisingly the Shoot 35 is just excellent. I was apprehensive about its low price but when I actually received it I was very surprised at how well built and functional it is - exactly what needed, light low profile it even has swing away! It has a bellows system with an 80mm front that accommodateds lens movement on still lenses beautifully. Are there any other matte boxes out there that do that, particularly ones that take 4 x 5.6? it would be good to know. I am very surprised that someone has not come up with something. A lot of manufacturers who make stuff for the DSLR market just do not seem to appreciate that a lot of their shooters will be using still lenses and that a traditional mattebox is all but unworkable.
 
Sergei's comment about you needing a hard stop on Canon lenses for steadycam and jib work is nonsense. We use our Canon lenses on jibs and steadycams all the time with our Birger electronic mount with absolutely no issues whatsoever. IN fact, the ability to wirelessly control focus for use on a jib or steadycam was one of the reasons we switched our RED One from Nikon to Canon glass!

Hardstops have no place on a lens with a fully electronic controller. They certainly would be needed if using an external focus controller, however.

Stephen
 
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