A lot has been said on cameras and what camera is best. The DSLR, the mirrorless, Nikon, Canon or Sony and on and on.
Well from a pure technical perspective there is little doubt if looking at the sensor – on DXOMark Nikon was the only camera which scored 100 other than medium format, although the Sony A7R III has joined it. Panasonic and Hasselblad have medium format cameras which are 101 for the Panasonic and 102 for the Hasselblad. Now that will change over time of course but what I show is what is now. The Nikon Z7 scores 99 and the Sony A7R II at 98.. but you need to go past 9 Nikon models, several Sony models, a few Leica and Panasonic before you reach the top scoring Canon at 91. Now that is not saying the Canon is terrible, but sensor wise there is a gap between it and the top cameras in the world. Do I own Canon? I did but no longer do. Nor do I own Sony any longer as sold them in 2018 but that is a different story related to body size and functionality and not related to the sensor.
The workhorses of my stable today are the Nikon cameras, D750, D500, D4 and F4 are the ones used most and each for specific reasons.
The D750 for low light, it actually is one of the best Nikon cameras and one of the best on the market for low light. It is beat by a few but not many and is one of the preferred for astrophotography. The D750 actually beats the D850 in low light but only marginally, however the D750 is beat by the D3, D3S, D4 and D5 with the D5 pretty much being the current king of low light on the market. Oh yes, the Z6 is perhaps slightly better than the D750 as well. The D750 also does an amazing job of landscape, portraits, architecture, etc.
The D500 being a crop sensor camera is very good when that long reach is needed. While it is not as good in low light as the D750 or D4, it does add extra reach when needed. The D500 also has amazing shooting speed of 10 frames per second and virtually unlimited buffer for extended shooting. For fast moving sports and bird photography it is amazing.
The D4 is kind of a different beast, like the D3/D3s before and the D5 successor. It is amazing in low light and high ISO with very good photos up to 12,800 with zero noise and much further with noise that is removable in software. Shooting speed and buffer are up with the D500 making it excellent for sports and wildlife/birds as well. True the resolution is not up to a lot of heavy cropping but what is there has amazing dynamic range and detail.
The F4, well what can I say a classic film camera and one of the most influential film cameras ever made. I mostly use today for black and white photography.
More on the three in future blogs.