Selecting a Digital SLR System Part II

Continued from Part I

Each of the big 3 systems has distinct heritage, seen in their higher end bodies and lenses to this day. (And just to be clear the distinctionls become far less pronounced on the more generic lower end bodies and lenses)

Canon has historically played up its sports heritage; they pay a lot of attention to getting the best AF performance in bodies and lenses they build. Their tele lineup is second to none in breadth and performance. If a lens design has to be compromised e.g. to lighten up the focusing group for max. AF performance at the cost of some micro-contrast, Canon engineers would be far more likely to make that tradeoff than, say, Zeiss ones who are all about microcontrast and MTF.

Nikon has considered photojournalism as its key territory, influencing the design and lens lineup. Amazing wide angle choices. Sharpness sometimes at the cost of bokeh (which is naturally masked by the newspaper/magazine reproduction process). Great sealing, excellent AF. Low light performance of Nikon DSLRs is second to none. High end bodies sometimes command a significant price premium, but with news agencies picking up the tab in many cases, in marketing terms, price elasticity of demand is low at the high end, meaning, about as many top of the line Nikon bodies sell at the present price as would at the somewhat lower price.

SONY has inherited Minolta's heritage, which is colorimetry, pictorial, fashion and glamour applications. Minolta lenses since the film days had the EXACT color consistency (an advantage somewhat de-valued in "average shooting" on Auto color balance). Their CCD/CMOS chip color microfilters are denser and narrower band than the other brands', resulting in more precise and vibrant color and tonality, at the cost of low-light performance. They have unique portrait and glamour specific lenses like the 135mm f/2.8T4.5 STF, and earlier had 100MM SoftFocus. Look up their Portrayer filters type II (hard to find) - soften the skin tone wavelengths but not much else. Lens designs emphasize great bokeh and (esp. Zeiss) zero compromises in lens performance wide-open. As a result Zeiss lenses are heavy, conservatively designed. Overall, reflecting the above priorities and trade-offs, the system has slower focusing and worse low-light performance than Canon or Nikon. There are also some gaps in the lineup and the big tele's are priced at a big premium compared to the other systems.