At first glance, the Canon 5D Mark III costs $500 more than the Nikon D800 – $3500 vs $3000. Canon costs more, case closed. Not so fast…what about what it takes to make a shootable package? Lenses, grips, batteries, chargers, GPS, etc. don’t all cost the same…
So I have a friend that has been sitting on an old Canon body and some old and mediocre lenses for a LONG time, and never got a 5D Mark II, and was ready to get back into the full frame game but with video this time. The D800 had been announced, and I suggested he take a look at that, since his lenses were probably only worth a few hundred bucks. Considering what a full kit would cost, I suggested he be open to selling the lenses and putting that towards his new system.
(That is what got me started on the whole comparison article previously published comparing the features, pros, cons, and tradeoffs of the D800 and 5D Mark III)
As we talked, I used my own setup as a starting point of how to grow a system – I’d originally bought a D90 with the kit 18-105 lens, then added the 70-300, then a 35mm f2 prime, then a Tokina 11-16 ultrawide. Somewhere in there I picked up a D300S as well to get into untethered HDR timelapse photography*. Yeah, I nerd like that.
*If you’re interested, see here for old reel, shot with D90 & D300S. New one coming at/for NAB with D7000 & D3S added to the mix.
Then I decided I wanted more coverage to have angles to edit of my timelapse, so I picked up a D7000 when I saw one in stock after the Japan & Thailand tragedies – total fear/impulse buy (“Will I be able to find another in stock?”). Then shortly thereafter I decided to take a Big Photo Trip and to go ahead and get the camera I REALLY wanted, the D3S. And if I was getting that big full frame body, I needed some big full frame glass to go with it, amiright? So I picked up the 16-35 f4, 24-70 f2.8, and 70-200 f2.8 primes. A 50mm f1.4 prime and 2x teleconverter rounded out the system over the next 6 months. I’d love to have the 200-400 f4, but it costs $7000, and the teleconverter was under $500. For $6500 less, I’ll take f5.6, slower focus and fuzzier images and make the 70-200 into a 140-400. Thanks.
In any case, back to my non-fictional-I-swear friend. Nope, he wanted to stick with Canon. Sure, OK. What about a 5D Mark II? I hear they are getting CHEAP these days, close to two grand at the time. Nope, he knew a 5D Mark III was due this year, hopefully soon, and wanted to wait. So I started looking into it, and talking about the pros and cons of pulling him over to the Dark Side as far as he was concerned. And then the 5D Mark III was announced.
OK, so to the point before you throw this in the tl;dr bin:
How do the D800 and 5D Mark III REALLY compare in terms of system costs?
I’d already looked into the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of a D800 system, and was shocked by the razors and blades pricing I was finding. Nikon made waves with the “36MP for $3K” headline (I wonder if they were inspired by Red’s Scarlet “3K for $3k” tag?). While that is an amazing price (considering the now obsoleted 24MP D3X is still $8000), the accessories are pretty shockingly expensive (same for the D4) compared to the prior models. The grip for the D700 was $250, the big battery to get the better frame rate was $110. Now they’ve gone up to $450 and $170 respectively – a combined 72% price increase! The charger for that battery? Only a dual charger is offered, and the jump from the old to the new is $195 to $350, a roughly 80% increase as well! OUCH.
SO – how much does it cost to kit out a D800 or 5D Mark III? As always, It Depends. Lets look at some different solutions and scenarios.
So I was wondering what it would cost to, you know – actually RUN these things. So I started with a the basics (all prices are from B&H, just to keep things easy – I use them and they are competitive and they carry everything, so that was a quicky web search for me).
If you want the basic camera, the 24-70 zoom (the brand new Canon one here), two extra batteries and an extra charger:
Nikon D800 light kit: $5065
Canon 5D Mark III light kit: $5973
Difference: $908, or 18% (Canon more expensive)
ADDING IN THE GRIP TO GET THE NIKON UP TO 6FPS, IF ONLY IN DX CROP
What if I want 6fps for the Nikon, even if only in DX mode? Lets add in the grip, special battery, special battery cover, and a charger for special battery:
Nikon as above with grip stuff for DX 6fps: $6065
Canon as above, no grip (both systems can do SOME kind of 6fps, Canon FX, Nikon DX): $5973
Conclusion: Price difference: $92 and 1.5% – except this time, the Nikon is more expensive!
Yep – that 2fps DX only frame rate bump (FX performance is NOT affected) cost a whopping $1000 for the grip, battery, cover, and charger. Oh, want another battery for a spare? They are $170. The prior big battery for the grip was the EN-EL4a for $110. Yep, a 55% price increase. Oh, and the power? Dropped from 2500mAh to 2000mAh, a 25% drop for a 55% price increase. Hrmph. Part of the reason for the drop is new Japanese battery regulations, but did the price have to go UP while the storage capacity went DOWN? Here’s why.
ADDING GRIP TO CANON AS WELL
Just for kicks, here’s the Canon with grip and an extra charger (we already have 3+ batteries for each), so we’re on a more equal footing, gear for gear:
Nikon as above (grip/big battery/cover/charger): $6065
Canon as above with grip: $6323
Conclusion: now only a $258 difference, Canon is only about 4% more expensive with the grip and goodies needed. Getting into the “not enough to care too much about” difference range.
Kicking it up a notch, what about a from scratch, totally pro setup?
SEE NEXT PAGE TO SEE FURTHER CONFIGURATIONS AND LENS COMPARISONS
– where the price differences change around…FULL ON PRO SETUP
One glitch – Nikon offers a stellar 14-24 that Canon doesn’t quite have a comparable lens to match against. So I’m going with what I ended up doing – a 16-35. This lineup isn’t exact, since the Nikon 16-35 is f4 not f2.8 like the Canon, but made the comparison simpler. I went with the 16-35 because you can put a filter on it (the bulbous 14-24 can’t), it is sharper, the 16-35 takes a 77mm filter like the other two zooms, and although a stop slower at f4 not f2.8…is about $850 cheaper. Excuse me, “less costly” in polite company.
PRO KIT WOULD INCLUDE:
body
grip (and all parts necessary to get best performance)
16-35 f4/f2.8 (semi-pro/pro)
24-70 f2.8 (pro)
70-200 f2.8 (pro)
2x TC (pro, for the 70-200 to get The Reach)
2 extra batteries
ability to charge 2 batteries at once
Nikon Pro kit: $10,095
Canon Pro kit: $10,997
Difference: $902, Canon is 9% more expensive
Keep on going? OK. This is based on a what I’ve got plus the 85mm I want to get.
MAX KIT WOULD INCLUDE: (based on what I presently have and/or am about to get – maybe not perfect, but where I am):
body
grip (and all parts necessary to get best performance)
16-35 f4/f2.8 (semi-pro)
24-70 f2.8 (pro)
70-200 f2.8 (pro)
a35mm f2 (cheapy)
50mm f1.4 (cheapy)
85mm f1.4/f1.2 (PRO)
2x TC (pro, for the 70-200 to get The Reach)
2 extra batteries
ability to charge 2 batteries at once
GPS unit
Nikon Max kit: $12,795
Canon Max kit: $14,177
Difference: $1382, Canon is 11% more expensive.
By the specs, the Canon glass is a little faster – f2.8 vs f4 for the 16-35, and f1.2 not f1.4 for the 85mm. Also, the GPS unit (a few years newer than Nikon’s) is clearly nicer – both units will geotag where/when the pictures were taken, but the Canon can additionally tell you what direction you were pointing. Both units can be attached to the flash hot shoe to mount them on the camera, but the Canon also uses that for its data connection. The Nikon has to have a big ungainly, breaks easily (I’m on my third $45 cable after a couple of years) cable from the GPS unit to the front of the camera’s 10 pin connector. So while it costs more, there’s clearly a quality/get what you paid for argument to be made based on the specs.
Well hell – if you’re already spending $13-$14K, why NOT consider bumping up to the D4 or 1DX? Read this to see a similar comparison on kitting out a Nikon D4 or Canon 1DX
OTHER STUFF
…then there are all the other goodies you’ll need, such as a safe means of transporting this gear (I like the Tamrac Expedition Series since I hike into the boonies to shoot often). Then tripods, heads, filters, cleaning gear, and all kinds of other stuff – but those will all be the same regardless of which system you buy into, so I’ll leave those out for now – another article, another day.
COMPARING LENSES & QUALITY
Comparing lenses using the DXOmark score (see here for more info), they of course haven’t tested the D800 or 5D Mark III, so I compared to the closest models I could find – an average of the D3S and D3X (pricier, but kinda similar), and the 5D Mark II (figure it’ll be fairly optically close to the Mark III, we’re just testing lenses here.)
Results for Nikon vs Canon lenses:
16-35 f4/f2.8: 21/20
24-70 f2.8: 28/21
70-200 f2.8: NA/18
35mm f2: 20/NA
50mm f1.4: 27/25
85mm f1.4/f1.2: 29/27
Averages for DXOmark (higher is better):
these Nikon lenses: 25.0
these Canon lenses: 22.2
Prices:
Nikon: $8435
Canon: $9684
Difference: $1249, Canon is 15% more
This isn’t entirely fair, since the newer 24-70 Canon hasn’t been tested, so I used the score from the last one. The Nikon 70-200 and Canon 35mm f2 weren’t tested, so I skipped each – one from each set missing. Dropping out the 24-70 lenses entirely, the averages change to
Nikon: 24.25
Canon: 23.25
OK, much closer.
Going purely apples to apples, lens to shipping lens, 16-35, 50mm f1.4, 85 f1.4/f1.2:
Nikon: 25.7
Canon: 24
So there seems to be a trend, at least for these lenses – by this metric, Nikon is edging out Canon (…aaaaaaaand cue the hate mail!). Oh wait – the 5D Mark III now includes lateral as well as axial chromatic abberation control – so that should improve the scores a bit – so a tie or a Canon win is entirely likely or possible once the lenses get tested on the improved body. (Happy now?)
Probably other lenses could be chosen to have Canon come out ahead, but this was my methodology based on what I’ve already purchased or plan to, and finding the closest matching bodies and lenses, opting up when reasonable to do so. The numbers don’t reflect that the Canon set is slightly faster glass – the 16-35 Canon is a stop faster, and the Canon 85mm is a third of a stop faster.
For myself on the D800 that I’m getting, I’m putting in the grip, better battery & battery cover to get the 6fps DX performance – I’m looking to this camera to serve double duty – to be my max res studio/landscape FX body, as well as be my DX performance shooter (fps and buffer), replacing the D7000 (same DX fps, deeper buffer). Since I shoot a lot of timelapse, I also need maximum battery capacity as well, so a grip and extra battery and chargers is always mandatory on my list for overnight shoots.
What camera is perfect when is always a tough call – for myself, at present, if someone said “Hey, you’ll be scramble hiking all day someplace familiar and the light will be decent – what are you going to bring?” – I might lean towards the featherweight D90 and the kit 18-105mm lens – light and cheap and if it gets dinged up, I won’t cry. Or even the Canon S95 pocketcam (hey, it still shoots RAW!).
If someone said “Hey, you’ll be outside all day seeing once in a lifetime stuff – what are you going to bring?” I might bring the MUCH heavier D3S and 24-70 (or even heavier 70-200 and 2x teleconverter). It ALWAYS depends on the minutiae of the circumstances.
A friend of a friend wants help shooting her wedding – what DSLR might I bring to casually shoot off the cuff moments? The D7000 has better video quality with H.264 and 1080p24 video. But if it is going to be indoors, with low levels of light? Suddenly the D3S with 720p24 M-JPEG, but usably clean ISO 6400, is going to be coming out.
At the moment I have the following (in order of purchase) – a D90, a D300S, a D7000, and a D3S. I plan on turning over pretty much all of those in the next few months and having a D4, a D800, a D700, and may or may not keep either the D3S or the D7000. Nah, ditch the D7000 – to have a system that all trades off easily, I want to have common bracketing, controls, viewfinders, plugs as much as possible – the D7000, nice as it is, is a prosumer model, with a different set of viewfinder attachments and especially GPS and control sockets. (Hey, anybody wanna buy any of these? Lovingly kept…)
Which to buy – D800 or 5D Mark III? This is probably a false dichotomy for most – buyers of these cameras are probably coming up from a lesser DSLR – who starts at $3K+? You’re probably already a Nikon or Canon shooter. There IS no market for new $3000+ DSLRs – there are only upgrading users who already have lenses in one system or the other! You’re probably only reading this to feel OK justifying your existing choice – right?
Realistically, you can take excellent pictures with both of these cameras. If you already have a few thousand dollars invested in lenses, or a lot of time pressing one flavor of shutter release or the other, there is no reason to switch, unless you’re doing something edge case as your PRIMARY shooting need – my HDR timelapse stuff, for instance – Nikon lends itself much more readily with the 9 shot bracketing and built in intervalometer. Want to shoot indoor sports, or astrophotography? Then the higher shooting frame rates and low light/high ISO performance of the Canon makes that a win. But for 90% of shooting, I’d say you’ll likely get excellent results with either camera if they deliver as we expect them to. Stick with what works for you. The muscle memory I have built up with my D3S makes me reticent to dive in with the D4, similar as it is. Somebody asked me to shoot Canon one time, on a better camera than I owned, but since I wasn’t innately familiar with the controls, I wasn’t nearly as quick a shooter on it – and thus not as good a photographer at the sporting event.
Historically, Canon has had better video, Nikon has had better auto focus and CA correction. EVERYBODY changed their game for these cameras, so it is up in the air as to how these will compare – we’ll have to – you know – actually TEST THEM to find out. Then I can nerd out some more then.
So – on the off chance you aren’t already deep into Nikon or Canon – skip the specs – buy a camera for what you want to use it for. In this case, coming in cold, I’d be inclined to say if you want a general purpose awesome FF DSLR, the Canon gets the nod for its better well rounded approach. Yeah, the body costs a bit more, and so does the glass, but the boring accessories you’ll NEED – batteries and chargers and grips and whatnot – cost the same or notably less. If you specifically are into ultra high res, large format studio/landscape/architecture work, HDR and/or timelapse, consider the Nikon. Oh wait, that is what my friend was already leaning towards doing, I just wrote 2800+ words fer nothin’. Oh well. Its fun, and this is how I nerd out.
: )
-mike
Legally Required Ridiculous Disclaimer – I own 4 Nikon bodies and a bunch of lenses, and as much as I wish Nikon would send me new toys for free, they don’t. Drat them. But in any case, I have no affiliation/association with them other than I’ve bought their products with my own money. Canon makes lovely cameras and lenses that don’t fit my toys. Drat that as well. I have bought some of their Powershot cameras and continue to enjoy and use them. But I don’t have an affiliation or work relationship with either company. Which part of this is ridiculous? The legal requirement? That I own Too Many Cameras? That camera companies aren’t psychic and send me free gear out of the goodness of their hearts, hearing my psychic yearning? You decide.