Do you think the Canon Rebel XTi is better or Nikon D80?

Question

I usually get more answers that the Nikon is better but I read this review and was a little skeptical. Read it and tell me what you think. It also showed a couple of sample pictures too.


http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/XTI/XTIA.HTM

Towards the lower half of the article is where they compare the two.

My point was at the bottom of the page it compares picture quality. They always say the Nikon is better but look at these pics.

Answer 1

The review you link does not say anything condemning the D80, does it? There is a little discussion about noise levels and the different approach that Nikon and Canon chose to take, but this is only a factor at ISO 1600 and maybe ISO 800.

Here's my stock answer. Koko will join in and tell you how much he loves his XTi and you can look at his photos and see that he does quite well with his camera and skills. When you get to this level, either camera will do just fine for you, so it's a matter of your personal taste about the way each company handles design and other problems.

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Comparing the Nikon D80 vs. Canon 400D/Rebel XTi

Check this page:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/page21.asp

The first thing I notice is that the Canon does not have a spot meter. I thought they added that in the XTi, but I guess past criticism was not heard at Canon.

The Nikon user-definable Auto-ISO is an interesting feature that lets you define a couple of parameters about what's acceptable to you and what's not. I don't think this would be the tie-breaker, though, if you can't decide between cameras.

The D80 has a pentaprism and the Canon uses mirrors. "They" say that mirrors are getting pretty good, but I would expect the pentaprism to be a brighter viewfinder.

The Nikon lets you do actual multiple exposures in the camera and some people think this is pretty cool.

Click "next" and move to page 22 and you'll see some image comparisons. Click "next" a couple more times to see more direct comparisons on page 25. Click "next" a couple more times to see some noise level comparisons on page 27. It looks to me like the D80 has actually tamed the noise better than the XTi, but read the comments about image softness.

Click one more time and see that the D80 is clearly the winner in image sharpness.

Go on to the next page and read the conclusions.

You can go to the side-by-side at

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_eos400d%2Cnikon_d80&show=all and also click on "Our in depth review" and "Read owner opinions" for each camera.

The last line in the Nikon D80 review reads, "If you're a more discerning photographer who can see the advantages offered by the 'all round' D80 you may well consider the extra money well spent."

The last line in the Canon 400D/XTi review reads, "Thanks to its blood line and low price the EOS 400D will no doubt be a huge success for Canon. However unlike the EOS 350D, for me it's no longer the first or obvious choice, so before jumping on the bandwagon make sure you've weighed up the competition."

In other words, you've selected with the two best cameras in their price class.

Canon is probably saving a little money using their CMOS sensor and this will bring them some market share. Whether the sensor and images are better or not is open to wild debate based on personal preferences. Whether one camera feels better in your hands might just be the determining factor. You have got to go to a real camera store and handle them both. I guess Costco, Circuit City or Best Buy would also have actual samples on display, but you may not get as much help from the staff.

As far as lens choice, I'd rather see you start with one decent lens instead of the kit lens, although Nikon's kit lens (18-55) has actually tested pretty well. Canon's new 18-55 Series II lens is okay, also. For Nikon, I like the Nikkor AF-S 18-70 f/3.5-4.5G ED DX. This costs about $300. I bought this for my wife on her D50 and liked it so much (for the money) that I bought it as a backup for one of my cameras. For Canon, one of our best answerers (Panacea) recommends the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. This costs about $500, so there goes the $200 price difference.

Of course, you'll need a decent memory card and I recommend a genuine Sandisk Ultra II (60X) or Extreme III (133X) of at least 1GB - preferable 2 GB - for either camera. Lexar is another excellent card supplier and they have the "Professional" 133X as well as the Platinum 80X to choose from. Both Lexar and Sandisk come with image recovery software and limited lifetime warranties.

Nikon D80 vs. Canon Rebel XTi (400D) vs. Sony Alpha A100

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-Rebel-XTi-vs-Nikon-D80-vs-Sony-Alpha-A100-Head-to-Head-to-Head-Digital-Camera-Review-.htm [Note the navigation menu near the top of the review]

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The February 2007 issue of Popular Photography has an article where they compared the top 10 MP DSLR's.

I took the scores and ranked the cameras similar to the way Formula 1 gives championship points. I just gave 5 for 1st place down to 1 for last place, splitting the difference when cameras tied in their catagories.

They evaluated Image Quality (giving this twice as much weight as anything else), Ease of Use, Control, and System Flexibility.

The final order and my scores are:

Nikon D80 - 17.5 points
- BEST in Image Quality, Control and System Flexibility
Canon Rebel XTi (400D) - 13.5 points
- Tied for best in System Flexibility
Pentax K10D - 11 points
- Tied for best in Ease of Use
Samsung GX10 - 11 points
- Tied for best in Ease of Use
Sony Alpha 100 - 7 points
- LAST in Image Quality, Ease of Use and System Flexibility."

Then again, this is the same magazine that put the Sony Alpha 100 dead last in this comparison named it the camera of the year in the previous issue!

Go to the original question and read the responses for more opinions.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiG00eHyd0oq5b.X7J.jiULzy6IX?qid=20070113133139AAHWJY0

If you want to get the "best" for the real world, consider the Nikon D200 or Canon 30D if you can afford it. For about $300-500 less, look at the results of the recent PopPhoto test and choose from that list according to your taste.

Personally, I use a Nikon D200 and would recommend it without hesitation to someone who has some knowledge of photography. For someone who wants the "best," but is starting with somewhat of an "entry level" knowledge base, I'd suggest the Nikon D80.

There are people out there who will state their preference for the Canon cameras and I will not argue with them. The Canon 30D and 400D are excellent cameras as well.

You would have to visit a camera store or camera department and pick them up and see what you think.

This review is now available online at:

http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3569/10mp-dslr-shootout.html

Answer 2

I really didnt feel it was worth the extra $300-400 for the D80 when I could get the 30D for about the same price. Faster FPS and has the same features of the D80 but I didnt want to swing over $1000 on a SLR just yet since I was learning how to use an dSLR.

The XTi has many wonderful features. But compared to the 30D I just felt a little better. Here are some major differences between the two:
30D vs 400D
Metal vs Plastic Body
Large Grip vs Small Grip
8MP vs 10MP
Spot Meter vs No Spot
2nd LCD (Status LCD and Previewing LCD) vs One Large LCD

Also the 30D has a thumb wheel which makes it easier to change settings during shoots but of course if you can do without it, the XTi is a great camera. Overall I would choose the XTi over the 30D just because I can do without the spot meter and thumb wheel (of course theres other things hte 30D has but hte XTi doesnt but I didnt need it).

Now the D80 doesnt have the thumb wheel but it has a little dial at the top right that you can turn to do the same thing on a Canon. The D80 is basically the 30D but compared to the 30D I didnt really want the D80 just because if I do upgrade in a few years, I want a camera that eventually have a fast FPS (Frames Per Second) which the 30D is renound for.

Here me now though, 80% or more on choicing is based on personal opinion. If your used to Canon you should use Canon, if your used to Nikon, use Nikon.

Reason why I did not choice Nikon:
1) At the end of their line, they do not have a full frame sensor
2) Canon has a faster autofocus than Nikon thanks to their USM system. Nikon did try it out on a few lenses but it never seemed to catch on
3) More IS choices
4) Used them for many years, havent been unstatisfied with any of their products yet

Now those are my opinions, the XTi is an amazing camera, so is the D80 but those little things swung me to get the XTi over the D80.

Answer 3

It looks like it's going to be a trade off. The Nikon color is more consistent, but the Canon is sharper. Not sure if there is a sharpness control or not that they didn't turn off, but in a review like this they should know better!

Looks like CANON built in EDGE sharpness automatically into their algorithms and this makes solid color BLOTCHY.

If you look at the pictures you'll see this BLOTCHY coloration in the YELLOWS and AMBERS, especially the bottle.

The Nikon looks like they used a diffused alogorthm that smooths out the colors.

What you lose here is sharpness. True, you wan't see the Copyright Circle C as distinct or even as a Circle C with the Nikon, but your colors on the Canon will look like they have achne.

Remember how color is made. There is a fliter matrix that varies. The most popular is the Kodak Beyer Method, two greens, one blue and one red. That means NO pixel gets all three primary colors. So they sample, hold, compare, contrast, weight, bias and come out with an average.

The problems occur when you have SHARP division lines, such as the WHITE lable of the bottle.

Now, if you MAGNIFY even a BIT MAPPED image you will see BLOCKS of pixels. usually 16 to 32 indiviual pixels per block and the blocks are quite distinct rectangles.

This is probablay the dithering process.

Now CANON has opted to dither LESS and thus make SHARE edge lines, such as on the black line of the lable or the lettering.

You can get that same results in Photo Shop by Sharpening.

NIKON has opted to dither more and thus the black line isn't as disticnt because it "smeaers" into the white making gray as well as black.

BUT, this dithering also makes for more consistant yellows, greens and reds in sold objects.

When the Canon algorithm doesn't quite get one group of pixels right, it makes them darker, the next group is ligher, thus you have a checkerboard pattern that is random, probably because of their weighting and bias.

It's simply a philosophy of how to make the matrix

AT viewing distance, how do things look?

To me the Canon images as compared to the Nikon images look like the difference between 400 speed and 200 speed 35mm film in terms of GRAINY look.

Nikon, apparently, has favored COLOR SATURATION over sharpness.

Canon favors SHARPNESS over COLOR SATURATION.

As for the rest of it. The Nikon is bigger and probably heavier.

As for the lenses it's a toss up, both make good lenses and Canon was the first to use exotic glass (FD, for example, the flourite element).

The OLD days are gone.

In the OLD days NIKON was (and still is -- you will find Nikon F's made in 1962 still in operation) a work horse. So was the Pentax Spotmatic.

The Canon F1 was a challenge to the domain of Nikon and press photographers bought in to that new camera.

Both were well made.

I think the Nikon had the edge back then, plus a good 7 year or more advance market share.

Today, it's a toss up.

Workmanship is shoddy on all cameras. They're all made of plastic. The low end ones have plastic flanges.

The days of building "clockworks" are over.

So today a solid, rugged, workhorse camera is NOT a given, it's an accident! You get a good one or you don't.

I'm not speaking optically, I'm speaking will it sill work in 5 years or do you have to spend $300 to get it fixed.

As I said, you will find the Nikon F and Canon F1 out there in Ebay land 35 years old and they've NEVER been in the shop for servicing.

This is the difference between THEN and NOW and this is where the Nikon reputation eminates from and it may no longer apply in this day and age of outsourcing to CHina and Malaysia.

Answer 4

Pop Photography did a recent 10mp shootout review that was pretty good. Summary: The 80 came out above the XTi by a little.

However, it you start adding your own weighting factors to what's important to you, the results can come out with the 80 a much better camera.

http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3569/10mp-dslr-shootout.html

Chose wisely grasshopper! Go try them out, feel them (I can't use the XTi cause I have large hands!)

As for grainy pics, software takes care of that now. What does that leave? A camera you must feel comfortable with, has the controls you need, focus fast, take the next shots faster!!! Therefore, buy the camera you can become "one" with.

D80 I think is the right choice.

Answer 5

Does this come down to Canon VS. Nikon? If so, why doesnt Nikon make a full frame DSLR? I've always been more impressed with canon.