Scott Jones

Facebook connection George Niaounakis sent me this question, and I thought it was interesting enough to answer in a blog post. He has kindly given me permission to do so. Thanks, George!

“I am still in the very early stages of photography – I have a day job and for sure I don’t know if photography, especially in Greece, will provide me with an income big enough to be my only job. The only thing that I know for sure is that it makes me smile a lot!!

“I currently own a canon 7d and a 70-200 f4 IS. I am thinking of buying an 70-200 f2.8 (in order to have the ability to use it also with an 2x extender), a full frame dslr & a big zoom lens. My concern is the following: Should I get a great dslr and a modest lens or the other way around, for example an 5d Mark III + 300mm f/2.8 or a 1dx + 400mm f/5.6?”

How great to have to find a solution to this problem! 10k euros to spend, but how to do so… Please take what you read below as one photographer’s opinion and nothing more. I expect many would disagree with much of what I’m about to say. But since you asked me, here is what I think.

I’m going to assume first that the money in question must be spent on gear, and isn’t available for other things that might be of greater help to you than new equipment. If the offer were: Here’s 10k to spend on exploring photography and improving your skills, I would probably advise that only a portion of it be spent on gear, and the rest be used to create opportunities to practice and experiment with the type of photography that interests you.

But as far as the body-lens dilemma, let’s consider one aspect at a time. You already have quite a good camera body in the 7D. (As a Nikon shooter, I’m not hands-on familiar with the Canon bodies, but I have seen fantastic work produced with the 7D and believe it’s a great piece of kit.) Before I switched to Nikon, I used the 70-200 f/4 quite a bit and found it a fantastic lens, with several advantages over the f/2.8 IS version which I owned at the time. I have also used teleconverters with 70-200mm lenses, both Canon and Nikon.

Many of my colleagues use teleconverters, especially the 1.4x versions, and get good results. I have not had the same experience, and recently sold my last teleconverter. I no longer use them because the results I got were not acceptable to me. So for me, the ability to use a teleconverter is not a good reason to pick a specific lens over another, especially with a zoom lens such as the 70-200.

For motorsports, the f/4 version of a 70-200mm zoom is not a bad choice, as you are usually working in the day time with plenty of light. If you get into pit lane and want to do portraits, f/4 is still a workable aperture for shallow depth of field. Given that you already own this lens, I’d be tempted to save money by keeping it rather than upgrading to the larger, heavier, and much more expensive f/2.8 version.

But the part of your question that really interest me is this: “Should I get a great dslr and a modest lens or the other way around?” Again, being a Nikon guy I have not used the Mark III or the 1Dx, but I have used bodies in Nikon’s lineup that are similar to each of these Canon models and will base my comments on that experience.

Usually when I hear a question like this, the asker has less money to work with and has to decide between a first rate lens with a consumer grade camera body vs. a pretty good lens and a ‘pro-sumer’ camera body. In this case I almost always recommend spending the bulk of the money on the lens rather than the camera, because in my experience the difference between a pro lens and an inexpensive version is of greater value than the difference between a consumer and a pro-sumer camera body.

But with 10k to spend, you have many more possibilities and thus the question becomes more interesting. 1Dx vs. 5d III in my mind is similar to D4 vs. D600 or D800. (If anyone feels compelled to point out below all the reasons why this is wrong, please do so on your own website, thanks. For this discussion the similarities are close enough.) By making motor sports your subject, the choice is even more complex. For landscape work, I’d have a different response to this question, for example.

In fact, for each of my photographic subjects that wasn’t motor sports, I’d recommend putting most of the budget into the lens choice. Modest cameras are so good these days, they can handle portraiture, nature, travel, etc very well. Recently I used a Nikon D5100 with its kit lens to shoot a friend’s portrait and was very pleased with the results. With a pro lens, I believe that this modest camera would produce excellent images of many subjects. But I wouldn’t use it for MotoGP.

At this point I must further refine my discussion to separate MotoGP from ‘motor sports.’ I have photographed many levels of motorcycle racing as well as several classes of car racing. I have found MotoGP to be much more challenging than any other type of photography I’ve tried.

The combination of the speed of the bikes and their size as you track them over long run off areas means you’re trying to photograph small, quickly moving objects, often at a great distance. Cars are much larger subjects and, in my opinion, are easier for the photographer and camera technology to handle. Slower motorcycles are much easier than MotoGP. Shooting an electric motorbike race is a piece of cake by comparison.

Given the difficulty inherent in this subject, the best camera body you can afford is a great benefit. The quality of the lens is not less important, but I think that the quality of the camera body is much more important.

I’m confident in this opinion because I have photographed motorcycle racing with the Canon 30D, 40D, and 1D MkII, and the Nikon D300, D300S, D700, D600, D800, D3, D3X, and D4. That’s a pretty broad range. While I got acceptable results with each body, there is simply no comparison is success rate between, say, the D4 and the D300. And there shouldn’t be, right? Otherwise why would you pay 3-4 times as much for the D4? It had better be more capable in challenging situations!

And it is. I tried the D800 as a loaner from NPS at Phillip Island last season, and while I found a lot to like about it, to me it’s not nearly as good a body for MotoGP as the D4, or the D3, or for my money even the D700, which was basically a D3 with some missing bells and whistles. For other types of subjects, I believe the D800 is a gorgeous camera and would love to have one for landscape work. But I was very glad for the chance to try one at PI, because I learned that I was better off spending the extra money on a D4 when it came time to add another body to my kit.

What’s the difference? The most noticeable thing to me has been the speed with which the different camera bodies can focus and track small subjects that accelerate and decelerate as quickly as MotoGP bikes. It’s not Frames per Second that I care about (I rarely shoot at the D4’s maximum frame rate of 11 FPS) as much as how quickly and accurately the camera works as I try to track my subject.

So to return to your question, George, my advice is this: if MotoGP is what you want to excel at, get as good a primary camera body as you can, and with whatever is left over, get as good a lens as possible. I don’t know how much a 1Dx costs in Greece, and I’m afraid to ask, frankly. In the US it’s just under $7k. But if you could pick up a good, used 1d Mark IV, perhaps even a Mark III (I see one here used for $1250!!), that is something I would consider. That would give you a really good body, suited to racing, and leave more money left over for lens options. I do not mean to disparage the 5d III. I think the 5Ds, from the very first one, are fantastic cameras. I only mean that for motorcycle racing, a good 1D is a better choice.

If by motor sports you mean cars or a local series of motorcycles, I’d less strongly advise in this direction. I know a successful American Le Mans Series pro who shoots everything on Canon 60D bodies. Before that he used only 50Ds, and before that 40Ds. Those cameras (and his experience and skill, admittedly both greater than mine) handle the big ALMS cars just fine. The last time I shot ALMS, I found little difference in the performance between a D300 and a D700. But again, for MotoGP, big difference! At least for me.

Again, I’d consider a used 1D if that’s an option, so that you might get a 400 F/4, rather than the f/5.6. (I see that this is a DO lens, which I’ve never used, so I don’t know if this is a good option, sorry.) A used 400mm f/2.8 or 500mm f/4 would also be something to consider. Looking up Canon prices for this post has been shocking, frankly. It used to be that one of Canon’s advantages over Nikon was that lens prices were generally more affordable, but I see that this is no longer the case. Nikon’s 400mm f/4 is $9,000 while Canon’s is $11,000, and the Nikon 600mm f/4 is under $10,000 while Canon’s is almost $13,000! Ouch. I’ve not used Canon’s 400mm f/5.6 but it seems to have good reviews on B&H, with the vast majority of users saying it has fast/accurate auto focus. Perhaps that would be a good match for a 1Dx. I expect for cars it would work just fine.

In summary, my advice is that the faster your subject moves, the more you’ll benefit from a good camera body. If your subject is slow, put your money into lenses instead. I hope that helps, George, and please keep in touch as your photography career progresses.