Ashok_Kandimalla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Many of you may recall that Pop Photo conducts annual photo contests and
>publishes the winners in their January issue. I have been following this
>contest from a few years and looking at the tech data I could gather that
>more wining photographs have been taken by Nikon than any other camera.
>Canon is the next highest and rest are far behind. The following are the
>figures for three years.
>1997: Nikon - 26; Canon - 19; Others not recorded but less compared to these
>two
>1998: Nikon - 26; Canon - 18; Minolta -10; Others not recorded but far less
>compared to these three
>1999: Nikon - 30; Canon - 13; Minolta -6; Pentax: 5; Rest all put together 8
>(total 62)
>This is a little surprising since I have read many times that Canon SLRs
>outsell Nikon's. This being the caes I wonder why Nikon has out scored Canon
>among the winners. I will be glad to hear your opinions why this is so. But
>I request that there should be no flaming on this issue please.
Did you note whether the Nikons were current or nearly current models?
Canon may be outselling Nikon now but I wonder what the numbers of
total Nikon SLRs and Canon SLRs still in use are. There seem to be armies
of people still using F's, F2's, F3's, F4's, FMx's, FEx's, FA's, and Nikkormats.
There don't seem to be as many still using the lesser bodies like FG, FG-20,
N2000, N2020, EM, etc. I have a suspicion that all those F* (except FG*) and
Nikkormat cameras will outlast the N*, FG*, and EM cameras.
(I use an old Nikkormat FTn in addition to my N90s.) The Canon AE-1
and A-1 were pretty good sellers but I don't hear about too many still in
service. The AE-1 had a pretty famous mirror seize problem (around $100
to fix, though just about any problem costs at least that much to fix)
that would occur after a few years and I would be surprised if many people didn't
bother fixing it. This happened to a friend's AE-1 and he didn't bother
fixing it either. Canon F-1's are tanks but I don't think they sold particularly
well, at least I have never met an F-1 user. I occasionally run into a person
using an old Canon but not nearly as often as someone using an old Nikon.
I do see plenty of people using newer Canons.
>Another important trend is that steadily (over the last three years) there
>seems to be more winners using Fuji than Kodak film. In fact in the 1999
>contest, for the first time, more winning photographers seem to have used
>Fuji than Kodak
I was primarily a Kodachrome user until around 1991. I have since been using
mainly Fuji. For many applications I plain like Fuji better. In most other cases
Fuji and Kodak are pretty close in quality but Fuji is significantly cheaper
in all cases. For b&w I usually use Kodak or Ilford. Kodak has come out with
some really good products lately (Elitechrome, E100's, Portra) but the prices
are very high.
David Johnson
