Robert wrote: >I attend Atlantic Coast Conference (NCAA Division I) basketball games >regularly, and carefully notice the brands of gear used by the sports >shooters on the sidelines. >A couple of years ago, the balance was about 50-50 Nikon/Canon, but the >past two years -- since the F5 came out -- the balance has swung to >75/25 % in favor of Nikon. >Seeing lots of those black telephoto lenses with the shiny gold band >(AF-S) as well. >Good shootin' to all. Unfortunately gauging cameras in use by pro photographers is like gauging aspirins in use by hospitals. The person using the camera probbaly has not paid for it with their own money. It probably belongs to a pool of gear that the newspaper/magazine owns. The person who decides what camera system to buy is probably not one who will use it, but the one who writes the checks. <snip> Robert, This is generally not true with newspaper photographers. Most of them are required to supply their own equipment. Sometimes the paper/agency has a pool of lenses that can be checked out (these are generally the very expensive big glass (600mm f/4, for example) for specific assignments, and many if not most papers provide some expense (non taxable) money to their photographers to buy equipment with. However, every newspaper photographer I know owns his own equipment. Colin
