Nikon F80 or Canon EOS 30 (Elan 7 with eye focus)

If you wear glasses, the 7e's eye-tracking focus might not be of much use to you. YMMV.

I admire the way you've posted this question in both the Canon and Nikon forums so that you can come to your decision by weighing up the partisanship in each place.

I presume this is your first SLR. So tell us what sort of lenses you will be looking to buy, and what features in a camera you need or just want to enabler you to do your photography.

What do you want to know that you can't work out for yourself by seeing how they handle in a shop or looking at the brochures?

the same question i asked myself a couple of years ago, when i owned canon equipment. the spot metering and the ergononics of the Nikon sold me on the N80. BTW.the eye focus selector was more of a distraction.

whatever you comfortable with, they are comparable equipment. regards Doug

The Canon is a nice body. You can take great shots with it. These decisions are personal and often involve ergonomic factors. The key is to try both bodies and decide which you want to shoot with. Buy the body you will want to have in your hands. Having owned a Canon once upon a time (an A2e), I can say I wanted to use it less and less because of how it felt in my hands and how it responded to me. For instance, if you wear glasses, you will probably enjoy using the Nikon more because Nikon provides more eye relief than Canon. I got tired of trying to see through a Canon viewfinder and found Nikon viewfinders a joy to look through.

Andrew,

I haven't tried the eye selectable focus on the eos but I do have a cannon video camera thats a couple of years old with similar technology. As someone else mentioned, with glasses on it does not work well. With glasses off I found it very distracting (even when it worked) and often annoying (when it would not go where I wanted it to go.). My wife had the same issues and in the end, we just turn the feature off now and manually adjust the focus point where we want it to be.

After my experience with this, I decided to not buy another Cannon product. Undoubtedly this technology is better now but I've not had any design related problems with any of the 6 Nikon's I've owned and I felt that Cannon used me as a guinee pig for their product development.

Objectively, you should pick up both in the camera store and walk around with them each for 1/2 an hour and see which is easier to use with the lens(es) you will purchase. Regardless of my personal bias, many many fine photographers use Cannon and you should choose the brand that fits you best.

Good luck,

Jim

Both are good amateur cameras. Choosing a system at this point is an important decision as you are not invested in glass or accessories. Again, think SYSTEM not camera. This (the system) will be the big expense in the long run if you continue taking pictures. I also ditto comments made to consider the digital future. Canon has the edge here and Nikon is falling behind. I have stopped "growing" my Nikon gear as this alone has caused me to consider a switch to Canon if Nikon does not keep pace with Canon in the year(s) to come. However, for me, Nikon "feels right" when I use it. I also believe the N80 is better built (e.g. metal film rails). The N80 also has a spot meter, very useful once you learn how to use it. I think the N80 is laid out better in terms of controls. The Elan 7 has more features overall, including mid-roll rewind and a MLU (mirror lock up), neither of which the N80 has. IMHO avoid the eye-control; it's more gimmick than practical (the 1v does not even use it). The N80 has better low light/contrast focusing. The Canon EOS system focuses faster overall, though new Nikon (AFS) glass is closing this gap. However, on the N80 and Elan 7 neither will fully capitalize of focusing speed of the glass (like the semi-pro and pro cameras) due to the sensors and electronics used. These are not professional units, but each are quality cameras. Canon puts the lens motor in the lens, Nikon in the body. Nikon heralds back to the manual days (F mount) allowing use of older lenses, but the N80 is the exception to much of this. The Canon is basically a fully electronic camera (e.g. no manual aperture control) since the 80's when they switched to the EOS system. The Elan 7 is quieter. I prefer the Nikon metering system, but the Canon is not poor in any respect. Canon seems more committed to staying on the cutting edge (even if it's hit-and-miss) and has a great deal of capital to put towards R&D. Nikon takes are more leisurely approach to introducing new products, but when something is introduced, it's typically top-notch. At this point of technological offerings, if I were buying new (and fellow Nikon users forgive me for saying so) I would likely go Canon. This was not the case years ago when I made the same decision you are making, but the current technology offered by each to date has lead me to this position. I use the F100 now and darn it, the Nikons just "feels" better.

Andrew,

I spent around three months making the same decision as you. All of the information comparing features (which you've already read) factored into my decision. However, when I made my purchase, there was one factor which mattered more to me--durability.

Most of my photography is travel photography, and I wanted a camera that I knew would hold up to rough treatment. Nikon cameras have a better rep than Canon, so I tried them both, and found the Nikon to be better built.

Maybe your photography requires features that Canon has which Nikon lacks--but ultimately, it's your money, your photos, and your call. However it goes, have fun!

My two cents here: I did use an F80 for 6 months before trading it in for my first FM3A. Looking back, if I were faced with a similar choice, I'd have picked the EOS 30 up just to get the mirror lockup feature. I can live with the 2 seconds delay of EOS 30 mirror lockup, equivalent to what I get by using the self timer of FM3A partially depressed. The F80 didn't even have mirror prefire in self-timer mode.

Upshot: The EOS 30 is worth getting just for the MLU alone (of course, if one needs MLU). That from a diehard Nikon user.

Regards,

very similar cameras - canon has a wider selection of affordable image stabilization and ultrasonic motor lenses - nikon has nifty on demand grid lines and (arguably) better flashes