Cameras

Here is a list of the cameras I have owned. As you can see I have almost only owned Nikon cameras, so why is that? Well I think its more or less a coincidence, when I bought my first DSLR I choose the Nikon D70 over the Canon EOS 350D. The main reason for choosing the Nikon was that everybody else had a Canon! I had also read some reviews of the Nikon and they all highly recommended it.
Having now owned several Nikon cameras I would not change, I love the build quality of the Nikon cameras, very sturdy, and I the layout of buttons and dials are very familiar to me now. I have tried other peoples Canon and Sony cameras and its a struggle to find the functions. This is off course a matter of habit, but I have always been happy with my Nikon cameras, so why fix something that isn't broken.

Current camera

At the moment I use the Nikon D700 camera. The main reason for getting the D700 instead of the D300 was the fullframe sensor, also called FX format by Nikon. The difference seen from the outside it not very noticeable the dimensions and weight are almost the same. No the main difference you will see when you look through the viewfinder, its much bigger and brighter on the D700 and this is something I really have started to appreciate in the field. The other main benefit with the FX sensor compared to APS-C (Nikon DX) is the performance in low light. With my D700 I can shoot at ISO 6400 without any noticeably noise and softening whereas the D300 would have the same image quality at around ISO 2000/2500. This give me the possibility to shoot handheld with a fast lens at nighttime in the city, thats freedom.

Previously owned cameras

The first digital camera I bought was the Fujifilm Finepix S602 Zoom. This was a compact zoom camera. It served me well and I got some OK photos from it. It was a 3MP sensor, but because of special type of sensor it could produce 6MP photos, and I actually made several 50x70cm (19"x27") posters and they looked decent. This camera, as most compact even today, struggled in the dark the photos got very noisy even at ISO 400. I had this camera for several years, before I decided upgrade to DSLR.

The first DLSR camera I bought was the Nikon D70. At that time is was Nikon's entry level DLSR. It had a "true" 6MP sensor and but it produced far better photos. I saw with my own eyes the different in image quality and that it hadn't much to do with MP as sensor size.

I had the D70 for only about 2 years, then I bought the Nikon D80. The reason for the upgrade was mainly to get more MP the D80 had 10MP against 6MP in the D70. Unfortunately this didn't gave me the better photos that I had hoped, but hey ignorance is bliss right? The D80 I had for over 3 years and it never let me down.

After around a year where I only had used my camera a few times, the urge to make to perfect photo came back. I decided to upgrade my trusty D80 to a Nikon D300 which I bought second hand. And my what a difference, not so much in image quality, but in using the camera. The D300 is so much faster and the 51 point autofocus was such an improvement especially in low light situations. The display was also superior to the D80, making camera preview a much better experience.