Canons and Nikons: The Debate

I'm frequently asked by people purchasing their first serious SLR digital camera: Nikon or Canon?
It's a little bit like asking someone if he or she prefers a Ford or a Chevy. Personally, I use Nikons and except for my very first camera _ an East German-built Hanimex Pracktica for which I ponied up the then-princely sum of $100 in 1968 _ I've always used Nikons.
One reason was that back in the 1960s when I embarked on this career, Nikons arguably were king of the professional shooting hill with Canons coming in a serviceable but distant 2nd.
For another, my hometown paper's publisher somehow had wrangled a coveted Nikon dealership out from the U.S. distributor of Nikon products in the early 60s when the brand was just becoming recognized as top-flight pro gear.
Since I worked part-time at the paper, I could buy Nikon gear for cost, which was significantly less than what it sold for at retail prices.
And forty years ago, as a senior in High School, that's exactly what I did. After saving and scrimping, I ordered a Nikon F body (in professional black, naturally). It retailed for $225 and ended up costing me $152.
I've still got it (along with several other film Nikons of various vintage that I hung onto a little too long into the digital age and now are worth so little I use them as bookends). In spite of its dings and dents, the old F still remains silky smooth, functional, and nearly bulletproof.
But back to the Canon-Nikon debate. Each brand has had its positives and negatives in recent years and really, both are excellent cameras.
I still use Nikons for a couple of reasons. One is that the Free Press always has been Nikon-based and the specialized, really expensive lenses it owns/owned have been Nikon
For another, Nikon lenses focus exactly in the opposite direction that Canon lenses do. Auto focus is great but frequently, I prefer manual focusing. After so many years it just comes naturally.
Trying to focus a Canon lens is for me a little like getting into a car and discovering the gas and brake controls have been reversed.
Bottom line? They're both good cameras. Compare a $1000 Nikon digital camera and a $1000 Canon digital camera and you'll discover they usually have similar capabilities and features.
Buy either one and you'll soon find out that as just as quickly, a newer improved version inevitably will be introduced making you wish you had waited.
And unlike my old Nikon F which wears its patina of hard use well, nothing ages less gracefully than a digital camera.

CJR Q&A with Damon Winter of the NY Times

I've had some rough days back at work after a vacation before, but nothing like what Damon Winter went through Tuesday. His first assignment back from vacation was a town hall meeting with Sen. Arlen Specter. The photo that led the Times' A section Wednesday morning was a photo of a very angry Craig Miller confronting the senator on the meeting's format. (To respect the Times' copyright, I won't repost it here.)

In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review's Alexandra Fenwick, Winter, who won the Pulitzer Prize this year in Feature Photography for his work covering President Obama's campaign, talks about the event and his approach to shooting it. What struck me was the level to which he prepared himself for what was probably going to happen, going so far as to watch video of prior town hall meetings with the senator. He was also prepared for how the crowd had been taking over events like these and intentionally getting into the photographers' lenses to get their point across, not to mention the less-than-warm welcome he and another Times photographer received.

I've often talked about preparedness with other photographers, but usually only in a sports environment. So many things are out of a photographer's control, especially at a sporting event, that advance preparation is crucial. Is the team's offense primarily a passing or running offense? Who are the major players? Do they do trick plays? How about the pitcher? What are his stats this year? Does he lead the league in strikeouts? Give up a lot of home runs? Does he have a good pickoff move? All of these questions can be answered long in advance, and give me a hint as to what might be a key photograph.

Being prepared can make all the difference when the storytelling moment happens, whether at a football game or a town hall meeting.

The games we play

Bernard Berrian hauls in a catch during practice.

I don't know if you've heard yet, but there's a professional football team in town.

I know, I know. It's hard to believe. Here? Now? Yes.

The annual football circus has rolled into town, and even though Brett Favre isn't with them, Vikings Training Camp is still a circus. For the record, I'm glad Favre didn't show up (the circus would've needed two big tops, one for the players, one for all the media), but I'm also a little disappointed (things would've been more interesting and unique with him here). It's still busy at MSU. More media than past years. Tons of fans filling the stands to watch players stretch.
Media shooting the first day of practice.

The good part about the busy is it brings friends and colleagues from the Twin Cities media outlets to town. It ends up being a great chance to catch up, commiserate, share a meal and some stories together, and try to lift each other's spirits and creative juices, since it seems I only see them when the Vikes come to town.

Besides the game being played on the field, there are a myriad of other games being played off the field during training camp. Media outlets trying to out-blanket-coverage everyone else. Photographers struggling to make an interesting photo of a 350-pound lineman who isn't doing anything but standing there in a half hour or less (more on that later). Reporters mobbing today's player du jour hoping he'll say something interesting.

The problem isn't necessarily in how you play the game, it's in the game itself. Rules and restrictions set forth by the team make uniqueness nearly impossible. Photographers are limited to shooting individual drills only (usually the first half hour of the two-hour practice) and are asked to stop shooting once anything interesting starts to happen or if a player is injured(even though I saw 3 fans in the stands today with the exact same equipment I use shooting 11-on-11 drills). Reporters have limited access to limited players. Coaches say few details about what's happening on or off the field.


Great evening light, and Vikings lineman Anthony Herrera.
So the rules are stacked against us, yet we play the game, especially as photographers. We struggle against security folks saying you can't kneel as we scramble in the limited time available to make interesting pictures for those who follow the Vikings religiously (and for those who are simply curious). I think in some strange way I like the restrictions. It forces me to either find a new recipe for chicken salad or come back with a boring photo of Heath Farwell just standing there sweating. It makes me work harder to make the most of those few good moments: a quick contact drill, great evening light, a laugh between a coach and a player.

Come fly with me

Aluminum Overcast on the ground in Mankato.I remember as a high schooler how busy the airport I worked at got during the Experimental Aircraft Association airshow in Oshkosh. I refueled small airplanes at a small general aviation airport in Juneau, Wisc. (UNU, for you pilots), 26 miles from the airfield at Oshkosh. It was a great stopping point for pilots of every type of plane imaginable needing information before making their way up to the airshow. It was fun meeting people from across the country making their way to aviation's Mecca.

Each year, some of us from the airport would either rent a plane and go up for the day, or get in a car and drive up, both of which were a traffic nightmare. Our favorite part of the show wasn't necessarily the aerial displays, but the plethora of restored World War II fighters and bombers on display on the ground. P-51s, T-6s and the big, lumbering B-17 bomber. All of these classics were painstakingly restored to better than their original glory (fewer bullet holes and grease stains, I'd imagine). I even got to sit in the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang (but that's another story).

I remember seeing Aluminum Overcast sitting on the tarmac at OSH when I took my wife there in 2001, thinking it would be great to take a ride, but $400 wasn't in the wallet at the time, especially to spend on a half-hour plane ride. Fortunately, eight years later, I got the chance to ride in Aluminum Overcast on a half-hour flying over Mankato during the EAA's tour stop here. The plane has been beautifully restored and is used as a promotional tool for the EAA's restoration activities, and for the Oshkosh air show itself.


Me in the bombardier's seat on Aluminum Overcast. (John Cross)
I was a kid in a candy store. Too much to look at. Too much to photograph. Too much to ask of the former Flying Fortress pilots riding with us. I sat in the bombardier's seat, looked through the Norden bomb sight, imagined dropping 8,000 pounds of bombs on the Northstar Bridge. Then, after seeing a photograph of a B-17 crew on the table in the bombardier's compartment and the replicas of the .50-caliber machine guns sticking out the side of the plane, I imagined how scared these crews must have been, seeing German ME-109s shooting at them, with only some thin armor plating and a plastic bubble to protect them.


The Norden bomb sight.All I can say is thank you to those crews, and thank you to the EAA for the opportunity to fly in a beautiful aircraft.

I've been shooting photographs for the Free Press for more than three decades now _ ever since Nov. 17, 1975 _ so it's inevitable that I find myself revisiting versions of stories we have done in the past.
Like the story Brian Ojanpa and I did about the St. Henry Catholic Church near Le Center celebrating its 150th anniversary that appeared in the July 6 edition.
We were the reporter/photographer team that did a story about the church for their 126th anniversary 24 years ago.
Relatively speaking, Brian and I are the the newsroom old timers, both coming to the Free Press in the 1970s. We like to think we offer what charitably might be referred to as "historical perspective" for our office colleagues.
During our original visit, I took several photographs including the one shown here. It kind of had an American Gothic feel to it and even 24 years later remains one of my favorites.
Brian had pulled out a clipping of the article and we speculated that it was highly unlikely that after more than two decades, any of the subjects were still with us.
We showed the clipping to the three parishioners who were there to be interviewed and they confirmed that all four gentlemen indeed had passed on.
When the interview was completed, I had to make a photograph of the three men to accompany our story. I chose to pose them inside rather than going to the front of the church.
For one thing, I am not inclined to go to same visual well I have visited before. For another, over the years, the trees that were saplings in the original photograph had grown into towering maples and now obscured the clapboard-sided steeple.
One of the best things about this job is the people we get to meet. Our visit to St. Henry was no different.
As we shook hands with the church members, they all suggested suggested that perhaps we'd return in another 25 years for the 175th anniversary.
Maybe....