canon 5d markII vs. Nikon d700

hello every one!
i`m planning to buy a DSLR with a fullframe sensor for the first time ( i have no lens etc.) i intend to do landscapes mostly .
im pretty confused here. the 5D s superior sensor res. ? or Nikons superior AF ? i especially want to know which performs better at higher isos? which is built more professional and reliable? is there any point in that crazy res 21MP for not huge print sizes? and any other precious information you friends are willing to give me...
thanks . omid from iran.

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Originally Posted by omidrezatabatabaie

hello every one!

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Hello Omid, and welcome to CiC - it's great to have you with us!

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i`m planning to buy a DSLR with a fullframe sensor for the first time ( i have no lens etc.) i intend to do landscapes mostly .
im pretty confused here. the 5D s superior sensor res. ? or Nikons superior AF ? i especially want to know which performs better at higher isos? which is built more professional and reliable? is there any point in that crazy res 21MP for not huge print sizes? and any other precious information you friends are willing to give me...
thanks . omid from iran.

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Keep in mind that there is a HUGE overlap between these cameras - so you can't really make a "wrong" choice.

In terms of resolution, the more pixels you have, the more agressive you can get in cropping out portions of an image that you don't want (and still have enough to work with), although the number of pixels your camera has doesn't affect the maximum size you can print an image -- it only affects how close you can get to the print before you can see the degradation in quality (eg you could print something 4m wide and 3m high from an 8mp camera and a 21 mp camera; both would look sharp if viewed from 8m away, but at - say - 2m away the print from the 21mp camera would contain more visible detail.

In terms of AF, if you're shooting landscape then it doesn't make any difference - any AF will be more than adequate. Keep in mind that just because some may regard the AF of one brand to be better, that doesn't make the AF from another brand "bad" just as an Enzo Ferrari isn't a "bad" car just because it's slower than a 400km/hr Bugarri Veyron! Both (cameras and cars!) are "more than adequate"!

In terms of "Professional and Reliable", neither are a professional camera - which doesn't mean to say that they can't be used professionally - but in terms of features & build quality, cameras like Canon's 1Ds3 & 1D4 and Nikon's D3x are in a different league to the likes of the 5D2 / D700. With regards to reliablility, both will be thoroughly reliable if cared for properly.

In terms of high-ISO performance, if you're mainly shooting landscape (which is what I do) then high-ISO performance is of no consequence ... nearly everything is shot at base ISO and even then I often have to add filters to give me the equivalent of down to about ISO 1 or ISO 2 (not a typo). For other types of photography high ISO means more noise - but - in nearly all cases the noise is only visible when viewing the image at 100% magnification on your screen; providing that you don't severely crop an image you'll hardly notice noise in a regular sized print.

Case in point - I shot this at the highest ISO my camera can do last night (a Canon 1Ds3 @ 3200 ISO)

http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...9763/large.jpg

Additionally, the high ISO performance of all "new ultra-high ISO performing cameras" including the 2 you mention - only achieve this through agressive noise reduction - which only applies when shooting JPEGs. If you're shooting landscape then you should be shooting in RAW format - and if you shoot RAW then you won't get as good high-ISO performance (or at least not without a lot of noise reduction which means softening the image).

So I hope this helps.

At the end of the day it's not just about the camera -- it's even more about lenses (you'll get a much better result using a quality lens on a budget camera than you will using a budget lens on a top of the line camera). Being a Canon shooter, I'm not too familiar with Nikon's lens selection, although it is my understanding that Nikon glass does cost more.

You might find it useful to have a look through some of my landscape galleries here to see if this is the kind of thing you'd like to be doing (in which case I can give you more specific advice on things like tripods / filters etc)

http://www.pbase.com/cjsouthern/_cli..._enter_gallery_

thanks a lot Colin. it was most helpful. i saw your fantastic gallery .unfortunately its filtered out in IR! can you believe it:mad:?! anyway i managed to do so with some chinese proxy ...
im looking forward to learn more from you :)
thanks again.