2) Nikon seems to use Sony sensors which are usually CCD and provide better and more natural colors in compare with canon’s CMOS. Did digital camera sensor affect your photography or did you ever take this matter into account before switching to Canon?

I find that both Nikon and Canon sensors do a very good, but not perfect job, reproducing accurate colors. Many of my Nikon images had an awful greenish-yellow cast, especially images that were mostly green, such as one image I have of a luna moth on a fern or another of a red fox in a forest. I have also observed this sickly hue on Nikon images taken by many others, including those using the D2X and other models, so I don’t feel that the issue is specific to the D200 but rather Nikon’s sensors in general.

Blue Grosbeak

Male Blue Grosbeak, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia USA, May 2007
Camera: Canon 1D Mark II N, Lens: Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM with Canon 2x Mark II Extender, Flash: 580EX with Better Beamer Flash Extender. Settings: 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 1000, RAW capture, 86% of full frame, supported using Molar bean bag in car window, processed with Canon DPP, Noise Ninja, and Adobe Photoshop CS3 software.
This is a perfect example of a shot that would not have been possible with my Nikon D200. This image was shot late in the evening on an overcast day, and the light was extremely poor. I had never even seen a blue grosbeak before and was struck by the bird's beauty so much that I wanted to photograph it despite the conditions. I dialed my Mark II N's ISO up to 1000, more than I ever would have attempted with a Nikon camera, and added some fill light with my 580EX and Better Beamer to get a catch light in the eye and bring out the bold colors of the bird. I used a car as a mobile blind and photographed the bird through the window when it landed in these reeds. I couldn't get an uncluttered shot, I was able to get a few photographs where the reeds did not cut in front of my subject and actually ended up providing a nice environmental frame for the grosbeak. While the reeds will not be to everyone's taste, I feel they set this image apart from others of the species and make this shot unique. If you keep your mind open as a photographer, sometimes you will find that the aspects of a photograph that you can't control for and originally considered its flaws may actually be the final image's strengths.

Canon’s colors tend to be a bit on the reddish side, but I’ve found that, at least for me, it is much easier to correct this color cast during post processing than it was to correct the “Nikon greens.” Canon colors also tend to be a little bit more saturated than Nikon colors. I find that this extra saturation does not look artificial and makes the image pop on the screen or as a print. Occasionally, on my Canon images I find myself desaturating areas of bright orange or red just slightly to produce a more natural look, but for the most part, I find that my Canon images require a bit less color tweaking than my Nikon images did. I also find, when shooting with auto white balance, that the Canon sensor produces much more accurate colors at dusk or nighttime than my D200.

3) Do you take photos in low light? What are the differences between Canon and Nikon in low light photography and which seems a better digital camera for this purpose?

The best light for nature and wildlife photography often occurs early or late in the day, when the sun is low in the sky, or on overcast days when the clouds diffuse the sun’s rays and provide soft, even light. At these times, the light level is pretty low, and often higher ISOs such as ISO 400 or ISO 800 are needed to get fast enough shutter speeds to freeze the motion of a living creature and to minimize vibration from long telephoto lenses that are needed to photograph small, timid wild subjects. One of my primary reasons for switching from Nikon to Canon was that Canon’s digital sensors produce much less noise at higher ISOs than Nikon sensors. When shooting with my D200, I tried to shoot around ISO 250 as much as possible, and avoided shooting above ISO 400, as the images I would get at higher ISOs were usually extremely noisy and lacked detail, which no amount of noise reduction software could recover. With my Canon 1D Mark II N, I feel very comfortable shooting at ISO 400 and use ISO 800 without hesitation. When needed, I’ve shot at higher ISOs and still had many usable images, especially when treated with Noise Ninja, a software program that is especially designed to reduce noise in digital images.

Nikon camera tend to focus a little better in low light, and when I’m shooting below 1/100th of a second at ISO 800, my 1D Mark II N hunts quite a bit. However, fast focusing does little good when the shots you get once you press the shutter are noisy and have little detail, so in extreme low light situations I’d rather have to compromise autofocus speed a bit and still be able to focus manually or autofocus slowly to get a detailed usable image.