While much hype and news media has been about switching UT’s athletic wear from Adidas to Nike, one major change in gear has gone virtually unnoticed. University of Tennessee athletics has ditched Nikon for Canon. The “Nikon vs. Canon” debate has gone on for years with photographers.
I asked Donald Page, the chief photographer at UT Athletics, about the switch and here is his response.
The switch from Nikon to Canon came at my recommendation. We were at a point where a lot of our Nikon gear was in need of either repair or replacing, and we were at a bit of a crossroads.
Canon has, in my opinion, a better focusing system in their higher-end bodies, the Canon 1Dx, as well as a complimentary set of lenses to go with it. The main difference for me was how the two brands handle the red and orange color spectrum. I feel like Canon handles those colors better with less blooming and compression issues. With orange being our primary color, it was a bigger issue for us than it would be at another school without our colors. It’s not noticeable to most people but to a person who looks at images day in and day out, I felt like there was enough of a difference to warrant the switch. Canon offered better technology in their cameras and lenses and had features that Nikon did not, such as the 200-400mm lens with the built-in 1.4x teleconverter. Having that option at the flip of a switch is huge for sports like football and soccer where the ball can of from very far to very close really quickly. The technology in the Canon glass allows them to weigh less, and that makes my body feel much better at the end of the day which I feel allows me to perform better.
We reached out to Nikon before the switch to see if they could offer assistance. But calls and emails went unanswered, so we moved forward, with Canons help, to make the switch without costing the department any more money than we already had budgeted to spend.
