Sony vs Nikon - Part 2

My father told me I should keep both cameras and I’m starting to listen. DW agrees.

As you may know, I’ve started comparing the quality of photo that I get with my Nikon D750—a full-frame D-SLR—and my Sony α6700—a crop-sensor, mirrorless camera. I want to see if it makes sense to keep both cameras if the Sony can take as good a photo.

There’s that adage, it’s not the camera that takes the good photograph; it’s the photographer. But what if the same photographer captures the same image with different cameras?

In my first comparison, it was hard to determine which camera took which photo. I was taking snapshots in even, bright light, and it produced sharp, well-exposed images in both cameras. I wasn’t counting pixels: I was just looking at the overall quality of the photos and determining that the full-frame Nikon didn’t seem to have an edge over the APS-C sensor in the Sony.

From the first test, it looked as though there was no reason to keep the Nikon.

The Nikon D750 has a 24 megapixel CMOS sensor, which makes it a great camera in low-light situations; whereas, the Sony α6700 has 26 megapixels on a sensor that is about 57.5 percent smaller, giving it less of an edge in low light.

For my next experiment, I wanted to take photos that involved shadows: either taking photos whilst standing in a shadowy area or taking photos of subjects that offered both lit and shaded areas. For that, DW and I visited the new NCC swimming area on the Ottawa River, behind the Canadian Museum of History.

(Full disclosure: DW wanted to go for a sunset swim and I tagged along to take pictures. I shared some of the photos that I took with my smartphone in this week's Wordless Wednesday.)

The first photo I took was of the old E.B. Eddy Digester Tower, which is situated between the museum and the Kruger paper factory. The tower was in full sunlight but a tree to the left, in the foreground, was in shade.

As with the first test, both cameras were set in aperture-priority mode, with an f-stop of 6.3 and an ISO of 200. I let the cameras do the rest. For post-processing, I intended to use the same settings in Photomator for both the Sony and the Nikon, but I found that the RAW images of the Sony were much darker, so I had to up the exposure and brightness levels.

Where possible, I kept other settings, like contrast, shadows, clarity, and vibrance the same, but in many cases the Nikon looked good with few tweaks necessary. Here's the result of both cameras.

Next, as I walked behind the museum, I was cast in total shade. There's a small brook that begged to be photographed, and I obliged.

I walked onto the dock for the swimming area, where DW had found us a couple of chairs that looked across the river to the Ottawa side, where you have an amazing view of Parliament Hill, the Rideau Canal locks, the Chateau Laurier, and the Alexandra Bridge. When the scaffolding and cranes for the parliament buildings are completed, this will truly be a spectacular view.

I took a few photos whilst DW swam, opting to switch the lens on the Sony for my telephoto lens, to zoom in on some of the sights across the river. I'll share those photos in next week's Wordless Wednesday.

When DW rejoined me in the deck chairs, I switched back to my kit lens and took a photo of our view, resuming my testing.

As we left the swimming area, I liked how the golden sun was warming up the Alexandra Bridge but also creating shadows, below. Neither camera captured what I saw—or what I remember seeing—but it was worth taking the shot, anyway.

We left the museum by cutting up the stairs between the two buildings, and I couldn't resist capturing the curves of the building. It really is a beautiful structure.

As I said, I had to work more with the post-processing of the photos taken with the Sony α6700 but I still find the overall results from both cameras pretty good. For ease of editing, though, I give the advantage to the Nikon. It had no trouble exposing for light and dark conditions.

Maybe, I will keep both cameras.

Next, I want to test how each camera handles itself with portraits—in natural lighting and with flash. I can take the natural-light photos any time but I'll have to wait for a meetup in a studio to test the flash capabilities. And I have a feeling that in the studio, I may have to configure the cameras differently.

Stay tuned.

What do you think? Which of these photos do you prefer? Can you tell the difference? Do you know which camera took which photo? Let me know in the Comments section.

Happy Friday!