There is no such thing as ‘the perfect camera’, all has its pros and cons. Deciding what to choose is about which pros you really need and want and which cons you really can live with and not minding it.
Basically SLRs or DSLRs are about lenses, no matter what body you buy, the most important thing is lens. If you buy a great camera body but don’t have a good lens will result in mediocre quality, while if you buy an ‘ok’ body with great lens, you can get excellent quality and mind you that lenses usually costs a lot more than the body, but keep in mind that buying lenses is a good investment as it doesn’t get obsoleted even if it is 10-20 years old whereas bodies usually lasts for 5 years or less and when you change your body, you will definitely buy a better camera where you can use your collection of lens. For over 50 years, all Nikon lenses are usable in any camera today whereas Canon changes its mount (thats the connector to the lenses) 3 times already. So if 5-10 years from now when your camera body gets obsoleted and you want to buy a new camera, it is for sure that all your nikon lenses will be usable with your new camera body, while I’m not quite sure about canon. My friend just got a Canon 350D recently and he got a used lens (Tamron 70-300mm f4-5,6 for Canon) and has problem with compatibility, basically it works, but when you zoom to its maximum range and if the focusing fails, it shows an error of "err-99" and you must turn off and on again to use it. Although the lens is for Canon, but they said they need to ‘modify’ the chip on the lens for lenses older than year 2000 to be able to work with 350D while in Nikon, so far there has been no problem with compatibility, all Tamron, Sigma and off-brand works perfectly.
Keep in mind also that DSLR has crop factors (Nikon 1,5x and Canon 1,6x) meaning that if you have a 100mm tele-lens, the result will look like its 150mm in Nikon and 160mm in Canon. This is because of the size of the sensor is smaller than film so it gets only the middle part of the result. There are quite a number of lenses that are specially designed for this, because for example a 100mm lens in film (or they call it full frame) if put on a digital body, some part of the image won’t appear since only the middle part will be used. So to make it optimal, the lenses can be smaller and lighter for the same focal length (100mm) comparing to the full frame lens, on the other hand, this lens would not be usable on film camera (full frame cameras). In Canon, the lens tipe would be "EF-S" and in Nikon the lens type would be "DX". See, the problem with Canon is they still produce new DSLR camera bodies with full frame for professionals, so "EF-S" lenses are not usable while all new Nikon camera uses DX-size no matter if it is professional cameras or not, so all Nikon lenses are compatible. But because of this crop factor, ultra-wide lenses such as 18mm or lower would be 27mm on Nikon and 29mm on Canon so it is hard to get a wide angle lens, but because of this Canon introduced the EF-S 10-22mm f3,5-4 which is equivalent to 16-35mm on film, while Nikon introduced 12-24mm f4 which is equivalent to 18-36mm on film, but if you want to go wider, sigma provides 10-20mm f3,5-4 for Nikon as well so that is equivalent to 15-30mm wide. But the good part is on tele lens for example a 500mm lens will be 750mm on Nikon and 800mm on Canon so you save energy carrying huge lenses and money for the focal length. The bad news is, there is no other choice, you cannot choose and you must accept what is already available to get a full-frame camera the only choice is Canon while you probably might face problem with compatibility.
Also, if you are still not getting what I am trying to say, look at the background and where the manufacturer is going. Nikon concentrates more on optics and camera and is still developing and researching to improve quality and performance whereas Canon makes copier machine, faxes, printers… you name it. So think of a doctor, when you have a heart desease, would you rather have a heart desease specialist and trust his judgement or a ‘general’ doctor and trust his judgement?
So you can decide now which one you want to get, I did, and I never look back and am happy with my choice here.
Good hunting!
