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Mmmm.. yess.. the 20D looks very nice. Just when I was thinking about getting a D70, this thing pops up in the list.. darnit!


Of course, they're not for sale yet, and by the time they are, there may well be some new Nikon gear on the market as well.

The thing to remember with SLR's, as opposed to point-and-shoots, is that you're not just buying a camera. You're buying a system. At this point, hardly a few months after buying my D70 with the 18-70mm kit lens, I've also bought a 105mm macro lens and a 70-300mm (f4-f5.6) zoom. I've also bought the fancy Nikon SB-800 flash. I've already got some serious friction standing between me and a jump to Canon gear, so minor feature improvements wouldn't be enough to sway me.

However, if you're starting from scratch, how do you decide which system is for you?

The benefits of Canon seem to be:

- more lenses with image stabilization (although Nikon has several good ones now)
- more lenses with ultrasonic ring motors (faster/quieter focusing)
- higher resolution sensors at the high end
- maybe a 3-6 month lead on shipping camera bodies with any given generation of sensor technology

The benefits of Nikon seem to be:

- better / more accurate auto-exposure systems (possibly a subject of debate)
- faster flash sync (probably irrelevant to many people)
- better buffering and frame rates (at a given price point)
- better wide-angle lenses, particularly for digital camera
- a wider variety of obscure / used lenses and accessories
- a possible more useful auto-ISO system than Canon
- radically better PC and Mac software

EDIT: I originally said that Canon's autofocus system is better. I've read more web sites, including Rob Galbraith's review of the 20D, and the Nikon vs. Canon autofocus quality issues seem to be unclear. Galbraith claims an advantage for Nikon that this newest Canon may or may not improve upon.


As many DP Review fanatics have pointed out, it's not really fair to compare a Nikon D70 to a Canon 20D. By all reports, the Nikon D70 kit creams the Canon 300D / D-Rebel kit, but you pay $1300 for the Nikon versus $1000 for the Canon. Nikon is rumored to be announcing a successor to the current D100 in September. One can imagine that this future Nikon will have comparable specs and prices to the Canon 20D. Of course, there's plenty of debate at the professional end (Canon 1D Mark2 vs. Nikon D2H and Canon 1Ds vs. assorted Nikon competition, including the new Fuji S3 Pro), but that's all out of the price range (and necessary feature set) of most people on this board.

One thing that's quite clear is that Nikon and Canon are frantically improving their products, and leaving the rest of the D-SLR vendors in the dust. I can't imagine why you'd want to buy the Olympus, Pentax, or Konica-Minolta D-SLRs unless you already had a big investment in those lenses.

I figure buying a camera these days is a lot like buying a PC, where there's always something better around the corner. You buy when you need one. You're buying into a whole system, not just a body, so you have to think further out.