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Nikon or Canon?

The Canon EOS series entry level Digital SLR

If you're just starting out with digital photography and in particular considering your first entry level Digital Single Lens Reflex (DLSR) then you may be at that junction asking yourself just the question. Chances are that is you are already snapping away then you've made that choice already. Can you remember how or why? You see every now and then we get asked 'Which is best Canon or Nikon?'.

Personally we use Canon at i3m. Why? Well, now you come to mention it? I am sure we thoroughly researched all of the available models and manufacturers at the time but this far down the road? We can't honestly answer you.

Now in our case the road of photographic learning is long and never really ends. Our first entry level DLSR didn't stray much off of automatic in its first year, while f-stops, depth of field and anything other than point and shoot remained on the periphery until much later. In fact, to this day, the decision to trade up the entry level Canon 400D and 450D (D40 and D60 if you speak Nikon) for the 1000D remains hard to justify. After five years shooting with the entry level Canon there have been few limitations to justify the outlay. Faster shooting in RAW format? Spot metering? For the dedicated Pro maybe but our entry level 350D quite happily churns out RAW images; albeit at 8 Megapixels.

However, noobies beware. While the cameras seem to evolve apace the big investment is in the lenses. These expensive pieces of kit are backwardly compatible across manufacturers models but not necessarily interchangeable across different brands. The Canon EOS lens, we are told, will not fit the Nikon body. So, while it is your own choice as to which camp to join beware that once you pick your sides you will probably never go back. Again the progression to different types of lens comes as you push the boundaries of what you are trying to achieve but let's face it, if you wanted to point and shoot then you probably wouldn't be considering a DLSR the first place! Most models will ship with a standard 18-55 lens and if you're new to digital photography then that's plenty to get to know some of the cameras functions.

So, which do we recommend? Canon of course but for no other reason than we have never owned a Nikon!

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