Nikon and Canon are highly competitive with each other. Depending on what you're trying to do, one or the other will be better, but overall, each has many, many decades of experience cranking out quality products. They both make a huge range of products from multi-million dollar optical systems for industry to fully professional cameras to consumer cameras and point-and-shoots. Which is best depends on what's important to you, and will vary as the years roll on. Today, Canon leads in full-frame and the high end APS-C cameras. The two are pretty similar in the middle and low end of the APS-C world.
If you're starting out, go Canon today: it's not just their products, but also their attitude towards us, their customers. If you already have one or the other, there's no reason to jump ship unless you're not that invested in one side, or if some new lens or camera is just so gotta-have-it for you that it's worthwhile.
I've been shooting Nikon and Canon continuously since the 1980s. Back in the 1960s thorough the 1990s Nikon was the undisputed leader for pro news and sports shooting, but Canon's brand-new EOS autofocus system of 1987 eventually worked far better than Nikon's autofocus system. Nikon's AF system had to be designed around backwards-compatibility with all the existing lenses owned by pro shooters and was therefore clunky, but Canon threw compatibility out the window and created an all-new 100% electronic system that was far superior. Therefore Canon sped past Nikon in the 1990s as the pro 35mm camera of choice for pro news and sports shooting.
When DSLRs became practical, Nikon was again the leader with the world's first practical DSLR, the Nikon D1 of 1999. Canon played catch up for quite a few years, and even as recently as 2008 Canon's top consumer DSLR, the Canon 5D, was well behind Nikon's top new D700.
The bad news today is that Nikon hasn't introduced any significant innovations since 2007, while Canon has been working long and hard and getting better with each new model. The Canon 5D Mk II of late 2008 was a huge improvement over the original 5D, and thus Canon and Nikon were neck-and neck from 2008 until about 2012.
Canon introduced the Canon 5D Mk III in 2012 which again was a huge step ahead in usability over its predecessor. Nikon's D800 and D800E came out around the same time and offered more pixels, but to Nikon users' horror, it was the same camera underneath as every other Nikon, minus some of the autofocus controls of earlier cameras. The D810 today still has the same problems as the D700 did in 2007, but removed some of the D700's AF controls! While Nikon has been resting on its laurels since 2008 and has just been slopping more pixels over the same basic camera with each new model number, each new Canon since 2008 has fixed 85% of everything I found lacking in each previous model. Canon has been innovating while Nikon has been marketing.
In 2012, the Canon 5D Mk III was clearly better than Nikon's best, and still is today. In 2016 the newest Canon 7D Mk II and 5DS are about 7 years ahead of Nikon in terms of ergonomics and usability.
While the world knows me as a Nikon shooter, I've been grabbing my Canons first when I want something done right since 2012.
Nikon's best consumer camera today, the D810, isn't that much better than the D800E except for being quieter and faster. The D810 still has the same mediocre ergonomics and a mediocre LCD, while the Canon 5DS, 5DSR and 7D Mk II pull even further away from Nikon. Nikon has sat on its laurels since 2007, while Canon keeps introducing new features that actually help us make better pictures.
Canon's customer service has always been top-notch and Nikon's used to be, but Nikon's has gone way downhill over the past few years.
ISOs and megapixels have never been relevant; they are just sales and marketing tools. Nikon and Canon compete so heavily that there's no real difference here; these numbers are the least of the differences between Nikon and Canon.
A lot has changed since I last updated this page some years ago. Canon consistently has followed my suggestions and made each new camera better than the last, while Nikon's been flopping around on the deck simply putting more pixels in the same old camera bodies and putting on new model numbers.
Nikon has been like General Motors who for decades kept doing the same stupid thing, like having one key for a car door and expecting you to carry a different one for the ignition. GM eventually figured it out, and I hope some day Nikon will get back with it. Everyone expected Apple to go out of business in the late 1990s, and look where they are today after they changed management at the top. Time for a clean-out at the top at Nikon.
Canon has consistently addressed the things that needed improving, like power switches and Quick Control screens and battery chargers and camera-state memories so that they now are way ahead of Nikon, at least in full-frame.
The cheaper APS-C cameras all pretty similar.
No one has ever paid me to do this; these are simply the facts from a guy who's been shooting both Canon and Nikon continuously for many decades.
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