Canon vs Nikon

Nikon and Canon each are unique in having the nearly limitless resources and experience needed to develop the "secret sauce" that lets each make consumer cameras that render colors, highlights and shadows subtly better than all the other mere consumer electronics makers out there. Canon and Nikon can and do invest the effort to fine-tune the "look" from each camera in the trade-secret color matrices and algorithms that let each of their cameras deliver results that just have a certain polish to them that I can't get from Sony, Panasonic, Casio and all the rest of the companies lacking Nikon and Canon's resources. With the huge corporate scope and the huge camera sales volume, only Canon and Nikon can invest the heavy resources that result in subtly better pictures from each of their cameras, regardless of how inexpensive it may be.canon camera deals
Year to year one usually has an edge on the other. They tend to leapfrog each other back and forth, slowly. LEICA was king from the 1930s through 1950s, Nikon took over from the 1960s through 1980s, Canon was the top pro SLR in the 1990s and 2000s, and with the Nikon D3 of 2007, Canon and Nikon now run neck-and-neck in the pro market. As of 2012, I prefer Canon's full-frame DSLRs over Nikon, but that will change as the years roll on.
Shooting all these systems for a living every day makes one very familiar with what each does well — or not, so let me share how they really compare from actual long-term experience