canon 400d vs nikon d80 whose better?

Answer 1

I agree with teef_au in saying that personal preference is the final decision maker, but my personal preference would be for Nikon and here's why.

Comparing the Nikon D80 vs. Canon 400D/Rebel XTi

Check this page:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/page21.asp

The first thing I notice is that the Canon does not have a spot meter. I thought they added that in the XTi, but I guess past criticism was not heard at Canon.

The Nikon user-definable Auto-ISO is an interesting feature that lets you define a couple of parameters about what's acceptable to you and what's not. I don't think this would be the tie-breaker, though, if you can't decide between cameras.

The D80 has a pentaprism and the Canon uses mirrors. "They" say that mirrors are getting pretty good, but I would expect the pentaprism to be a brighter viewfinder.

The Nikon lets you do actual multiple exposures in the camera and some people think this is pretty cool.

Click "next" and move to page 22 and you'll see some image comparisons. Click "next" a couple more times to see more direct comparisons on page 25. Click "next" a couple more times to see some noise level comparisons on page 27. It looks to me like the D80 has actually tamed the noise better than the XTi, but read the comments about image softness.

Click one more time and see that the D80 is clearly the winner in image sharpness.

Go on to the next page and read the conclusions.

You can go to the side-by-side at

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_eos400d%2Cnikon_d80&show=all and also click on "Our in depth review" and "Read owner opinions" for each camera.

The last line in the Nikon D80 review reads, "If you're a more discerning photographer who can see the advantages offered by the 'all round' D80 you may well consider the extra money well spent."

The last line in the Canon 400D/XTi review reads, "Thanks to its blood line and low price the EOS 400D will no doubt be a huge success for Canon. However unlike the EOS 350D, for me it's no longer the first or obvious choice, so before jumping on the bandwagon make sure you've weighed up the competition."

In other words, you've selected with the two best cameras in their price class.

Canon is probably saving a little money using their CMOS sensor and this will bring them some market share. Whether the sensor and images are better or not is open to wild debate based on personal preferences. Whether one camera feels better in your hands might just be the determining factor. You have got to go to a real camera store and handle them both. I guess Costco, Circuit City or Best Buy would also have actual samples on display, but you may not get as much help from the staff.

As far as lens choice, I'd rather see you start with one decent lens instead of the kit lens, although Nikon's kit lens (18-55) has actually tested pretty well. Canon's new 18-55 Series II lens is okay, also. For Nikon, I like the Nikkor AF-S 18-70 f/3.5-4.5G ED DX. This costs about $300. I bought this for my wife on her D50 and liked it so much (for the money) that I bought it as a backup for one of my cameras. For Canon, one of our best answerers (Panacea) recommends the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. This costs about $500, so there goes the $200 price difference.

Of course, you'll need a decent memory card and I recommend a genuine Sandisk Ultra II (60X) or Extreme III (133X) of at least 1GB - preferable 2 GB - for either camera. Lexar is another excellent card supplier and they have the "Professional" 133X as well as the Platinum 80X to choose from. Both Lexar and Sandisk come with image recovery software and limited lifetime warranties.

Answer 2

it depends on what you're photographing, but Nikon usually has the better quality. Canon is more for casual photography sometimes. But check reviews.

Answer 3

nikon is the best. take it from me, i am a professional photographer.