Dreamer, thought I'd help you with your shopping. Been hearing that the Rio games are gonna be sponsored by Canon. Without a Canon, you may not be able to get a visa!! They cost $50 as it is.

I'll give you a the reason I went with Canon. Because Canon is the Innovator!
In 1985, Nikon was King, Numero Uno.
In 1986, Canon went where no one else had gone before, they hired an industrial designer to design their next camera. This guy was designing Ferrari 300 mph race cars. The design was SOOO revolutionary that EVERY camera today looks just like it. It had a bio-ergonomic design and made out of black, molded plastic. It was the Canon T-90 camera.
Next, a year later auto focus was on the horizon. So Nikon jumped all over it putting a mechanical drive shaft into the lens from the body to drive the auto focus.
Again, Canon went where nobody dared go. They redesigned their lens mount so it was completely electronic(EOS) and used NO mechanical devices between lens and body. Yes, there will be a few old curmudgeons that will tell you that Canon kicked them in the nuts, and rather than adapt to the better system, they split, Se La Vie! The entire focus system was in the lens, receiving commands electronically from a computer in the body, and it was a revolutionary new standard. While Nikon struggled to make the driveshaft thing work, Canon was going to town perfecting the auto-focus systems in the lens. Nikon eventually scraped the drive shaft thing and went electronic, a-la-Canon system. While Nikon was trying to now get their electronic act together, and get it to work as well as Canon's, guess what Canon was doing. Yes, they where on to the next big thing. Now Canon was putting Image Stabilization(IS/VR) in all their lenses, especially the big white ones. So about when Nikon finally got VR into it's big white lenses, a few years ago, Canon released the mkll lenses, which are 20% lighter than Nikon teles and have more advanced focus and IS systems. That's why all the wildlife and sports shooters all left Nikon and went to Canon. If your gonna pay the same amount, you might as well shoot with the good stuff!! :lol:
The new EOS mount was also bigger, so Canon has made lenses that NO ONE else can make in a modern auto-focus version. The f1.2 lenses that are used by so many portrait and wedding photographers.
So what does all of this mean? It means that in 2004 Canon surpassed Nikon in sales of DSLR cameras and has sold increasingly more than Nikon every year since.
I guess If you where born with a Nikon in your Diaper, you don't really have a choice, like getting rid of an old dog.
Those of us that are NOT emotionally involved, go where the INNOVATION is, we shot Canon!! :lol: :lol: :thumbup:
SS

If you were talking of CANON, Neil, it is my solemn duty to inform you that the GOLD award for "Dust-o-philia" has been awarded in 2013 to the prosumer flag-ship Nikon D600 and I have heard from 'reliable web-sources' that Nikon had to pay lots of moolah to gain and retain that award (see Nikon advisory!) and so D600 is probably also going to win the "Shortest Surviving Major Edition" that cameraphiles have ever witnessed, now that D610 has arrived on the scene as quickfooted damage control...! <PAINFUL GROAN; Would have been a LOL had I not been one of the owners of the said model! Please do be kind to me!!>

I recently decided to conduct a very exhaustive and scientific study to determine if Nikon or Canon is the preferred camera. In order to conduct the study my wife and I went on a ten-day cruise to Bermuda and I counted the number of Canon camera users versus the number of Nikon camera users. I counted only DSLR cameras since a number of the females with smaller cameras refused to let me close enough to determine their camera type or anything else for that matter. My wife said she understood why they refused. I accused her of being a sexists and she accused me of being a dirty old man, which is where we left that issue.
For the Nikon users I am happy to report that Nikon by a margin of four to one beat out Canon. Ok I discounted thirty or so Canon users who were technically illiterate and thus had purchased the camera without knowing what they were buying. I still do not understand how the ship’s captain could have owned a Canon and still be permitted to captain the ship. Well maybe because the captain was a female and did not know any better. My wife pointed out that at one port all the other ships were parked with the pointy end of the ship (a nautical term) facing into the dock while our captain had the roundy end of the ship (another nautical term) pointed into the dock. I asked our cabin steward why we had backed in and he said, “Oh she’s just showing off,” which is typical of a Canon camera owner.
I had planned to take some pictures to post here, but since I have only had my Nikon 5200 for a little over two months, I have not figured out how to turn it on. I am just about to the point of getting out the owner’s manual but not quite there yet. My wife said if I have not figured the camera out by the time we head to the Vietnam Helicopter Pilot’s reunion she is going to start using it for a door stop. Typical of a woman who uses an almost eight year old Canon Sure Shot and thinks she is a real photographer. Once I get my Nikon turned on I’ll show her what a real camera will do.