Canon 550D or Nikon D90?

[chethanram]

I have been giving a serious thought of picking up a DSLR. I am in a kind of dilema in selecting between Canon 550D and Nikon D90. Expecting some nice inputs from the felllow members.

Thanks in advance.

[scootermcq]

Hi, welcome to the forum....

This post really belongs in gear & digital cameras.

If you try the search engine, you will sometimes find answers to your questions....

Here is a thread I found by using the search engine.

Nikon D90 or Canon 550D

[chethanram]

Ooops. I should have tried the search option before posting it. Thanks for providing the link.

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by chethanram

I have been giving a serious thought of picking up a DSLR. I am in a kind of dilema in selecting between Canon 550D and Nikon D90. Expecting some nice inputs from the felllow members.

Thanks in advance.

What interests you about those two particular models?

[chethanram]

Originally Posted by mattdm

What interests you about those two particular models?

The features of 550D and the image quality of D90.

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by chethanram

The features of 550D and the image quality of D90.

Could you be a little more specific? Ideally, way more specific? Which features are important to you, and what aspects of image quality?

[chethanram]

Originally Posted by mattdm

Could you be a little more specific? Ideally, way more specific? Which features are important to you, and what aspects of image quality?

I like landscape photography. When i read the reviews online, most of the comparisons resulted in Nikon has a slightly better image quality. Canon has a 18.1mp compared to Nikon's 12.1. Doesn't it make any difference? And the top LCD display in Nikon is lacking in Canon. Does it really make any difference. When I say 550D has lot of features, these are what I have read in reviews, I am really not sure how those will make any difference for me. If I have to pick between the two which is the better option.

[mattdm]

Originally Posted by chethanram

When i read the reviews online, most of the comparisons resulted in Nikon has a slightly better image quality. Canon has a 18.1mp compared to Nikon's 12.1. Doesn't it make any difference?

With the caveat about good lighting and a tripod given above, 18 megapixels will let you print highly-detailed 18"×12" prints and very nice 52"×35" ones, whereas 12 megapixels will give highly-detailed 15×10" prints and very nice 43"×29" ones. If you're printing smaller than that without significant cropping, you won't see a difference.

Originally Posted by chethanram

And the top LCD display in Nikon is lacking in Canon. Does it really make any difference.

I use the top LCD on my camera (Pentax K-7), but I don't think I'd be terribly pained if it were gone. More important would be the dual-control-wheel design — the D90 has this, and the Canon 550D (Rebel T2i) doesn't. That'd be a deal-breaker for me. The D90 also has a much nicer pentaprism viewfinder.

Originally Posted by chethanram

When I say 550D has lot of features, these are what I have read in reviews, I am really not sure how those will make any difference for me. If I have to pick between the two which is the better option.

The D90 is a nice camera, but showing its age. It's just been replaced with the D7000, which looks pretty sweet. If I were to go with Nikon, I think I'd wait for that to hit the shelves.

But you may also want to consider the Pentax K-7. It basically has everything the D7000 has, with an even more solid build. (That is, a lot more advanced features than the D90.) The drawback is that it has an older sensor design that has a lot of noise at high ISO. But for landscape shooting, you'll usually use low ISO anyway, so that isn't a big consideration. And it's 14.6 megapixels, sitting between the two you're looking at in resolution.

Pentax also has a replacement model for that, the K-5. Both the Nikon D7000 and the Pentax K-5 use a Sony 16 megapixel sensor which should provide amazingly good results. The K-7, though, isn't quite as old as the D90, but since Pentax has trouble getting a foothold in the market (especially in the US), it's actually priced below that camera. The K-5 and D5000 will be more expensive when they hit the market initially.

[chethanram]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I stay in India and am not sure what kind of service I get here for Pentax, so will have to decide between Canon and Nikon. I was very impressed by D7000, but its way out of my budget. I guess will have to settle for D550.

[inkista]

Have you considered a Canon 40D/50D? The 60D has just been announced, and the 50D can be found refurbished and used for slightly more than a D90 body here in the US. A used 40D would go for less.

Canon and Nikon bodies tend to "mid-tier" each other: i.e., a 550D is below a 90D, but a 90D is slightly below a 50D. The XXD's have the top LCD and dual wheel controls of a mid-tier dSLR. The 550D is an entry-level camera, so it naturally won't be as nice to handle as a 90D.