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Originally Posted by Max@Home
I agree with JD that C & N (including the F clones) offer the most flexible (widest) camera SYSTEM, so if you NEED that flexibility, that is your 'best choice', but for a dedicated *anything* shooter, the brand that is best at his/her *specialty* obviously is...
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Here's my point: when you first buy into a system, you don't really know what you want or will want in the future. That's why it makes sense to buy into the most versatile system. When I started out in photography, I had NO IDEA I'd want to end up shooting little critters and would need a 500 or 600mm lens to do so. I had Nikon. BAD CHOICE. When it came time to look seriously at the long lenses, I learned that Nikon didn't have IS in them, that IS was really, really useful in those long lenses, and that Nikon appeared UNCONCERNED about its lack of IS/VR and that I would grow very old waiting for Nikon to catch up to Canon in this area. So I dumped my Nikon gear and switched to Canon.
It was the right thing to do. If I had stayed with Nikon, I'd still be waiting for VR in long lenses. Or I would have given in and purchased one of Nikon's non-VR 600mm lenses (at a cost of over $1,000 more than the Canon model, which was better and did have IS), and a REALLY HEAVY TRIPOD that was stable enough to handle the 600 without VR. Big money, lots of weight, less versatility. Yuck.
If I had bought into Canon from the get-go, I would have been able to grow as I wished and not have to fret about changing systems to get a feature I needed somewhere else.
I'm sorry: not to start a brand war (I already have), but after my experience, I consider Canon to be qualitatively and quantifiably the best 35-mm equivalent camera system to buy into today. I really don't think there's much competition, in fact. You can choose from a multitude of sensor sizes, lots of lenses you can't get anywhere else, and you have a huge used market and many third-party lenses from which to choose as well.
Off the bat, I can think of two really important things that Canon has and Nikon does not: IS in lenses of 500 and 600mm and tilt-shift lenses. Plus I have found the pro bodies from Canon more durable than those from Nikon.
Service is yet another consideration: For me, not having to deal with Nikon service was almost worth the price of having to switch systems.
Olympus? For me and my shooting interest in nature photography, not even a consideration.