[Guest]

I am kind of lost. Who the f$%& cares about all these optical differences? Are they practically relavant? You buy a camera by the features you need, by the ergonomics you feel comfotable with and by the lens selection available. If you decide on diminuitive differnces in optical quality, you will most likely pick the wrong sytstem for yourself. Neitehr Canon nor Nikon has quality advantages in any major lens category. You want a high quality canon wide angle lens? go for 14mm or 16-35. If you need corner to corner sharpness stop theses lenses down to f/8. If you have a very special application for which you need corner to corner sharpnes at f/2.8( I can imagine what that would be, for landscape you need to stop down because of dof anyway) you buy a Zeiss lens. If you need a 14-24 zoom you go with nikon. If 2.8 70-200 zoom are to big, heavy and expensive you go with canion. If yu need more than 12 mp in a camera for less than 2000 buck, you go canon. If you need the extra bit of weather sealing you go nikon. you like 24-120 f/4 better than 24-105 you go nikon. You like cnaon ergonomics better than nikon you go canon. If you want wideangle zoom and image stabilization, you go nikon etc....



Btw. i would never shoot Nikon because I dont like the feel of the their grips, their menu system and the lack of f/4 telephoto lenses. I also love my 85mm 1.8 to have USM and be affordable. With Nikon I had to shell out 1600 bucks for an 1.4 if I wanted usm in an 85mm prime. But hey all this is entirely personal. Somebody with differnt hands, differnt preferences for ergonomics and more money for lenses might like nikon better.