About 3 weeks ago I bought a Nikon D5000 as my first DSLR and I was thrilled with the pictures it took. Not only was it extremely easy to use for a total photography newb but it also made me look like a much better photographer than I was. Can’t complain about that.

All was well until a little while ago when Nikon published that they had found a fatal flaw in the circuitry of the D5000 and would need to recall them to fix them. While they made this extremely easy via website and paying for shipping, something just didn’t sit right with me. Paying over $700+ for a camera that was essentially going to be torn apart and fixed felt to me like I was paying $700 for a refurb. Also it concerned me that this may be the first of many other problems they could discover over time.

So I went back to BestBuy and managed to return the camera for a full refund. It wasn’t an ejoyable experience but that’s a story for another day and time. I then decided to switch sides and went with the Canon EOS 500D (T1i) which some say is Canon’s competitor to the Nikon D5000 while others say it’s the competitor to the Nikon D90. Either way, it’s a really nice camera.

• The Canon feels about the same as the D5000 in that they both feel solid and of good quality but the Canon is slightly smaller and lighter.
• The screen on the Canon blows away the Nikon since the Canon has a 640×480 resolution while the Nikon has a 320×240. This really helps when you review pictures you just took as well as on the random occasion you decide to use Live View.
• The Canon also boots up faster from a cold start to the point where it’s ready to take pics which is always handy.
• The Canon has a higher ISO range than the D5000 which is useful for taking pictures without the flash. I’m not even qualified to call myself a novice photographer but man I hate using the flash. It totally washes out the colors and tones of a picture that are so beautiful when captured in natural light. The Canon’s higher ISO gives you the ability to push the limit of what you can do without a flash.
• The Canon is much noisier when focusing since the kit lens it comes with doesn’t have any type of noise reduction. The Nikon is extremely quiet and I miss that.
• The Canon’s menu’s and options are more designed for the more mature photographer or enthusiast while the Nikon is definitely setup for people like me who are generally clueless. An example is that the Nikon D5000 allows LiveView shooting in any mode including all full auto modes. The Canon? You can only use LiveView in semi-auto modes which is a pain especially when you may want to have random friends/family to take pictures of you with it.
• The pictures seem to be similar in quality but the Canon seems to do a better job of having colors that really pop in the pictures. The Nikon’s pictures on the other hand are beautiful but the colors seem softer to me personally.
• The Canon in LiveView uses a separate button to lock focus and then you press the shutter button to capture the picture. The D5000 uses a slower autofocus method in LiveView but you use the shutter to focus just like you would expect. I miss this on the Canon.
• The D5000 has many more scene modes and other presets than the Canon. The Canon has the standard Auto, Creative Auto (not particularly useful) and basic settings like Night, Macro, Sports, etc. The Nikon has a ton more including a setting for Pet Shots among others
• The Canon has 9-point focus while the Nikon has 11-point. In most cases this doesn’t seem to hamper me too much but I do get the sense that the Nikon did a better job with autofocus than the Canon.
• The Canon has support for 1080p/20fps video while the Nikon doesn’t. I doubt I would ever use it at this level and most likely will stick with 720p/30fps which is supported on the Nikon as well.

All in all the cameras are fairly evenly matched from my perspective and you can’t go wrong with either one – although I’m sure hardcore photographers may have good reason to pick one over the other.

Here are some pictures taken with each camera that I feel are some of the better shots I was able to get with them to serve as samples. Click on the images for the originals on Flickr.

Nikon D5000:

Canon EOS 500D (T1i):

Tags: 500D, Canon, Comparison, D5000, DSLR, Nikon, T1i