I'm a Canon guy (1DX II, 5D III, 7D II and lots of Canon glass, a couple of Sigmas, a Rokinon) and I try and convert my buds to Canon from Nikon all the time. Here is why.
For decades the leader in [D]SLRs was either Canon or Nikon. Yeah, yeah, there are others, I started out on Pentax as did many people back in the film days, but it was clear 35-40 years ago that it was either Canon or Nikon if you were serious (and more yeah, yeah, Hasselblad was a thing back then but they priced themselves out of the market as did Leica and Zeiss etc. Awesome stuff but $$$$).
Who was "best" bounced back and forth and it really didn't matter if you picked Canon or Nikon, if Canon was best now, wait a few years and it would be Nikon.
It's important to realize that the consumer equipment, including all those plastic crappy kit lenses, generated a lot of revenue and that money funded a lot of high end equipment. I tend to doubt that Canon sells enough of their $12,000 600mm lenses to cover the costs of development. Maybe, but I doubt it.
Nikon stumbled at the wrong time. They stopped being best (for the most part, the D800/810 were and are amazing bodies) quite a while ago and they haven't recovered.
This is just my opinion (all of this is just my opinion for that matter) but I think the reason they haven't recovered is that they dug themselves into a hole right as point and shoots, and then cell phone cameras, got "good enough" for the masses. Definitely not good enough for anyone serious, compare any portrait taken with a phone to something taken with Canon's 200mm f2 (by far my favorite lens) or even Sigma's 85mm f1.4 Art. You can't get that dreamy smooth background with that razor thin depth of focus that makes the person pop, it just can't be done. But I digress.
Nikon is in trouble because of the loss of revenue from the low end P&S and consumer DSLRs. For the low end, phones are good enough and they are always with you.
Canon doesn't have that problem, they've got 75-80% of the high end market, look at any sporting event and you'll see a sea of big white lenses, those are all Canon.
Canon also has a dramatically better line up of lenses and for anyone serious, it's the glass that costs the money, I've got far more money tied up in glass than I do in bodies. Nikon used to have one lens that Canon had no answer for, the 14-24mm f2.8, I lusted after that lens. But Canon came out with the 16-35mm f2.8, which is sharper than a 15mm Ziess prime and that's it in my book, game over. There is nothing that Nikon has that Canon doesn't have as good (and mostly better). And Canon has a ton of glass that Nikon doesn't have.
Canon is also better positioned, they make a lot more stuff than Nikon does, they are serious players in anything with a lens, their movie stuff generates money, their printers generate money, their security stuff generates money, they can weather pretty much anything.
I shoot semi pro sports and all my pro friends are dumping Nikon (while they can get anything for their glass) and moving to Canon.
Tl;DR: Nikon is in trouble, Canon is fine, the DSLR market is strong at the mid to high end. Low end is dead.
For decades the leader in [D]SLRs was either Canon or Nikon. Yeah, yeah, there are others, I started out on Pentax as did many people back in the film days, but it was clear 35-40 years ago that it was either Canon or Nikon if you were serious (and more yeah, yeah, Hasselblad was a thing back then but they priced themselves out of the market as did Leica and Zeiss etc. Awesome stuff but $$$$).
Who was "best" bounced back and forth and it really didn't matter if you picked Canon or Nikon, if Canon was best now, wait a few years and it would be Nikon.
It's important to realize that the consumer equipment, including all those plastic crappy kit lenses, generated a lot of revenue and that money funded a lot of high end equipment. I tend to doubt that Canon sells enough of their $12,000 600mm lenses to cover the costs of development. Maybe, but I doubt it.
Nikon stumbled at the wrong time. They stopped being best (for the most part, the D800/810 were and are amazing bodies) quite a while ago and they haven't recovered.
This is just my opinion (all of this is just my opinion for that matter) but I think the reason they haven't recovered is that they dug themselves into a hole right as point and shoots, and then cell phone cameras, got "good enough" for the masses. Definitely not good enough for anyone serious, compare any portrait taken with a phone to something taken with Canon's 200mm f2 (by far my favorite lens) or even Sigma's 85mm f1.4 Art. You can't get that dreamy smooth background with that razor thin depth of focus that makes the person pop, it just can't be done. But I digress.
Nikon is in trouble because of the loss of revenue from the low end P&S and consumer DSLRs. For the low end, phones are good enough and they are always with you.
Canon doesn't have that problem, they've got 75-80% of the high end market, look at any sporting event and you'll see a sea of big white lenses, those are all Canon.
Canon also has a dramatically better line up of lenses and for anyone serious, it's the glass that costs the money, I've got far more money tied up in glass than I do in bodies. Nikon used to have one lens that Canon had no answer for, the 14-24mm f2.8, I lusted after that lens. But Canon came out with the 16-35mm f2.8, which is sharper than a 15mm Ziess prime and that's it in my book, game over. There is nothing that Nikon has that Canon doesn't have as good (and mostly better). And Canon has a ton of glass that Nikon doesn't have.
Canon is also better positioned, they make a lot more stuff than Nikon does, they are serious players in anything with a lens, their movie stuff generates money, their printers generate money, their security stuff generates money, they can weather pretty much anything.
I shoot semi pro sports and all my pro friends are dumping Nikon (while they can get anything for their glass) and moving to Canon.
Tl;DR: Nikon is in trouble, Canon is fine, the DSLR market is strong at the mid to high end. Low end is dead.