Remember... it's the lens that matters, so set aside a pretty reasonable (up to 50%) of your budget for the lens. If I were you I would go for either the D80 or the D300 coming out. No point in getting the D200 with the improved model coming in. Nikon has some really top notch lenses, especially their telephotos; however, if this is for wildlife photography I warn you that the Nikon telephotos are more expensive than their canon equivelents, although I challenge you to find a better set of telephoto zooms out there. For wide angles Nikon has an even better selection than Canon. It is up to you, but from my experience, unless I was going to buy a 5d, I would go with Nikon/