I think fps is more important than megapixels. Unless you're blowing photos up to wall size, 10 megapixels plus will be heaps for magazines or personal collections.
Nearly all my experience is with Canon so I know my around them, can't really comment on Nikons. All my mates bar 1 shoot Canon, pretty handy for a lens swap/borrow now and then.

Tim, the Canon has more megapixels and the higher fps. Seems like a no brainer to me but interested to here what Nikon fans think.

ease of use with my Nikon and how easy all the buttons are to find , but then I am used to it , If you change to Nikon you obviously change all your gear , I,ve got mates who are Canon through and through and others who swear by Nikon , I love my D80 but then both cameras you are looking at are at the top of the particular lineup , so I would stay with Canon if I were you.

G'day Jay.

It's a bit like the old 'Ford v Holden' or 'Daiwa v Shimano' argument .

Generally speaking, Canon bodies give you a bit more for your money, whilst Nikon bodies are a bit more solidly built.

The extra megapixels can come in handy if you want to do a crop from your original image.

It's worth handling both cameras if you can. This gives you an idea of which body feels better in the hand and more intuitive for you to use.

I'd be leaning towards the Canon for the the extra megapixels and fps, plus the 7D gets some very good reviews on the net (see dpreview.com ).

 Cheers.

I am going thru the same decision right now. 

The D300s is full frame which is a big plus, but

It's heavier

Video is limited to 5 min clips

7D is lighter but not by much

Video mode records up to 30min clips

You will need very fast cards to record video unless it is really short clip

I believe both perform on par, and the real difference will be the lenses. L series lenses are not cheap.

I am leaning towards the 7D atm, but have not hit the buy button yet.

Extra megapixels usually dont mean much, but if you're cropping pics they can be quite useful.

The 7d has better video specs (e.g. 1080P as well) and I think has better compression? I think the iso might be better too?

Found a review that summarised it like this:

• If you have lenses collection of either brand, stick with the brand.
• Get Canon 7D if you are shooting in bright light most of the time.
• Get Canon 7D if you like to crop pictures a lot
• Get Canon 7D if you will often use this camera to record creative movie

Alfred, yep, L's arent cheap, but theres lots of lenses available in the mid range (more so than nikon i'm told, but I havent checked). If you already have lenses Jay, you'll still be able to use them which is a bonus (not sure what you have atm).

by budget get the 5d mark 2.The pics will get far have far less noise.The l lenses are not cheap but well worth it.Have a look at any sporting event or other photographer gathering you will see a lot of grey l lenses and it is for very good reason.The 5d mark2 will be next in my collection.Have the L lenses already so will save some $ s there.Just google 7d Vs 5d mark 2 vs Nikon.The other advantage the canon has is if you use one eos you can use them all they may have a few different functions but the main ones are always in the same place.From my old film camera through all the dslrs the they all feel the same to use.Nikon change things from camera to camera so you need to get used to each one as it comes out.They may have stopped doing it now though. 

Jay if you are planning to video on the boat buy a video camera as well as i think you will be not happy with the dslr quality when moving around.You get this kind of wobbly effect that is hard to explain.We ended up getting a hard drive style video ,just a cheapy but does an alright job.

Jay if you buy the 7D and need extra batteries, get the originals.  The after market units will drop your frame rate to 3-4 fps and (not so important) not display battery status.

The extra pixels will definitely help when cropping images.

I've just upgraded my 1D bodies from mk2 to mk4..... going from 8mb to 16mb

The difference is huge !!!

And as for the high ISO.... I'm sure the 7D will be pretty much the same as 1D - brilliant ! 

I wouldn't get too hung up on the fps saga........ running the camera at it's fastest shutter speeds will be more than likely something you wont achieve, unless you are either using L series lenses and dial up the ISO, aperture and shutter settings manually !

I've had a play with the HD in my 1Dmk4 and was very impressed !!

Just have to remember that you have to manually focus..

It's a lot easier than I first thought and the quality shits over that from my Sony handycam !! 

For what the HD is, it's brilliant.... but for me, it's more a creative tool that requires the use of a tripod and some thought..... not really at the every day video user who wants to film everything.... but the quality speaks for itself ! 

cheers,

Paul 

I have an after market battery and everything works exactly the same on my 50D

Check out the forums, on all the earlier models, it's fine, but for some reason on the 7d it slows down.

The new batteries are also chipped to show status.  The 7d has a function in it so that you can register each battery to the camera so that you can track the discharge, it will tell you the battery level when you put it in and keep a memory track for each particular battery to show what level you discharged it to, so you have a history of usage for that battery.

Bunch of crap if you ask me, must be the bean counters ploy to increase $ by making customers buy the original battery.

Jay, catch up with Dave on my crew at work, he is a amateur photographer but leaning towards a professional person and uses Nikon cameras. We're on night shift starting next Friday so probably wont catch up for a while.

Cheers
Dale

...for an extra grand you could have the 5DmkII but  not as good for what you want to photograph though. The 7D at high fps, high Mp's and low light capabilities is a good choice.

I cant wait for the 1DsmkIV, hoping its a FF, 32Mp @15 fps with RAW video codec now that would be a sweet camera

Thanks for all the help people, gonna stick with Canon and go the 7D.... and hopefully later down the track a wide angle zoom L series and a telephoto zoom L series for those jump shots... ouch.