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Bob Atkins
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I think Ken often write controversial stuff simply to attract attention to his site. Doesn't matter whether people love or hate what he writes, doesn't really matter whether it's accurate or not, more traffic means higher advertising revenue and controversial or provocative opionions attract more traffic. Some of the things he writes sometimes seem to be written more for entertainment than information. There's usually some grain of truth in there if you look hard enough, though sometimes you do need to dig deep. He's a showman, he's very good at it and I'm sure it's making him rich. However I don't base my political opinions on what I happen to read in the New York Post or hear on Fox News and I don't base my photo opinions on anything that Ken writes. He certainly has a place on the web, I'm just not quite sure that that place should be...
There are some Nikon lenses which may outperform some similar Canon lenses and there are some Canon lenses which may outperform some similar Nikon lenses. Both Canon and Nikon have been in the lens making buisness long enough to have developed excellent capabilities for lens design and manufacture. All lenses are a compromise. There's a compromise between cost and quality. There's a compromise as to which aberrations you think are most important to correct. Do you correct for a flatter field or less coma? Do you correct for astigmatism vs. coma? Do you correct for a flatter field or less spherical aberration? With a zoom to you sacfice a little performance at the long end for a little extra performance at wideangle settings or vice versa. You can never full correct for all aberrations in all parts of the optical field (i.e. there is no single optimum solution to minimizing all aberrations) and even if there was, the lens would be so large, heavy and expensive that nobody would be able (or want) to buy it!
So I would not even make a statement about who makes the "best" lenses. In the end it's not all that important. Both Nikon and Canon make lenses capable of yielding outstanding images of high technical quality. In neither case is the quality of the lens likely to the the sole (or even major) factor in determining whether an image is or isn't a success.
It is certainly true that you can make an objective comment on the merits of lens "A" vs lens "B" but not on Nikon vs Canon (or Ford vs. Chevy) in general. It has sometimes been the case in the past, based on optical bench tests, that some of the Nikon wide primes have been a little better than some of the Canon wide primes, but it's also been the case that some of the Canon long telephotos have been better than the Nikon long telephotos. For example the Canon 20/2.8 prime (a pretty old design) is often said to be a little weak. However the bottom line is that if your image isn't good enough it's much more likely to be the fault of the photographer than any shortcomings of the camera or lens.
One nice thing about the Canon EOS system is that if you find a good older manual focus Nikon lens that you like, you can use it on a Canon EOS body via an adapter. However if you have a Nikon system and find a Canon lens that you like, there's no way to put it on your Nikon!
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