Over the years, I've seen claims that $camera-maker has the best $stuff for $job, and it's quite possible that Canon and Nikon do different things better. Whether the differences are significant for an ordinary user is another question. Whether my opinions on current stuff are worth anything, since I'm using a camera and light-meter from 1957, is also another question. There's one advantage to starting with film -- there is a lot of good used hardware which is being sold cheap.