Canon 70d or Nikon D7100 for (students) first DSLR

[Fontos]

Hello. I went to college and we have to take at least one picture for every week and sometimes we have to make some videos too. And I´ve realized that my (5 year old) point and shoot is not enough for pictures and definitely useless for videos. So I started reading some reviews and realized that these two cameras are basically on par. But each of them has some good features. And that is why I am asking here. Both of the cameras are in the same price. I am more in to videography.
Advantages of Canon: Very fast and accurate autofocus, flip out touch screen and canon lenses are a bit cheaper.
Advantages of Nikon: No AA filter so in theory it takes sharper pictures (as a beginner I can NOT see any difference between the Image Quality), has two SD card slots which means I can have a backup if one card fails.

My main concern is if I buy the Nikon that I won´t be able to shoot good videos without that flip out screen and fast AF. But I don´t know. If I go with the Nikon and leave the depth of field on large then would be the focus an issue?

 

[astroNikon]

My main concern is if I buy the Nikon that I won´t be able to shoot good videos without that flip out screen and fast AF.

If you relate good videos to a flip out screen then maybe you should also look at the Nikon 5300, which has a flip out screen.

I don't know much about the video between all the Nikons/Canons.

 

[xzyragon]

Both will take solid stills. The 70d will be better for video.

But for your first DSLR i would get something cheaper and invest more in lenses, unless you have the budget for the aforementioned cameras plus a good set of lenses.

 

[Fontos]

Both will take solid stills. The 70d will be better for video.

But for your first DSLR i would get something cheaper and invest more in lenses, unless you have the budget for the aforementioned cameras plus a good set of lenses.

I am planning to get a 50mm 1.8 lens for starters because for school projects it will be enough (I don´t know the proper word for it basically the scene is set up so I don´t need a zoom). And then around summer I would get a 24-70mm 3.5 zoom lens. And I don´t know that I would need a higher zoom than 70. At least as long as I am a student.

 

[TCampbell]

The 70D can effectively perform "phase detect auto-focus" on the sensor itself. Most cameras can only do phase-detect AF if the reflex mirror is down. You can't shoot video with a mirror down so they have to rely on "contrast detect AF". Contrast detect isn't nearly as fast and it has to "hunt" to find focus (phase detect method not only knows when something is out of focus... it knows if the focus is too close vs. too far and it also knows how much focus correction is needed. Hence phase detect tends to just move directly to the correct focus.)

The 70D was the first camera to have a good working implementation of this new on-sensor system (they had a few cameras that had early versions of it which offered some improvement, but not the dramatic difference that the 70D has.)

If you are thinking of using the camera _mostly_ for video, the 70D would be your strongest choice based on it's continuous focus performance during video.

 

[goodguy]

As people mentioned for pure video the 70D has some advantage with its flip screen and phase detection but don't confuse the D7100 to a bad video camera, its very good plus for stills it have far more superior sensor then the one at the 70D
Overall both are very good capable cameras