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Having helped create the 'affordable' DSLR, Canon has taken a while to respond to the latest, comparatively wallet-friendly offerings from the likes of Nikon and Sony. The Rebel XS is a pretty convincing response - it does just about everything it needs to do, and everything it does, it does well. It can produce great images at any of its ISO settings and, viewed as a whole, makes a great first DSLR.

both are good camera's but like mentioned before there are a few models around these models that are just that better purely for your lowlight and lens capabilities , out of the two from Nikon and Canon , they are evenly matched , they are as good as the other , Nikon d5000 and a Canon t2i/50d would be the better choices to compare , in which a canon t2i would be the better , but like the two above it all comes down to preference as they are evenly matched , some will say optically the canon is better , but this is biased based on preference in most cases . straight up , your Nikon d3000 is better , but for some extra coin the t2i is better (although it isn't one you have mentioned) the canon one (eos1000d) is lighter , as it is made from plastic opposed to the magnesium alloy on later models 60d 7d 5d etc

The D3000 is a decent camera if your looking for somthing slighty more advanced than a point and shoot. If your looking for a camera to take photos in lots of light and mainly use outside then the D3000 will probly work well for ya.

However, this camera does have limitations, if your iso is set any highier than 700 the picture become so noisy/grainy it looks horrible, somtimes the Auto Focus hunts and will not allow you to take the picture, only shoots up to 3 fps, it takes a life time for the photo to write to the media card (no matter what the write speed of the card is) I can go on and on. for slighty more money you are better off purchasing the D5000 or D5100 (which is slightly more expensive) it has all of the same features as the D3000 plus video and take Great low light photos. My point is, if your looking for a camera that takes decent photos outside and has more features than your point and shoot and you don't have alot of money and are willing to settle then this is the camera for you. Dont make the same mistake I did and settle. Because if your intrested in photography even slightly you will out grow and quickly be frustrated with the limitations of this camera in 3 months. I hope this helps.