Besides all of the reasons already stated, I think word of mouth also has a lot to do with Canon's popularity. Think of all those owners being asked what kind of digital camera they are using. A personal example is when I bought my first "serious" digital camera after my Logitech Fotoman Plus in 1993, my Sony FD7 in 1996 and my Casio QV10 in 1997. I bought a Canon A40. That was from research, and word of mouth. I owned several other "A" series Canons after that, then got the little s400 after straying to a Minolta Dimage X for a short two months. I still have the s400, and use it to take photos of the collector cars on our website. (collectorcardealer.com). It works great for that, it's easy to carry around, and the results are quite amazing for a little 4mp p&s. It's still used as a benchmark camera in the Canon camp.
A coupld of years ago, when my sister asked me about getting a digital camera, I suggested the A40. In fact, she bought mine when I decided to get the S1-IS that Canon had just come out with. (I really didn't like that camera after getting it). From that, her son wound up with a Canon. She upgraded to the Canon S2-IS. Her daughter-in-law now has a Canon Rebel Xt. Her other sons, and several grandchildren, now have Canon P&S cameras. All of those sales can be directly attributed to that original A40 that I bought.
When I got rid of the S1-IS, I bought a Minolta A2 prosumer because I didn't want to get into the hassle of carrying an SLR, and all the lenses, but I was still interested in improving my photography. The A2 is a fantastic camera with features that many dSLR's still don't have, but I wanted to get even more serious with this hobby. After a lot of research, I had decided on the Rebel XT as the camera for me. That is until I held it. It just didn't feel right, in my hands. I then tried the Pentax *istDS, and liked the feel of it, but I just couldn't get the results I expected from it so I sold it resolved to not get involved with another dSLR.
The next thing I knew, I was still not satisfied with what I had, and decided that I would look into another dSLR. I had thought about the 20D, but it was just too bulky, in my hands. I had held the Nikon D70 many times in the past, but also felt that it was just too big for what I wanted, although I liked the solid feel of it. Then, after much research, I decided that the D50 was the camera for me. I wanted one that I could get good results with shooting in jpeg without having to do a lot of after the shot processing. So far, I am very pleased. I still have a long way to go, but I'm learning.
I didn't buy the D50 because it had Nikon on the front of it. I bought it because it fit what I was looking for. I also felt that I couldn't go wrong with either Canon, or Nikon, as far as quality went. I wasn't so sure about the stability of some of the other company's dSLR offerings out there. One other thing that helped me decide on the Nikon was that years ago it seemed to be the standard that everyone else looked up to. When you had a Nikon, you had arrived. That has always been in the back of my mind since my first SLR (Minolta SRT-101) back in the early '70's. At this point I can't imagine going in any other direction. I know it doesn't have any effect on my photographic ability, but I'm proud when I carry my Nikon around.
Sorry for the loing post, but it was how I came to owning a Nikon dSLR instead of a Canon.
Good shooting,
Otto...
