Why canon?

[bainsybike]

I'd been using Canon compacts for a couple of years and wanted to move up to a DSLR, so I was leaning towards Canon because I was familiar with the menus. I went into a shop and handled both the 400D and the Nikon D40X. Both felt very nice in the hand, and they told me in the shop that there was nothing to choose between them. I preferred Canon's CF card to Nikon's SD.

But, and I'm ashamed to admit this, the main thing that put me off the Nikon was the red flash.

[neuroanatomist]

I shot Minolta and Pentax film SLRs, then after a long hiatus went looking for a dSLR in 2009.  It was pretty easy to boil it down to Canon vs. Nikon based on lens selection alone.  A couple of friends shot Canon, a couple of pro photogs we'd hired to do family portraits shot Canon, and the Nikon lens confusion was another factor. 

One other factor was online information - the two sites I happend on early on were TDP and Nikonians.  The former had detailed information on cameras, lenses, and accessories in a helpful, readable fashion, and the associated forum was congenial and friendly.  OTOH, when I went to nikonians.org, I was almost immediately greeted with, "We recommend that you upgrade your membership to at least silver level to enjoy the full functionality of the Nikonians community," i.e. pay to play.  No thanks.

[distant.star]

happenstance in my original purchase and now locked in because of lenses...  don't matter though which brand as i've said before it ain't the camera that takes the image...

Yep, pretty much the same.

When I rather arrogantly decided I could take great pictures I decided to get an SLR, a "real" camera. One of the best around at the time was the Minolta SRT-102 -- with the new TTL metering. Wow.

At work in the eighties, we used Nikon. In the early nineties when I had to buy my own stuff I went into a camera shop that sold Canon -- so that got me committed with body and glass.

But, as Costello says, whatever gives me a good image. Canon is as good as the next, better than most in my opinion.

[Narcolepsy]

I honestly can't remember why I bought an AE1-P rather than a different SLR - I was 11 or 12 at the time and got it second-hand with the proceeds of singing in a church choir... I got all my family into Canon - both brothers and my father subsequently bought A1s.
I then went away from Canon for quite a while - mostly because the way I make money from photos can often rely on other people taking the photo (of me doing a procedure) - and I moved very early to digital and P&S (this was accompanied by scanning in hundreds of slides to use them in powerpoint). My most successful P&S was an HP850 - surprisingly good IQ straight out of the camera.
Came back to Canon when I wanted more from my camera for the increasing number of fun (i.e. non-earning) photos.... just wasn't happy with the IQ (or autofocus ironically enough) of my last semi-P&S (a Fuji s9600). Spent a long time trying to decide between Canon and Nikon - the lenses and the familiarity with the language of the lenses won it for me.... so I am now a proud owner of a 5D2 and saving up for more lenses....
Only problem is I now have to get other people to use the 5D2 well for the photos that I used to justify its purchase..... 

[dilbert]

I had a Canon SLR first...

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

For me, it's because I grew up seeing Canon in the house. I remember my dad using an old Canonet as far back as I can remember. It was before I even knew what name brands meant. The camera is still around the house and its nice to know what the controls mean now (I probably know more than my dad does because he's mostly been a casual user). Anyway, it wasn't long into my lifetime before I noticed my dad eagerly wielding his first film SLR, the Rebel in the early '90s (I was around 5-6 years old by then). I think it even came with a VHS tape to introduce the user to the camera because I noticed him watching something about Canon. I wonder why no such introductory media exists these days?

From that point forward, the brand just stuck around. My dad got a Canon "bubble jet" printer whose quality far exceeded those incredibly noisy ribbon-based printers. Enter the digital age, he bought a Sony P&S camera. We were actually shocked by how clean the image was and previously imagined it to be slightly better than something you'd get off of a web cam. A few years later, after looking into it more deeply, we figured a Canon P&S had better image quality and switched over to that. The build quality didn't match the Sony camera, but it the image quality mattered more to us. Around 2006 or so, my dad bought the Rebel XTi, which remained mostly unused as photography became less and less relevant in out lives. I had probably used it the most, and I even did some fun stuff like make timelapse videos from it, but overall it just collected dust.

But for some reason, my interest in photography spiked in pretty much the last half year or so. I learned most of the technical details of photography with the Rebel XTi and bought my first prime lens, the 50mm f/1.4. I was amazed by how sharp the images could be (when stopped down a bit, of course).

I suppose my dad had the itch to get yet another Canon camera and this time we decided to make this one count. We got the 5D MkII when the B&H xmas sales were all too tempting. Now I've spent the last month trying to tame this beast and make the most out of it. I've already taken some fresh, updated shots of the whole family, when we'd otherwise go years and years without a single shot taken. I hope to make photography more relevant now that this beastly camera is in our possession. It truly is out of our league since we're amateur/casual photographers and I hope to change that.

TL;DR: Canon was a household name growing up and I've stuck with it (not to mention Canon maintains its presence to this day).

[K-amps]

I wish the lower models would adopt the way the 1D sets AEB though

+1 

[bvukich]

Superficial reasons: Because Nikon bodies are ugly, and I can't stand Ashton Kutcher.

Slightly less superficial reasons:  Nikon has an illogical model number scheme, and you need a slide rule to figure out which lenses work with which bodies.

Genuine reasons:  Because of the S100 (the circa 2000 version), it was my first digital camera, and was AWESOME (for it's time). And I just kept buying Canon from then on, progressing through the P&S models, through bridge models, and finally on to an XSi shortly after it came out.  I got a 60D right after they came out to hold me over until the 5D3, if I had known it would take this long, I would have gotten a 7D.
Because of lenses.  I perceive the Canon line to be better in areas that matter to me, and a better value.  I don't have a huge glass investment yet, certainly small enough that I could sell it all and only lose a few hundred dollars, if I chose to switch.  So it's not an investment that's keeping me here, it's a conscious, rational decision based on what I think is the best path for me.
And the newest addition...  because of magic lantern.  Seriously, it's that damn cool.  And this is more based on the potential, than on any current feature of ML.  Just the fact there is an active community, successfully working on firmware hacking, is a HUGE advantage on Canon's part.

Readers digest version:  Came for the bodies, stayed for the glass, magic lantern was dessert.

[K-amps]

Long, long time ago, Canon used to lead the field of sensor performance. That was when I hopped on the Canon bandwagon.

+1

That, the reasonable cost of entry and the RebelXT did it for me

[bigblue1ca]

Way back when.....  in 2003 after holding out a year or two to buy a digital camera, based on reviews on DPR and price point I bought a Canon PowerShot A80 4MP.  Great P&S at the time, I still like the colours of those images.  Anyhow, I really liked it and that lead to me buying another Canon P&S which I also liked.  So when I decided to step into the world of DSLR, it was natural to go with Canon.

[scrappydog]

I wanted to get back into photography many years after selling my Nikon SLR.  I wanted to use the camera for both video and stills and Canon had a much better integration of video.  Hence, I got a Canon.

[K-amps]

For me it was because I got a bunch of hand-me-down lenses to get me started.

To be honest, I kinda regret going with Canon, but at this point replacing all my lenses with Nikon equivalents would be costly. 

Canon cameras lack a lot of capabilities that I would really like to have.

Like what?

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

Way back when.....  in 2003 after holding out a year or two to buy a digital camera, based on reviews on DPR and price point I bought a Canon PowerShot A80 4MP.  Great P&S at the time, I still like the colours of those images.  Anyhow, I really liked it and that lead to me buying another Canon P&S which I also liked.  So when I decided to step into the world of DSLR, it was natural to go with Canon.

Yeah, the A80 was the first Canon P&S camera that we got at the time. It gave some very clean images. I didn't mention this in my wall of text above, but we've gotten 2 more Canon P&S cameras after the A80 broke and neither of them seemed to match it in quality to my eyes. The 2nd one (A700) broke too and the 3rd one (A720 IS) still works fine. I later found out that the A80 had quite a large image sensor, which may have contributed to quality? I dunno for sure, but it was a purely subjective impression at the time.

[unfocused]

I bought a Konica SLR when I was in high school and used it through college and my first two newspaper jobs. When I got a job as a photographer at a small daily, I knew I had to upgrade. As a poor, underpaid photographer with a family to support I had to make every penny count.

Added up the cost of what I needed from Canon and Nikon and figured out I could get an additional lens by buying Canon. Borrowed the money from the credit union and bought an F1, four lenses, and an AT-1 body as a backup.

Hard to imagine now, but at the time, hardly any news photographers used Canon (Nikon practically owned the business). Got lots of sneers from others, but it was what I could afford and it was far superior to the Konica.

When I got back into photography a few years ago, I never considered anything but Canon.

[bvukich]

For me it was because I got a bunch of hand-me-down lenses to get me started.

To be honest, I kinda regret going with Canon, but at this point replacing all my lenses with Nikon equivalents would be costly. 

Canon cameras lack a lot of capabilities that I would really like to have.

Like what?

I'd like to know too.

Besides the basic trait of Nikon differentiating performance tiers by resolution, and Canon by AF; there are no features I can think of that Nikon has, that Canon doesn't have on their equivalent model.