Canon vs. Nikon

In my studio class, there exists a pretty even ratio of Nikon-to-Canon users. The other two students in class shoot Sony.

(Seeing all the trouble that the instructor is having getting equipment to work for the Sony shooters, I am very glad that I did not decide to go with a Sony Alpha when I purchased my dSLR.)

There seems to exist a strange divergence in the world between Nikon shooters and Canon users. (Or so it would seem.)
We even tease each other in class about it.

I like to think that I purchased a Canon camera because the definition of "canon" is: "a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged."
...but, that's not why.

I chose a Canon because the point-and-shoot camera that I used directly before purchasing my dSLR was a Canon PowerShot SX110IS.
It was amazing: macro capabilities, non-Auto settings, manual focus, selective focus... It was beautiful. It was definitely a stepping stone on the way to a dSLR from a full-auto point-and-shoot.
I figured (and was proven correct!) that sticking with the same brand when it came time to purchase a dSLR was beneficial, in that I would already be familiar with the symbols and jargon. Because I owned a Canon previously, it was so much easier to acclimatize myself to a heftier camera.

At a wedding I shot a few years ago, the photographer I was working for handed me the film Nikon she was shooting with and asked for a photograph of her with her brother, the groom. I was a little intimidated, to be honest.
I had only had Betty (my camera) for a few months and was not 100% sure of what she was capable of. (I knew what I was doing, but I definitely did not know as much as I do now!) Then here I was, on the job, being handed a film Nikon. I felt like a stranger in a large city: I had only ever shot my parents' 35mm film camera* before, and it had a fixed-range lens.
Luckily, the lens on the Nikon had an auto-focus feature. I looked through the viewfinder, composed my shot, and pressed the shutter. When I wound the film to take a second frame, it sounded as though more film passed through than what should have, but I snapped a second photograph and then handed the camera back.

That was my grand extent and use of Nikons.

So, when a fellow photographer friend of mine came to me a few months ago, asking for help with her camera --she didn't quite understand white balance among other things and had been shooting full-auto for a while-- I filled in the basics.
Some of what I answered left her confused: she didn't know if her camera could do that or not, or where the button was to do that. We looked up an online manual for her camera, and I showed her a few things from what I had read. Then I encouraged her to go home and read her manual. I remember saying something to the effect of, "What you read may not make sense right now, but when you're out shooting and you want to do something, or you're reading a photo blog and the Nikon-shooting photographer mentions a certain technical aspect that can be done in-camera, it will click, and you will get it."

She's a lot more experienced now, and can navigate her Nikon a lot more expertly.
I don't think I had much to do with it. She has had a lot more time to use it now.
(She admitted to me today that she still hasn't read the manual. Ha.)

...notice I said "was" a few paragraphs ago: That was my grand extent and use of Nikons. 
I shot maybe 50 pictures with her Nikon today, quite breezily.

I was not intimidated this time.
(Dare I say it?) I even liked it...
In fact, I would love to own a D90 or a D7000 one day, yes'm.

Honestly, I don't get the whole debate between Nikon shooters and Canon shooters.
I really don't.
Any photographer knows that the most important piece of photographic equipment that a photographer can have lies just behind the viewfinder.
The second most important piece of equipment lies directly opposite that in the lens.

...but, I will save that discussion for a later blog post.

*I said above that I had only ever shot my parents' 35mm film camera before. That's true, when it comes to the types of cameras that I had shot, in which the film had to be loaded, wound, and then rewound, similar to the Nikon I was speaking about. That old camera was not the only one I had ever shot before digital, however; I used countless numbers of disposable cameras and shot film on at least three others that used film packaged in canisters (meaning: I didn't touch it and the rewinding was done automatically by the push of a button). I did not mention these other cameras in the main part of the blog post because they are not like the Nikon in any way except that they used film.