If you never bought a digital camera before, you may be a bit overwhelmed by all the different brands. Don’t feel bad, as most experienced digital camera owners have the same problem. Professional and amateur alike.

If your wondering whether I’m including film cameras in this discussion, then you really have been out of the loop for a while. Not to many people use purely film cameras anymore, their numbers are dwindling. Disposable film cameras may make due in a crunch, but that’s about their only useful purpose.

While it’s true, that there are certain photographers in the crowd, that swear by a particular brand of camera, I’m not one of them. While I do have more Canons than any other, I also have a Kodak, Olympus, and Fuji floating around the house somewhere. Just getting my personal biases out in the open.

If you were to choose a camera solely on popularity of brand, it would seem Canon is the choice of many. Many, meaning both consumers and critics alike. They seem to crowd the top critic pick lists everywhere I like. I think it’s pretty much impossible to find a top ten camera list tdoay, that doesn’t have at least two or three from the Canon Powershot line.

Sharing the top 11 spots with Canon are 2 of the Pure Video manufactured Flip Video cameras. Nikon has 2 cameras in the top 25 including the Nikon D40, and the Nikon D300. Panasonic sneaks in with a couple of their Lumix models, specifically the DMC-TZ3K and the DMC-TZ3A. And finishing in a strong 25th spot, that old stalwart Kodak with the Easyshare Z812IS.

Sure, sure, sure, Canon seems to sell more cameras than anyone else. But, are they really that much better? And so what if they are, maybe I don’t want to follow the crowd. I like following my own drummer afterall But hey, while were analyzing things, lets take a look at what a few other analysts have to say. There may be some consensus amongst that group.

One popular camera review site under their top 103 cameras showed 46 Canon cameras, 21 Sony cameras, 20 Nikon cameras, 5 Pentax cameras, 3 Fuji cameras, 2 Samsung cameras, 2 Panasonic cameras, 2 Kodak cameras, 1 Konica camera, and 1 Casio camera. Another top camera review site under their 5 star category, show 39 Canon cameras, 18 Sony cameras, 17 Nikon cameras, 6 Fuji cameras, 5 Olympus cameras, 5 Panasonic cameras, 3 Pentax cameras, and 1 Konica camera. If you total all that up, the top 3 end up being Canon with 85, Sony a distant second with 39, and Nikon a very close third with 37. Everyone else had less than 10 top rated cameras.

Well, if you go by the numbers, it does seem to make a convincing argument for Canon. Big sales, and big critical reviews seem to keep them rolling in the money. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact, that they just offer so many models that cater to so many different people. I wouldn’t discount any of the other brands, and not just Nikon and Sony either. I still make my camera buying decisions on features and price.

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