According to reader's digest, 14 out of 16 European countries vote Canon as the "Most trusted" camera brand - for the tenth year in a row. Quite an achievement, especially given the tumultuous time they have been getting on various web forums in recent years.

Press release:

Canon celebrates a decade of ‘most trusted’ camera brand in Europe with Reader’s Digest
·        Consumers in 14 out of 16 European countries vote Canon ‘most trusted’
United Kingdom/Republic of Ireland, March 1st  2010 – Canon, world-leader in imaging solutions, has been voted as Europe's top camera brand for the tenth consecutive year in the Reader’s Digest Most Trusted Brands Survey 2010, an annual pan-European survey of consumer attitudes to brand products and services.
Reader’s Digest asked its readers in 14 languages across 16 European countries to nominate the brand they trusted most in a range of consumer categories, including cameras.  Respondents were drawn from the Reader's Digest customer database of 4.5 million homes in Europe, and more than 32,000 responses were analysed.
Canon was one of only three brands nominated as ‘most trusted’, Canon coming out on top in 14 of the 16 countries.  Respondents rated each brand on the following four criteria: Quality, Excellent Value, Strong Image and Understands Customer Needs.
James Leipnik, Chief of Communication for Canon Europe said: “It is a great achievement to have been awarded the ‘most trusted’ camera brand for the last ten years by readers from all across Europe. At Canon we nurture a passion for the power of image, providing our customers with imaging solutions that empower creativity and innovation. It is rewarding to see that so many readers of the Reader’s Digest continue to trust us to deliver products of the highest quality.”
"Consumer trust is vital to successful brands. Maintaining trust in a fast changing world is one of the biggest challenges facing companies today, especially in the technology sector. For Canon to have maintained its position as the most trusted camera brand in the large majority of countries in Europe is impressive" said Gavin Murray, Regional Advertising Director, Europe, Reader’s Digest.
The 14 countries that selected Canon as the ‘most trusted’ camera brand were Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. 

If you're around London tomorrow or Wednesday, then try and get yourself over to the Canon Pro Photo Solutions event at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

It's an event put on by Canon to showcase the entire system and explain how it can be used for the total workflow solution. 

There will be all the Canon kit there, plus 45 partner companies like Adobe, Apple, Kate, Gitzo etc etc etc.

There are also lots of seminars going on... and this is where my interest comes in! As well as manning a stand to answer your questions, I'll be giving a seminar each day on Custom Functions with the EOS 7D and EOS 5D Mark II. So either come and watch, or drop by the stand and say 'Hi!'

Hope to see you there.....

For more details click here

It looks like it's been a tough year for Canon. Despite the results still showing profit, the general consensus is that they have been losing market share to the other big manufacturers. However, is this really the case?

Now, we know there a lies, damned lies and statistics, so take this with a pinch of salt, but if you look at the images uploaded on flickr and use their 'Camera Finder' tool, you'll see that 3 of the top 5 used cameras are Canons - the EOS 400D, EOS 450D and EOS 40D. Nikon have one showing in there (the D80) and it's currently in fourth place. The fifth entry, equal with the EOS 400D is the iPhone, which is not really surprising given how many have been sold. 

So what does that tell us? Well, Canon do seem to be doing quite well actually. There are more active users posting images to the biggest online sharing site than from any of the other manufacturers. Of course, it may also mean that Nikon users don't post their images on flickr....because they're ashamed they bought Nikon or because they know the picture quality isn't up to it! ;-) (Only kidding Nikon users reading this blog!) 

The really interesting part about the camera finder page though is the 'point and shoot' graph - 5 of the top 5 camera models used are Canons. That is quite astonishing actually as I never really though Canon had as much market as that at the compact camera level.

Of course, this could all mean nothing at all, but it's an interesting snapshot as it stands today. 

What do you think? Have you ever counted cameras while out to see what you see more of? Or am I a special kind of geek that does that? :-)