Interesting topic .... and if I may ask, Stewart ... when you started your business in renting out lenses you opted to go with Canon first. May be shedding some light on that decision can help us understand what has transpired (afterall, a Pro. shooter is in it for the money and the camera is just a tool; this is the same for you I guess since your business is for the money and the Canon you rent are only the tools to that means)?
Simple.
1. We had to start somewhere and wanted to concentrate our money on serving one market well rather than two poorly. We didn't want to diversify, especially since that would require spending another load of money, until we'd proven the operational model.
2. Canon has the biggest market share of DSLRs. (By which I mean the biggest installed base - roughly 45% of the market, versus Nikon 35% and the others sharing 20%.)
3. I have a Canon and I understand the Canon range.
4. Nikon lens nomenclature is completely incomprehensible.
And a couple of things I've learned subsequently which I didn't know then, but would have been on the list if i had:
5. Nikon lenses tend to be considerably more expensive than the Canon equivalents, which has to depress the hire market. (EG we can do a Canon 500mm IS for £180/week, but when we get the Nikon 500mm VR it would have to be about £240/week.)
6. Canon offer a number of lenses that seem very popular for birds/wildlife/aircraft - three of our big market segments - for which Nikon really don't have any comparable offerings. (I'm thinking of the 300mm f/4 IS, the 400mm f/5.6 and the 100-400mm IS.)
And yes, at the end of the day I stock Canons because there are customers who want to hire them. I don't think they're any better than Nikon when you compare like with like, and I don't think white lenses are cool. But they get the job done for me, and that's all that counts.