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Anonymous
Nikon dominated the professional SLR market for the next few decades. Enough people used other systems (Olympus OM, Pentax K and before that, their Spotmatic M42-mount SLRs, although I don't think they were popular with professionals, Canon FD mount, etc.) for whatever reasons, but Nikons were king, used by pretty much every photojournalist for the durability, and other pros for the wide range of options in the system. Want a waist level finder? They had it. Some exotic, fast tele? They had it.
What slowed Nikon down was when Canon dropped its FD manual focus system and developed the EOS mount. It was all-autofocus, and good at autofocusing. It was comphrehensive, just like the Nikon F system, which had gotten autofocus, but the EOS system had better technology for it. Professionals liked being able to stick at 400/2.8 on their camera and not having to work hard to focus it to catch the football player on the field. So lots of them went to it, but lots of them stuck with Nikon, for various reasons. (Investments, ergonomics, durability, preference, not really needing fast autofocus, whatever.)
The big innovation with the EOS system, though, was that it was 100% electronic. No mechanical parts connected the camera and the lens. The autofocus motor, aperture controls, everything, were in the lens, and just an electronic interface hooked it to the camera controls. Not really significant in pros adopting it, but it impacted camera design from then on. They basically invented the modern SLR, as opposed to the old mechanically based ones you see.
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