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One thing I can never make sense of is this alarmist attitude to the SLR camera market sales figures.
One thing that is very rarely pointed out and noted is that the past 10 years for SLR was in effect a massive boom market place.
The manufacturers existed for 50 + years prior to this boom with sales figures barely 1/100th of what they were/are now!
People read some idiotic, click bait seeking headline and it's like the end of the world as we know it.
mirrorless camera aren't(won't be) immune to the boom bust cycle either.
They're not booming quite as fast as folks make them out to be.
Yeah, their market share is growing, but not becasue they're booming in sales, but because the SLR market has matured, the masses have now altered their preference and moved on.
Mirrorless sales have increased slightly only because there's a new model coming out every other month.
And a new model is is apparently something to have.
it's a ridiculous notion to expect a manufacturer to produce a camera model/type based on your personal preference.
Cost is the biggest underlying point for the mass market, and Nikon and Canon currently dominate this market.
It still appears that mirrorless designs, which appear to be cheaper to manufacture due to some theoretical engineering forces still cost more to manufacture for a similarly specced camera!
if this were not the case, then Canon being in the situation they currently are should be able to offer the mirrorless M5 cheaper than the new model 77D, which appears to have very similar specs all round.
It's only when they remove the EVF(and make it optional) does that camera price come in under the more complex(yet still cheaper to make!) 77D.
So for Nikon (or Canon) to move into a mirrorless system makes no sense .. and Canon seem to be showing this with the EOS M lineup.
All the talk is of smart phone photography, which is great for the selfie craze, but does nothing for any real quality imagery.
I'm still yet to see any camera from any smart phone come close to what an old DSLR can produce!
if you have no issue with ugly over sharpened hyper processes images lacking in detail .. good luck to 'ya.
I'm not expecting to see any smart phone images of fungi from Steve being used in Planet Earth tho!
And on the topic of market boom cycles .. the smart phone market is approaching it's peak too now. it's tapered off massively recently and only the push into yet to fully mature markets is keeping it growing.
Most sensible folks have a decent phone with a usable camera, and don't really need more now.
Those folks had one years ago, as well as a good P&S but wanted something better than that.
So they started the boom in DSLR sales(say 10 years ago).
They got their good camera(usually a low end D3xxx type + twin kit lens setup) used it for a short while on a trip of some type, and then all but forgot about all the gear.
They got a free phone from their carrier and it made better photos than their early smartphone could.
They got more interested in what the latest gen smartphone cam could do, so they upgraded that .. and upgraded gain .. but now they have an acceptable quality level and have no need to spend close to $1K on something they already have.
In a few years time we'll be reading of all the doom and gloom in the smartphone market as it's boom period comes to a close too.
Is no one expecting the mirrorless camera market to begin to contract at some point in the near future too? if you answered in then negative then you haven't been around long enough to know that tech is as fickle as it is.
When this market type begins to contract is when I'd start worrying about the system having entered into.
if it contracts as quickly and deeply as the SLR market has, how long would the parent companies continue to support them if they start making losses consistently!
IORC Sony, the behemoth that they are got out of making computers and TV screens simply because of the losses they incurred for such a long time in those markets.
Sony would survive it all, doing what they do elsewhere in the corporation but I wouldn't expect that to extend to the camera business.
I reckon if the market was to turn in that way, Sony would have two choices to continue. Either sell it up, or acquire another manufacturer to maintain economies of scale.
There is no guarantee that they will maintain their market share in the sensor business either, as some bright upstart could easily come in and undermine them.
But it has to be re-iterated again .. just because you have a particular and specific want/need, doesn't mean that the manufacturer needs to meet that requirement to survive.
They did so long before many of us were even born.
In the next 10 years, my worry would be the continued existence of non Canon/Nikon manufacturers on a large scale.
It's usually best to compare apples with apples, and an APS-C 50-140/2.8 is no full frame 70-200/2.8 on their respective sensor formats!Originally Posted by MissionMan
The much more shallow DOF possibilities of the 70-200/2.8 on full frame compared to 50-140/2.8 on APS-C is massive.
Yeah you don't get the option to produce a deeper DOF with the full frame kit for the same FOV, but this usually isn't what those bits of gear are used for!
The more equalised comparion of lens would be a 70-200/4 on full frame .. and when this is done, the price difference equation works out much more different.
But! .... and more importantly for many folks is the configurability of the full frame gear.
Once you have APS-C only gear(eg. lenses) you can't magically make them full frame capable. Been there done that probably never go there again.
So what the larger format allows one to achieve is both format in an 'on demand' manner.
Years ago, Nikon achieved that with the D800. Today Canon show this off(more so) with the 5Dsr.
With 50Mp you can shoot full framed 70-200/2.8 mounted and do supremely shallow DOF images for whatever reason you choose.
Because you have a great lens and Mp to burn, you crop to your hearts content, and now you have a 70-200/2.8 on APS-C(or 4/3rds if you must).
You just can't achieve the same shallowness of DOF with the described setup on APS-C. You need at least an f/2 capable 50-140mm lens ... and imagine the price of that of their smaller f/2.8 is currently at $1500.
There are horses and there are courses as the saying is explained.
But again, the requirement of a single person shouldn't be used to determine the products produced for the wider market.
Both Canon and Nikon and Tamron and Sigma have had much success in the 70-200/2.8 market for us to know that this is a market that is durable for all those players.
BUT!... what we also know is that the 50-150/2.8 market is not as well supported by the consumer, as Sigma's previous effort had to be abandoned.
By all accounts it was a very capable lens, so it's ability wasn't the question. it was simply that the market didn't think that an APS-C only capable lens in this segment wasn't required or wanted.
it seems that many folks post their thoughts and without really realising it, the underlying cause for making critical comments about products and manufacturers is their justification for their current choices, rather than a well rounded reasoning.
Yeah, Nikon aren't making the product for you right now, and we're sorry to hear that, and the fact that another company is/does/will.
But there is one other point that is even more sure, and that is that there are many more consumers that believe that Fuji aren't making the right product mix for them either, and Nikon is!
Sales figures show us this fact. Canon appear to be producing an even better range of products again, if sales figures are what we use as the baseline explanation for what the market wants in general.
I had plans to get myself a mirrorless camera recently too.
Havent' had much time to get out and use a camera recently due to work, but this doesn't usually deter me from getting things I want to play around with.
Went and had a play with the Sony A7 again in the city, and just couldn't get past the god awful video display(ie. vf).
It basically made me sick(seasick/motion sickness) when panning.
Put it down, didn't even bother to ask to try a nicer lens. It had some cheapie kit type zoom lens(a 24-70 like, variable aperture, whatever it was).
I didn't even ask what lens it was, it was already mounted .. all I wanted was to confirm comfort level of the grip/body.
Another fail for my taste.
So I walked into the shop next door and got the Sigma 150-600 lens instead!
My point is that on one side we read that consumer A(MM here) wants or needs a Nikon full frame mirrorless. And with that I'm assuming that this would also entail a new series of lenses to match, rather than maintain the F mount lens system.
Then on the other side of the market demand we have conumer B(myself), with zero interest in such a system, model or expense!
I'm plenty happy with their DSLRs.
I also have to categorically state that I hate Nikon, and I hate their pathetic quality control and customer service .. but their current cameras work fine for me.(due to my recent D800E experience)
many commentators are expressing the opinion that Nikon need to delete some of the variation in their model lineups(eg. get rid of the largest selling models like the D3xxx lines), yet just the two consumers here(myself and MM) seem at odds with what should happen.
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