Whither Canon?

[Mike Farley]

Writing for DPReview, former Wratten lecturer Damien Demolder takes a look at Canon's latest mirrorless offering, the EOS M3, and wonders what the company's strategy is. He does not see how the new camera can succeed without a decent range of lenses and in the meantime competitors are gaining ground at Canon's (and Nikon's) expense. Whether his idea for a premium model competing against Leica would work, I am not sure. What he describes sounds very much like the Leica T and would be aimed at a niche rather than volume market.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/841656 ... mirrorless

[davidc]

Interesting reading. I'm not sure whether I agree with his conclusion about the market growth - I think it's more likely to grow more if Canon/Nikon choose to enter seriously, but without them it'll follow the same middle of the road trend it's been doing so far. I think he's right that the M3 is an xxxxD killer in disguise but for Canon it's buying into their kit & lenses regardless. The most irritating thing for me is that Canon have the main thing all other mirrorless cameras seriously lack - a huge range of quality lenses - and they're doing nothing with it! Sure, it might be some spectacular strategy but I don't think so.

I'd love a great mirrorless kit but I need to be convinced it has the legs to make the purchase worthwhile over the long term. I don't care who it is, it just has to be the right offering and if Canon pulled their finger out they'd be the stronger contenders right now.

[Mike Farley]

Actually, I feel much the same way. Although I have some m43 gear, which I find more convenient to carry around, it is mainly consumer level items. I have refrained from making any significant purchases such as an Olympus E-M1 and their Pro range of lenses which I feel would fully commit me to the system. That said, I am not encountering any real issues with image quality and a number of my more recent successful shots have been taken on m43, including the one which took 3rd place in the last APOY round. The gains to be made by investing in more serious kit are in inverse proportion to cost and still would not fully match the capabilities of my DSLR.

While the mirrorless systems cannot yet fully match Canonikon for lenses, the gap is shrinking fast. m43 is the most complete and Olympus' recent 40-150 Pro f/2.8 lens and 1.4x converter filled a significant gap at the telephoto end. A 300mm is due later this year and a fisheye is also in the works. Fuji is beavering away, regularly updating its lens roadmap, and has produced a number of quality optics in a relatively short period. Even Sony seems to have cottoned on that producing new bodies and lens mounts is not enough and has followed Fuji in publishing its plans for future lenses. The real omission is tilt/shift lenses, which no one seems to have in the pipeline. The arrival of such specialist optics is the real litmus test as they will only be viable when mirrorless volumes can match those of DSLRs.

Thom Hogan posted his view on Damien Demolder's article and one surprising fact emerged. In 2000, towards the end of the film era's dominance, annual camera sales were in the doldrums at 4m units. In 2014, when the manufacturers are again struggling to achieve profitability, annual volumes are 14m. Canon's market share has also remained consistent over the period and it is Nikon which has grown its sales.

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/the ... angea.html

I suspect that Hogan has called it right. The Canonikon duopoly does not need to do anything until market forces dictate a change. In the meantime, Canon is investing in mirrorless technology research, as this link about recent photography related patents demonstrates. No doubt Nikon is doing the same.

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