[Class A]

I just believed you and took the image from my browser and uploaded it here in the forum directly for now. You should see it now again.

Thanks a lot.

Very nicely put together and very interesting.

It looks like MILC sales have been almost stagnating since 2012.

The DSLR sales downwards trend is obviously nothing to be exited about -- if one appreciates optical viewfinders -- but it isn't clear to me that DSLR sales are necessarily going to fall below MILC sales soon. If the very recent trend continuous (CIPA data for February apparently has DSLRs up by 4%, Mirrorless down by 11% (quoting from DPReview)) then perhaps there won't be the changing of the guards that has been predicted for how long now?

[Kunzite]

The DSLR's drop is probably somewhat less than it appears - the CIPA data is about production and shipments, not sales. But... for 2012, the camera makers were betting on some 40% increase of the ILC makers. That was insane, and obviously didn't happen.

OTOH the "prediction" is now that soon we'll see the rumored Canon and Nikon FF MILCs and those will change everything
You cannot fight this with data.

[surfar]

the "prediction" is now that soon we'll see the rumored Canon and Nikon FF MILCs

Not soon, predictions are for Photokina 2018 announcements,mock up versions have been floating around for a while though.$$$ony have expected this and more than likely are preparing, very interesting to some(but not you,of course!).

---------- Post added 04-12-18 at 09:22 AM ----------

It looks like MILC sales have been almost stagnating since 2012.

Selling consistenly in a shrinking market,in effect gaining market share.

it isn't clear to me that DSLR sales are necessarily going to fall below MILC sales soon.

It may not be soon, and it may be never?Although with CaNikOnyJi all wanting to expand their market share,then the future is unclear.I think that a 1:1 parity could happen.The big picture will be clearer by end of 2020,M/L is still developing,in digital terms its still young.

[Kunzite]

Let's see it happening, before opening the champagne bottles. Besides, there was this important part, "and those will change everything" i.e. the DSLRs will be doomed. Again.

[photoptimist]

M/L is still developing,in digital terms its still young.

How can you say that, most of the early digital cameras were mirrorless. Sony's has been making digital mirrorless cameras for 37 years. You'd think they'd be winning by now but they are still losing to DSLRs.

[surfar]

You'd think they'd be winning by now but they are still losing to DSLRs.

Well, for a period they were winning over Nikon FF Dslr(not so long ago)....And you should add up the $$$ony FF M/L aggregate sales and compare them with Pentax FF aggregate sales?

Who is "winning" or "losing"...is there a race?

In my race its 4 to 3....4 Pentax digital M/L against 3 Pentax Dslr,shame about no EVF!

[clackers]

Well, for a period they were winning over Nikon FF Dslr(not so long ago)....And you should add up the $$$ony FF M/L aggregate sales and compare them with Pentax FF aggregate sales?

Who is "winning" or "losing"...is there a race?

You seem to think so when confronted with the data, Surfar.

Sometimes you say only what's happened recently counts, but mirrorless is down according to CIPA.

At other times when it suits, you say to examine the long term trend, but Beholder3 has shown that stagnation, despite the proliferation of products.

The camera market as a whole has declined since 2012, mirrorless compacts are practically extinct, and MILC manufacturers have been forced to do exactly the same strategy as DSLR ones ... charge big amounts for premium products and ignore the bulk of cost sensitive consumers. This is not what was promised - photography would become simpler and cheaper without an autofocus mirror.

A MILC as good as a DSLR these days will cost more and be just as big, as well as its lenses ... there was nothing small about the Olympus EM-1 Mk II I snapped with in a camera store yesterday!

---

Last edited by clackers; 04-11-2018 at 11:33 PM.

[Class A]

The DSLR's drop is probably somewhat less than it appears - the CIPA data is about production and shipments, not sales.

Thanks for pointing this out. However, production will adjust to sales and with the exception of overproduction anomalies, the production and sales curves shouldn't be too different from each other.

Selling consistenly in a shrinking market,in effect gaining market share.

Yes, that's obviously the case.

If you gave any credence to the constant MILC hype from the likes of DPReview then you would have thought that MILCS are on an unstoppable meteoric rise. They clearly aren't.

I don't have any data to back this up and I'm not interested enough in this subject to do the respective digging, but it would appear plausible to me that the DSLR losses are mainly found in the entry category. DSLRs are probably no longer the "go to" product for soccer mums, etc. If that is true, it would mean that there is a stable level for DSLRs ahead, which is defined by the needs of those who benefit from optical viewfinders (sports photographers? wildlife photographers, ...). It seems likely that this will be a more upmarket segment and I could very well live with that. I'm not looking for a cheap Rebel kit at Walmart, I'd rather see a continuation of the K-1 design.

Sony's has been making digital mirrorless cameras for 37 years. You'd think they'd be winning by now but they are still losing to DSLRs.

To be fair, mirror-less technology has suffered from a number of downsides until recently. Low battery life, very bad AF, weak EVFs, and lack of lens support have been real issues not so long ago. Of course, these problems didn't stop the likes of DPReview to already proclaim the swan song for DSLRs back then, but it makes sense that some customers were deterred by such issues.

Now that battery life has been improved (not at DSLR levels, but not as pathetic as before anymore), on-sensor PDAF is available, EVFs are decent, and native lens support is improved, MILCS are much more an alternative to DSLRs than they have been. I still think that a DLSR is the much better choice for certain applications/users, but I can see why the future of MILCS now looks better than ever before.

We obviously also have the desire of companies to reduce production costs and MILCS are definitely suitable to increase profitability in that regard. In particular, when you are Sony and can charge a lot of money for products whose lifespans seems to be measured in months rather than years.

Changing from Pentax to Sony could mean abandoning a small ship with a captain committed to continuing as long as possible to a large ship that can close shop any day as soon as its captain thinks easier profit is to be found elsewhere. I like Sony as a company and have a number of Sony products which are excellent, but Sony have provided ample evidence in their time that their prime motivation is to see what sticks and not to continue with product lines / formats despite economical challenges.

[Fcsnt54]

A MILC as good as a DSLR these days will cost more and be just as big, as well as its lenses ... there was nothing small about the Olympus EM-1 Mk II I snapped with in a camera store yesterday!

But the lenses to the most part are smaller then the full frame equivelant

[beholder3]

But the lenses to the most part are smaller then the full frame equivelant

Not. If you want top performers like a FF equivalent 70-200mm F4 lens, the mFT lenses are bigger, heavier and more expensive: Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 35-100mm f/2 Lens 261012 B&H Photo

I don't want to even imagine, what an F2.8 equivalent lens would look like.

[Fcsnt54]

Not. If you want top performers like a FF equivalent 70-200mm F4 lens, the mFT lenses are bigger, heavier and more expensive: Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 35-100mm f/2 Lens 261012 B&H Photo

I don't want to even imagine, what an F2.8 equivalent lens would look like.

Yeah but that lens is no longer in production

although its not as fast as either the 70-200 or the one you picked, I would probably say the next closest lens is the 12-100 F4. that piece of glass is really great, smaller then a 70-200, able to hand hold for longer shutter speeds then a 70-200 because of the image stabilization, and it is sharp across the full focal length. also roughly the size of the pentax DFA 28-105.

just to be difficult and cherry pick lenses in my favor

check out the Olympus 12-40 2.8, Olympus 300 f4, Olympus 7-14 in comparison to the pentax 24-70, pentax 560, and pentax 15-30 that's a great amount of weight and size savings for great glass.

Now as far as going between a milc and dslr. I think people make too much of an emphasis on either system. Is there really that much a difference between either system? I mean you can cherry pick either way. The people in favor of mirrorless want to claim death to DSLR, while people with an SLR are going the either way. In any case I don't think it is so bad a company like Ricoh is holding back on going mirrorless no matter that a select group think its bad. It gives Ricoh another way of staying unique, and there is a benefit to that. Also the war coming up sounds like its going to be a cage match, a bloody one at that... cannon, Nikon, and sony enter the cage; who makes it out alive?

[beholder3]

Yeah but that lens is no longer in production

although its not as fast as either the 70-200 or the one you picked, I would probably say the next closest lens is the 12-100 F4.

It is exactly a 70-200/4. And it doesnt matter if it is in production, because they have no new product that is anywhere close to a 70-200/4 or 2.8.

A 12-100/4 mFT is a 24-200/8. So that is just a well made superslow superzoom. Nobody in FF land would dare build a lens as slow as that.

check out the Olympus 12-40 2.8,

Which is a 24-80 F5.6. Nowhere competetive to a DFA 24-70/2.8. Maybe in other systems there are similar slow kit lenses.

[Kunzite]

Not. If you want top performers like a FF equivalent 70-200mm F4 lens, the mFT lenses are bigger, heavier and more expensive: Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 35-100mm f/2 Lens 261012 B&H Photo

I don't want to even imagine, what an F2.8 equivalent lens would look like.

If you only use the field-of-view equivalence, you won't get the same results on the different formats.
If you correctly use the full equivalence, you still won't get the same results - but you'll feel better about it.

[Rondec]

Wide angle primes on cameras with short registration distances will be pretty small. Fast zooms will be bigger.

The easiest way to limit the size of a lens -- regardless of the registration distance -- is to limit the aperture. Make the DA 40 an f1.4 lens and it is a pancake no longer. For whatever reason, when people look at equivalent lenses, they only seem to look at field of view and not at aperture. If you are fine with an f2.8 lens on mFT then that is fine, but there is a reason why full frame f2.8 lenses are bigger and they will produce quite different results wide open from each other. Tough to compare the two even though I have heard a million times "f2.8 is f2.8" regardless of the format. Yes, it is, but it gives a lot different results on smaller sensors.

[rdenney]

Many things to react to.

Last first: smaller formats are enlarged more than larger formats, but larger formats require longer focal lengths to project the same scene into the sensor. Longer focal lengths have less depth of field at the same f/stop. Depth of field as seen on the sensor is governed solely by focal length and f/stop. But if images from smaller formats are enlarged more, the blur will get bigger and what is acceptably sharp will get narrower. So, it’s better to say that depth of field is governed by magnification and aperture, with magnification including an optical component (ie a longer focal length) and an enlargement component. Smaller formats require more enlargement, so those offset each other a bit.

As said above, short primes don’t need to be as retrofocus with the short registration distance of mirrorless cameras. That allows them to be smaller and simpler at the same quality level. Long lenses either require a stronger telephoto design (meaning: a lens that is physically shorter than its nominal focal length, achieved by putting a magnifier group at the back, sort-of like a built-in teleconverter) to be shorter from the sensor; a similar design will have to be longer. We saw those benefits with short wides for rangefinders and view cameras versus SLRs of the film era. But rangefinders didn’t use long lenses—the rangefinders weren’t mechanically accurate enough—so we never realized that they would be bigger.

But all this is moot point—the popular mirrorless cameras are the same formats as SLR’s.

Does CIPA include fixed-lens digicams in their definition of DSLM? If so, there is probably still a rise in mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses. If not, then I would expect DSLM purchases to have risen a bit as the step-up from fixed-lens digicams, for those who want something more camera-like than a smartphone.

MILC’s have captured the zeitgeist of camera nuts at present, just as interchangeable-lens rangefinders once did in the film era. But that doesn’t mean they have become go-to cameras for pros, just as rangefinders were never more than a niche among pros starting in the 1960’s. (Not that pros really create much of a market except as exemplars for serious amateurs.) I wouldn’t want to show up to a wedding with a really compact camera, no matter how sophisticated, simply because my clients would expect something more “professional” looking, even if I’m just a dilettante doing a wedding as a favor for friends (which these days is usually the case). And for those subjects that require long lenses and fast autofocus, DSLR’s still hold a strong functional edge.

But the pace of improvement has slowed, with respect to the requirements of those soccer moms and pops who want to be sports photographers, or occasional Ansel Adams wannabes on vacation. The digital Rebel DSLR or 5D they bought a decade of more ago still works.

And more serious amateurs are far more able to upgrade on the secondary market, which is not shown in the CIPA statistics. For example, I bought a Canon 10D (the first camera that could really compete with a film SLR) when it was first on the market, then upgraded to a 5D late in its life as a current model. I was tracking large improvements in the steeper part of the technology curve. The 5D lasted me until this year, when I realized I needed higher resolution for a current project and bought a used 5DII for far less than the current model. The subsequent technological improvements wouldn’t fulfill any requirements important to me at present. I suspect I will always be 1-3 generations behind in the future, buying on the secondary market.

I’m also receiving a new 645z, which is part of why I don’t need a newer Canon, but I doubt I will ever replace it with a new model again.

Any time there is a sea change in technology, there is a buying bubble as people replace obsolete stuff. Now that changes are becoming evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the bubble is deflating. This is to be expected. Mirrorless is a way to create a new bubble, but it is not really a sea change, so the bubble’s hump doesn’t overcome the general downward trend in camera purchases. The smartphone-as-competent-camera has also been a sea change, generally supplanting fixed-lens digicams, but that is a byproduct of a much bigger personal electronics bubble that sustains itself through software obsolescence.

I like the way the 5th-order polynomial regressions filter out the time series effects to expose the underlying trends.

Back to that zeitgeist. I confess I don’t get it. But then I’ve never been a minimalist. Everyone swoons over the Fuji mirrorless medium-format camera, and complains that the Pentax 645 lenses aren’t good enough, when those lenses were more than good enough to make stunning large prints from film—larger prints than most people ever make now. So, they buy a more expensive system (newer but not because of improved sensor technology) with few lenses and adaptors to other lenses that alone cost more than several excellent old Pentax lenses. And then they swoon over the ability to adapt a mid-50’s Sonnar with its creamy bokeh but lack of edge sharpness, when they can do that on the Pentax, too. That just makes no sense to me.

Rick “zeitgeist=fad” Denney