[Dan Rentea]

I really wonder what the point of using an EOS R with an adapter when you can use a 5DIV without adapter and with better AF servo tracking.

For action 5D Mark IV is better than EOS R. At corporate events where I don't need 7fps... It's a tough choice. It's faster to change af points with touch screen than it is with joystick and EOS is lighter and smaller also than 5D Mark IV. Files are too similar to count in making a decision. The 2 slot cards from 5D Mark IV are hard to ignore... The flip screen from EOS R is also hard to ignore... EOS R is also cheaper than 5D Mark IV and it can be a great backup for 5D Mark IV. I would have a hard time to pick a second 5D Mark IV or a 6D Mark II as a backup camera as long as EOS R is so fun to shoot with (except EVF, but this is a small problem of mine with the EVFs from all cameras; they give me headaches).

---------- Post added 04-28-19 at 03:23 PM ----------

Nothing mentioned about Olympus. Their newly released super MFT started @ just under $3000. With it's built-in lower hand grip it weighs as much as a K1, and despite its whiz-bang features, IMHO the price and weight totally negate the purpose and attractiveness of MFT. I suspect and predict it will be a marketing failure.

I don't know where Oly is going with micro 4/3. I'm not sure either how much market share will gain Panasonic by going full frame or if they sell enough of the new released cameras in order to invest in developing new models... It's becoming a crowded market for mirrorless, that's for sure. We will have to adapt to the new trends with artificial inteligence and who knows what manufacturers will bring to the market.

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Last edited by Dan Rentea; 04-28-2019 at 08:25 AM.

[RGlasel]

So just a little suggestion to camera manufacturers: instead of trying to so hard to grab the dwindling market of middle-aged blokes who love obsessing over the technical minutiae of lenses and sensors in online forae, why not focus on the seemingly huge potential market of women who want cameras that let them express their creativity through photography without having to become camera nerds?And no, I'm not going to offer any suggestions about what sort of cameras it is that women really want. Camera manufacturers could always, you know, ask them. . .

This may be the only market left for camera manufacturers to pursue. I don't have the link handy, but CIPA did a breakdown by gender for the Japanese market since the nineties and female buyers of ILCs have grown from just over 2% of the market to more than 20% of the market, so in theory there is an opportunity for niche products. The overall market has declined so much that there are still fewer female buyers today than 5 years ago, but it seems to me that if a manufacturer could dominate this market by offering products geared to women, we would already be seeing those womanized cameras. The Japanese market is not exactly the same as the rest of the world (I couldn't see evidence of "soccer moms" ever impacting the Japanese market), but in general, camera manufacturers seem to have tried everything possible to attract "lost" camera buyers and it hasn't worked.

[Papa_Joe]

Why did Canon and Nikon go for FF mirrorless? My guess is, they wanted to stay in the market with mirrorless ILC cameras. Their attemps to get a marketshare of the sensible market segment of small mirrorless ILC failed with the Nikon 1 and Canon M system. Now they are going for full frame in the hope to get the investment back through the higher margins in the full frame market.

I think both companies are just anxious to lose their market shares if they are not going to stay in the mirrorless segment. And I think they allready lost that to Sony and MFT. Sony consequently followed the route to mirrorless at all costs and it did pay of. They have only mirrorless over the full range with all the advantages of concentrating on one technology. MTF saw that they can not hold against the APC SLR cameras and consequently followed the way into mirrorless ILC consumer cameras with both trying to have their share of the upper ILC market segment. I can see no such strategy on the side of Nikon and Canon yet.

Pentax going into mirrorless would certainly not be a good idea now. What they could do safely they tried with the q-system and the K-01. Every other try would result in investments in new techology, where the pay of would be quite unsure. Bringing the K-1 to market was the only chance to get into a new market segment and I hope they get enough money back from it to keep it up.

To get women to buy a camera is quite easy. Design a camera, that is so small you can carry it in a pocket of your trouser and which has a phone built in. They just want to take pictures easily, everywhere at anytime without carrying big equipment or extra equipment at all. I can not see any camera manufacturer doing such a camera.

EDIT: Can not say anything to Fuji X, as I somehow missed their development to the mirrorless market completely.

[beholder3]

Why did Canon and Nikon go for FF mirrorless? My guess is, they wanted to stay in the market with mirrorless ILC cameras. Their attemps to get a marketshare of the sensible market segment of small mirrorless ILC failed with the Nikon 1 and Canon M system. Now they are going for full frame in the hope to get the investment back through the higher margins in the full frame market.

I think both companies are just anxious to lose their market shares if they are not going to stay in the mirrorless segment. And I think they allready lost that to Sony and MFT.

mFT is dying, so Canikon did not loose anything on that front, actually it can be assumed Canon M is more cucessful as the whole of mFT. Panasonic at best times had a market share equal to Pentax and Olympus has been in free fall and deep red the last few years.

Sony lost 1/3 of the market to Canikon in a single year (that is a gamechanger for them) and that is the reason their profits plunge. With growing sales figures in Q4 Sonys profits fell by -73% and that is telling a story about their business model, since certainly this can not be attributed to selling fewer P&S.

Canon and the two smaller players Nikon and Sony will have to fight it out and this now obviously will become much more agressive than in the past when they could grow profits by pricing higher. That part has hit the ceiling.

[WPRESTO]

Interesting to me, Canikon went mirrorless in exactly the way I have been advocating several years for Pentax = a new lens mount with a large diameter and very short registration distance, and an adapter that allows all possible functions with SLR & DSLR legacy lenses. For Canon, who long ago went to all-electronic control of lens functions, it was a snap. For Pentax, with the mechanical diaphragm lever, it's more of a problem but surely it could be done with some kind of in-adapter servo or magnetic motor.

I've gone to MFT mirrorless largely because of size & weight, but several advantages came with the partial switch: 1) no problems with custom AF focus adjustment on every lens; 2) focus peaking, with enlarged view if desired, through the viewfinder (I use it for close ups, but it can also serve as an extremely reliable focus aid for manual-focus lenses); 3) electronic shutter, totally quiet, zero vibration, with speeds to 1/16000 or 1/32,000 depending on camera body.

[clackers]

And I think they allready lost that to Sony and MFT. Sony consequently followed the route to mirrorless at all costs and it did pay of. They have only mirrorless over the full range with all the advantages of concentrating on one technology. MTF saw that they can not hold against the APC SLR cameras and consequently followed the way into mirrorless ILC consumer cameras with both trying to have their share of the upper ILC market segment.

Sony have tumbled too, PJ, and Olympus are a financial disaster! Not sure how Panasonic are going, Canon and Nikon have invested a huge amount of money at the wrong time.

These are not role models for Pentax.

[beholder3]

I guess the question about who from Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji is going to drop out first is pretty much all about who has the most aggressive investors.

Fuji's analogue film camera business is subsidizing their not very successful DSLMs, so I guess Fuji will stay.

Nikon has obsolutely nothing else, so they simply have to fight until the last employee is fired.

Sony, Olympus, Panasonic all are at highest risk I guess. They all can quickly shut down divisions.

[house]

A mirrorless price war is going to make Pentax look less attractive. Recent reviews of the dfa 50 does suggest they might be able to go upmarket though.

Mirrorless looks more and more like a con to cut cost and increase prices. Will be interesting to see how low they can go in a price war.

[Mistral75]

(...)

Nikon has absolutely nothing else, so they simply have to fight until the last employee is fired.

(...)

??? Nikon's 'Imaging Products Business' represents 46% of their revenue and 42% of their operating profit, so roughly half of the company and not its entirety.

[WPRESTO]

??? Nikon's 'Imaging Products Business' represents 46% of their revenue and 42% of their operating profit, so roughly half of the company and not its entirety.

Nikon makes a variety of precision, high quality optical devices other than cameras - microscopes for a trivial example. Olympus has been a respected name in microscopes as well, although I do not know their current status with such products

[clackers]

Interesting to me, Canikon went mirrorless in exactly the way I have been advocating several years for Pentax = a new lens mount with a large diameter and very short registration distance, and an adapter that allows all possible functions with SLR & DSLR legacy lenses.

Sure, but the sales haven't been there - they've been punished for doing it in the short term. AFAIK these mirrorless FF are inferior to the excellent DSLRs they're based on - the 5D Mk IV and the D850. In the long term they'll get better, but in the long term even Canon say the market will *halve* from what it is now.

For Canon, who long ago went to all-electronic control of lens functions, it was a snap. For Pentax, with the mechanical diaphragm lever, it's more of a problem but surely it could be done with some kind of in-adapter servo or magnetic motor.

Did you know Pentax has released electronic aperture, Wpresto? It's called KAF4 and the DFA*50 is an example of such a lens.

[WPRESTO]

Did you know Pentax has released electronic aperture, Wpresto? It's called KAF4 and the DFA*50 is an example of such a lens.

Yes I did know that, but Canon did it a long time ago so the number of Canon & aftermarket lenses that will provide full function (critically aperture control and AF) on a Canon mirrorless is enormous, more than will provide AF & aperture control on a Pentax DSLR.

[reh321]

Yes I did know that, but Canon did it a long time ago so the number of Canon & aftermarket lenses that will provide full function (critically aperture control and AF) on a Canon mirrorless is enormous, more than will provide AF & aperture control on a Pentax DSLR.

In fact, I have many more EF lenses {I think I retained 4 when I gave up Canon and returned to Pentax in 2015} than KAF4 lenses {I have the 55-300 PLM lens}

[clackers]

Yes I did know that, but Canon did it a long time ago so the number of Canon & aftermarket lenses that will provide full function (critically aperture control and AF) on a Canon mirrorless is enormous, more than will provide AF & aperture control on a Pentax DSLR.

True, but from a viability of the company position, even Canon want you to buy the new lenses for the new camera, not reuse old ones. They are real desperate for cash, just like Pentax, just the number of zeroes at the end is different!

I'm not sure that you can even get their existing M series mirrorless lenses (which are also entirely electronic for focus and aperture) working on their new R series mirrorless cameras, it's as if they never existed!

[Rondec]

It is hard to be third or fourth in a party and Nikon and Canon follow on the heels of Sony, Olympus, Fuji and Panasonic, all of whom have had mirrorless cameras out for years. It is hard to differentiate yourself in that sort of setting. I think they are trying to do it by having interesting and unusual lens offerings and obviously now, having some price cuts. Certainly it isn't a panacea.

Having a new mount does have some negatives. Yes, you can continue to use your old lenses (with an adapter), but you could do the same with a Sony mirrorless camera. In addition, many of the mirrorless camera lens offerings are smaller and so you don't get as much of a size advantage if you stick with your old lenses. The biggest negatives for those who continue to shoot with the legacy mount SLRs is that if they read the tea leaves, they may see that at some point down the road, their mounts may become obsolete. Certainly that won't happen overnight, but Sony doesn't really make A Mount cameras any more and the same could happen to Canon and Nikon.

Maybe the last point is that people just aren't replacing cameras as often. If you have a D7000 and don't shoot 4K video, newer cameras probably don't actually have that much appeal and you can figure out other things to do with your money than just buy new camera gear.

I am sure there are going to be tough times ahead for a lot of the camera divisions of these various companies.