[Class A]

Don't get that feeling from reading DPhipster

Do you mean DPReview?

For some reason they are pushing small mirrorless cameras as if there were no tomorrow.
They are even happy to publish misleading articles and make biased presentations to this end.

Hopefully the market will keep responding as it has been, i.e., by strongly voting for OVF and large sensor options.

[Clavius]

Do you mean DPReview?

For some reason they are pushing small mirrorless cameras as if there were no tomorrow.
They are even happy to publish misleading articles and make biased presentations to this end.

Hopefully the market will keep responding as it has been, i.e., by strongly voting for OVF and large sensor options.

...But the market is voting for mirrorless: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/76-non-pentax-cameras-canon-nikon-etc/296...ra-market.html

[kadajawi]

I agree. It's a good feature to distinguish the K-3 II from the herd, but in it's current implementation, has some practical limitations that rule it out for daily use. It's like the K-3 HDR mode, or the AA Simulator on/off feature, or even (in my case) the video feature of the K-3. Good to have on-board if needed, but not often (if ever) used.

As it evolves though, I can see pixel-shift becoming more handy on a day-to-day basis, maybe to the point of just leaving the camera in that mode all the time. But at the moment it is only a v1.0 product, IMHO.

Yup. I can see me using it regularly when it is fast enough for handheld operation... say if the SR can be active while using it, and it is really fast. No need for the processing in camera. Otherwise... once in a while, but limited usefulness. Composition adjustment is more important for me (bracketing Pentax! Please!). And to be honest I am perfectly happy with 16 MP WITH AA filter, any of these cameras have enough resolution. If I do want more I can use my 50mm with my panoramic head and achieve a MF look at the same time, if I want.

[Class A]

...But the market is voting for mirrorless: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/76-non-pentax-cameras-canon-nikon-etc/296...ra-market.html

Is it?

Just as the DPReview article. your sources quote relative changes, ignoring the still existing gap in absolute figures.

Here are two responses from readers to the DPReview article:

Timbukto:

I have been busy with work, but sorry DPReview staff, the paraphrasing of the PR is misleading at best, but really from a financial reporting point of view an absolute butchering. The PR states 66% increase in *SALES* for mirrorless. This can be a WORLD of difference from 66% boost of income!

In addition an increase of 16.5% in mirrorless with a decline of 15% in DSLR is not in any way a *SURGE*. Again it requires someone with some financial acumen. Lets say DSLR's sold about 1 million units during a shopping season month last year, and mirrorless sold about 250k. A decline of 15% in DSLRs is pretty horrific, but an increase of 16.5% in MILC is pretty measly as well and indicates still the overall *weakness* of the entire market. I am in no way a CPA or hedge fund manager, but the paraphrasing should be scrapped...at this point, just say here is the Sony PR release and leave it at that. I think Bythom may give a more fair assessment of this PR, but as it is now, its butchered.

JustmeMN:

CIPA's latest (January-April 2015) worldwide figures don't show any great surge in mirrorless shipments. To the contrary, they show mirrorless shipments falling slightly faster than DSLR shipments.

By value, DSLR is 98.2%, and mirrorless is 91.0% for the January-April time period, compared to the same time period last year. By units it's 93.4% and 91.6%.

I have no interest in digging up reports, trying to interpret opaque numbers, etc. There is nothing I can do to change anything anyhow.

However DPReview have been pushing mirrorless cameras for quite a while with quite some intent now that it looks fishy to me. Just like all those popular internet photographers that promote Fuji cameras not explicitly disclosing any connection to Fuji but receiving benefits from Fuji nevertheless.

[Clavius]

Is it?

Just as the DPReview article. your sources quote relative changes, ignoring the still existing gap in absolute figures.

Here are two responses from readers to the DPReview article:

Timbukto:

I have been busy with work, but sorry DPReview staff, the paraphrasing of the PR is misleading at best, but really from a financial reporting point of view an absolute butchering. The PR states 66% increase in *SALES* for mirrorless. This can be a WORLD of difference from 66% boost of income!

In addition an increase of 16.5% in mirrorless with a decline of 15% in DSLR is not in any way a *SURGE*. Again it requires someone with some financial acumen. Lets say DSLR's sold about 1 million units during a shopping season month last year, and mirrorless sold about 250k. A decline of 15% in DSLRs is pretty horrific, but an increase of 16.5% in MILC is pretty measly as well and indicates still the overall *weakness* of the entire market. I am in no way a CPA or hedge fund manager, but the paraphrasing should be scrapped...at this point, just say here is the Sony PR release and leave it at that. I think Bythom may give a more fair assessment of this PR, but as it is now, its butchered.

JustmeMN:

CIPA's latest (January-April 2015) worldwide figures don't show any great surge in mirrorless shipments. To the contrary, they show mirrorless shipments falling slightly faster than DSLR shipments.

By value, DSLR is 98.2%, and mirrorless is 91.0% for the January-April time period, compared to the same time period last year. By units it's 93.4% and 91.6%.

I have no interest in digging up reports, trying to interpret opaque numbers, etc. There is nothing I can do to change anything anyhow.

However DPReview have been pushing mirrorless cameras for quite a while with quite some intent now that it looks fishy to me. Just like all those popular internet photographers that promote Fuji cameras not explicitly disclosing any connection to Fuji but receiving benefits from Fuji nevertheless.

Is DPReview "pushing" mirrorless or are they just going with the flow? Or anticipating on market changes? The post you provided seem very "in-denial".

[mecrox]

Is it?

Just as the DPReview article. your sources quote relative changes, ignoring the still existing gap in absolute figures.

Here are two responses from readers to the DPReview article:

Timbukto:

I have been busy with work, but sorry DPReview staff, the paraphrasing of the PR is misleading at best, but really from a financial reporting point of view an absolute butchering. The PR states 66% increase in *SALES* for mirrorless. This can be a WORLD of difference from 66% boost of income!

In addition an increase of 16.5% in mirrorless with a decline of 15% in DSLR is not in any way a *SURGE*. Again it requires someone with some financial acumen. Lets say DSLR's sold about 1 million units during a shopping season month last year, and mirrorless sold about 250k. A decline of 15% in DSLRs is pretty horrific, but an increase of 16.5% in MILC is pretty measly as well and indicates still the overall *weakness* of the entire market. I am in no way a CPA or hedge fund manager, but the paraphrasing should be scrapped...at this point, just say here is the Sony PR release and leave it at that. I think Bythom may give a more fair assessment of this PR, but as it is now, its butchered.

JustmeMN:

CIPA's latest (January-April 2015) worldwide figures don't show any great surge in mirrorless shipments. To the contrary, they show mirrorless shipments falling slightly faster than DSLR shipments.

By value, DSLR is 98.2%, and mirrorless is 91.0% for the January-April time period, compared to the same time period last year. By units it's 93.4% and 91.6%.

I have no interest in digging up reports, trying to interpret opaque numbers, etc. There is nothing I can do to change anything anyhow.

However DPReview have been pushing mirrorless cameras for quite a while with quite some intent now that it looks fishy to me. Just like all those popular internet photographers that promote Fuji cameras not explicitly disclosing any connection to Fuji but receiving benefits from Fuji nevertheless.

I'd have thought the market is voting decisively for no camera at all, seeing as how precipitously sales have fallen over the past few years. I don't think it makes a blind bit of different whether Sony issue an A7RII or Nikon issue a D810 or Pentax a K1 FF. Only a rapidly shrinking number of people are interested in cameras which are really just footling iterations of stuff most folks long ago decided they didn't want or need, now that they have a smartphone in their pocket and don't have to invest in something predicated on owning a computer on which to process images. Swathes of the world have leapfrogged PCs altogether and gone straight to tablets and smartphones anyway. MILC vs DSLR, OVF vs EVF, Canon vs Nikon - it's all arguing over scraps. For folks who aren't squillionaires, which I take to be most of us, I suspect the best option is to be brand agnostic and buy second hand or on special offer. Almost all of the stuff is destined for the chop anyway. Does anyone really think that in 5-10 years' time the imaging divisions of Nikon, Fuji, Sony, Ricoh et al will remotely resemble what they are today? Some, I suspect, will have gone to the wall, unable to surmount their innate conservatism and design a device that folks might want today rather than fifteen years ago. That includes devious marketeers who issue BS statistics to cover up that their brand isn't doing all that well, in fact.

Well, that's your daily helping of doom and if folks would like more doom I'd suggest sending me $10 a head and I'll see what I can do by way of The Daily Doomster, the place where hope meets the dumpster. I might even be able to afford a new camera if enough people bite

[RobA_Oz]

Somebody put it very concisely here, a while ago. What we're probably seeing now is a correction in the market for advanced cameras, back to the enthusiast market, as it generally was in the film era. People who have no substantial interest in photography bought DSLRs because they thought that was the way to make great photographs. Now, those people have found that it's just as easy to take a mediocre snapshot with a phone, as it is with dedicated camera.

Sony appears to have learned from Samsung, as they broadcast the number of units shipped, and pretend that it's the same as sales numbers, or more accurately leave it to the uncritical reader to conclude that it's the same.

[rawr]

Don't forget regional differences in MILC, DSLR and everything else.
The global numbers and trends may not represent what is going on in different but important camera markets (Japan, China, Europe, North America etc).

Then break the sales and revenue data up into photo industry segments too. Pros vs consumers. Something different (re mirrorless, DSLR and mobile) may be happening in each market segment.

[kadajawi]

As tablets were mentioned... PCs still vastly outsell tablets. Same with DSLR vs mirrorless. But mirrorless is picking up steam. And eventually might overtake DSLRs. I think that is likely as the advantages of DSLRs get smaller and smaller, and the advantages of mirrorless get bigger and bigger. Just look at AF performance for example. It used to be that mirrorless lags far behind. Now we are approaching even or even superior AF performance from mirrorless cameras.

[mee]

I'd like a hybrid viewfinder.. that is to say, Optical in nature but with 'on screen' heads up display of settings.

If I can't get that, at least have the bottom info bar in the viewfinder move to the bottom edge of the window depending on the orientation of the camera. That little bar is super handy (as example, when exposing for highlights on the fly.. its annoying to have to crook my head around to see the lightmeter reading when in portrait position).

---------- Post added 06-12-15 at 06:53 PM ----------

As tablets were mentioned... PCs still vastly outsell tablets. Same with DSLR vs mirrorless. But mirrorless is picking up steam. And eventually might overtake DSLRs. I think that is likely as the advantages of DSLRs get smaller and smaller, and the advantages of mirrorless get bigger and bigger. Just look at AF performance for example. It used to be that mirrorless lags far behind. Now we are approaching even or even superior AF performance from mirrorless cameras.

I believe the tablet market plateaued. much like the cellphone market.. that is to say, everyone who wants one, has one. The majority of sales, I suspect are contract upgrades or replacements.

Mirrorless only overtakes DSLRs when/if the EVF is adopted more. And that is only going to happen if manufacturers either force it on consumers or when the technology itself improves (higher resolution, better AF tracking, etc). Don't believe the hype online.. especially at the DPhipster blog.. at the picking up of steam.

Remember (again, as example) if you have 10 sales one year and 100 the next you have increased 900%. This looks incredible until you see there were 1000 cameras sold total.

[clackers]

Is DPReview "pushing" mirrorless or are they just going with the flow? Or anticipating on market changes? The post you provided seem very "in-denial".

Who knows the source of the PR figures, Clavius?

They are likely a survey of selected retailers.

Check the CIPA figures, which are the best we have (and even they don't include Samsung).

Camera shipments fell compared to 2014, and mirrorless more so than DSLRs.

The story is not straightforward.

[kadajawi]

I'd like a hybrid viewfinder.. that is to say, Optical in nature but with 'on screen' heads up display of settings.

If I can't get that, at least have the bottom info bar in the viewfinder move to the bottom edge of the window depending on the orientation of the camera. That little bar is super handy (as example, when exposing for highlights on the fly.. its annoying to have to crook my head around to see the lightmeter reading when in portrait position).

---------- Post added 06-12-15 at 06:53 PM ----------



I believe the tablet market plateaued. much like the cellphone market.. that is to say, everyone who wants one, has one. The majority of sales, I suspect are contract upgrades or replacements.

Mirrorless only overtakes DSLRs when/if the EVF is adopted more. And that is only going to happen if manufacturers either force it on consumers or when the technology itself improves (higher resolution, better AF tracking, etc). Don't believe the hype online.. especially at the DPhipster blog.. at the picking up of steam.

Remember (again, as example) if you have 10 sales one year and 100 the next you have increased 900%. This looks incredible until you see there were 1000 cameras sold total.

Sometimes an EVF is advantageous to OVFs, so the hybrid viewfinder would help in those situations too. Say when it is too dark to manually focus with an OVF (I can only do that when it is bright).

The smartphone market is far from saturated, there are billions of people without, and to whom a smartphone is even more beneficial as they don't have a computer, laptop, TV, camera, ... It was emerging markets who were the first to use phones as a payment solution.

Thing with mirrorless is that they are improving, and it is only a matter of time when they have gone beyond DSLRs, and consumers realize it.

You may think of mirrorless cameras as undersized out of balance cameras with poor ergonomics, but you can always go bigger and heavier. Manufacturers can make a 5D sized brick with the same ergonomics and weight, but mirrorless. It might be slimmer around the lens mount, but that's all. The grips can stay the same. And with all that space the screen they use could be smartphone derived, the size of the mirror, and resulting high resolution. I believe such a camera could be made today, a professional camera that can actually compete with professional DSLRs.

[atlnq9]

I'd have thought the market is voting decisively for no camera at all, seeing as how precipitously sales have fallen over the past few years. I don't think it makes a blind bit of different whether Sony issue an A7RII or Nikon issue a D810 or Pentax a K1 FF. Only a rapidly shrinking number of people are interested in cameras which are really just footling iterations of stuff most folks long ago decided they didn't want or need, now that they have a smartphone in their pocket and don't have to invest in something predicated on owning a computer on which to process images. Swathes of the world have leapfrogged PCs altogether and gone straight to tablets and smartphones anyway. MILC vs DSLR, OVF vs EVF, Canon vs Nikon - it's all arguing over scraps. For folks who aren't squillionaires, which I take to be most of us, I suspect the best option is to be brand agnostic and buy second hand or on special offer. Almost all of the stuff is destined for the chop anyway. Does anyone really think that in 5-10 years' time the imaging divisions of Nikon, Fuji, Sony, Ricoh et al will remotely resemble what they are today? Some, I suspect, will have gone to the wall, unable to surmount their innate conservatism and design a device that folks might want today rather than fifteen years ago. That includes devious marketeers who issue BS statistics to cover up that their brand isn't doing all that well, in fact.

Well, that's your daily helping of doom and if folks would like more doom I'd suggest sending me $10 a head and I'll see what I can do by way of The Daily Doomster, the place where hope meets the dumpster. I might even be able to afford a new camera if enough people bite

Is it that or is it that people have just finally figured out that their camera is good enough for everything they need and that new model with a bit more pixels or fancy feature isn't worth the cost of a new camera. I remember back to film when a body was good to fill your needs for 10yrs. In the last 5-7yrs camera manufactures have been working the consumerism and new and improved features angle to make sales more than ever before. My guess is that sales are falling back to a steady sustaining pace now that each improvement is a small incremental bump. Whoever can become the lowest cost producer will be the sustaining leader. Only big serious features like sensor tilt and shift on a K3 style body that turns every FF lens into a tilt shift lens or automatic focus bracketing, etc kind of features would stand out as huge benefits in new cameras. Not little step changes and trying to convince buyers that they have to have the next model with 55 focus points instead of 50 in their current...

Look at the new 51mp Canon; there are maybe 5 lenses out there that can perform to that level of resolution and 3 of them are manual focus and sell in the price realm of medium format lenses the others are specialised lenses like the 300 and 400mm 2.8's and then only stopped down to 6.3. Not a overly usable or cost efficient system to get the benefits of higher mp at the cost of lower dynamic range...

As tablets were mentioned... PCs still vastly outsell tablets. Same with DSLR vs mirrorless. But mirrorless is picking up steam. And eventually might overtake DSLRs. I think that is likely as the advantages of DSLRs get smaller and smaller, and the advantages of mirrorless get bigger and bigger. Just look at AF performance for example. It used to be that mirrorless lags far behind. Now we are approaching even or even superior AF performance from mirrorless cameras.

But they seriously need to solve the battery life issues. Adding a grip to a A7 to get any kind of battery life total defeats the compactness. It seems to be a combination of the power draw from the sensor/screen/evf and making tiny batteries to keep the camera body small. That and using an adapter to use half the higher quality lenses is bloody stupid. Every adapter has a tiny bit of extra weakness and slop. So what if your lenses are designed for longer registration distances; there is no reason you can't just make the solid barrel longer to make up for the shorter distance and push the glass a bit deeper into the barrel... I mean how hard is it to do that? What like an extra $2 in materials? There is still a lot of clean up to do in the mirror less realm that will be occurring over the next while to turn it into a system that melds together rather than chopped up and squished into something to get a camera to market fast before the other guy...

I just look back to the Pentax 645D when it came out and while it was a great groundbreaking camera for the price it was offered at they took way to many short cuts and kept many of them with the 645Z still even. To say you have x number of AF points when everybody else only had one then turn around and show that they are all in the centre because you hacked in the apsc line AF into a medium format frame is absurd. Or to totally miss the ball on teathering (which is moot for most but a deal breaker to those that need it). Or not be able to meet the dates you set on modern lens design published in roadmaps. All of these are things Pentax needs to spend significant focus on when bring out a full frame. The best thing they could do would be to partner with Sigma on lenses who is doing an outstanding job recently; producing many lenses outperforming Nikon and Canons own. That lets them focus on all the details of the camera body so it comes out right the first time and is this ground breaking yet still traditional enough to draw in sales.

What about touch screen top and rear LCDs but keeping all the dials and functions for quick shutter speed changes, etc. Phase One just did it. It is traditional in since of dslr's but still ground breaking new. Or interchangeable viewfinders; traditional to film but ground breaking to dslrs. Use the 51mp CMOS 645 sensor so one can decide after the shot to go vertical or landscape without any loss; yes there is waisted pixels in the corners and it would make a round picture but you could crop square out of it taking the corners right to the edge of the circle, or choose portrait or landscape, or fix a crooked horizon, etc. Lots of thoughts out their to make a more photographers camera than a engineers camera. Pentax has a good history of thinking about the photographer in their designs...

[kadajawi]

Sony wants to be as slim as possible. For that they sacrifice ergonomics. The cameras that followed the A7 fixed that a bit. To be honest I don't mind adapters. Having a very short flange distance has a big advantage. Compatibility with almost every lens ever made. That is huge IMHO. Adapters can be pretty good, and they allow Sony to make the camera compatible with mounts they would never ever get the license for. Do you think Sony would get the license to make a Canon or Nikon mount camera? But their own mount + third party adapters from Chinese companies who don't give a rat's ass about copyrights? That is possible. For me K mount was a downside to the K-01... I just with to have the options open.

I think at this point stills capabilities have matured so much that any DSLR or mirrorless will do for most. Video is where there are huge differences... enough perhaps to make the difference even to customers that aren't particularly interested in video (maybe they will be several years down the road?).

[disconnekt]

The best thing they could do would be to partner with Sigma on lenses who is doing an outstanding job recently; producing many lenses outperforming Nikon and Canons own. That lets them focus on all the details of the camera body so it comes out right the first time and is this ground breaking yet still traditional enough to draw in sales.

I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon. Sigma even said that the K-mount is pretty much a low priority for them right now.