[beholder3]

If I was going to buy a MILC right now, it would be Sony without a second thought. Too high of a likelihood Canon or Nikon gives up and leaves you stranded with an abandoned system.

Sonys profits plunged -73% last quarter compared to the year before. And Sony is a small player in the market. No reason to assume they will survive longer than anyone else.

[Winder]

Canon is obviously investing heavily in mirrorless and R&D is expensive. Canon has 4-5 more lenses planned for the next 12 month period and at least 1 more body. Sony said they would release 12 new lenses in 2019 and it looks like they will end the year with 5 new bodies (including the RX line). Sony's doing this to stay 1 step ahead of the new bodies from Canon, Nikon, & Panasonic. Anyone in the market for a mirrorless FF body is very lucky to have this many new options and some rather low-price points.


Sony and Fuji both seem to be doing pretty well as far as actual sales. Products life the GFX-100 (pre-ordered 2x expectations) and Sony lenses like the 135mm & 24mm GM have been on back-order since they were released. How profitable they are, nobody here knows, but they are selling very well.


The Sony A7R4 was simply a way for Sony to stay one step ahead of the Panasonic S1R and Nikon Z7. More resolution, better AF, more native glass in a smaller package. Sony still has the sensor and AF tech advantage..... and those are the most important 2.

[surfar]

the GFX-100 (pre-ordered 2x expectations)

Ive seen 3x, but also 2x(but only once).Whatever it is,the bigger(than FF) BSI sensor with the quadcore processor has made an impact!

The Sony A7R4 was simply a way for Sony to stay one step ahead

Perhaps more, it will take the others a year (give or take) to match R4.Mind you,Canon is the sleeper here.They have left that 3500-4000 buck segment alone so far.

[stevebrot]

new entrants like Panasonic,

??????

Were they ever anything but?


Steve

[Winder]

Ive seen 3x, but also 2x(but only once).Whatever it is,the bigger(than FF) BSI sensor with the quadcore processor has made an impact!



Perhaps more, it will take the others a year (give or take) to match R4.Mind you,Canon is the sleeper here.They have left that 3500-4000 buck segment alone so far.

I think Sony has a pretty good idea what Canon is capable of. From what I have read Canon dual-pixel AF takes a lot more processing power than PDAF which equals "slower" and the smaller the pixels the more it struggles in low-light. Canon could move away from that technology, but it works really well for video where people typically control their light. On sensor PDAF is faster and more accurate with less resources (cheaper). Canon's dual-pixel and Panasonics CDAF both need a lot more processing power and faster processors to match the speed and accuracy = More expensive.

[surfar]

Fuji for me. I got a chance to play with an XT-2 a couple of weeks ago and I very nearly bought it.

At half the release price,its a bargain.A cheap dumb adapter and away you go.

Also the bargain based Fuji glass is excellent.

---------- Post added 07-30-19 at 07:30 AM ----------

I think Sony has a pretty good idea

They are setting some standards,for sure.Lets wait and see though.Canon patents lots of tech,it'll be interesting(when) if the quadpixel focus comes soon?

[biz-engineer]

Were they ever anything but?

Panasonic weren't offering a full frame camera lineup. Now they are, so that's one more alternative choice for customers and potentially less camera units sold by other brands.

---------- Post added 29-07-19 at 23:12 ----------

And many people are not interested in carrying a camera and bag anymore.

The response to this, was by Sony, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic to release mirror-less camera system with bigger lenses. Super!
At least the Ricoh GRIII is more logical camera concept, since you can have it is a pocket or wallet, although it competes with phones, GRIII has is better image quality.

[BigMackCam]

Im having some holiday time. I was at a small zoo in France yesterday. Really only some family visitors and no large crowds. So there was only one mom with a camera and all others had a smartphone. Try to sell some camera's in this world.....

These days, I think the majority of the market for interchangeable lens cameras is enthusiasts and professionals. Smart phones are perfectly adequate - good, even - for casual, non-specialist photography at one focal length (or, with a couple of astronomically expensive phones, two focal lengths), and they're remarkably capable. But when you want to take (real) shallow-depth-of-field portraits, control field of view at set distances without compromising on resolution, capture every visible star in the night sky, take a macro shot of a nervous insect without being so close as to scare it away, control multiple external strobes, photograph a bird of prey as it captures a fish, or a couple of stag deer fighting, document a sporting event, etc... basically, anything beyond the mundane, that's when the "smart phones are good enough" argument falls apart. But most moms (and pops) won't ever care about those things, and for them, a phone will do the job. Just as, back in the film days, they'd be perfectly well-served by a basic 110 film camera rather than, say, an ME Super...

[stevebrot]

Panasonic weren't offering a full frame camera lineup.

Oh...I thought you wrote mirrorless.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Im having some holiday time. I was at a small zoo in France yesterday. Really only some family visitors and no large crowds. So there was only one mom with a camera and all others had a smartphone.

I was at the zoo a few weeks ago and also part of the weekday crowd at Mt. Rainier last week and was fairly impressed by the number of ILCs (probably one of four parties at the zoo and easily half the people at Rainier), most of which were consumer-level Nikon and Canon SLRs with a smattering of Lumix, Olympus, and Sony mirrorless (mostly non-FF). Yes, there were plenty of phone cams in use, but "real" cameras were far from sparse.

I might mention that the Mt. Rainier crowd was heavy with tourists from all over the globe. I might also mention that I saw my first "in the wild" Lumix S1 around the neck of a British tourist who stopped to chat for a bit.


Steve

[c.a.m]

... basically, anything beyond the mundane, that's when the "smart phones are good enough" argument falls apart. But most moms (and pops) won't ever care about those things, and for them, a phone will do the job. Just as, back in the film days, they'd be perfectly well-served by a basic 110 film camera rather than, say, an ME Super...

Coincidentally, this afternoon we had a Skype call with our son, who just returned from a week-long vacation with his partner and friends in the Caribbean. He was happy to show his pictures and videos -- all taken with his iPhone-something -- of the beaches, the boats, the drinks, the city sights, the friends, etc. The images were fine for their intended use and the videos were clear and focused. The smart phone's camera serves his purpose very well. He's going to collect pics and vids from the other five vacationers to make a video production.

So, here's a real-life example of a piece of gear that works great for this type of setting. I don't think there was any interest in taking high-quality images of architecture or local birds and lizards, or getting publication-quality food shots. Underwater shots of fish? One of the guys brought a waterproof case for his smart phone!

As for the Moms and Pops of yesteryear, all of my own childhood and teen-aged pictures were taken with a Kodak Instamatic -- either a 126 or 110 -- and printed in that glorious 4x6-inch format. However, good enough for the memories they prompt today.

Nowadays, my wife is quite happy to take snaps of our grown 'kids' with her iPhone, which she can readily share on social media, upload to her computer as wallpaper, or store on her hard drive (backed-up, of course). On vacations, I'll still be setting up my tripod while she's already taken a few shots, sent them to the kids and received their replies. And me? "Just a moment, honey, I'm still composing. I'll have a few pictures ready when I get back home and do my post-processing..."

No doubt, the cameras in today's connected smart phones are 'good enough' for most users, perfect for many, and preferable to a stand-alone ILC that they would likely find clunky and complicated.

ILC camera makers continue to produce equipment that is simply not desired by a large group of users -- folks like my son or wife who just want to take decent snapshots of their lives. They're not photo hobbyists or pros. Furthermore, their 'cameras' are ultimately portable; the interface is dirt-simple; and they're always at hand.

It's no wonder that the market is dropping across the board.


- Craig

[BigMackCam]

As for the Moms and Pops of yesteryear, all of my own childhood and teen-aged pictures were taken with a Kodak Instamatic -- either a 126 or 110 -- and printed in that glorious 4x6-inch format. Good enough for the memories they prompt today.

The first camera I ever owned was a birthday gift from my parents, bought for me some time in the late 1970s. It, too, was a Kodak Instamatic 110 Although it was officially mine, like everything else owned by anyone in the family, it became (to some extent) shared depending on the situation and need, so it was used by my Mum, Dad and I for general holiday snaps, most of which came out just fine. But I remember going on a school day trip to Edinburgh one year, and around early afternoon we visited a public park absolutely over-run with grey squirrels that were very used to people. I took almost an entire roll (er, cartridge) of shots of the squirrels. A week later, after I picked up my developed film and prints, I clearly remember my disappointment with the photos... the squirrels were barely visible in the frame - due, of course, to the wide angle lens. If smart phones had existed back then, I believe I'd have got similar results...

[Rondec]

The point isn't that the ILC market is dying, it just has slowed considerably. Folks who probably didn't belong buying ILCs (they just wanted something for snaps) ended up with them when cell phone cameras were terrible and they aren't buying them now. And people who bought T5is and D5300s, are still using them and the fact that there is a raft of new MILCs hitting the market has not suddenly made their cameras give up the ghost.

Overall this is probably a good thing. The idea that every couple of years someone would dump their 2 year old camera in a landfill or sell it for a ridiculous discount simply because something newer was coming out wasn't sustainable. People are replacing when they truly need something new and shooting with what they have till then.

With this said, there is no reason to believe that this is a temporary down turn rather than a new normal. Camera brands should plan as though camera sales will be a fraction of what they were in the glory days. I don't entirely know what that means, but probably a mixture of slower release schedules combined with smaller numbers of cameras manufactured for an initial run.

[TaoMaas]

You are right that camera technology has matured to the point that people don't need to upgrade as often.

However, I doubt the video can bring in many new users.

Smartphones are an even bigger threat to the video camera world than they are to the still camera world. Small-sensor devices are superior for video -- it's easier to read a small sensor extremely fast (and harder to do so with a big sensor).

Yes...and no. Smartphones do an amazing job with both video and stills these days and no doubt they will be all most folks need. But there's an industrial-use side to this. Newspapers who need their still photographers to be able to shoot video for the website along with stills for the paper. TV stations who are looking to cut their equipment costs while expanding their look and capabilities. Corporations who can now afford to have their own in-house production group, where they had to always farm out that work in the past. Small production companies that start up because equipment that can give professional level results is no longer prohibitively expensive. Smartphones aren't going to work for those folks. It's hard to charge big bucks to shoot someone's wedding and show up with only a smartphone regardless of how well that phone might do stills and video. In my job, my bosses wanted to go mirrorless because they liked the extremely shallow depth of field look that one of our freelancers was getting. Yesterday was my first time to do a couple of entire shoots with our new gear. I gotta tell you guys...it was a game-changing experience. Where I was used to hauling in a huge cart full of gear for my shoots, we were able to walk in yesterday with just the camera, tripod, and a small bag of extras (microphones, headphones, extra lens, battery, etc...). All I'm really trying to say here is that I think we may be looking at the MILC trend too much from a still photography perspective. In my camera club, things are not all that different from when I first joined the club about 40 years ago. Sure, digital has made major changes in post processing and things, but by and large it's very similar to the film days. But on the video side of my world, ILCs have been changing everything. However, I will admit that side has leveled off since folks first discovered you could shoot good video on a Canon 5D. More folks are moving to MILCs, but the technology hasn't really made great leaps. So maybe that's part of why growth has stagnated for the camera companies.

[Mistral75]

Sonys profits plunged -73% last quarter compared to the year before. And Sony is a small player in the market. No reason to assume they will survive longer than anyone else.

Small player indeed:

• N°1 of the global compact camera market (revenue) since 2018
• N°2 of the global ILC market (revenue) since 2018
• N°1 of the global mirrorless camera market (revenue and units) since 2010
• N°1 of the global 24x36 camera market (revenue and units) since 2018.