Roger's Corner

Whose Camera Will I Buy in 2018?

Published June 10, 2013

I’m not really sure why, but if you want to watch the Fanboys go completely insane, the simplest thing to do it is throw out “your brand is probably going to be out of business in a few years.” But the simple reality is that’s what happens to most companies eventually, especially technology companies. Photography companies, since, oh, about 1850, have basically been technology companies.

The Non-Profit Industry

Reality is reality, no matter how much people want to deny it. Anyone who thinks the camera industry as a whole is thriving needs to up their medication.

There are lots of reasons that explain why the camera industry is weak. Camera phones are taking over from point-and-shoot cameras. Reportage photography is dying, replaced by cell phone pictures and stills clipped from video footage. And on and on. But knowing why only matters if understanding why allows you to adjust. Otherwise, why is just an excuse for the shareholder’s meeting.

Only two camera manufacturers (or camera divisions of big companies) made a profit in 2012: Canon and Nikon. A few, like Sony and Fuji, seemed to be about breaking even. Some, like Olympus, took a beating. Every camera company, including Canon and Nikon, had expanding inventories, which is generally a sign of either weaker than expected sales, or poor management, or both.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not running around like some people deciding which brands will be gone in 2014. I don’t think that at all. There are other companies in the imaging industry that appear to be doing just fine, so it can be done. RED, Black Magic, Sigma, Tamron, and Zeiss all seem to be growing and expanding markets, and those that release financial information are making a nice profit.

Photography isn’t dying, it’s simply changing. When that happens some companies (often the smaller ones) change and survive. Others (often the larger, historically more successful ones) milk their cash cows as long as they can, then close their doors. Brand new companies see opportunities where others see only disaster, come in with fresh ideas, and make a splash. I don’t know which companies are going to do what, but I know that things are going to look different in a few years.

It’s almost impossible to predict how a given company is going to do in a transition period. Take a look at the audio industry. For 50 years (from roughly 1930 to 1980) if you wanted to listen to music you played a record on a turntable or listened to the radio. New technology, like cassette and 8-track tapes, shook things up a bit in the early 1970s and soon after that CDs and digital audio became the next big thing. During that transition, many of the same companies that had been making radios and record players were still in the game, but the industry was being shaken up.

A lot of people figured out that RCA might struggle to change with the times. (I love this analogy, because it was RCA, way back in 1966, that first stated that the future of audio was in binary digital sound. Sort of like Kodak developed the first digital camera.) Certainly a few people thought that mighty and innovative Sony, with their Walkman tape and CD players, might come to dominate the audio market. If not them, then Philips, JVC, or one of the other Compact Disc wizardry companies would certainly become dominant.

The cutting-edge Sony Walkman of 1981, complete with belt-pack battery. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

But even the most insane dreamer would never have considered that Apple computer, who in the 1970s was selling this at small trade shows, would be dominating the audio market in 25 years.

Apple I computer in wooden case. Courtesy WIkepedia Commons

 

Or if you don’t like my audio analogy, take a look at television manufacturers. I like that analogy, too, because I can clearly remember Sony Trinitron fanboys who knew, absolutely knew, that Sony would always dominate the high-end television market with their Trinitron cathode-ray tube sets. No videophile would ever consider an LCD or plasma set. That was a decade ago, folks, not back in the dark ages. A decade ago nobody would have thought of buying a Vizio television because they didn’t exist.

Going back to the camera industry, I don’t know much, but I do know two things: 1) the companies in the camera industry haven’t really changed much (other than juggling for position) for a really long time, and 2) change is inevitable in every industry.

Who Is Too Big to Fail?

I hear this argument all the time from Fanboys, “my company is too big to fail!!!” Nobody is too big to fail. Ask Kodak or Polaroid.

The Corporations

But I do find it interesting to look at how large the various companies are. First, let’s list the corporations involved in imaging by revenue (numbers are in billions of U. S. dollars). These numbers are from corporate reports, mostly 2012, but I converted yen and won to U. S. dollars using exchange rates from today — some months after the reports were issued. I’m not trying to do an accounting article here, just painting with a broad brush.

 Revenue (Billions)
SAMSUNG$247.00
Panasonic$99.00
Sony$82.00
CANON$44.50
Fuji$28.00
Ricoh (Pentax)$24.00
NIKON$9.80
Olympus$7.40
ZEISS$5.40
TAMRON$0.65
Sigma$0.33
LEICA$0.18

The companies in bold, all-caps in the table above were all quite profitable in 2012. The one in italics (Pansonic) lost significant money. The others either were either near break-even, too confusing to say (Olympus), or private companies that don’t release income (Sigma). Leica recently became a private company, but did release financial results a year ago.

The Imaging Divisions

Since we’re interested in imaging, we really should look at the imaging division revenues for these companies. (For Samsung and Panasonic, I had trouble finding exactly what their imaging revenues are; it’s such a small fraction I couldn’t find it listed separately in the annual reports.) For several of the other companies, Canon, Panasonic, and Sony, imaging includes photo and video equipment, probably plus some other things.

  Imaging Revenue (Billions) % of all rev.
Canon$14.0031%
Sony$7.309%
Nikon$6.00 61%
Panasonic$3.403%
Fuji$3.2011%
Ricoh (Pentax)$1.305%
Olympus$1.1015%
Tamron$0.65100%
Sigma$0.33100%
Zeiss$0.234%
Leica$0.18100%
Samsung$ ??1%
All companies $37.69

This looks more like what we usually think of. Canon is the biggest player, with Sony next, followed by Nikon. For those who are used to thinking only of still cameras and lenses, Nikon appears smaller on this list than you’d expect because they’re probably the only pure photography company. Canon, Sony, and Panasonic all include video equipment sales in their imaging divisions. (Be as proud as you like, Nikon fanboys, but video is a growth industry right now and photo isn’t.)

I thought it worthwhile to also list the rough percentage of corporate revenue generated by the company’s imaging divisions. This shows who is “all in”, or at least mostly in, for riding out the ups and downs in the imaging world: Leica, Sigma, Tamron, Nikon, and Canon as corporations will largely go as their imaging divisions go. That doesn’t mean they’ll all remain successful, but it certainly means they’ll at least go down swinging.

Even the companies for whom imaging is largely an afterthought still generate a big chunk of revenue from imaging. Plus those companies get a lot of brand-name exposure through their cameras and lenses. Let’s face it, how many of you know whether they used a Zeiss or Leica Operating Microscope when you had surgery? (I know what you’re thinking, and no, Rokinon has not yet released a line of discount surgical microscopes.) My only point is I don’t think these companies would close up their imaging divisions if they had any hope of returning to profitability in the near future.

The bottom line is I don’t think any of the existing companies are going to walk away from the photography business without a fight. Maybe we’ll see a merger or sale, but I don’t expect an outright closure in the next year or two. In five years, though, who knows?

Random Thoughts

One thing I found interesting was the total revenue of the imaging industry. Obviously there are companies I don’t have listed like RED, JVC, Phase One, etc), but I think the $38 billion total from the table above probably represents 80% or more of all the revenue generated in imaging devices. Just to be generous, let’s say the worldwide imaging market is $50 billion. That helps me understand why Samsung ($247 billion in revenue) or Apple ($156 billion in revenue) don’t seem to think photography is the key to corporate riches and world domination.

Think about it. Samsung’s net income in 2012 was 18 billion dollars. That’s probably more than the total profit of all the imaging businesses in the world. If Samsung thought imaging was such a great place to be, they’d just buy up a few of the other companies on the list. Then again, Samsung probably doesn’t even realize they’re in the imaging business at all. (If you go their camera website, you won’t have any trouble believing Samsung doesn’t know they have an imaging division.)

The Existing Camera Companies

Obviously the micro 4/3 manufacturers are having financial problems, but their products are excellent. If the industry as a whole was stronger I’d think they might be acquired. But I think Panasonic’s overall problems would limit their interest in picking up Olympus’ cameras and Sony has made it pretty clear they’re investing in Olympus’ medical equipment division, not consumer imaging. I wonder if this is the reason Zeiss, which is a member of the 4/3 consortium, decided to develop lenses for Fuji and NEX cameras, but not micro 4/3. They know a lot more about the camera business than I do.

Still, I don’t expect micro 4/3 to vanish in the next couple of years, but I think it might by 2018. Five years is a long time in the camera industry, two to three generations of technology. I should be clear that my misgivings don’t mean I’d have any hesitation to buy a micro 4/3 system today. Chances are absolutely zero that I’ll be shooting the same camera in five years no matter what brand I choose, so if I’m buying today I’ll buy whatever system best meets my needs today.

Fuji and Sony seem to be aggressively innovating and pursuing the imaging market so I don’t expect they’re going anywhere. Both also have extensive patent portfolios in sensors so they’re almost doubly invested in succeeding. Ricoh just recently bought Pentax so it certainly seems their intention is to make a go of things. Will they all be making photography cameras in 2018? I don’t know, but I’d give them a ‘probably’ rating.

Nikon and Canon certainly will be around in 5 years. Canon appears to be very aggressively pursuing growth in the video segment and maintaining their photography business. It seems Nikon is concentrating on trying to take market share in the photography arena. I don’t see any reason either company will change their direction much in the near future.

Inside Outsiders?

Have you noticed the bigger changes in the imaging arena are not originating from the big companies? Like dominant companies in other industries, the first thought at dominant camera manufacturers seems to be “don’t do anything to hurt the cash cows.”

But smaller companies are shaking things up a bit. Sigma and Tamron are both releasing very high-quality lenses and competing at the upper end of the market place, not just in consumer and crop-sensor zooms where they’ve lived for years. Samyang (a company smaller than any on my list above) is releasing cost-effective lenses with good image quality almost every other month. Zeiss has started releasing autofocus lenses (contrast detection AF, to be sure, but still a big step). SLR Magic has a line of quirky, but very wide aperture, low-cost lenses.

Sigma is releasing interesting cameras and while they have flaws, the flaws are largely in camera electronics and  signal processing, the kind of thing an outside company could easily rectify for them. Having high optical quality lenses in their lineup could have a nice positive feedback loop with camera sales.

At least some of the larger companies have gone to, shall we say, ‘cost effective’ customer support and repair policies in the last few  years. Smaller companies seem to be heading the other way. Tamron is guaranteeing a 3-day turnaround on repairs or they’ll offer a refurbished lens as a replacement. Sigma has revamped quality control and their repair service, and has just released a dock to allow you to adjust autofocus on some of their lenses far more completely than camera microfocus adjustment can.

I don’t think I’ll be buying a Tamron camera in 5 years, but you never know. In another two or three generations Sigma cameras might be quite attractive. Or maybe Zeiss will be offering a camera. Probably not, I agree, but I do think the odds of me putting a third-party lens on whatever camera I do buy are going to be pretty significant.

Outsiders Coming In?

So, back to the original question — who’s camera will I buy in 2018? I think what will happen over the next few years is very similar to what happened to the video camera market over the last 7 or 8 years. In 2004, Sony, JVC, Canon and Panasonic dominated the ‘pro’ and ‘prosumer’ video markets. Cameras with three separate 1/2″ CCD sensors were dominant in the digital realm. A lot of videographers still recorded to tape and then digitized in editing.

Shooting full-frame video on an SLR wasn’t even a consideration and camcorders with large, single CMOS sensors were unheard of. RED camera was only a rich man’s idea and hadn’t even made it to the garage stage. Black Magic was a little company that made capture cards. The camcorder industry is amazingly different now. Companies that didn’t exist then are kicking some serious butt today. Some of the older companies are doing very well, although with very different technologies. Others are fading fast, although they’re still in the business.

So I really think there’s an excellent chance that the camera brand I buy in 2018 may be a brand that doesn’t make cameras today. I know that making an SLR is more complex than making a video camera. Things must be placed in a much smaller package and phase detection autofocus alone is an extremely complex technology.

But those difficulties aren’t insurmountable. A lot of companies have those technologies, and those in trouble may be very willing to sell them. Sony, Fuji, and lots of other companies sell excellent imaging sensors. Companies like Imaging Solutions Group happily design camera electronics and arrange manufacturing. Companies like Ishikawa Koki design and assemble lenses. Of course, there are dozens of companies that will assemble cameras and lenses for anyone who has the capital.

Why would someone want to get into what appears to be a stagnant business? Because they’ll believe they can do things differently, making cameras that are more cost effective, or more attractive, than what’s available now.

Perhaps it will be a specialty camera, like a medium format, 80 megapixel, live-view focus only, landscape body with ultra-high resolution for the cost of an SLR. They might offer an optional bellows attachement, or interchangeable lens mounts. A niche market, for sure, but I know some people who would love one. Especially if they could shoot their Nikon 14-24 f/2.8, then swap around to a Canon 300 f/2.8, and finally clip on a bellows and classic Hasselblad medium format lens.

Maybe it will be a modular camera that allows you to pick your sensor, viewfinder, storage media, flash attachments, LCD, etc. You buy only the modules you need and change them out as conditions warrant. As I mentioned earlier, I’d love to an interchangeable lens mount. Sigma and Tamron make autofocus lenses for 6 different autofocus systems. I bet somebody could make a camera with translation chips that can autofocus 6 different lenses.

History would predict, though, that the new camera features of 2018 won’t be anything I will think of, but rather something I haven’t considered at all. But given the overall state of the camera market today, and the number of ‘anonymous’ corporate-survey-companies that have asked me to participate in think-tanks lately, I do believe  in a few years I’ll at least be considering a brand that doesn’t even exist today.

These are certainly interesting times for the camera industry. “May you live in interesting times”, is supposedly (but probably not) a Mandarin curse. Large corporations (and their strident fanboys) probably do consider it a curse. Consumers like me think interesting times are blessing.

 

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

June, 2013

 

 

Author: Roger Cicala

I’m Roger and I am the founder of Lensrentals.com. Hailed as one of the optic nerds here, I enjoy shooting collimated light through 30X microscope objectives in my spare time. When I do take real pictures I like using something different: a Medium format, or Pentax K1, or a Sony RX1R.

Posted in Roger's Corner
  • Hi Roger,

    Thanks for an interesting article. I need to follow this blog more often.

    I do have a request, though. You’re using two photos on this page credited simply as “courtesy Wikipedia Commons” without a link or author name. The licenses for both of the photos require credit to the author — Wikimedia Commons is not the author or the copyright holder, they’re just hosting the content. Would you mind giving proper credit to the photographers (Esa Sorjonen for the Sony Walkman photo and flickr user rebelpilot for the Apple computer photo), along with the cc-by-sa-2.0 copyright tag for the Apple photo? Many times I’ve seen people link the author’s name back to the photo’s page on Wikimedia Commons.

    There’s more information about how to reuse photos from Wikimedia Commons here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia

    Thanks again for a great article, a great blog, and a great company to do business with.

  • Rich

    Great post as always – thanks Roger! One area I’d approach differently; Samsung are huge into imaging and they know it. A 10-20% improvement in the image quality of their latest Galaxy phone (compared to the competition) will drive hundreds of millions of dollars in extra revenue. I get that this is an post about pure-play camera manufactures but given that mobile phone photography is the cause of so much of the changes you’re discussing above it seemed worth mentioning the businesses that are investing (and profiting) in that side of “imaging”.

  • eddy

    Roger, why don’t you start your own camera company? You seem to know a lot about camera and camera business. Maybe we’d be buying Roger RX-8000 instead of Canikon’s. Take GoPro as an inspiration – its founders were selling shell necklaces to financed the business(plus 35k from his mother).

  • derek

    @Tord, I think you are very logical and said all very well.
    but sadly innovation does almost nothing but good marketing does make a company successful!

    look, Samsung invented nothing but it’s the world’s biggest company.

  • Fred

    To me the camera industry mismanaged the recent innovation of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. It could have been a shot in the arm for aging systems, but instead became a scattering of effort. If they’re bombing, it’s not to do with the technology, but with greed and woolly thinking.

    Mirrorless has three important advantages: the electronic viewfinder, quietness and lack of vibration. It was a no-brainer for the major camera makers to just add a mirrorless body to their current systems. But they didn’t.

    Instead of that we got new systems which were poorly thought out, in terms of ergonomics, application and market. We didn’t really need the tiny fiddly NEX bodies, or the undersized sensor in the Nikon One, or a dumbed-down point and shoot from Canon that doesn’t even have a viewfinder. They’re fine in their markets but they were never going to have mass appeal.

    It made sense for Olympus to move across, and maybe Oly can bridge the gap between the two halves of their system. 4/3rds is an open system that should live on. Fuji have always gone their own way, and their many and varied models are really just parallels to their film designs of yore. Again, okay for niche markets.

    But all Canon needed to do was take the mirror out of their 1Dx and put an electronic screen in it, with a silent electronic shutter. Then we could just grab the ‘1Dm’ when we needed something discrete, or for shooting a bit of vid, or tele macro on slow speeds, or if we really need lots of frames per second, with the lenses we already have and the performance and image quality we’ve come to rely on. Instead of that they kept an inappropriate viewfinder design in their otherwise significant 1Dc.

    Or a 5Dm, and a Rebel-m. The D doesn’t stand for anything to do with the reflex system, anyway, and the irony is that many mirrorless bodies assume the shape of an SLR. If Panasonic could mimic the shape of a Canon, then why couldn’t Canon?

    Keeping development costs down and the same mark-up would mean that it didn’t matter which body people buy – the Board would still see the same profit margin from the same cash cow.

    All Nikon needed to do was give us a D800m. Something big enough to wrap our hands around, big enough to be a heat sink so the thing didn’t overheat all the time like the V1 does, with the IQ and efficiency we need and the lenses we have.

    Small is okay, but there’s already a plethora of small cameras vying with cell phones. Make a D3200m for the mass market – it wouldn’t need depth of field preview and mirror lockup.

    But no, common sense went out the window when they saw the imagined dollars from making everyone duplicate their kits, and desparation clouded their vision when they saw cell phones taking over from P&S cameras, which left that obvious route to Samsung.

    It’s not too late to bring sanity back to the mirrorless thing. We just need some sensible, practical, minimalist and integrated solutions. Surely that would help the camera industry as much as we photographers.

  • Tord

    I find the argument that M43 is going away to be highly arbitrary. It could just as well be argued that since Schneider and Voigtländer has decided to make lenses for M43 but not nex and Fuji, it implies these companies knows that Sony and Fuji are going out of business.

    It is also arbitrary to claim that Sony and Fuji will still be around 2018 since they are “aggressively innovating”. If anything, Olympus and Panasonic have been innovative.

    Olympus was first with a lot of the features that are now standard on most cameras like dust filter for the sensor, live-view, art filters etc. Pansonic pioneered the touch screen interface, EVF and fast CDAF for mirrorless cameras. In fact, all 4/3 and M43 bodies since the beginning has had simple things like pixelmapping of the sensor to get rid of hot pixels and the ability for the user to upgrade the firmware of lenses and flashes – how many DSLR-systems can do that even today?

    If the future of image capture is to extract frames out of a 4k video stream then successful camera companies need lens lineups that are optimized for video capture. Almost all M43 lenses are video optimized in that they have fast, accurate and silent CDAF. Some of the Panasonic M43 lenses have silent and step-less apertures.

    In fact, M43 has the largest lineup of video-optimized optics of all camera systems today.

    How is Fuji going to make it in a video-centric world with its choice of mechanical aperture? How many CDAF optimized lenses are there for DSLR-sytems? Well, Canon has three STM-lenses and that’s about it.

    M43 is also supported by several other camera manufacturers like BlackMagic, Kodak (JK Imaging) as well as Astrodesign (that already makes a 4k M43 video camera).

  • @David:

    Leica does not make microscopes, or more precisely Ernst Leitz Wetzlar was split into three companies: Leica Camera makes cameras and sports optics, Leica Geosystems makes surveying equipment, and Leica Microsystems makes microscopes (Leitz’ original business). The rights to the Leica brand are actually owned by Leica Microsystems and licensed to Leica Camera.

    @Pat Farrell

    At one point lithography equipment for semiconductors represented the bulk of Nikon’s business, but with the recession-induced crisis in the semiconductor industry and the rise of ASML to snatch Nikon’s crown, Nikon nowadays is actually a photo-centric business again.

  • What I foresee is a global shutter, completely electronic camera with a sensor with on-chip phase detection sensors. No mechanical moving objects outside of the lens. With a suitable short lens-sensor distance could be able to mount practically any lens via adaptor. And my pet peeve… An open API that will create a vibrant application market as the one we see in telephone and tablet fields. Think whichever app you want, as for example the equivalent of the sigma usb optimizer built in in your camera for any lens, or a completely programmable bracketing/time lapse combined with sound trigger, or whatever you can think of. I am quite fed up with camera limited by bad or crippled software…

  • KimH

    Roger,

    You have done it again – entriguing.

    I have been involved in some decisions (not cameras, but not far off) similar to what you outline here and you are amazingly close to hit the nail…. ROI and choice points being the mantra for some, upside being the mantra for others. Lets calll it competition….. Please don’t stop

    Thanks!

  • Duncan

    As a user of m4/3 I’m hoping for the best but there is some risk to it. Hopefully one of the two companies will keep going. Olympus likely as a smaller company without all the dead and dying compact cameras. Panasonic have the advantage of making an impact in the video industry.

    If I wanted to buy a camera (or more importantly lenses which is where the long term investment really is) with confidence it would still be a living system in ten years I’d pick EF mount Canon. Not EF-S, or EF-M straight EF. Even if the mainstream goes mirrorless they’ll still be some hulking big 1D-Z Mk 8 I could get if nothing else.

    I suspect the same is true for Nikon FX as well.

  • Pat Farrell

    Nikon is a pure imaging company? I’m not so sure. In the consumer space, yes. Quick story: in 1997 or so, I was with a startup, and was staying at a hotel in Silicon Valley. After the work day, I went to the bar to watch Monday Night Football and have a beer or two. I noticed a guy with a Nikon logo on his shirt. Since I still have my Nikon F, I went over and asked if he was with EPOI. (EPOI was the US distributor of Nikon gear when I bought my Nikon F). He said no, that cameras were a dead part of the business. He was in town to sell lithography gear to Intel and other silicon fab companies.

    I don’t know if they are still doing that work, but the optics and math of making masks for current silicon is very advanced, probably more so than making a 24 megapixel sensor.

  • Jason

    Great article. Another innovator (or niche market depending on perspective) is GoPro. More focused on video of course, but there is a blurring of the line from dedicated video and photography to becoming one market.

  • E.G.

    Micro four thirds is just one good ad blitz away from doubling its market share. Mirrorless FF is coming too.

  • John H.

    Within the past day I read that Fuji and Panasonic have collaborated on an organic sensor, which boasts outrageous dynamic range.

    http://petapixel.com/2013/06/11/fuji-and-panasonics-new-organic-sensor-boasts-insane-14-6-stops-dynamic-range/

    Could be we see more joint efforts in future camera / electronics development as well.

  • David

    Leica does make waves and is heavily invested. Just not in cameras but microscopes. They have been really pushing new tech taken form collaborations from Universities. I would think that most of the profit actually comes from the new microscopes.
    Olympus also has had a push with new spinning disc and super-resolution scopes. Zeiss has actually had a hard time in the super-res area and now looking into light sheet scopes.

  • Roger Cicala

    Pierre, I mentioned them and I agree with you – they will continue to be a small, profitable company. I don’t see them as making waves or dramatic changes like I do an outsider, though.

  • Tobi

    You’re missing some very big new things, like the Lytro. I believe that the step away from classical SLRs is inevitable.

    However, for now, I like my D600. 🙂

    Tobi

  • Pierre

    In 2018 I shall probably still be happily using the same brand of camera I first bought in the 1980s, because the lenses are so good: Leica. They are a profitable and important and influential, albeit it small, camera company. Why did you leave them out of your article?

  • Ron

    Roger, you forgot to include Hasselblad in your numbers! 🙂 They would seem to be an apt example of a likely demise.

    Robert: If there has been a lesson learned over the past few years with MILCs and innovative individuals, even if a brand dies, there is still a market for that brand’s products for years and years. Even if that brand is extremely niche. Take for example the Contax N line of autofocus lenses. The matching cameras are history, but Conurus (http://conurus.com) backwards engineered the lenses to mount and AF on Canon EOS cameras. Imagine if a brand such as Canon went out of business. A huge percentage of their 90 million EF lenses would still be out there (even if most are probably 18-55 kit zooms) and someone would eventually backwards engineer them to work on other systems. Wait, Conurus and Metabones have already done that too! And supposedly an AF adapter is coming for Contax G series lenses too! If anything, the future of photography gear will probably erode the barriers created by many brands, allowing greater interchangeability between cameras and lenses from other brands, via 3rd parties.

    And that’s just for us photo geeks who comprise a minuscule percentage of the market….

  • L.P.O.

    Interesting ponderings. I guess we’ll see it when we see it.

    Please excuse me for the nitpicking, but this is a pet peeve of mine: the Dutch company’s name is Philips with one el, and not to be confused with the Phillips screwdriver, named after the two-elled Henry Phillips.

    Have a nice day!

  • Fletch

    I think the Sony A-Mount may go in place of a new interchangeable FF mirror-less NEX style offering, seems to be going that way. rumors suggest they will be announcing FF cameras within 6 months that have nothing in the light path. It doesn’t seem to make sense to be constrained by the A-Mount when you can get the rear element that close to the sensor. A-mount by adapter I imagine.

    I think that may be the big change – High end camera’s losing the mirror and OVF. Makes sense with video also.

  • Fletch

    I’m concerned Sony may move away from the a-mount and develop a new interchangeable FF mirrorless NEX style offering, seems to be going that way. Sounds like they will be announcing FF cameras within 6 months that have nothing in the light path. It doesn’t seem to make sense to be constrained by A-Mount constraints when you can get the rear element that close to the sensor.

    I think that may be the big change – High end camera’s losing the mirror and OVF.

  • Leica doesn’t make 100% of its profits from imaging, it also has a sports optics division (binoculars, spotting scopes, rifle scopes and rangefinders).

  • Chris Jankowski

    Obviously, the move from analogue chemical sensor (film) to digital semiconductor sensor was *the* revolution in photography in the past tw decades. However, the optical part of the camera is conceptually unchanged from mid XIX century. This may be revolutionised as well. The new concept is to use a gigantic gigapixel sensor capturing a super-wide view through a fish-eye lens and then doing all processing in software.
    DARPA sponsored ARGUS-IS imaging system is a step in this direction.
    It might or might not cross from the rarified experimental defence project realm into consumer electronics, but it is a very different way of taking photographs.

  • Steve

    Just to add to my comments above. I believe Fuji may be the least prepared for the next wave, along with Pentax/Ricoh. Fuji have done some great sensor R&D but all of this energy has been focused on static images. They are not focusing on the global shutter and video. Actually many of their sensor designs are more complex and have lower read-out speeds than even bayer sensors, so they are going in the opposite direction they need to. Fuji will stay alive for a while with the holdouts but for how long will the market support another Leica.

  • Chris Jankowski

    There is a large discrepancy between the rate of change in camera bodies vs their lenses. Camera body models are replaced every 2 years at the low end and perhaps 4 years at the top end. This pace is likely to continue driven by progress in sensors and electronics. At the same time the lens lineups of even the largest vendors still contain models from 20 or 30 years ago designed for film. This is somewhat strange, as the optics design and manufacturing methods have improved enormously. Also, the requirements have changed. We no longer desperately need bright lenses e.g. f1.2 as in the film days. However, we need sharper lenses to match the high resolution sensors. Inexplicably to me, the process of refreshing of the lens lineup is very slow even for the two largest vendors, who should have the large volume of sales to make it economically viable.

  • Steve

    I think the shake-up for the industry will be the global shutter. Once this has been perfected you no longer need a shutter or OVF and the cameras becomes a pure electronic device. Now look at which companies that are leading in this area and you won’t find any of the existing camera companies. The closest they have come so far is the Nikon 1 sensor that was designed by Aptina. I was not surprise when Sony and Aptina entered a sensor patent sharing agreement a couple of months ago.

    I believe Aptina or some similar global sensor based company will lead us into the next wave of camera design. It would be no surprise that the last 2 CEOs of Aptina were from nVidia and ATI as future photographic images will be pulled from RAW 4k+ video frames at 60+fps. Now look at the list above and see who is least prepared for this change.

  • Very interesting; if scary article. One thing you didn’t mention Roger though is the sunk cost many of us have in lenses. The old adage that buying good glass is an investment is only true if you have a body to put it on. For that reason Nikon and Canon will be able to continue with pro and advanced amateur markets for quite a while. The question is where to bet the farm on future directions, or can you even buy into the future yet?

  • Tom

    Sony is hurting. They are profitable in things like insurance but not electronics. Samsung and other companies ate their market share. Think that pride is clouding their thinking.

  • Mike Aubrey

    The observation about Zeiss and ?43 is interesting. On the other hand, Cosina, who makes Zeiss’ lenses, *are* investing time and effort into lenses for ?43.

    I’m not saying you’re wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised either if Panasonic & Olympus were missing in 2018.

    But I also wouldn’t be surprised if there was a new kid on the scene around that time looking at doing something innovative and noted that the ?43 mount has a fairly open specification with an already existing set of lenses available and decided to use that as a starting point for its new creative camera tech. Nobody would ever be able to do that with Canon, Nikon or Sony…but with ?43 it just might be possible…

    Anyway…that’s just musing. Who knows what things will look like in five years…

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