Worldwide shipments of DSLR and MR like cameras
–
Vitaly from Personal View (Click here) analyzed the worldwide shipment data from Japanese companies and made those graphs.
It looks to me that the Mirrorless sales are stagnating while DSLR is doing pretty well. I have not the experience to tell you why it is so. Certainly Mirrorless lacks in some areas like:
– missing FF mirrorless cameras (except of course the super expensive Leica M niche).
– people perception that “Bigger is Better”.
– Nikon and Canon conservative approach to the mirrorless world.
– Limited marketing resources of companies like Panasonic-Olympus-Pentax compared to Canon-Nikon impressive PR machine.
– limited lens range compared to DSLR systems.
– lack of optical viewfinder tech (except Fuj X PRO 1 hybrid solution).
Shipping by type in Americas and Europe.
–
If things will keep going like that Panasonic and Olympus may should consider to reinvest in the DSLR business. Although I don’t think that’s their plan (at least for now). Olympus is supposed to launch a new E-5 successor in early September while Panasonic quietly stepped out of the DSRL market. Maybe they should just make Mirrorless cameras…bigger? 😉
More graphs at Personal View (Click here).
179 Responses
Olympus, bring out successors to the E-30 and E-650 (and, well, the E-5) at last. Modernize and complete the FT lens lineup, and start offering FT lenses (especially telephoto lenses) for both FT and MFT, where it makes sense, as soon as MFT will be phase-detection AF capable.
Well, simply put: The problem with FT was not so much being “DSLR” but having problems in High Iso and Dynamic Range.
If Olympus had braught up a E-650 / E-50 with OMD / E-P5/ E-PL5 … sensor: would have bought it, it’s that simple.
The problem for mirrorless isn’t dSLR vs mirrorless. Most people have noe idea what the difference might be. The problem is CaNikon vs the rest. People “know” they want Canon or Nikon, and neither offer a serious mirrorless model. Mirrorless will take off when they do.
Spam you are right …but I love my Nikon 1 V1…especially for street photography…the silent shutter makes me almost invisible and the images it makes in black and white are remarkably good
Yep, and a LOT of people do make a conscious decision. The current range of DSLR simple do OUT SHOOT mirrorless cameras. Both in quality and range. We don’t need to talk about the shallow depth of field and the continuous focus benefits of DSLR, but simply the range of lenses people already have keep them in the same company. When I upgrade it will be another Nikon body. However, I DO hope it will be a mirrorless body that Nikon uses in the future with the same mount. I and many other thinking photographers don’t need to run out and buy a whole new range of swag just to appear that we are “fitting in”. SCREW THAT. The gear I have WORKS. Works WELL. Is built to LAST. I QUALITY. I know some of the m43 lenses are amazing, I have used some but the the bodies and IQ still don’t stack up. (I can always spot an OMD image. I can just see the grain and to me it is not pleasing).
Nothing wrong with the Nikon 1, the V1 ia a really advanced camera somewhat held back by the user interface. Actually the Eos M is pretty good to, except for the AF which they now (might have) fixed with a firmaware upgrade. But neither is really seen (or designed as) dSLR replacements.
If Canon use the new 70D sensor in the next Eos M model and design it as a NX20/G5/E-M5 competitor then we’ll see a jump in mirrorless sales. Same goes for Nikon btw, make a mirrorless D3300 and the statisics will look completely different.
The Canon 70D is the only recent canikon camera that Olympus and Panasonic have had to worry about it.
You are so wrong. The 70D isn’t m43’s competition. It’s the D3200 and Rebel SL1. m43 is competing with prosumer DSLRs, regardless of how good the OMD is, which I admit is pretty good. The customers buying the m43, D3200 and Rebel SL1 are from the same pool, and unfortunately, it seems most of them are choosing D3200, Rebel SL1 over most of all mirrorless combined. I know this info has been out before, but now that it’s graphed in this way, they have a much bigger impact.
@Calxn
not wrong, the 70D is the only recent DSLR that would give a similar shooting experience to micro four thirds.
Agreed. It’s all about image quality, mainly Dynamic Range. Even 16MP I am ok with it, but the DR is really too weak. If DR is on par with Nikon D5200 or so, I’ll not think twice and happily grab a GH3 since it has all the features I want and I love MFT’s small and light fast lenses.
I just can’t understand why a 16MP MFT’s DR can’t be on par with a 24MP APS-C. The sensor size is about 60% smaller, and the resolution is about 50% smaller. So they are just 10% away! Why the DR has so large difference? It’s about 1.3 stops difference! That’s huge!
As usual, we all seem to forget Asia… Europe and America are lost for mirrorless market so far, but in Asia things work utterly different. As far as Japaneses, Koreans and Chineses keep buying m43, the few of us that use m4/3 in the west will be happy. Fortunatly we don’t depend on the closeheads of occidental buyers, otherwise we’d keep using rolls for our cameras…
There is one target in which it’s obvious mirroless systems would have not rival if the would fix their current problems: the nature photography fanatics. World is full of nature photographers, and when you have to walk 15 kilometers to get your pictures, the size DOES matter. That should be one of the main goals of M43, if not the first, therefore they really need to start finding solutions for C-AF and make some HQ telezooms if they want to do something in EU/USA before the next century comes…
No wonder. I hear phrases like ” i want an dslr , they make such good pictures” “or ” this olympus looks like a digicam…” very often. Then these people see that the tamron superzoom for canon is 150$ while they have to pay 400$ for the panasonic.. decision made. That’s for the mass market. then there are the pros which are already invested heavily or appreciate the huge canon lense line-up, and moreover can’t show up to a shooting with an E-P5. And then there are some people who also have a bit of a knowldge and may tend to m43, but if you don’t speak the language of the masses you will fail.
Shipments needs to be tied with average selling price…Olympus and Panny’s average selling price was probably far lower 12-15 months ago, and they along with Fuji have stated they are concentrating higher up the market where the profit is ie away from camera joshi….
Neither graph shows that Micro Four Thirds shipments are stagnating, nor do any of the graphs say anything about sales/margin/profit of any type of camera…
The charts might just show shipments in units but shipments in value are readily available. For the first 5 months of this year mirrorless is down 17.2% in unit terms and 16.7% in terms of value. In other words unit value is virtually unchanged.
You are however right about mirrorless sales not stagnating. They have in fact fallen YOY in every month this year. Last month, May, they were down 25% YOY.
@Rob
they’re 9+ players in mirrorless, so what do these graphs and your figures tell us about Micro Four Thirds sales?
Three of the nine players take about 75% of the market. Two of those are m4/3.
so Nikon1 Canon EOSM, Pentax Q, Fuji,Samsung NX, Leica etc have less than 25% market share in mirrorless…oh dear!
Actually, I think m4/3 share of mirrorless is decreasing. The black EOS-M double kit lens was the best selling mirrorless configuration in Japan in March, April & May. The drop in price had a large impact on EOS-M sales. Of course, the same can be said for the other brands–top seller for Olympus in Japan is the heavily discounted E-PL3. BCN usually releases a list of the best selling cameras every 6 months, so that information may be out soon.
E-P5 was 92nd among ILCs in Japan for June (up from 253rd the previous month in which there was probably limited availability). The black OM-D with kit lens dropped from 90th in May to 94th in June, and the silver OM-D with kit lens dropped from 94th to 109th.
GH3 with 12-35 dropped from 158th in May to 191st in June and GH3 body only fell from 178th to 203rd.
These data suggest that increased reliance on high margin products isn’t likely to be successful.
Canon, Fujifilm, Pentax, Samsung, and Leica have miniscule shares at the moment, though Fujifilm is gaining some traction. I’m not sure that all five of them have 10%. Nikon’s a different story, especially since they’ve been able to unload cameras at discount without hurting themselves (remember, the Nikon 1’s have <300 parts and are actually cheaper to build than many compact cameras).
@Anoymous
how can Nikon have not hurt themselves with the Nikon 1, it was 4 years in development, most of them were sold at 65% discount after sitting on the shelves for 9-12 months, it had an ineffective expensive marketing, and they have sold bugger all Nikon 1 lenses!
“DSLR sales are down. Canon and Nikon dominate this market, but both have significant inventory of older models still lingering on the shelves. Here in the US, some models from both companies have three generations available new. The immediate need of both companies is to move existing cameras, not launch new ones. The latest CIPA numbers show that DSLR sales are down 15% in the first five months of 2013 compared to 2012. This is bad news, writ large. ” http://www.gearophile.com/newsviews/announce-now-sell-later.html
Oh, so now that you’re quoting me, can we assume that you’re agreeing with me? ;~)
Of course you’ve left out my other writing on the subject. I said quite some time ago that mirrorless wouldn’t overtake DSLR sales in the foreseeable future, and I’ve been proven correct. Please note that this doesn’t have anything to do with whether I like m4/3 cameras or not. I still use them regularly, and I still stand by my awarding the OM-D the serious mirrorless camera of the year award. The question has always been, and remains, how many cameras will the non Big 3 companies sell? Fujifilm, Olympus, and Panasonic have all backed off from trying to make significant market share advances. Moving to upscale mirrorless will just reduce their overall sales numbers, though it might help their gross profit margin. Unfortunately, it isn’t their gross profit margin that’s the problem. In Olympus’s case, it’s the SG&A numbers–marketing and sales costs, including rebates and end of life discounting–that’s been killing them.
In the end, I still believe all cameras will be mirrorless. As I’ve written, it’s inevitable from purely the cost and production standpoint. But that’s still going to leave us with DSLR-like mirrorless in legacy mounts (Canon, Nikon, Sony) versus compact mirrorless in new mounts (Fujifilm, Olympus/Panasonic, Samsung, Sony). I still fail to see how the latter will take market share from the former (though Sony seems to be doing it to themselves ;~).
Even Olympus doesn’t think that Mirrorless will unseat DSLR anytime, soon their thinking is over a 10 year period, in that respects the Interchangeble Camera Market is more similar to the car than the smartphone/mobile market which can change quickly in 2-3 years.
Olympus, Sony, Fuji and Sony still have further opportunity over the next few years to further erode DSLR market share.
I think Panasonic is the only one to pull back from trying to gain significant market share for the moment, Sony are looking to restart their push next year, Fuji haven’t really tried and Olympus are adapting…
Fujifilm, Olympus, and Panasonic have reduced their use of end of life price reductions and their pricing has been more stable, while yes Panny have vastly reduced their Lumix marketing 🙁 Olympus have reduced their traditional marketing costs but at the same time have tried what they do spend to be more effective…
I’ll put to some thought how I think the battle of legacy mounts versus new mounts might play out…
*out for the rest of the day with the kids.
The problem with that is that they had that 10-year plan in the 80’s, in the 90’s, in the 00’s, and now in the 10’s. The result has been pretty much the same every time: <10% market share, which isn't going to cut it.
Look, I like the OM-D a lot, the other Pens are decent. But I believe that Olympus is just not getting the marketing or distribution right. They consistently overbuilt to demand for the first few years and it sucked a lot of money out of the company. To compensate, they did things like CUT the marketing and support staff here in the US. They have yet to really get a clear, consistent, irrefutable, compelling marketing message across as to why, oh say, you should buy an OM-D over a D7000 (now D7100, though the costs are now end-of-life versus start-of-life, so they've got a temporary price advantage). I don't care how good the designers are, or how much they've squeaked out of the Sony sensor (ironically, more than Sony gets; about equivalent to where Nikon has been lately, when you scale m4/3 to DX). The bottom line is always this: you have to convince someone to buy your product over the competitor's. When the competitor has better brand recognition and more marketing dollars, that means you have to be darned good and not make mistakes. Olympus keeps making mistakes.
I suspect they're about to make another one, by trying once again to put some life into 4/3. You can keep swinging the hammer, but unless you aim at a nail you're just denting the wood.
@hom Hogan
The USA is just 16% of the world camera market, and continuing to decline.
Olympus didn’t overbuild for initial mft demand, where you get that information? Actually Olympus out of all the camera companies are acting fastest to meet fluctuating demand.
OK, so someone wants to buy an new car, they go to the showroom do they got for the SUV (D7100) or the Ford Ka (E-P5), most purchasers are looking for an emotional connection and how that car will fit their lifestyle…
Their 10 year plan in the 80s?
Like.. adding AF to the OM system, actually getting it right technology wise, and then only introducing a camera with AF that lacked aperture and shutter priority modes and exposure compensation (OM 707) ? Or trying to remove the focus ring, and get us focus by wire using buttons (OM 101 and power focus lenses) ? And after that failing to follow up on either camera because it turned out someone had some patents on part of the technology (which was an issue for the 707, but not for the 101, and an issue that somehow many other manufacturers managed to solve) ?
If there was a plan to that, it was an extremely bad one and had nothing to do with photography, or customers for that matter.
The 90s don’t look much better, but indeed for the 2000s there was a clear plan, and it didn’t bring the success they hoped it would. Obviously, failing to market their products and ensure people did see those products in shops and in use wasn’t very helpful.
We can also go back to the 70s, and that lucky accident, the OM-1. Funny because this camera was a direct consequence of realizing half frame wasn’t going to be a huge market success outside Asia because of lack of commercial processing and printing for consumers. Now here it seems we have somewhat of a plan aimed at fixing a situation, but seeing the gap between withdrawing the PEN-Fs and introducing the OM-x, and what they did to fill that gap, plan seems to be a really big word.
No, I have nothing against Olympus, for as far as their engineers go, but every time their marketeers got it right in the camera market, it was by accident, and usually their ‘plans’ either shine due to total lack of existence, or total lack of understanding the world outside Japan, and seemingly more of the first then the later.
Exceptions are mostly the classic, pre 1985 OM line and to some extent their early Camedia digital compacts, and recently the E-M5 it seems.
Indeed. Make more affordable lenses for MFT. Tamron and Sigma, are you hearing? DSLR format is a little snobbish, too.
snobbish? DSLR?
Oh, dear…
So much confusion under the Sun… Many people nowadays call “snobbish” everyone who’s not using a smartphone for taking pics…
Or, put otherwise, it’s easy to call snobbish those who look for a better quality with less compromises…
I know that D600 or 6D are not exactly mass market products, but IMHO, these “affordable” full format DSLRs at least revitalized the DSLR market. Since I bought my D600, I rarely use MFT; the D600 is far superior. Sensor size matters. Mirrorless needs to go full format (with good ergonomics, of course; the GH3 is a step in the right direction).
It’s actually not clear that this is the case. Both the 6D and D600 sales lag the company’s expectations.
No worries for mirrorless I would say. Even the biggest DSLR makers are alredy introducing features, which will facilitate mirrorles cams at the end. See Canon 70D. In few iterations OVF will simply become obsolete – and maybe already 95D will just introduce EVF instead of
– OVF (expensive, needs precision mounting)
– mirror box (also expensive complicated mechanical component)
– phase detect AF (expensive optoelectronic part, difficult to calibrate)
How do I know that? Because lowering the costs is mantra for any industry.
Maybe these mirrorless cameras will not be cheaper for consumers imediately (but will raise profits for manufacturers), but sooner or later will get cheaper.
Yes, Olympus should be riding the DSLR horse for some years more, and than naturally slowly morph it into mirrorless. Maybe they were too fast in this transition.
I guess all manufacturers will end up with “one beautiful system” in a few years.
“Maybe they should just make Mirrorless cameras…bigger?”
That´s what Panasonic did.
Mirrorless with VF are still expensive compared to the entry level DSLRs
Many people are conservative. And you know, there is something about looking through an OVF!
Yes, it is. Smaller and dimmer image, and that fukin’ miss of histogram, real time color balance etc. 😀
no, something different and that can´t be described in technical terms 😉
like the pain in your eye when you’re trying to shoot the sunset? 😛 i do like OVF but EVF is nice for shooting into the sun without hurting your eyes… even if your sensor suffers a bit
I´m not against EVFs, neither am I pro OVFs in a dogmatic way.
I hope both will coexist for a long time so people have the choice.
We live in the digital age, but to my mind it´s not all bad about the analog thing.
Kind of depressing but dSLRs are getting cheaper and available at warehouse stores (Sam’s Club, etc) pretty cheaply. Although I bet most of those dSLR sales go to people who use them like big point and shoots and don’t buy additional lenses (or seldom change between kit lenses included with their original purchase).
Also, IMHO, mirrorless (Panasonic, Olympus, Fuji) systems have almost no advertising or visibility in the US. Maybe it exists but I have seen few ads (print especially) for m43 or other alternative systems. I doubt most people are aware of them! If they made inroads into the big box stores to at least make themselves known to the general public maybe it would help. I know that online I could buy a Panasonic or Olympus m43 through a big box store like Target or Best Buy but I have yet to see them in ANY physical store (Sony NEX at BB and Nikon system at Target are it and neither interests me).
I moved up from Fuji bridge cameras that were destroyed in a fire to a nikon D90 because I thought that would be better for me. If a friend at work had not introduced me to the world of Panasonic m43 (and later the Fuji X100, et al) I would still be there not taking many photos because the D90 and lenses are a pain to haul around.
Dunno what will help expand the alternative camera systems market. I try.
AndyB, NH.
@armadillo76
Canikon making DSLRs cheaper/reducing their margin is a short sighted false economy.
Print ADs for cameras are now largely ineffective use of social media, targeted emails and good use of internet advertising now provides a far higher return to investment.
While I don’t disagree with you about wasted marketing money, the simple fact is that Canon and Nikon have far larger market shares of the interchangeable lens camera market. That means that they have economies of scale that the others don’t. That was Ries and Trout’s thesis back in the 60’s, and it’s proven true in markets over and over again. It’s difficult to unseat the #1 and #2 player in the market because they can use price as a weapon and still remain profitable. Olympus correctly tried R&T’s suggested solution: create a new niche and dominate it. To some degree they’ve been successful. But with an OM-D and GH3 selling for as much as a D7000/60D, you really have to market why the niche is different and important, and I believe that neither company ever did that anywhere near as well as they needed to. I can make (and have made) a stronger statement about why someone should get an OM-D over a D7000 than Olympus has ever made. Even if you execute the right strategy, you have to execute the strategy right, too.
Your highest rate of return would be to get both pros and the counter staff at the stores to sell your product. Too often the counter person shoots Nikon or Canon and pushes their customers in that direction, whether or not it truly is the right camera. My “local” camera shop’s owner is shooting the OM-D E-M5 90% of the time, and I see him recommending it more than Nikon or Canon, and probably making more sales from it.
That said, how you educate a customer to look beyond DSLRs online is probably through proper endorsement (i.e. Chase Jarvis for photographers, some kind of celebrity for your average joe) and probably some kind of image comparison campaign.
@SZRimaging
The power of counter staff is fast diminishing (as Thom Hogan has previously agreed), most consumers will already researched their choices online and word of mouth etc and 85% made up their mind,a DSLR on the shelf nowadays is seen as old and intimidating.
Target and Best Buy had Panasonic micro Four-Thirds products. I got my Panasonic 45-200mm for $100 at Best Buy because they never promoted anything.
Sam’s Club had the Olympus E-PM1 until recently but they also still have the Nikon D-3000 for some reason. Now, they’ve got two Samsung NX-system kits for US$549.
People are too worried about what other people are going to say, so they end up with Canikon products. Besides, my mother’s brother’s ex-roommate’s friend’s boyfriend uses Canikon, so that means they’re great!
Maybe the mft graph will go up again in the near future? Except for the United States ofcourse, because BIG is part of their culture.
Ulli…maybe to help increase sales the MFT companies should use your portfolio to show the capabilities of the system…love your work
haha that would be great..thanks for the kind words.
This is simply rdiculous. The main reason for DSLR dominance is mainly technical, there are still 3 areas where mirrorless cameras are quite close to DSLR but still lags behind:
1. Focus speed (especially CAF)
2. EVF lag (especially low light)
3. Battery life.
Once these problems are solved (3…5 years maybe) there will be just a matter of time the situation to be turned out.
The main reason for DSLR dominance is customer perception and marketing in some markets….
4. While in a specific niche (small, fast, short primes) mirrorless systems already have an advantage, they massively lag behind DSLR systems in their assortments of lenses, whether it’s fast and image-quality-wise really good zooms in general or serious telephoto lenses in particular.
You forgot a few:
Price
Bulk/Mass/Sized for hand (why are people all using the grip with the OM-D? ;~)
Legacy lens use (even if irrational)
Brand Names
There are more, some of them subtle, but there are plenty of reasons why DSLRs still get mind share.
In 5 years all will be FULLFrame for Photographers and the Rest will be snapshooting with their smartphone. Most of the Smartphones will be smarter than their users 😉
You are over estimating the appetite for large file sizes and the problems that go with it, full frame will not get much further penetration than what it has now….
I think this is more due to rationalisation of the mirrorless market than anything else – only Micro 4/3rds is really succeeding. And Oly was always a niche manufacturer anyway, catering to those who wanted small but high quality cameras. Mirrorless is the right market for them (and maybe Fuji too), but not Canon, Nikon, Sony, Samsung etc.
Sony NEX is succeeding worldwide too. Nikon 1 also, surprisingly for those who know about sensor size, but unsurprisingly for those who see it in every store, advertised properly and available with 10-100 zuperzoom as a kit.
m32 are stuck with the stupid 14-42 zooms when the size advantage would allow them to offer much higher ratios for the same price. How are they supposed to compete with a Rebel+18-135 7.5x kit zoom? And they see all those 18 mpix rebels and 20 mpix compacts – in the mass market, megapixels and zoom x-es still sell, as well as brand name.
Both of you need to define “succeeding.” Canon and Nikon DSLRs are highly profitable. None of the mirrorless models are profitable at present (including Canon’s and Nikon’s) to my knowledge. Olympus themselves admitted recently that they’d need to make 1m m4/3 cameras a year to break even in mirrorless (their last reported number was <600k).
This has been the big question in Japanese financial circles for over a year now: how long will these companies sustain continual losses in their camera groups? With Fujifilm, Ricoh, and Samsung the companies are so big, the camera division so small, that such losses are barely a decimal point on their bottom line, so I think they'll stay in the game. Sony has managed to get to just above breakeven overall, though many of us think that this is mostly due to grouping the professional video stuff with the consumer cameras. So Sony will stick around. The question marks have long been Olympus and Panasonic.
The problem will come this way: camera sales continue to stay down, inflation within Japan restarts, interest rates will rise above the nominal 0% they've been at. The combination of these factors would make the already negative ROI at most of these companies seriously negative, to the point where they really can't entertain holding onto those divisions. At the moment, all those factors have only budged a bit (camera sales down low double digits, inflation barely restarted, interest rates nosing up). But the trend line on all three is the wrong direction.
Panasonic are a huge company too, certainly far bigger than Fujifilm and Ricoh. And of course, Olympus has their hugely profitable medical division, which is more directly related to cameras than electronic giants like Samsung, Panasonic and Sony. So your comments here don’t make any sense at all. However, the general point about how long will any of these companies sustain an unprofitable market is valid of course – I just don’t buy your analysis of which will bail first. Indeed, the companies for whom it is a decimal point are IMHO the ones most likely to bail, as they have relatively little invested in it
Panasonic may be a big company, but it’s one that’s in deep financial trouble. The CEO has been very adamant that to remain in the company, any group must produce a 5% ROI, and they need to hit this mark very soon. They’ve already sold off part of their camera operations (the part they inherited when they took over Sanyo). According to sources in Japan, they’ve been shopping other imaging parts, as well.
Panasonic is a tough company for many to get a full handle on. While they look like a multi-national conglomerate from the outside, in truth the majority of their overall sales come only in Japan. This makes their future trickier, especially with the new Abe government trying to re-ignite inflation within the Japanese market itself. The collapse of their TV group coupled with their recent acquisition spree essentially drained cash from the company at alarming rates, and now they’re facing potentially higher operating costs in their strongest market.
What they’ve done short term is bring the two main still imaging components, sensors and cameras, under the wings of other groups. Sensors are now part of a group that is mostly concerned with automotive, industrial, and security products; still cameras are now in the same group as pro video gear (ala Sony). That’s likely to get them past the 5% barrier short term if they only look at the top level results. But still cameras are collapsing so fast that many within the company fear it’s another TV division that will suck resources out of the company when they don’t have a lot of those to go around. Overall, I’d rate the Panasonic camera future as the shakiest and least predictable of the top 10 Japan camera makers.
The difference with Fujifilm and Ricoh is in stark contrast: both those companies have no real financial weaknesses at the moment. Their business-to-business businesses are strong, so they can afford to let the very small camera groups spend a bit.
Sony is somewhere in between. The consumer electronics groups at Sony aren’t healthy at all. Virtually all of their strength these days is movies, music, and insurance. They had a tough time raising the money for their investment in Olympus, and they still have restructuring costs ahead of them, too, plus some big new Fab investments they’ve committed to. But I don’t judge their camera group to be likely to be cut. There’s just enormous pressure on them to get products that resonate to market and start grabbing market share again.
As I’ve written elsewhere, I believe Nikon is likely the most vulnerable company. That’s because they’ve never really rebuilt their Precision division to health and now cameras are 75% of their business. So far they’ve looked like they have an anti-gravity machine, as they even managed to keep Coolpix sales relatively flat while the overall compact camera market shrunk by huge double-digit percentages. I don’t believe when we look back on 2013 they’ll be able to do that again. The lower DSLR sales trend lately has to have them very worried. A 25% decline in worldwide camera sales translates to something close to a 15% decline in Nikon overall sales unless they can figure out a way to grab market share. The more mirrorless and DSLR sales decline this year, the worse the problem is for Nikon, as it’s more than a third of their camera division sales volume.
People mostly think bigger is better so by that perception they will go with a DSLR . Plus if you look at the price of low end dslrs and their lenses they are cheaper …in many cases much cheaper than Micro Four Thirds . I have a dslr but I have mirrorless as well . I have been shooting for 40+ years and prefer to carry something lighter around with me so I use my E-PM2…and in many cases my Olympus gives better results than my dated Nikon D300…The Olympus focuses faster and the touch screen nails the image everytime and I find the images have more detail when I use the 45 1.8 or the 75 1.8 than anything my D300 can do . I still use the Nikon sometime but right now my preferred camera is the E-PM2…it delivers really nice quality images…heck I have printed as large as 20 x 30 with my Nikon 1 V 1 with good results…learn to use a camera properly and you can do amazing things with just about any camera kit
The solution is simple: price. With a DSLR with kitlens under 400 Euros, nobody invest in a mirrorless. The effect: never seen so much Canon-DSLR-Users holdin’ ther cam on long arm and lookin’ on the display. If you say “look throug the viewfinder, it’s better and faster!”, they are shocked. Never tried that…
There are mirrorless offerings with kit lenses for that price.
Love it when all the tourists – many girls and women – carry their heavy DSLRs with huge lenses with them here in Berlin and you can see them how it drags them down after a day of walking around, when I’m going home with the Metro in the evening.
I’ll never got back, even a 100D is too large for me. A EPM1 with the 45 or 14 or 20 is always with me.
If Olympus dies, I go Fuji. If Fuji dies I go phone-only.
No Panasonic at all? GX7 presumably already will have all bells ans whistles Olympus cameras ever had, incl. IBIS.
Let’s hope they release it.
Sometime.
Soon.
If ever.
🙂
Sorry, I assumed if Olympus stops m43 then Panasonic can’t survive on their own + I’m not sure I only want m43 with Panasonic lenses (currently my lenses are 2/3 Panasonic, not 100%). But if, yes then first Panasonic, then Fuji 🙂
I see these tourists almost every day in Berlin, too. The sad thing is that I see maybe 1 person with a mirrorless per week. But this could also be because they can put them in a bag more easily than a dslr.
If Canon had made the OMD EM5 instead of Olympus then Mirrorless would be dominating right now. Advertising makes the world go round.
@Admin
Olympus already stated that their mirrorless sales were up 25% for q4 and 15% up for 2012
No. Mirrorless isn’t dead, and it’s the future of all cameras because that’s how technological progress works.
What *IS* dead is the hype around tiny cameras with low usability due to extremely small size and lenses not worth a damn (the only exceptions are the Oly 75mm, and the 60mm when doing macro; it’s not as good as the old 50 in general use).
It has been crystal clear for several years now that people either carry a real DSLR when they want to do serious photography, and their phone suffices for everything else. Phones killed the CSC market, phones killed the tiny mirrorless market. Sadly, several Japanese execs seem to be chasing dragons and not thinking.
Too easy to answer, the price entry level mirrorless camera can buy an mid-level dslr and so on…
“Mirrorless hype is over. DSLR rules.”
Too strong words, the title should be: Mirrorless sales are down, DSLR up.
The biggest problem is inadequate marketing (not limited marketing resources!) of mirrorless camera producers compared to Canon-Nikon PR machine. Average people need to be informed and they are not! People perception that bigger is better is one of the things that should be explained. These graphs show sale figures and those are mostly made of low end models, not semi pro or pro ones.
That mean your other arguments are do not stand:
– missing FF mirrorless cameras (except of course the super expensive Leica M niche)
FF is not cheap, cameras do not sell in large numbers.
– Nikon and Canon conservative approach to the mirrorless world
Most people are aware of other camera brands and do not tie themselves to any specific brand name. Enthusiasts are more likely to buy from a preferred manufacturer.
– limited lens range compared to DSLR systems
Most buyers do not purchase additional lenses.
– lack of optical viewfinder tech (except Fuj X PRO 1 hybrid solution)
Average buyer does not care about VF tech.
So, Olympus/Panasonic/Sony/Fuji should get their promoters out in the shopping centers and hypermarkets, put up billboards and pay for some ads and there will be better sales results.
+1. No tot mention the graphs above are based on shipments, not sales.
“limited lens range compared to DSLR systems”
HQ Lens range for APSC on Nikon and Canon is also very limited. If you want excellent glass, you need to buy (heavy) FF lenses. That’s the elephant in the room for APSC DSLR. From a lens point of view, APSC does not make any sense vs. buying a FF body.
The high end compact camera market has grown considerably in recent years. This is undoubtedly taking sales away from mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.
The compact cameras are in real trouble. There aren’t any numbers about high-end compacts.
It is all perception. Most beginners I know will grasp for a DSLR directly because they think it’s the best (it’s what pros use right?). They then proceed to pair it with a 18-55 or 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 type lens and call it a day. Why do you think Nikon and Canon have at least 10 of these kit zooms in their line-up? Consumers are completely oblivious to the fact that a DSLR with kit lens is barely better than a good compact.
I personally own a 6D, a D7000 and a PEN. Surprisingly, I enjoy the PEN the most, mostly because of the excellence of the Olympus lenses.
The 6D and D7000 need to be paired with top-quality f/1.4 primes or f/2.8 zooms to get at least some benefit from the larger sensor and larger setup. Most consumers are oblivious to the fact that good f/1.4 primes for full frame cost $1500-$2000.
To be honest, if I sought a camera system today I would probably pick a DSLR. You get more bulk per $ (which is perceived as positive), there are very nice and inexpensive third party zooms to choose from and you can borrow lenses and accessories from your friends and neighbors.
Entry level mirrorless is taken for electronic junk. Advanced mirrorless is perceived as an obscure domain reserved for experts due to the dominance of primes. Mirrorless will eventually win, but the most successful cameras will look and cost like entry level DSLRs and use their lenses. Canon and Sony are almost there.
Where are the charts for Asia? That should tell a different story. Wait for the GX7 and shortly afterwards, when m43 matures with the colour splitters and organics — technology will level the playing field and size does not matter or will favour the small… Patience my good man.
Personally have no time or money for DSLR or mirrorless DSLR lookalike wannabes.
If weight/size is not a concern, DSLR offers more range and competitive pricing.
Mirrorless still has stereotypes of toy cameras or secondary/backup cameras.
Mirrorless needs more high end products. Not low end trash for beggars.
Premium, weathersealed lenses and bodies. Dependable flash system. Top grade optics.
Modular systems. Open source firmware.
100% for mirrorless future. Go mirrorless. DSLR and DSLR lookalike must and will die.
Relegating to niche only might be a very dangerous strategy in the longer term. If economically doable, why not giving them what they want? Do they want a DSLR-like camera with a kit zoom for 400-500 $? Here you go. (rumored)OMD EM-1 or G6. Who cares what it is (not) inside them, in terms of mirrors, OVF, etc. as long as you can sell many and with some margin, then it is great also for the rest of the system.
I couldn’t understand the need for a low-end OM-D as rumored these days reading on this site. But given these trends now it makes perfect sense. Actually, if the margins can be made (between manuf. cost and sale price) then by all means it might be the most important Olympus model (like the G6 is for Panasonic, I assume) for few years to come, because of the volume and the increase in market share.
After these years and iterations the R&D costs should (I assume) be recouped, so it is possible even for niche manufacturers like Olympus to go for models competitive on mainstream segments (i.e. entry-level Faux-DSLR & their kit lens).
Interesting. Let’s see how it paves out -certainly I won’t buy one, but that’s just me (and most of us, on this site).
Can anyone see what the sources for the data were? A graph is one thing but I would like to see where the data comes from…
This is the right question!
the sources were anonymous….just like you :p
It appears to be CIPA Unit Shipments. The other number you need to map against it is the CIPA Sales. But frankly, both pretty much say the same thing.
Note also that these are shipments into distribution, not shipments to consumers. The NPD numbers (retail cash register receipt analysis) shows a worse decline here in the US at the moment. BCN doesn’t give us enough information to be able to detect sales declines in Japan, but I’m hearing from pretty much every source that the on-the-ground consumer numbers are worse than the CIPA numbers.
That’s to be expected at this point, actually. Back in Oct/Nov the CIPA makers (all the Japanese camera manufacturers, thus basically we’re only missing Leica and Samsung from the numbers) made their 2014 forecasts. Those were for INCREASING mirrorless and DSLR sales and a smaller decline in compact sales than we’ve seen. They were obviously wrong. Dead wrong. But they would have been manufacturing to their forecasts. That probably means that we’ll also see increasing inventories on all their quarterly financial statements, too. My inside sources say that almost everyone has pulled the plug on production at the moment, scaling back their manufacturing. But even Canon and Nikon won’t be able to sustain that for long: they need to figure out how to sell more cameras, period.
No worthy mass market mirrorless were released since last fall, so no rise in shipment since last fall. GH3 is overpriced niche product, E-P5 is so overpriced it is not even niche product, Panasonic GF6 and G6 bring nothing new and useful to the table (practically nobody carries a tripod and tablet with them to shoot with WiFi remote control), but those 2 probably restored sales from the slump
Well, the data is probably purely Japanese so no Samsung there at all, but I doubt it would change the picture much.
Regarding DSLR raise in April-May, it is the release of 2 new Rebels (T5i and SL1) – you know that Rebels make up the lions share of all DSLR sales, right? So from the end of March they ship them to stores.
FF make up a tiny portion of the sales, and few people care about lenses beyond a trinity of standard, tele- and superzooms (and sure, superzooms should be available in the kits with the bigger mirrorless for decent price).
It’s all about the right marketing
If you include “product marketing” in that, then yes, you’ve won the gold star. The camera companies are clearly not producing product the market wants, nor are they convincing the market that they want the products they have available.
This is just a bump on the road for mirrorless, nothing more.
Maybe the Sony/Olympus collaboration can produce a product that is compelling.
Size matters. And it seems that none of the mirrorless players are in agreement on what that size should be. I know for me, I prefer to carry less.
There was a saying back in the early eighties: no one ever got fired for buying IBM. If you walk into most camera stores today, and told the salesperson that you are new to photography and would like to purchase a camera so that you can take great pictures of your kids, guess what the recommendation will be?
This is the failure of the mirrorless camera makers: that they took a bottom up approach to product development. Mirrorless has a better chance of selling to the enthusiast (the photographers who have shlepped heavy gear around long enough to realiase the virtues of mirrorless) rather than to the first-time buyer.
Yet the mirrorless camera makers continue to churn out product of every permutation, hoping that something will click. All they serve to do with this approach is confuse the marketplace.
Look at Apple (late nineties) when they were 3 months away from bankruptcy–they had an over-bloated product line. One of Steve Jobs first task on his return was to trim down and simplify the lineup.
Well, thanks for the posting – interesting data.
I came across a book of a very well known writer and he said “DSLR” at a point where he should have said “camera” (something like “These days, all DSLRs take videos as well as still photos”).
I also know people who will buy a Canon or Nikon no matter what and will later complain (for instance about their bulk), but would never consider a mirrorless (because why, when for the same price you get something WITH mirror, huh).
Still, it’s true that prices and lens choice even for M43 are saddening. And when fumbling with Oly and Panasonic cameras, i find myself longing for that clean-cut hasslefree Canon menues (and Canon JPEGs).
Maybe:
“Now we have the EOS M being liquidated at a price range that’s more accustomed to lower-end, small sensor compacts.
As with Nikon’s liquidation of the early Nikon 1 models, Canon’s current pricing on the EOS M is a photographic bargain.” who said this????
Well I do not have a canon eos Mbut I heard that it focused so slowly people were missing their opportunities for a good image…with a really slow auto focus…I think 10 dollars would be too much…This was a camera i actually wanted to buy…just not a good product…for me fast focus is important…
Depends upon your expectations. The original firmware was indeed slow, just like Fujifilm’s was. The new software is better, especially if you use touch-to-focus.
If your expectations are old compact camera based, the current firmware on the EOS M is “better.”
If your expectations are recent DSLR based, the current firmware on the EOS M is “worse.”
But that’s been the m4/3 twins’ problem, too: People coming to m4/3 from a DSLR hear Olympus’ “fastest focusing camera ever” lines and then get disappointed when they’re not achieving focus when their kid runs toward them. Marketing is about building and delivering on expectations. That’s been a mirrorless problem from day one: every mirrorless camera has had something where the built-up expectation didn’t match the reality. It’s one of the reasons why sales are stalling: people are waiting for things to “be fixed.” For Nikon: “maybe I’ll try it again when they have a bigger sensor and external controls.” For Olympus: “maybe I’ll try it again when they fix continuous focus so it works as well as DSLRs.” For Sony: “maybe I’ll try it when they have some good lenses.” The list goes on and on.
Micro four thirds is very capable of getting shots of kids running towards the camera and it’s not even a shot that often happens. Most parents would have the camera in iautomode which would do the job at similar/ better success rates than a clunky DSLR other patents would have it on larger centre focus point with similar results.
I can do these shots with older Mft and my L10, I can even get shots when my kids are deliberately running erratically with a very high success rate.
Over on dpreview Mft forum “Mjankor” has posted images of swallows flying very fast and low and in focus. Birds which frequently change direction…
You continue to use illogical constructs to mimic logic. One (or some) shots in focus does not necessarily prove “focus works well continuously.” Technically, the law of averages will net you some in focus shots even if you NEVER focused.
I’ve gotten shots of moving objects in focus with m4/3, too. My hit rate is far lower than with my DSLRs. I study this stuff, so I learn how to optimize. The problem–even for DSLRs–is that the casual user does not. They expect magic. So they pick up the camera, try something, it doesn’t work as expected, then they reject it.
This is exactly the marketing perception problem I describe. When you say that you have the “world’s fastest focusing camera” and the customer then sees anything that contradicts that, they stop believing all your messages. They also look to see what the pros use, and what they tend to see is that the pros are using DSLRs to cover sports and other fast action.
My comments aren’t totally about product. They’re also about perception of product, use of product, and happiness with the product’s performance. I get dozens of emails every day from people who’ve tried various cameras. What those that tried and abandoned mirrorless say time after time is that the focus performance was unacceptable. The exception is the Nikon 1.
@Thom Hogan
the casual camera user would be using iauto mode which would give them a far highe success than what camera they traded up from.
Done a search on Flickr for “Swallow” birds just 2-3 shots of them in flight all taken with the Canon 7D most of the comments on these photos from the photographer and Flickr users were how difficult they were and that they’re was no magic button, that it took many many attempts and patience, but now you know the Olympus E-M5 can do photos of fast moving Swallows in flight ( Micro Four Thirds dpreview forum post).
I think that a problem with CAF is in the mind of the user in many cases and not a matter of a real fault. There are perpetual stories of poor CAF and they get posted and quoted over and over again. There are also many, many samples of shots that show CAF working very well. But that does not fit the argument. Does it. So they don’t count’ or “if I magnify it to 300% I can see its slightly out of focus”. I personally don’t use CAF but I have some great examples of it in use in my flickr favs and seen many others.
There is also the problem of some initial stories going on for ever. The softness of the 18mm 1.8 is a story that came out when the lens was released, yet many many actual users of the lens say its fine as have later reviewers. Yet others, go back to the introduction of the 4/3 cameras. Also most comparisons are against APSC yet the APSC seems to, for these references suddenly inherited the properties of the top 135 cameras. Dox or whatever refused to release the figures on the E-M5 for months as the results did not match their paradigm.
Its a bit like saying a mac is better at graphics than a pc. Well once it was, when it used a motorola chip and the pc used a i8088 and needed a separate graphics board. But its amazing how a truth of thirty years ago that has not been true for 29 years still persists.
We seem to be constantly believing those who are experts at nothing and discounting those that have been there done that or report their own real experiences.
FIRST ; I think is pretty obvious that many people who buy DSLR nowadays are a NEW COMER/ Beginner and their concept in their mind of how their learning photography is always begin with A MUST BUY or HAVE DSLR.
SECONDLY; people has always wanted to be CONSIDER by others people just to be KNOWN in their opinion to have this PROFESSIONAL LOOK. By having DSLR rather than having mirror-less camera.
THIRD ; and many people who already in photography with their APS-C Experienced want Upgrade by having a FULLFRAME Camera .
FOURTH; many people who mostly owned mirror-less camera right now are people who’s been in photography for many years and understand that bigger is not better , understand those 1, 2 , 3 phase of learning above and lastly ,.they are an old people who loves to shot / take pictures but already fed up with BIG -heavy camera, and their back bone is hurting right now,..lol
What’s the point in comparing mirrorless cameras to DSLRs? It’s just like comparing black cameras to colored cameras: pointless. What you have to compare are brands or systems, and you’ll see that DSLRs win because they belong to the most powerful companies and systems. But at some point in the future all and I mean all from the entry level to the pro cameras from Canon and Nikon will be mirrorless too (as soon as technology allows for fast AF tracking and EVFs leave OVFs behind), and then you you’ll see that mirrorless will tak 100% of the market! What will you be comparing then? The same you should be now: brands and systems.
And BTW by that time both Canon and Nikon will still sell 80% of the cameras if somehow they manage to keep the most powerful (which is never guaranteed).
I’d like to see such a graph starting at 2009. It would be much more meaningful.
Exactly, the time-series shows a period of 17 months only. It’s not possible to see a trend in such a short time. What the graphs tell is that 300 000 mirrorless and 1 200 000 DSRL cameras are delivered monthly. 20% of the system cameras delivered are mirrorless. It’s not bad.
These graphs look like stacked graphs, but they are not. The area below the graph should not be colored.
CIPA did not begin breaking out mirrorless cameras until 2011, thus there’s no good source for such a graph. CIPA only had interchangeable lens and fixed lens (compact) categories prior to the change. Thus, you’d have to find a source for the mirrorless numbers and then back them out of the interchangeable numbers to be able to graph it.
Most of the early “hype” about “mirrorless will overtake DSLR” came from people using BCN numbers. Unfortunately, BCN only covers about half the Japanese market, and it only covers the Japanese market. Analysis of that data also says that much of that early rise was discounted, too. The best selling m4/3 camera was always the previous generation on sale, and Japan was highly price sensitive because of the deflation there. This is one reason why YouDidntDidYou’s comments about the fire sale on the Nikon1 models don’t resonate: prior to the J1 closeout getting to #1 in Japan, it was actually previous generation m4/3 models on closeout that tended to get to #1. We’ll probably see the same thing with the EOS M closeouts.
I´m not really suprised. Prices of dslr are falling and falling while prices of csc are stable at a high level.
Why pay 400/500 euros for a Olympus PEN, Sony NEX or Pana GF without viewfinder, if you can get a Canon 1100d, Nikon d3100, Sony A37/A58 for less?!
If size doesn´t matter, a csc isn´t really a good deal. If I weren´t member of a very nice Olympus user group I would sell my OM-D/14-150 and buy a 700d/18-135.
???
I wonder if we live in the same world. Personally, I have never seen a new DSLR prices @ 200 dollars. While this is exactly what happens with old m43 models. The price motive goes exactly (I mean it: PERFECTLY) the other way round…
I have to clarify: by “old models” I mean “new-in-box previous generation cameras”. Never (ever) seen a “previous generation Nikon (or Canon) given away for prices as low as m43 cameras. Did you? If you did, please (please!) tell me where…
I’ve seen many friends “upgrading” from a smartphone to a DSLR thanks to apps like Instagram: they bought a big pro-looking camera, with a kit lens, and after two months their gear sits on shelves. This might have helped CaNikon sells, but it’s not something to be proud of. Of course The Market doesn’t care if it’s something to be proud of or useless.
Whether it’s shipments or sales, the chart reflects the reality of the marketplace. Consumers do equate size with quality – and there is not a lot of accurate information out there about mirrorless in the press – partly due to the marketing budgets of the respective players – but also due to editorial bias.
On the consumer preference front, I’m sure everyone has seen the Samsung video where the “man in the street” picks the bigger camera – even though it is exactly the same camera in a “DSLR” shell?
On the editorial bias front, take a look at the article “DSLR Deep Dive” in the latest Digital Photography Pro magazine. When discussing video codec choices and the pros and cons of EVFs, they discuss Canon, Nikon and Sony SLT video features in depth – but leave the GH3 out entirely (except for a picture on page 2 of the piece). This is not an isolated case. We have probably all seen instances where writers in the mainstream media either omit or misreport on mirrorless cameras.
This sort of bias can be overcome with aggressive innovation and marketing, but it takes time. It is a little early to declare “game over”. It has only been 5 years since Panasonic introduced the G1 at Photokina, for crying out loud.
Smartphones were a tiny niche for years compared to the feature phone slides, flips, rotates and normal ‘candybar’ phones. Phone like Palm, Handspring, Windows Phone, Nokia S60 and S90 as well as Blackberry were utterly tiny. Now it is near impossible to buy a regular old phone… That happened in 5 years with the right products.
I believe there are some effects of growing sales in DSLR with the recently released entry level full frame models. That gave the whole DSLR market a push. And let’s see in 12 month – the trends will switch again 🙂
I honestly think the train left the station for m43s. With the canons on sensor pdaf, canon’s M series will buldoze the mirrorless market. Olympus failed to take the lead in technology. Now it will stay a niche player or not a player, anymore at all.The smaller sensor format choice was the undoing of olympus.
The difference in sensor size between Canon’s 1.65x crop and M43’s 1.9x crop is too tiny to be worth being discussed.
EOS M has only 1 lens worth talking about (22mm f/2), and even then the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 is better.
Canon will slowly migrate its Rebel series to mirrorless, without ever jeopardizing its full frame market. Same for Nikon. Olympus doesn’t have a foot in the full frame market, that’s why we are seeing such nice bodies and lenses for M43.
If I’d want an APS-C mirrorless, I’d choose Fuji over Canon any day. Larger sensor, better bodies, and far more lens options.
In SWITZERLAND it is hard to finde Olympus. Sometimes an OM-D.
Canikon, Sony & also Pana & Fuji everywhere.
I don’t know why?!
I jsut think that Olympus missed the oportunity to bring a rangefinder style cam in the size of a nex6. even the touch screen would be a bit smaler, who cares…
Oly had could be the Fuji…
Personally I still belife in Olympus because of the small lenses!!!..
Plain in simple. Nobody gives a @hit about camera gear. enthusiasts do. The average person does not. I will say that in the USA, as soon as Canon and Nikon start marketing what they feel is a mature version of a next generation camera. Something smaller that is as good as their dslr line. That will be it. They will market them, sell them and be more successful than all the other companies.
A few months worth of data is not enough to make a statement like this.
I think that a good chunk of the initial sales of mirror less cameras mFT was down to a pent up demand by many DSLR owners looking for a smaller lighter set up for travel etc that did not sacrifice as much image quality as the traditional compact models. I include myself in this group though I have put more money into mFT than I intended ( GH3 ,E-M5( just got it) , 20mm,25mm,60mm 75mm , 12-35, 35-100and the 100-300 ) .The problem from a value for money perspective is that there are very cheap DSLR options that from an image quality perspective can outperform even the best mFT model case in point the £299 D3200 has better colour depth , better DR and better high ISO thn the E-M5
while there has been a number of these DSLR owners who have adopted mFT as their main system the majority haven’t . Then there is the P&S market who are in all honesty probably better served by the likes of the Sony Rx100 .i do firmly believe that eventually mirror less will be the future of all cameras .I do not however think that mFT will by any stretch dominate this market , in fact I would go as far as to say tht mFT market share ha already peaked . The pricing of some models in mFT is rather baffling , the E-P5 + EVF at £1100 makes it considerably more expensive than a number of cameras that can deliver better results regarding image quality. Just where do they go with the potential OMD -pro the E-m5 launched at £999 with the non weather sealed E-P5 with EVF at £1100 considering top APS models like the D7100 ( £840) are cheaper .The Nikon D600 is only £250 more than the E-P5+ EVF .
There are some comedy posters who rant about other mirror less options only selling because of huge reductions in price , a quick look around the various sales data , BCN,Amazon ( USA,UK,GER,FRA ETC) ,CIPA et al will clearly demonstrate that this is exactly the case with mFT .As an example look at the sales in Japan and see which mFT models do best then look at models released at the same time and see what continues to sell the largest numbers .The Nikon D800 launched at the sme time as the E-M5 yet both it and its even more niche D800E are in he charts where the E-m5 has not been seen for months
http://www.dslrphoto.com/dslr/space.php?do=jranking&view=all
I think that a good chunk of the initial sales of mirror less cameras mFT was down to a pent up demand by many DSLR owners looking for a smaller lighter set up for travel etc that did not sacrifice as much image quality as the traditional compact models. I include myself in this group though I have put more money into mFT than I intended ( GH3 ,E-M5( just got it) , 20mm,25mm,60mm 75mm , 12-35, 35-100and the 100-300 ) .The problem from a value for money perspective is that there are very cheap DSLR options that from an image quality perspective can outperform even the best mFT model case in point the £299 D3200 has better colour depth , better DR and better high ISO thn the E-M5
while there has been a number of these DSLR owners who have adopted mFT as their main system the majority haven’t . Then there is the P&S market who are in all honesty probably better served by the likes of the Sony Rx100 .i do firmly believe that eventually mirror less will be the future of all cameras .I do not however think that mFT will by any stretch dominate this market , in fact I would go as far as to say tht mFT market share ha already peaked . The pricing of some models in mFT is rather baffling , the E-P5 + EVF at £1100 makes it considerably more expensive than a number of cameras that can deliver better results regarding image quality. Just where do they go with the potential OMD -pro the E-m5 launched at £999 with the non weather sealed E-P5 with EVF at £1100 considering top APS models like the D7100 ( £840) are cheaper .The Nikon D600 is only £250 more than the E-P5+ EVF .
There are some comedy posters who rant about other mirror less options only selling because of huge reductions in price , a quick look around the various sales data , BCN,Amazon ( USA,UK,GER,FRA ETC) ,CIPA et al will clearly demonstrate that this is exactly the case with mFT .As an example look at the sales in Japan and see which mFT models do best then look at models released at the same time and see what continues to sell the largest numbers .The Nikon D800 launched at the sme time as the E-M5 yet both it and its even more niche D800E are in he charts where the E-m5 has not been seen for months
http://www.dslrphoto.com/dslr/space.php?do=jranking&view=all
“there are very cheap DSLR options that from an image quality perspective can outperform even the best mFT model case in point the £299 D3200 has better colour depth , better DR and better high ISO thn the E-M5”
Not to my eyes is doesn’t:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/studio-compare#baseDir=%2Freviews_data&cameraDataSubdir=boxshot&indexFileName=boxshotindex.xml&presetsFileName=boxshotpresets.xml&showDescriptions=false&headerTitle=Studio%20scene&headerSubTitle=Standard%20studio%20scene%20comparison&masterCamera=nikon_d3200&masterSample=dsc_0016.acr&slotsCount=4&slot0Camera=nikon_d3200&slot0Sample=dsc_0016.acr&slot0DisableCameraSelection=true&slot0DisableSampleSelection=true&slot0LinkWithMaster=true&slot1Camera=oly_em5&slot1Sample=p1010013.acr&x=0.23721265498821412&y=-0.7432493509496629&extraCameraCount=0
Hi Stig, love your driving though I don’t know how you manage to put up with that dick Clarkson ! Try looking at the RAW files with all NR turned off for both cameras, the E-M5 has such high default NR that the fine detail is a mush look at areas of fine detail such as the globe’s in each JPEG image to clearly see the effect. Plus as is almost always the case with Preview there is a notable difference in exposure the D3200 set at 3200 gives a shutter speed of 1/1000TH at F8 while the E-M5 can only manage 1/800th at F6.3 .Perhaps due to DPreview discrepancies or the fact that DXO ISO has the D3200 3200 at 2148 compared to the E-M5 3200 at 1489 .
My point was the availability of decent DSLR models at very low prices and very good DSLRs like the D7100 that is cheaper than the E-P5 + EVF. I am very happy with mFT for my purposes.
Very interesting to notice that by the end of 2012 (christmas time, etc..) mirrorless cameras did very well, while dslr sales decreased abruptly. This is very informative IMO. Let’s see how it goes by the end of 2013…..
Please note that these numbers are shipments into distribution, not actual sales to consumers. Thus, one could conclude that the mirrorless camera makers thought they’d have a great Christmas and the DSLR makers concluded that they had shipped too many units into distribution.
The reality of the NPD numbers (US retail sales to consumers) show something different: there was no big sales bump for mirrorless over Christmas. And for the last seven months we’ve seen year-to-year declines in sales of both mirrorless and DSLRs to consumers.
I think it’s really simple. The mirrorless cameras and lens are overpriced.
Example:
– camera with f2.8 zoom for APS-C DSLR: 100
– camera with f2.8 zoom for M43: 1500€ and the drawback that the actual DOF is only equivalent to a APS-C 3.5 lens.. And pay another 500€??
That’s ridiculous! It should be the other way around!
Other example: Get a 50mm f1.8 for portraits:
– DSLR-World: 100-150€ (~75mm)
– 35mm f1.8 Olympus 500€ (~70mm)
– 45mm f1.8 Olympus 250€ (~90mm)
– NEX 50mm 1.8: 300€
And this is the other way it is meant to be. Since the sensor and the lens image circle is smaller it should be cheaper! You can’t sell that stuff for an even higher price. I mean everybody would agree on this, if you compare a m43 to a compact camera where the sensor is really small.
Sorry, but it shouldn’t be cheaper as you should get the same – or at least similar – resolution from a smaller piece of glass. Cannot manage it unless using higher quality raw materials and/or higher precision manufacturing…
Take a look at the DxO Mark resolution measurements! They don’t even achieve the same resolution.
And with the same argument FF lenses & sensors should be even cheaper than APS-C ones – but obviously they are not
“camera with f2.8 zoom for APS-C DSLR: 100”
Could you get mit that APSC camera with a f2.8 for $100, I’ll take one!
I agree with you. m43 was overpriced from beginning. And with firesales of older bodies you get customers in the format that don’t even dream about spending 750€ on a single lens, when they bought the camera and the kit lens for 249€ or even less. And ofcourse there is also the GREATEST DEPRESSION ever. Probably has a “tiny” bit of influence on camera sales too. All in all, I see Olympus going bust. A decade of wrong decisions like smaller sensor than the competition, over priced glass that is also oversized and is mostly due to compensation of a smaller sensor that is far cheaper than glass, sudden dumping of a format that still held a third place in market share and absolutely wrong estimate of technological progress in m43 lets olympus in a situation as bleak as the japanese economy itself.
@Zigi_S
Going bust means running out of money, and Olympus has always had strong cash flow so I don’t see them going bust anytime soon. You must be disappointed.
I agree with many of the reasons listed. As both a Nikon D800 AND M43 shooter, a few thoughts…
1. Now that Nikon has the D600 and D800, anybody who wants high resolution (and doesn’t mind the size and weight) can get it easily. Nikon makes several great zooms with corner-to-corner sharpness. (Important!)
2. Every high-end Micro Four Thirds product takes forever to get to market. The GH2, the GH3, the Pany 12-35mm, and Oly E-M5, and batteries for these cameras. When you make a big announcement and release and then it takes almost a year to get your product available to consumers, you’re your own worst enemy for sales.
3. Micro Four Thirds still needs a high-quality general zoom akin to the Nikon 24-120 or 18-105 or the old 43’s 12-60. Most consumers start with a kit zoom as their experience with a system. The 14-42, 14-42x, 14-140, and Oly 12-50 all have their problems and poor corners. (The 12-35mm is good at least.) M43 really needs a blow-them-away zoom like the Oly 12-60. Sony’s NEX system has the same problem. Great cameras, but if you make shit-quality zooms, why would anybody choose you over an SLR or a high-end P&S?
4. Bad advertising or no advertising. I don’t see many ads for Micro Four Thirds and I don’t see many M43 cameras at stores like Best Buy. Nobody in the United States knows this system even exists.
Samsung’s tv ad already proved that consumers THINK that better pictures come from DSLR’s. Add salt to the ILC camera wound since CaNikon dominates the market in lens diversity. Not to mention cheaper than the ILC of similar specs.
As I said before, and I will say it again: DSLR Wins.
Some free marketing advice:
Panasonic should put their top GH3 sensor in the cheaper models.
Both Olympus and Panasonic should offer good EVF in competitively priced models.
Free advice. Ignore at your peril. 🙂
Panasonic has offered a mid-range body with a built-in EVF from the beginning in the G-series. The upcoming GX7 will add yet another option in a traditional rangefinder style body.
Olympus is very late to offer a mid-range body with a built-in EVF.
The masses are not v. clever, especially in some countries, where they go by social groups tastes. I remember not long ago in my city everybody having compacts. Only v. recently some tourists have evolved in getting dSLR.
Some Japanese already show Pens. So it will take time. Olympus itself predicted that mirrorless dominance would require ten years, and would happen in Asia.
In technical & practical terms future cheap FF and mirrorless make most sense. But how many pure photogs. using cameras will be left in 5 years?
Miniaturisation and dematerialization will go on. Think of the evolution of the computer, from the typewriter to the iPad.
Here in New York, I see lots of what appear to be Asian tourists with NEX and M4/3 cameras. American and European tourists carry DSLRs… kit lenses and popup flashes up and ready.
Actually I’m not surprised.
Mirrorless (m43,Apsc) is just fine for itself but it lacks the important bit.
1) Primes are lovely but to get most out of them 35mm is the way to go ( I have a M9P for this type of use)
2) High Grade lenses which the Prosumer would love to use, or: Where is the 12-60 replacement, the 300mm F4, the EC14, the 50-200 replacement ………..
I’ have the OMD but it really doesn’t get much use as its still lacking those serious lenses( and I know quite few just waiting for those)
B
Here in the States mirrorless is fighting what I’ve affectionately dubbed the “soccer mom effect”. If you walk into any Costco or Sam’s Club electronics section the first thing you see is the the Canikon displays. Consequently, when I head to the zoo, soccer game, preschool graduation…I see a sea of Rebels and Nikons being wielded by folks that think their on-board flash is going to be effective on a subject 25 feet away (not everyone but most). It’s all about perception and most of these folks don’t really want or have time to learn what makes a good photo. Rather, they just equate better pics come from bigger, more expensive cameras (which is partially true)…but that’s about all the time they have for the theory behind how they get shots. Canikon owns this massive cross section. I for one, like being different from the crowd, but I also don’t want mirrorless innovation to get choked out by those unfamiliar with the advantages of mirroless or out just out to meet status quo. However, the market will do what it wants largely based on perception.
I never realized that there was any “mirrorless hype” in the first place.
Well, keep in mind the egg-chicken problem. I.e. Oly advertised the Pen for men in the US at the beginning, and it targeted women in Japan, with billboards in the metro. Result were good in Japan and indifferent in the US. So next time around they advertised only in Japan, then in Asia.
Sometimes I believe it’s a combination of mouth to ear, and billboards and TV. If the mouth to ear doesn’t work publicity is wasted. So there should be an awareness, a fertile ground. People ‘here’ never understood well enough how clever it was to target Camera Joshi in the first place.
A lot of good points here. Perhaps, however, it’s much simpler than that. Everyone has a p&s. If you’re going to go and spend a lot of money on a new camera and it looks essentially the same as everyone else’s p&s, you lose. You don’t want to have to explain the differences, features and benefits to your friends. You want it to be obvious that you just got a better camera. In that sense it truly is that bigger is better, and that Canon and Nikon are the big boy cameras. No justifying and rationalization required.
The issue is being confused, M43 or C size and standard fit lenses. There’s a world of diference whether or not it’s mirror-less and it’s all to do with geometry and quality.
The M43 geometry makes is hugely more difficult to make fast lenses hence cost will always be an issue.
Mirror-less electronic will eventually come down in price so that manufacturing costs will become much cheaper than the electro-mechanical mirror systems and reliability will improve.
Until then it’s fashion and personal choice. I’ve just taken delivery of a Panasonic G6 with the 14-140 zoom. Brilliant is all all I can say and the lens especially is just superb quality.
What ever the technology it’s your eye that counts not pixels.
MM2
Entry Market Customers want to spend about 500,- €/$.
What does the market offer?
– a perfekt Pentax K-30 with cash back
– versus a Panasonic G5 or a Olympus E-PM2
– much cheaper third party lenses for DSLR, most wanted Tamron 17-50 2.8 for 280,- €
m43 has nothing to beat concurrent DSLRs in terms of cost/benefit calculations.
Smart phones. Most people these days shoot casual walk around photos with smart phones. Even I do. So when people go to buy a “good” camera they want something bigger like a DSLR.
I never bought into m43 because of the size myself. Personally I want something the size of a D7100. It fits my big American male hands better. I bought a GH1 and then GH2 because of the video capabilities. That’s the only reason. The bonus was being able to use vintage glass.
I also firmly believe that for photography, the Nikon and Canon cameras produce sharper images that pop more. I know this for a fact comparing photos I’ve shot on my GH1/2 compared to a D7000 or a Rebel I’ve shot with. The only m43 camera I’ve seen that reproduces this sharpness and pop is the E-M5. But that’s only one camera right now.
m43 lenses are also pricey. Not on the high end but on the low end. Aside from a basic kit lens, you have to spend $400+ on a prime, where Nikon offers both a 50mm and a 35mm for under $200. Two great lenses for a hobbyist.
Sorry if i keep focussed on Oly and the US. The failure of 4/3 was so big that Oly disbanded its marketing company in the US. I think they lost totally hope with the US so even their campaign for m4/3 was half hearted.
So they decided to target Asia instead.
By comparison Panny never lost hope, and that explains the GHx models. They had to look like dSLR to be accepted in the US. Of course there is also the movie factor which is important.
Now I would like to ask Mr. Hogan. Is the US market entirely lost? If so, then we better enquire about what Asian tastes are, in order to predict what models m4/3 is going to churn out.
Therefore it interesting to follow Robin Wong and Ming Thein, because surely they have the pulse of the main market, but they are also English soeakers.
A very large number of DSLR sales are to people who are buying Canikon, simply on reputation or recommendation. Most probably have never even heard of M4/3 or even know the option exists, they simply buy a DSLR because they want better image quality than their P&S or phone and they see Canikon DSLR as the next step.
For the small percentage of DSLR users who have heard of m4/3 and take a look before buying, 75% of those conclude that M4/3 cameras are too expensive, and they are mostly right. They find out they were wrong when they next want to take their DSLR with them on holiday by plane, but by then, it’s too late.
I have an E-M5, but I will freely admit I think Olympus’ pricing is near insane. The XZ-2 is a prime example. Most of those DSLR buyers really just need a XZ-2, but it’s the same price as most of the entry level DSLRs they are buying and looks like poor value when you consider the sensor size.
I think Olympus should lower their prices and do an advertising campaign showing someone about to go on holiday and fitting an M4/3 kit into a suitcase vs an equivalent DSLR kit, then people might ‘get it’ and why it might be worth paying a little more.
I shoot both mirrorless and dslr (EM5, Canon FF, Canon crop). All have their weakneses. With mirrorless I suffer weak af, depth control issues, have to play with neutral filters due slow max shutter speed, lacking good teles… but sometimes small formfactor and light weight are what makes it wortwhile. However now with 100D I can almost get best of the both worlds, only sometimes missing IBIS with small primes. But eg with 70-200/4 IS L thats awesome trecking companion hars to match with weight/performance.
I think it would be very interesting to compare *lens* sales. That way you’ll really know what people think about mirrorless cameras. For instance, what if MFT body sales are down, but lens sales are up?
They’re all just cameras! The distinction between mirrored and mirrorless doesn’t matter to most people, even pros. Just like most prople don’t care about what kind of fuel injection system is used by the car they buy. They care about price, performance, and features.
I’ve been using GH2s for my video business for 2+ years, and have no complaints. But recently, I’ve started doing portrait and live event photography in addition to video, and the GH2s just don’t cut it, and neither does the GH3 (noise, lack of dynamic range, limited resolution). So my next camera is simply going to be the one that can deliver the best image quality for my needs at a price I can afford. I could care less if it’s a DSLR or mirrorless – because at the end of the day, all that matters are the results.
As far as the mass market is concerned, they’re going to buy what they perceive is the best deal they can get, and that is mostly based on marketing, which the mirrorless companies don’t do. It’s not at all surprising that Canon and Nikon are successful in pushing big DSLRs into the hands of unwitting soccer moms – that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. What are Panasonic and Olympus trying to do?
In the mass market, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling – most people could care less about the underlying technology. Purchases are based on perception, adn perception is driven by marketing.
Well, I think all of us who invested in MFT knew that this road was smaller with no future re-sale value, not? I knew, and frankly, I’m regreting I did it, should have stayed with Canikon!!!
If these graphs are shipments (out) from Japaneese companies then I believe they say more or less one thing. In Autumn 2012 they shipped out mirrorless cameras to the Christmas Season.
Most likely due to marketing and expectations from distributors/shops ordering that.
When they did not sell quite all that, the coming months were slower in order/shipment. And the DSLR cameras increases in shipments instead (as they went down when mirrorless was popular to ship).
I don’t see a stagnation in the graphs. I see a big increase (for mirrorless) in autumn 2012 and a likely slower ordering due to that afterwards. The graphs for DSLR is kore interesting to analyze. But I can’t.
/Jonas B, Sweden
Most people do not have the money or desire to spend much more than $500 on a “serious” camera. As long as DSLR’s with kit lens are avail near or below that price they will prevail over any other form of camera regardless of brand, technology, lens availability, etc. It’s a no-brainer purchase for the masses particularly when the image quality is virtually indistinguishable from that produced by a $10,000.00 camera in the medium where they are normally viewed.
Why would i buy a mirroless when i can get an canon Rebel T5i for $749 or a T4i with the same image quality for even less an have more money for lenses, i think mirroelss is just too expensive it might be the reason or it could just be that canon has the USA on lock,i see the old to young with canon dlsrs.
The raising of DSLR selling is clear:
– Nikon have to decrease DSLR prices => which repaired their “numbers”
(see http://nikonrumors.com/2013/02/06/nikon-cuts-their-anual-profit-forecast.aspx/ )
For me there was more interesting information is increase of the CSC sales in autumn 2012.
Do you know the reason?
True, but Nikon actually reported a profit on camera sales in that quarter (and year) they revised downward, which made them one of two (Canon was the other). To my knowledge, no one is breaking even in mirrorless.
Some analysts hypothesize that the bump in mirrorless SHIPMENTS FROM MAKERS TO DISTRIBUTION in late summer/fall of last year was the mirrorless camera makers drinking their own Kool Aid. They went on in late fall to forecast that mirrorless shipments would be up substantially in 2013, too. The truth at the retail outlets was not the same: boxes sat on shelves, and they quickly adjusted their manufacturing downwards temporarily. They’ve now made that “adjustment” three times that I know of. The question being asked around the big financial firms at the moment that follow the camera companies is this: have they adjusted enough or is there more bad news ahead? No one knows the answer to that, though I’d say that we have yet to see anyone buck the trend in their shipments other than Fujifilm, and they were a small, small player overall.
I should point out that dealers in the US are pretty pissed off at Canon at the moment. The Amazon/B&H/Adorama US$299 EOS M+22mm deal is not something that any other dealer can match at the moment, including Best Buy (US$450, which is under regular dealer cost). How you expect to keep a dealer base long term when you cut them out of sales I don’t know. The push back from dealers is absolutely there: the ones I talk to say they’re ordering less Canon inventory (across the board) and stocking more Nikon gear with their money (Nikon hasn’t shot the dealers in the chest yet, only in the feet a few times ;~). Ditto Sony to some degree. This is a problem for Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, and Samsung in the US right now: they don’t have a lot of dealer support for their mirrorless offerings, so they won’t sell many (definitely not at list prices).
I would argue that the Japanese camera makers are actually reinforcing the trend that’s already there. That’s because they’re so darned anxious to get inventory off their shelves before the next model shows up (with very little differentiation).
Your observations are more a reflection on the poor state of the USA retail consumer market ( the UK and parts of EU Europe aren’t much better). Camera companies operate on a world stage and focus for profit and sales accordingly.
I’m pretty sure Nikon won’t be making profits by 2014, Canon yes.
You need to add some adjectives to your statement. “Poor US retail market.” Not really. Overall US retail sales are up. They’re actually up above forecast. Many sectors of retail sales are showing strong signs of growth. The US NPD numbers, however, show that camera sales are weak. Very weak. Declining faster than TV sales. Heck, even camcorders aren’t declining as fast as still cameras.
The obvious implication in looking at the full set of numbers by category is that it is the camera category that is weak, not overall retail sales. There can be any number of reasons why that be: market saturation, drain to a competitive market, no significantly new product, cost increases, etc. This led a number of us to go back and try to correlate categories to find an explanation. One possible explanation is smartphones, quite obviously. We can see and measure how many photos are being taken with traditional cameras versus smartphones, for example, and that, shows correlation.
Now correlation isn’t causation, but it’s often the first place you pick up the clues to cause.
The problem is a marketing one. Why should someone buy a new dedicated camera these days? Very few people are printing 14″+, very few people don’t have any dedicated camera, very few people have a camera that just broke. Now for those of us who make our livings in photography, we DO need new cameras and capabilities. I can’t begin to list the things I wish my camera could do that it doesn’t, the list is far too long. Many of those improvements would save me a bit of time, and time is money to a pro. But the pro market is incredibly small. The serious enthusiast market mimics the pros and is bigger, but it’s not big enough to sustain 10+ camera companies at billion+ dollar sales rates.
Unless the camera companies can answer the question “why should I buy a new dedicated camera” to the mass consumer, we’re going to see the same continued downturn in sales we’re seeing now, I think. Again, don’t get me wrong. Some current products may be able to answer that question. But the camera companies certainly have proven they don’t know how to market that answer. Moreover, they’ve shown that they don’t understand that the places to market that answer have changed.
Canikon have damaged the camera market in the USA by selling overpriced, oversized, under performing DSLRs to general consumers, those consumers are now once bitten twice shy.
Smartphones have damaged the Asia camera and Smartphone take up in the USA has been slower than the rest of the developed world.
Now correlation isn’t causation, but it’s often the first place you pick up the clues to cause.
It’s not about sales rates Leica, Go Pro and Lomo seem to be doing OK , it’s about profit.
Olympus, Fuji and Sony do realise that marketing has changed, Panny needs some work.
I’m afraid you had it all wrong. Those are not the reason why DSLR wins over MFT. The major reason is image quality. If a small and light camera using small and light lenses can produce image quality on par with big cameras, I’m pretty sure it will sell like HOT HOT CAKE! We want Dynamic Range, high ISO performance and color depth on par with at least APS-C cameras. I don’t mind MFT’s 16MP (vs APS-C’s 24MP), but please give me same picture quality as APS-C! I can’t think of the reason why a 60% smaller sensor cannot give similar picture quality in a 50% less resolution. Why?
@Kok
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2013/07/05/using-the-olympus-om-d-e-m5-for-landscapes-by-steve-gosling/
Look at those pictures he showed us. All of them are extremely high contrast. One of my friend who shoot street photography with OMD also did the same thing, he added very heavy contrast to all of his photos and also using (or grade into) B&W. Why? Because the camera does not have good DR and accurate color, that’s why they made their photographs that way in order to look more professional.
Newest Olympus sensors are already better than Canon aps-c.
It’s more about the perception on human eyes. What we see in the picture that looks more natural to our eyes (or more precisely, our brain’s interpretation of the image). Nikon’s recent APS-C has excellent DR, lets not compare them. We just pick the weak one: Canon’s APS-C cameras’ DR performance. Lets ignore the scientific testing numbers, and just watch the pictures people shot. I think the answer is quite clear for me, that there is no MFT cameras (including the best OMD) able to capture a nice outdoor picture under the sunlight in DR as good as a just moderate DR performing Canon APS-C camera. MFT today just can’t handle wide DR range “naturally”, they simply look over-bright at the highlight area and over-dark at the shadow area even though they may capture details in those shadows that able to boost up in Photoshop. In addition to DR, the color is also not as accurate as APS-C/FF cameras.
I’m not sure it’s a mirrorless problem. I think it’s more a Micro 4:3 problem. Olympus and Panasonic need to do some sensor innovation. Improve the dynamic range and high ISO of the M4:3 sensor then very aggressively market and message those improvements.
I have a GX-1 and I’ve tried the Fuji X1 line. The Fujis are too big (I love the size of the M4:3 cameras) and too expensive. I don’t care about the physical size of the sensor. The depth of field control of the large sensor is great but give me a small sensor and tiny bodies with great image quality and I’m in clover.
The current Olympus Mft and the forthcoming Panasonic Mft have good enough dynamic range and ISO performance. They are not even main considerations for most camera purchasers.
100% agree with you, and me too. Give me lower resolution also I am fine with it, just give me picture quality as good as those bigger sensor cameras in a smaller body.
I keep saying this and here it is again. I note more seem to be saying the same thing. My post from 5 days ago
“”Welcome to the real world. The world of the ‘Camera of the day’ buyer. Want what you like, but buy the ‘camera of the day’ ‘we have the biggest, over there on that pallet’ ‘best price today only’ ‘biggest packaging so the neighbours can see you have a real camera’
Unfortunately it takes a lot of ‘camera of the day’ purchasers to support the manufacture of higher quality cameras. Without them, some top cameras would not exist nor would the company who makes them. This partly explains why m43 is quite expensive compared to many DSLRs.””
Marketing has to change and the lineup needs a change. if they can’t give the faithful what they want, how do they expect to gain market share. FP, Pen built in EVF, HQ fast zooms come to mind.
Bigger is better? see the Samsung ad, live with it or make the problem go away with some hard work.
An interesting point is that the makers and marketers are chasing the US market with continual advertising (cost and discounts) but the big sales are in Europe. Now follow that up. Many electronic companies have started Europe only products. Follow the ideas.
Olympus’ bread & butter is medical imaging, so it makes sense to me that they might be using M43 (especially EVFs) as a sandbox for medical imaging R&D. That’s fine with me. Engineers can experiment freely where lives aren’t on the line.
If their product schedules annoy the photographers, well, maybe it’s because they’re not actually working for us, they’re working for the surgeons.
I think many of us have both mirrorless and D-SLR ,in addition to that, I even own a few digital range finders (Lieca M9P , Leica M and Epson RD1).
so , it is not which is better but which is the best camera system for you.
I shoot landscape and macro with my D800E , D600 kit.
I use my Canon 5D3 kit for action photography and video.
And for everything else my OM-D or Leica M240.
just horses for courses , that’s all.
IMO, 2013 has been a disappointing year for mirrorless innovation. Last year we had the OM5 and the XE1. This year, um a Samsung Galaxy NX camera and a cheaper Fuji X without a viewfinder?
Many years ago, Woody Allen famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” If anyone at Pentax marketing heard that, they evidently filed it and forgot it. As Don Pope noted, in most places that sell cameras across America Pentax is a no show. While I don’t think you can pick up a Nikon, Canon or Sony at 7-11 — yet — virtually anyplace that sells cameras sells two or more of the big-three brands. Olympus’ marketing seems to be a bit better, but still falls short of the big three.
Another factor is that camera magazines push DSLR’s from cover to cover, every issue. Major camera makers buy full-page and multi-page spreads in those magazines, almost exclusively to advertise their DSLR’s. So, someone looking to get pointers on what camera to buy when moving up from point ‘n’ shoot gets wall-to-wall DSLR everything when he/she picks up magazines.
I think many consumers who move up from point ‘n’ shoots have seen and heard enough about “SLR’s” since childhood that the term is burned into their brains. This is what pro’s use, so must be the best. Add to that, the shorthand way for a person who knows a thing or two about digital photography to help out someone looking to buy their first “serious” camera is to say something like, “The bigger the sensor the better the image quality.” So, of course, DSLRs have the bigger sensors. In many cases, I’ll bet it’s game, set and match right there.
The Hype is over and so is some of the magic surrounding those cameras.
What’s left now is the quality of the product vs the brands.
It’s too early to announce that the mirrorless market is dead. But it is certainly in a dire situation.
Let’s all wait and see what happens next.
perhaps they should have gone the route like wifi look how long people had a CAT5 cable to connect their internet, even though wifi started out and in the beginning was not as secure as it is today. But eventually it caught on and the name wifi (wireless fidelity) is catchy.
Perhaps the name mirrorless is not as catchy but hard to change now as too many have heard it. But a acronym can hardly be made from mirrorless that is catchy.
A good term might have been mifree (mirror free).
Most people these days are not upgrading from a P&S camera but rather want a better more versatile high end quality camera than their “smart phone”. When they see a E-PL5 so tiny they more associate it with their phone. They see a BIG Clunky DSLR, OH it MUST BE BETTER than my phone.
Don Pope… you nailed it. People don’t are as familiar with these names, and more so, they don’t see cameras like the Fuji X in stores.