Canon Looking at a Medium Format Company?

[Canon Rumors]

Bigger!

Received a cryptic email in regards to Canon having some interest in purchasing a medium format camera company. Apparently they’ve moved to the point of actually opening the company’s books.

There was no word on which company that was, but there really aren’t that many of them. There have always been murmurs about Canon moving into the medium format segment. I’m not even sure if it’s a growth market or not, or what use Canon would have with it.

I have been told in the past that Canon had interest in acquiring Pentax, but it fell through. Pentax has now moved into the medium format marketplace with the 645D, the folks in Japan will be paying close attention to its success.

If it is Pentax, I for one would love an orange rebel with a pink lens.

cr

[scalesusa]

I think its a good idea, particularly if they make it possible to make as many components as compatible as possible. 

Right now, if you want the best possible IQ and DR in a imaging system, you do not go to Canon or Nikon, but to a Medium Format camera.  The cameras use CCD sensors and are relatively slow.  Canons digic processors might speed up processing, and they might even manufacture cmos sensors for them eventually.

[x-vision]

Completely agree.

Also, in the next couple of years both Nikon and Canon will have 18-24mp pro cameras at the $5K price point.

This will seriously challenge the $8K price point for FF cameras - regardless of megapixels.
Only larger than FF sensors will be able to easily command $8K+ prices.

So, it will not be so surprising if Canon buys Pentax as a vehicle to sell expensive MF sensors.

[muteteh]

Possibly because I don't understand the technical side well enough, I wonder about the part about "if they make it possible to make as many components as compatible as possible".

How would that be done without leaving owners of existing equipment behind ?

How attractive an upgrade path would it be to existing Canon equipment owners ? As existing Canon lenses don't have the power of coverage to be used on MF cameras, buyers of Canon MF bodies would have to buy MF lenses as well, so what would be the point ?

[traveller]

I can understand Canon's (& Nikon's) concern about the new wave of cheaper, more DSLR-like medium format cameras heralded by the Pentax 645D.  They pose a threat to the market position of the 1Ds (DXx) series of cameras by tempting those budget conscious professional users that need high resolution, but may not necessarily need all the speed and AF sophistication that the 'Canikons' offer.  Because of this, I can see why there are rumours of Canon entering the MF market. 

There are problems with both of the strategies they could use in order to do this.  To go-it-alone would require Canon to develop technologies that are outside of their current experience.   The alternative, the aquisition option, might seem attractive but it is fraught with its own difficulties.  With the consolidation of the MF market in the last few years, (Pentax aside) there are really only two MF camera companies left: Phase One and Hasselblad.  Both of these seem to be reasonably successful and therefore expensive to aquire. 

I struggle to see what commercial advantage Canon could possibly gain by entering the MF camera market.  Canon might be better served by concentrating its resources on gaining market share its current core market and accepting the loss of some of its high-end market. 

Sorry for the long post!

[Osiris30]

Traveller:

I think Phase One would actually provide more synergy with Canon than Pentax.  If Canon were to buy Pentax they would acquire a huge amount of baggage with respect to Pentax's DSLR line.  While it would remove a competitor from the market place, Pentax likely has some fairly strong agreements with their sensor vendor which would be costly to break (and Canon certainly wouldn't want to feed anyone else's sensor group money).

With Phase One they would be acquiring not only a good MF vendor, but a company who produces a decent software product as well that could then be bundled with their SLRs (Capture One would be a huge improvement over DPP).  Plus Phase One has no nasty baggage in terms of agreements with direct competitors (their MF sensors are Kodak and Kodak and Canon don't directly compete).

A Pentax buy would just raise too many headaches.  Buying P1 would allow Canon to finally bury Pentax IMHO. No need to buy what you can kill.  Plus P1s prices could likely be significantly reduced were they owned by a company like Canon.

Ofcourse I'm of the opinion this won't happen, as much as I would love a Canon body with a Kodak sensor in it (format irrelevant).

Steve

[Waleed Essam]

Completely agree, buying Pentax won't make sense, you'll be paying money for what you dont need -dSLRs- only to acquire their 645D.

I'd love to see a Canon MF, specially that when a company like Canon -or Nikon- enter this segment, the MF prices will drop. An already successful MF-only company will make more sense. But I guess they'll buy an old film MF and digitize it rather than Phase one.

Imagine if they sell it with an adapter that makes you put EF lenses with a crop mode... this will make things easier for users to do the transition, to buy the camera and the MF lenses on stages instead of putting bulk on many lenses when they first purchase the body.

We'll see... that's something far in the future I guess

Traveller:

I think Phase One would actually provide more synergy with Canon than Pentax.  If Canon were to buy Pentax they would acquire a huge amount of baggage with respect to Pentax's DSLR line.  While it would remove a competitor from the market place, Pentax likely has some fairly strong agreements with their sensor vendor which would be costly to break (and Canon certainly wouldn't want to feed anyone else's sensor group money).

With Phase One they would be acquiring not only a good MF vendor, but a company who produces a decent software product as well that could then be bundled with their SLRs (Capture One would be a huge improvement over DPP).  Plus Phase One has no nasty baggage in terms of agreements with direct competitors (their MF sensors are Kodak and Kodak and Canon don't directly compete).

A Pentax buy would just raise too many headaches.  Buying P1 would allow Canon to finally bury Pentax IMHO. No need to buy what you can kill.  Plus P1s prices could likely be significantly reduced were they owned by a company like Canon.

Ofcourse I'm of the opinion this won't happen, as much as I would love a Canon body with a Kodak sensor in it (format irrelevant).

Steve

[c.d.embrey]

... But I guess they'll buy an old film MF and digitize it rather than Phase one.

Imagine if they sell it with an adapter that makes you put EF lenses with a crop mode... this will make things easier for users to do the transition, to buy the camera and the MF lenses on stages instead of putting bulk on many lenses when they first purchase the body.

All the present MF manufactures make digital cameras/backs. Bronica and Contax (a good camera in its time) have been out of business for years. This leaves the recently defunct Rollei as the only choice. Sinar and Leaf sold private labeled Rollei Hy6s with their own digital backs. The Rollei used mainly Schneider lenses.

MF cameras are used by Pros who have no interest in using EF lenses in a crop mode, they already have 1Ds III or a  D3s/D3x for that. Why would a consumer use a MF camera - they aren't good for sports, BIF/wildlife, family snapshots or vacations. Some serious landscape hobbyists use digital backs on view cameras, so there may be a market there.