Canon Rules the Camera Landscape

[David - Sydney]

It looks like Nikon is gaining some momentum!
They chose to occupy a niche, long "affordable" teles, where both Canon and the other one whose name I enjoy forgetting are still absent.
It helped them to regain the interest of many wildlife, maybe also sports photographers.
Good news for them, and also Canon.
Canon/Nikon competition was good for both, not too long ago.

Nikon have mid priced teles whereas Canon have the RF100-400, RF200-800, RF600/11 and RF800/11 at the bottom end plus the high end at silly prices for most.
The Z8/9 are also well priced even if they recently increased their pricing in the US.

 

[David - Sydney]

In the meantime, I'm praying they release a 14mm or 15mm f1.4 for night scapes.

A small and reasonably priced 14/1.8 similar to the Sony would be wonderful for astro.
The Sigma 14/1.4 is a beast in many ways and now a special order with long leadtimes so something is hard in the manufacturing or the volume has dropped dramatically after initial orders.
Canon has never made something like this. The EF14/2.8 was overpriced and not great quality IMO.

 

[David - Sydney]

I do not believe that the lack of FF 3rd party AF lenses is to blame here... reality is we care but we are a small niche.
I think it's more the case that the DRLS market is disappearing fast and Canon is the last manufacturer that still sells a significant number of DSLRs, so their growth in mirrorless is countered by their decreasing DSLR sales. I assume that they will reverse the trend once DSLRs will disappear

Canon owns the DLSR market which others abandoned or were never in it.
The volume went down ~15% YoY which isn't bad as there hasn't been a new body or EF lens for a very long time.
Even if the 5Div and 1Dxiii are still available new, the volume must be very small now.
"Disappearing fast" isn't an issue when it is pure cash cow mode with zero R&D being spent.
Canon will milk it until it doesn't last any more and clearly many buyers are very cost conscious. Are the figures broken down into regions? I am guessing that Asia/India etc buyers may still be selling DLSRs to maximise their profit commercially and still look like "professional" photographers rather than using phones.

 

[David - Sydney]

Canon should do to Sony what AMD did to Intel with dual core CPU.
...
A year ago I responded to a questionnaire sent by Canon and I asked about a triple layer BSI sensor. Considering Sony announced plans to do so, Canon needs to design and release a new sensor architecture, from the ground up, to pull away from the pack. Canon behaves like AMD, its mirrorless camera and lens design and innovation is slow and methodical. It can beat the pants off Sony and Nikon. Couple that with their excellent customer support. No 3rd party repairs for Canon products and I've never been ignored or turned away by customer support.

Canon has a much smaller sensor R&D capability than Sony.
Sony makes bazillions of sensors for phones etc and can leverage that scale for their R&D into other specialty areas. I have no idea about the transfer cost of FF sensors within Sony internally but that would also be a factor
That said, we don't hear much about Canon's industrial/security sensors where they seem to have a strong niche.

 

[David - Sydney]

This is right, but like Canon's slight decline, mostly due to the DSLRs, while their mirrorless sales show an upward trend.
As to Canon, my feeling is that they are no longer being considered as THE innovation company. Canon often seems to be following trends set by competition.
And Chinese companies are waiting...

The DJI Osmo Pocket crushes it's segment and shows what Chinese companies can do with volume. One in three video cameras in Japan are the Pocket 3!
https://www.bcnretail.com/market/detail/20250727_539929.html
The question is whether it makes sense commercially for Chinese companies to enter the ILC market given volumes are pretty small overall, Japanese companies have decades of deep experience/R&D/optics. It is probably not a market where it makes sense at a industry segment level for China (as a country) to be dominant ie where subsidies would be used to enter a well-defined segment IMO.

An interesting discussion that DJI could but probably won't enter the FF market at:
https://petapixel.com/2025/07/21/dji-could-but-probably-wont-launch-a-full-frame-mirrorless-camera/

 

[MikeGalos]

The volume went down ~15% YoY which isn't bad as there hasn't been a new body or EF lens for a very long time

DSLR volume has dropped over 54% from 2021 to 2024.
Canon's DSLR volume has dropped just over 50% in that same time. They've gone from selling 1,570,000 bodies per year to 790,000 in a pretty seriously short time.

That's absolutely "disappearing fast".

 

[David - Sydney]

none of them are going with Canon and their number one reason is the lack of third-party, full frame lenses, such as Sigma. I'm very heavily invested in mirrorless Canon equipment but in my conversations with photographers starting professional work, I now recommend Sony or Nikon, solely for the lack of of third party, full-frame lenses for Canon. I follow a few YouTube landscape photographers. In the last two years, almost all of the Canon DSLR YouTube influencers I have followed have now switched to Sony or Nikon. These people are significant influencers. The consequences of this are not large to start with - almost flat in the short term, but when they stay flat or start trending downward, there can be an accelerating effect, resulting in an increasing narrowing of the gap as we see in that graph. I gave Canon a two-year grace period with the expectation that they need to get their new RF lenses up and running and not let the competition in too soon. But that grace period is long gone now.

My wish is that the 3rd parties were still releasing EF lenses. That makes sense to me and they had no issues prior to the RF mount doing so. Even Sony buyers used EF lenses at the beginning with adaptors despite them being dodgy at times.

Sony didn't have a lens ecosystem choice at the beginning but are paying the price for it now as they compete against the 3rd parties directly. This impacts their profitability but Sony seems to be big enough to handle it. Sony would also sell their ILC business if they decide that it doesn't meet future profitability or strategic directions. Canon/Nikon etc don't have this luxury.

Sigma make some great lenses. Cheaper but generally not as light but quality is good. Sigma/Tamron are playing the long game with Canon's licensing. They will get there and hopefully in niches where Canon decides not to compete.

There are only a few gaps in Canon's RF lineup and some areas where they excel vs the competition eg low end and high high teles.
Is there a Canon 'tax' built into the market leader's pricing = probably but they are bringing out interesting lenses.... just not as fast as we would like!

 

[David - Sydney]

DSLR volume has dropped over 54% from 2021 to 2024.
Canon's DSLR volume has dropped just over 50% in that same time. They've gone from selling 1,570,000 bodies per year to 790,000 in a pretty seriously short time.

That's absolutely "disappearing fast".

I won't argue with those numbers but Nikon lost nearly 50% of DLSRs from 2023 ie one year! That is disappearing fast
The overall ILC market has stabilised now or slightly growing with Canon dominant in market share.

Canon isn't even trying to sell DLSRs. Who knows, perhaps they could grow the market with a few new bodies and some marketing even though they currently have >90% market share of DLSRs. It's a volume game at the low end and Canon would be happy with the numbers.
If DLSRs were taken out of the market share numbers then Canon would still be ahead of Sony but much closer.

Quoting from Petapixel
"Speaking of overall camera market share, Canon sold more DSLRs in 2024 than most camera companies sold digital cameras in total, including Fujifilm (740,000), Panasonic (280,000), OM Digital (160,000), and Ricoh Imaging (70,000)."

That puts it in perspective of "disappearing fast"

 

[John Wilde]

Every single week customers are reminded that they are in canon lens jail. Do you really think that's insignificant? Feel however you want but that's exceedingly unrealistic.

According to Canon's financial documents their camera-only revenue in 2024 was +6.5% compared to 2023, and they sold 2.84 million interchangeable lens cameras in 2024. For multiple years, people have said that Canon is doomed because of their lens policy, but that hasn't happened.

 

[Jethro]

Every single week customers are reminded that they are in canon lens jail. Do you really think that's insignificant? Feel however you want but that's exceedingly unrealistic.

A 'lens jail' that you have sentenced yourself to and, to strain the already strained analogy, to which you continue to deny yourself parole.

 

[MikeGalos]

I won't argue with those numbers but Nikon lost nearly 50% of DLSRs from 2023 ie one year!

Nikon has openly stated that they're no longer in the business of DSLRs or in entry level cameras. That they have any DSLR sales at all is surprising and is just emptying warehouses of existing stock.

 

[kw1911]

I'm not sure the scope we're looking at is particularly interesting given how things are changing so quickly. Canon can enjoy the current lead. But can it outcompete the potential upstarts from much more potent economies in the future? Focusing on who is winning the mirrorless race and the silly brand loyalty that we have seems to be frivolous.

It'll be interesting to see in 10 and 20 years where we will be. I suspect that several of the Japanese incumbents will have divested their camera divisions and the industry further consolidated due to declining demand and stagnant investment in R&D. Can also see Chinese brands come in and take a huge chunk of the market share. The emerging markets in Africa will make up a significant chunk of the uptake where China is poised to offer equivalent technology with better prices. India will be on this track as well with some SE Asia countries coming in after.

Look at how DJI entered and hugely impacted these segments:
Civilian drones, gimbals, action cams, pocketable cams (I.e. PnS), mics, and they had recently entered the 360° camera and robot vacuum spaces. Handheld 360° camera segment was started by Chinese rival Insta360 and is dominated by them. Roomba enjoyed the robot vacuum space with its patents until they expired and Chinese upstarts swiftly overtook Roomba.

Interesting times ahead. Who knows. Maybe we'll see a Sony and Canon merger to take on DJI.

 

[Zadak]

Canon is doomed (again!!)

Oh gee I love nuanced conversations that don't strawman what someone is saying.

The road is long until Canon is doomed, but I wouldn't be letting go the steering wheel if I were Canon. In 10 years the landscape can change dramatically

 

[Zadak]

Canon has a much smaller sensor R&D capability than Sony.
Sony makes bazillions of sensors for phones etc and can leverage that scale for their R&D into other specialty areas. I have no idea about the transfer cost of FF sensors within Sony internally but that would also be a factor
That said, we don't hear much about Canon's industrial/security sensors where they seem to have a strong niche.

I agree, Sony is everywhere in other segments, where Canon has 0 inroads. I think over time things can shift. One of the things the guy talking weird stuff about AMD/Intel didn't mention was, AMD made custom chips for Consoles, Intel... not so much.

Canon is possibly having an Intel moment and as I mentioned above, while it isn't a cause for concern immediately, it can shift the industry over a long-term timeframe.

 

[Del Paso]

I'm not sure the scope we're looking at is particularly interesting given how things are changing so quickly. Canon can enjoy the current lead. But can it outcompete the potential upstarts from much more potent economies in the future? Focusing on who is winning the mirrorless race and the silly brand loyalty that we have seems to be frivolous.

It'll be interesting to see in 10 and 20 years where we will be. I suspect that several of the Japanese incumbents will have divested their camera divisions and the industry further consolidated due to declining demand and stagnant investment in R&D. Can also see Chinese brands come in and take a huge chunk of the market share. The emerging markets in Africa will make up a significant chunk of the uptake where China is poised to offer equivalent technology with better prices. India will be on this track as well with some SE Asia countries coming in after.

Look at how DJI entered and hugely impacted these segments:
Civilian drones, gimbals, action cams, pocketable cams (I.e. PnS), mics, and they had recently entered the 360° camera and robot vacuum spaces. Handheld 360° camera segment was started by Chinese rival Insta360 and is dominated by them. Roomba enjoyed the robot vacuum space with its patents until they expired and Chinese upstarts swiftly overtook Roomba.

Interesting times ahead. Who knows. Maybe we'll see a Sony and Canon merger to take on DJI.

The segments you named, drones, action cameras, gimbals etc.... are all strongly selling and expanding markets.
Without any real Japanese presence. It will be, in my opinion, the basis for additional competition in the camera market. China has already far over a billion potential "home" customers, who would certainly prefer better priced national products.
Chinese lenses already exist, their quality getting better and better. Would it be financially risky to select a standard Chinese bayonet mount for which a body could easily be developed by several companies? Definitely not!
Look at the Chinese auto industry. A few years ago, laughed at. And now???
Canon, Panasonic, Fuji, Sony are certainly aware of this danger. Some great names could disappear within the next decade (Panasonic, Olympus/OM , unless they succeed in what I'd call the "Apple way". Ahead of competition with usable innovation, selling brand-prestige, tradition, design. Yet, there won't be enough room for all of them...
Leica went a similar, yet also different way, establishing themselves in the luxury segment. In the very small luxury segment...where they mostly succeed, also in China!
Edit: Chinese camera sensors? Just a matter of time! They have the skills, the equipment, the people.

 

[Zadak]

The segments you named, drones, action cameras, gimbals etc.... are all strongly selling and expanding markets.
Without any real Japanese presence. It will be, in my opinion, the basis for additional competition in the camera market. China has already far over a billion potential "home" customers, who would certainly prefer better priced national products.
Chinese lenses already exist, their quality getting better and better. Would it be financially risky to select a standard Chinese bayonet mount for which a body could easily be developed by several companies? Definitely not!
Look at the Chinese auto industry. A few years ago, laughed at. And now???
Canon, Panasonic, Fuji, Sony are certainly aware of this danger. Some great names could disappear within the next decade (Panasonic, Olympus/OM , unless they succeed in what I'd call the "Apple way". Ahead of competition with usable innovation, selling brand-prestige, tradition, design. Yet, there won't be enough room for all of them...
Leica went a similar, yet also different way, establishing themselves in the luxury segment. In the very small luxury segment...where they mostly succeed, also in China!

I wouldn't be surprised of some forced mergers at the government level for some of these, if anything. But yes you are completely correct in your analysis. That's why I am saying, Canon should start pushing some boundaries because they can afford to.

Be it software, hardware, I don't care. There are things that can be better, and we shouldn't be afraid to demand less status-quo.

Look at the Japanese auto industry how it was 20-30 years ago and today. Nissan + Honda + Mitsubishi merger is on the books. Why couldn't this happen in other aspects? This is not the time for Canon to coast

 

[jjanusz]

Wow. Great year for Canon! They are doing great behind the scenes. Looking at numbers, there's no need to open RF mount to 3rd party. That would be crazy. They are winning anyway so why opening own ecosystem to competition.

 

[Zadak]

Wow. Great year for Canon! They are doing great behind the scenes. Looking at numbers, there's no need to open RF mount to 3rd party. That would be crazy. They are winning anyway so why opening own ecosystem to competition.

It's called gatekeeping, and you know what happens to companies that are trying to gatekeep an industry for too long? Others will want in, and chinese lens companies at least, seem to come out with some really good stuff (Viltrox, specifically)

 

[roby17269]

Not sure why you wouldn't believe it and its certainly not niche for someone to divert from the canon ecosystem. Its only been going on for years.

I personally have been canvasing options now that I have access to all sigma lenses. It's a YUUUGE deal. That's literally money not going to canon. My next 2 lenses will not be going to canon....maybe a 35, or 28-70 or 24-70...hmm....choices matter.

Ironically n the salespersons at BH..in the CANON booth complain about it.

Every single week customers are reminded that they are in canon lens jail. Do you really think that's insignificant? Feel however you want but that's exceedingly unrealistic.

Now back to my sigma lens shopping..hmm..this one, or that one...hmmm.

While I agree that it is material, I still think that that is true for a small % of the camera buying population, which is a tiny % of humanity.
Stats some years ago said that people buying ILCs added on average 1.7 lenses to their camera. This was mostly driven by people buying entry-level DSLRs with 2-zooms kits.
I think I read recently that the average had not significantly moved up from 1.7

If we accept that, it means that while we care deeply about lens choices (I know I do!), we are a niche in a niche. So even if Canon annoys every CR forum dweller enough to switch, we would not register on those graphs.

 

[jjanusz]

It's called gatekeeping, and you know what happens to companies that are trying to gatekeep an industry for too long? Others will want in, and chinese lens companies at least, seem to come out with some really good stuff (Viltrox, specifically)

So far based on numbers, they are doing great. I had same opinion on gatekeeping, but seems like Canon knows what they are doing.