ILC Camera Sales Slightly Down from Last Year

[Albi86]

Not sure if anyone has noticed that in the overall camera shipment graphs, while compact and dslr are rapidly falling, the mirrorless segment is pretty stable. Overall, in percentage, mirrorless sales are growing.

And yes, I think Sony's aggressive strategy has helped them quite a bit. They're back to profit after a few years of heavy losses.

By the way, this is the way Canon ascended to be the market leader back in the 80-90's. Sony is today what Canon was 30 years ago.

 

[photonius]

There are things I need to purchase first (house renovations), but as soon as I have the disposable cash, I'm going to buy a Sony A7RII, a Canon fd 50 1.2L and an fd 24 1.4L. The main reason I want this stuff is for casual "fun" shooting (which I need to do more often) and travel. Until native lens selections in the mirrorless world improve, as does AF, my Canon DSLR and EF lenses will remain my bread and butter moneymakers, but there is definitely an appeal to a low-weight high quality kit.

Now that Sony is starting to come out with faster FE glass, it'll be easier to compare whether or not a mirrorless kit will be lighter. The new Sony FE 35 f/1.4 is 4.5x3.1 in and weighs 22.3 oz. The 35L is 3.4x3.1 in and weighs 20.5 oz. The body may be smaller/lighter, but if the lenses end up being of comparable size, then it's appeal is reduced.

Well, there is no way around the optics. Anything from about 40mm upwards is going to be about the same size/weight whether mirrorless or with mirror. Both have to cover the FF sensor, and the flange distance dictates how you can design the lens. For wide angle/ ultra wide angle lenses (e.g. 20mm), you need to do retrofocus designs (which make the lens bigger again) because the lens is further away from the sensor (e.g. flange mount distance 42mm) than the focal length you want to have (e.g. 20mm). So, the mirrorless has an advantage in the (about) 20mm to 40mm range, because in theory it does not need a retrofocus design then. However, there is a big problem, if you have a fast lens (like f1.4) and you design it to sit very close to the sensor (e.g. 20mm) then the angle at the edges is so steep, it will not be detected at the edge of the frame. So, all your efforts are useless, since the lens won't work with the digital sensors (film would work). To some degree this can be overcome with curved sensors, or angled photo sites, I think Sony is working with such sensors.
But, overall the lenses on mirrorless have to moved somewhat away from the sensor to properly image. So, the only advantage you may have is some slow pancake lenses (20-40 mm range) on FF mirrorless, compared to dSLR.
The only way to go really smaller is to use smaller sensors, with all the drawbacks, see Nikon 24-2000mm (equiv.) all in one... ;-) But even with smaller sensors, a 400mm f5.6 lens is a 400mm f5.6 lens, it will be pretty much the same on all sensors, because the size is dictated by front element and focal length. And once the pixel density becomes limiting, the smaller sensor don't even give you much of an advantage anymore (apart from the smaller body).
If the FF sensor and the m3/4 sensor both are 20Mp, a 400mm lens will have a longer reach than the FF sensor.
But if you take a 50MP FF sensor, and a 16Mp m3/4 sensor, and put a 400mm lens on both, there is very little advantage of the smaller sensor, you simply can crop the FF image more.

 

[old-pr-pix]

It's not likely this forum will resolve the mirrorless v. DSLR debate nor determine at what point the decline will level off.... the market will do that. I believe the statistics used are from CIPA: http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e.html. CIPA also does a summary/forecast of the market for presentation at CP+ each year: http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/common/cr1000.pdf

I like my Olympus gear because it can be small and light: 14-150 mm F4-5.6 is 280g, EM5II is 469g = 749g total, lens length 84mm; similar Canon full frame combo (in terms of FOV, exposure, not DOF and noise - I don't want to start an "equivalence" debate) 28-300 L is 1670g, 5DIII is 950g = 2620g total, lens length 184mm. Sure, this is a worst case scenario, but even if I pick the non-L 70-300 Canon instead it is 143 mm long and 630g and you give up the 28-70mm range. So, for easy travel I'll take my Olympus gear over my Canon gear most every time.

Question for neuro: I'm curious re. your comment on preferring the in-lens stabilization at 300 mm vs. IBIS. I have the referenced non-L 70-300 Canon and in comparing it to the various Olympus gear I also have, I find the IBIS on EM5 to be far superior. For me, in real world shooting, the non-L 70-300 is good for about 1-1/2 to 2 stops of IS at best. Was your comment relative to the two technologies in general at 300 mm or specific to certain hardware?

 

[Random Orbits]

There are things I need to purchase first (house renovations), but as soon as I have the disposable cash, I'm going to buy a Sony A7RII, a Canon fd 50 1.2L and an fd 24 1.4L. The main reason I want this stuff is for casual "fun" shooting (which I need to do more often) and travel. Until native lens selections in the mirrorless world improve, as does AF, my Canon DSLR and EF lenses will remain my bread and butter moneymakers, but there is definitely an appeal to a low-weight high quality kit.

Now that Sony is starting to come out with faster FE glass, it'll be easier to compare whether or not a mirrorless kit will be lighter. The new Sony FE 35 f/1.4 is 4.5x3.1 in and weighs 22.3 oz. The 35L is 3.4x3.1 in and weighs 20.5 oz. The body may be smaller/lighter, but if the lenses end up being of comparable size, then it's appeal is reduced.

Well, there is no way around the optics. Anything from about 40mm upwards is going to be about the same size/weight whether mirrorless or with mirror. Both have to cover the FF sensor, and the flange distance dictates how you can design the lens. For wide angle/ ultra wide angle lenses (e.g. 20mm), you need to do retrofocus designs (which make the lens bigger again) because the lens is further away from the sensor (e.g. flange mount distance 42mm) than the focal length you want to have (e.g. 20mm). So, the mirrorless has an advantage in the (about) 20mm to 40mm range, because in theory it does not need a retrofocus design then. However, there is a big problem, if you have a fast lens (like f1.4) and you design it to sit very close to the sensor (e.g. 20mm) then the angle at the edges is so steep, it will not be detected at the edge of the frame. So, all your efforts are useless, since the lens won't work with the digital sensors (film would work). To some degree this can be overcome with curved sensors, or angled photo sites, I think Sony is working with such sensors.
But, overall the lenses on mirrorless have to moved somewhat away from the sensor to properly image. So, the only advantage you may have is some slow pancake lenses (20-40 mm range) on FF mirrorless, compared to dSLR.
The only way to go really smaller is to use smaller sensors, with all the drawbacks, see Nikon 24-2000mm (equiv.) all in one... ;-) But even with smaller sensors, a 400mm f5.6 lens is a 400mm f5.6 lens, it will be pretty much the same on all sensors, because the size is dictated by front element and focal length. And once the pixel density becomes limiting, the smaller sensor don't even give you much of an advantage anymore (apart from the smaller body).
If the FF sensor and the m3/4 sensor both are 20Mp, a 400mm lens will have a longer reach than the FF sensor.
But if you take a 50MP FF sensor, and a 16Mp m3/4 sensor, and put a 400mm lens on both, there is very little advantage of the smaller sensor, you simply can crop the FF image more.

Agreed, which is why I think it's disingenuous to claim that that the mirrorless system will be that much smaller/lighter than a DSLR system. The bodies have a size/mass advantage although newer versions are getting bigger and heavier, but lenses take more room than the body for most places I go to anyway. I think it was a smart strategy to start with slower/more compact lenses (55 f/1.8, 35 f/2.8, 24-70 f/4) because that is the lower limit on size. Now that people have bought into the size benefit of mirrorless, they're stuck in Sony's lens ecosystem. It will also be interesting to see a comparison between the FE 35 f/1.4 and the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 for Canon/Nikon to see whether or not the shorter flange distance is affecting wide open performance away from the center...

 

[Loswr]

Question for neuro: I'm curious re. your comment on preferring the in-lens stabilization at 300 mm vs. IBIS. I have the referenced non-L 70-300 Canon and in comparing it to the various Olympus gear I also have, I find the IBIS on EM5 to be far superior. For me, in real world shooting, the non-L 70-300 is good for about 1-1/2 to 2 stops of IS at best. Was your comment relative to the two technologies in general at 300 mm or specific to certain hardware?

More a general comment - the 70-300 non-L is a decade old design (my 70-300L gives me a usable 3.5-4 stops of IS at 300mm). Honestly, I wouldn't put either Canon 70-300mm lens on an EOS M.

 

[old-pr-pix]

Thanks, neuro. My testing with the 70-300L showed it had about 2 stops better IS than the non-L version, so consistent with what you have seen. I made a budget decision back when the L version was first introduced and elected to go non-L and put the difference into a 100L macro. I then added a 100-400 L, again with older IS. (Haven't tried out the Mark II version yet, hard to come by locally.) I'm still really impressed with the Olympus IBIS though perhaps not comparing it with the best Canon has to offer.