New EOS-1 in 2014 [CR1]

[Loswr]

I'm from Canada, and even though hockey isn't a favourite of mine I'll use a fact from that world: The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967.

The market can change quickly, who's to say if this tactic will continue working much longer. I guess we'll see.

The standings can change quickly, too. Who knows, maybe the Leafs will bring home Lord Stanley's Cup this season.



But then again, as I live in Boston I should point out that it's pretty darn unllikely… Go Bruins!

 

[msm]

Sales figures and profit margins means nothing for us consumers in itself, unless the company is about to go bankrupt or something.

Profits affect long-term R&D budgets, which affects the capacity to maintain a rich line of products. See the post about 2014 being the year of the lens. If that proves true, that R&D is funded out of profits.

Or it makes the stockholders richer.

 

[msm]

I do however expect that Canon doesn't offer a 5D class camera with high resolution and DR opens up a nice market for the A7R and metabones adapters until Canon can come up with a response.

I think you left out a letter - the letter 'H'.

"I do however expect that Canon doesn't offer a 5D class camera with high resolution and DR opens up a niche market for the A7R and metabones adapters until Canon can come up with a response."

But as you like to point out, Canon's market share is much larger than Sony's, so stealing a niche market from Canon can be quite nice for Sony.

 

[Orangutan]

Sales figures and profit margins means nothing for us consumers in itself, unless the company is about to go bankrupt or something.

Profits affect long-term R&D budgets, which affects the capacity to maintain a rich line of products. See the post about 2014 being the year of the lens. If that proves true, that R&D is funded out of profits.

Or it makes the stockholders richer.

That too. Is that a problem?

 

[Loswr]

But as you like to point out, Canon's market share is much larger than Sony's, so stealing a niche market from Canon can be quite nice for Sony.

Very true. In absolute terms, what would be a small fractional loss for Canon or Nikon, Sony could report as a doubling of their market share...

 

[Cali_PH]

This was 2010:

This was 2011:

In 2013, Canon announced they have held the #1 market share worldwide in terms of volume within the interchangeable-lens digital camera market for the entire 10-year period from 2003 to 2012.

According to quarterly reports to date this year, Canon sales of dSLRs are dropping. But Nikon's sales of dSLRs are dropping much faster.

Show me the slide… : : :

Thanks for posting those. I'm surprised by the fact that Nikon had a decent increase from 2010 to 2011...perhaps due to key model releases?

I'm also surprised that Nikon was as close to canon, at least in 2011. The way some people talked I thought the gap was significantly larger. But from the sounds of if, the final 2013 numbers may be further apart.

I'm wondering how much the installed user base plays into the numbers. Canon supposedly has a much larger user base; some percentage of these are less likely to switch due to investments in glass/gear, without significant motivations to switch. Would also like to see actual numbers month by month compared to model releases. Doesn't matter much I suppose, I don't think there's any way to get those specific numbers unless you're inside Canon or Nikon

 

[RLPhoto]

That's a darn shame. I wouldn't like to use my BR strap on that body. : : :

 

[msm]

Sales figures and profit margins means nothing for us consumers in itself, unless the company is about to go bankrupt or something.

Profits affect long-term R&D budgets, which affects the capacity to maintain a rich line of products. See the post about 2014 being the year of the lens. If that proves true, that R&D is funded out of profits.

Or it makes the stockholders richer.

That too. Is that a problem?

Nope but it doesn't give me better lenses or cameras, so I don't care. Do you know for a fact that Canon profits are put back in increased R&D? Pointless to discuss this without knowing the facts.

 

[kbmelb]

Blah, blah, blah

I'm looking forward to a big price drop on the 1Dx.

 

[Orangutan]

Nope but it doesn't benefit me. Do you know for a fact that Canon profits are put back in increased R&D? Pointless to discuss this without knowing the facts.

Yes, but only by process of elimination. The R&D money has to come from somewhere, and I can think of just a few possible sources: loans, Canon Corporate Headquarters, or Canon's photo business unit profits. Of these, the first two don't make business sense for a profitable company. Can you think of another source of R&D money?

Or perhaps you were asking the other question: how profits are divided between R&D, dividends and executive bonuses. No, we can't be sure of how this division occurs, in particular because their Photo profits are likely merged with all other revenue. But we can be sure that if Canon is making money, and Nikon is not making money (or much less) then Canon has more money available for R&D than Nikon.

(We could go down the rabbit hole to speculate that Nikon is 5x more efficient with R&D money than Canon, but let's not.)

 

[msm]

Nope but it doesn't benefit me. Do you know for a fact that Canon profits are put back in increased R&D? Pointless to discuss this without knowing the facts.

Yes, but only by process of elimination. The R&D money has to come from somewhere, and I can think of just a few possible sources: loans, Canon Corporate Headquarters, or Canon's photo business unit profits. Of these, the first two don't make business sense for a profitable company. Can you think of another source of R&D money?

Or perhaps you were asking the other question: how profits are divided between R&D, dividends and executive bonuses. No, we can't be sure of how this division occurs, in particular because their Photo profits are likely merged with all other revenue. But we can be sure that if Canon is making money, and Nikon is not making money (or much less) then Canon has more money available for R&D than Nikon.

(We could go down the rabbit hole to speculate that Nikon is 5x more efficient with R&D money than Canon, but let's not.)

I am not a economist nor do I know Canon well so I could be totally wrong here, but I would suspect R&D to be part of their budget costs and their profits are calculated after R&D.

Nikon probably doesn't need to do much sensor R&D for instance, since they have others making their sensors. Sony's sensor division sells sensors to a lot of external clients which could help them possibly having a higher sensor R&D budget, kinda like how Intel manages to stay almost a generation ahead of their competitors' production process.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

"31st We're told (thanks) that Canon wants to introduce a new top end 1 series (stills) camera body, with an announcement in Q2 next year. It will come in at similar relative price points to the 1Ds2/3, and will see a modest reduction in the 1Dx price beforehand. It will not ship until well into 2014 though."

Hmm so a $7000 brick to get 36-40MP (and MAYBE more low ISO DR) while we have the A7R for $2499 with 36MP and more low ISO DR.

Now maybe the new 1DsX will have 10fps and all sorts of performance goodies and be a hell of a camera and the best one out there (if it also brings the DR), but that would still be a rough going at $7000. I'm sure most landscape shooters would just nab the A7R, although the very serious action and wildlife guys with enough money the 1DsX. Anyway it's not a bad thing in itself if it is some 10fps, high MP, high DR, high performance, RAW 4k video beast that does everything, it might be the greatest camera ever (outside of the bulk) and truly quite something. But it seems to me they dearly need to get a smaller, intermediate level body out too, like a 5D3 only with more MP and more DR and ML RAW built-in and a high quality 4k compressed. Now that would be a heck of a pair, the 5D4 would be awesome and the 1DsX simply ridiculous.

 

[9VIII]

If the marketplace is choosing the 5DIII over the D800 it's because it's a better camera. If the marketplace is consistently choosing Canon over other brands it's because they produce better cameras.

the old motto "eat S___, billions of flies cannot be wrong!" ;D


Or more tech-oriented ... "buy IBM computers", "buy Compaq notebooks", "buy Nokia cellphones", "buy Kodak film". Billions of units sold. To many millions or even billions of customers. Overwhelming market lead for some time ... UNTIL ... somebody else had better products and managed to spead the news. ;-)

Canon = has been sliding from 2009 onwards. Ever since Nikon managed to the D3/D300 double whammy. Then they lost it too. The slide has been accelerating over the last 2 years. Soon ... by bye .. down the toilet. Yesterdays market share will not save 'em.

Canon has been playing it safe, gliding a bit, not stalling into an inescapable spiral. Pretty much every other industry is in the same condition right now.
If Canon were going out of business we'd be seeing much more drastic indicators. Rather the opposite, Canon has weathered the recession quite well (much better than Sony).

When I first started looking for high end cameras last year my gut reaction was that I wanted a D800. Over the last year though, looking at various aspects of the system it became clear that I would rather have a Canon, even if it has a worse sensor. Sensors are like processors anyway, the one you have today is going to look like garbage tomorrow no matter how great it is. Adding up all the things Canon still does better it's hard to justify the purchase of a system just for the sake of a few temporary benefits.

"31st We're told (thanks) that Canon wants to introduce a new top end 1 series (stills) camera body, with an announcement in Q2 next year. It will come in at similar relative price points to the 1Ds2/3, and will see a modest reduction in the 1Dx price beforehand. It will not ship until well into 2014 though."

Hmm so a $7000 brick to get 36-40MP (and MAYBE more low ISO DR) while we have the A7R for $2499 with 36MP and more low ISO DR.

Now maybe the new 1DsX will have 10fps and all sorts of performance goodies and be a hell of a camera and the best one out there (if it also brings the DR), but that would still be a rough going at $7000. I'm sure most landscape shooters would just nab the A7R, although the very serious action and wildlife guys with enough money the 1DsX. Anyway it's not a bad thing in itself if it is some 10fps, high MP, high DR, high performance, RAW 4k video beast that does everything, it might be the greatest camera ever (outside of the bulk) and truly quite something. But it seems to me they dearly need to get a smaller, intermediate level body out too, like a 5D3 only with more MP and more DR and ML RAW built-in and a high quality 4k compressed. Now that would be a heck of a pair, the 5D4 would be awesome and the 1DsX simply ridiculous.

Given that the 1Ds2 and 3 were immediately followed by a 5D the next year, I'm counting on a 5D4 in 2015 using the 1DsX sensor.

 

[Orangutan]

Nikon probably doesn't need to do much sensor R&D for instance, since they have others making their sensors.

Agreed, but buying sensors from Sony presumably (?) makes the sensors more expensive for Nikon, putting cost pressure on the other aspects of their product.

 

[msm]

...

Now maybe the new 1DsX will have 10fps and all sorts of performance goodies and be a hell of a camera and the best one out there (if it also brings the DR), but that would still be a rough going at $7000. I'm sure most landscape shooters would just nab the A7R, although the very serious action and wildlife guys with enough money the 1DsX. Anyway it's not a bad thing in itself if it is some 10fps, high MP, high DR, high performance, RAW 4k video beast that does everything, it might be the greatest camera ever (outside of the bulk) and truly quite something. But it seems to me they dearly need to get a smaller, intermediate level body out too, like a 5D3 only with more MP and more DR and ML RAW built-in and a high quality 4k compressed. Now that would be a heck of a pair, the 5D4 would be awesome and the 1DsX simply ridiculous.

I would be surprised to have that high FPS in a high MP camera, as more pixels means more data to transfer off the sensor and this is probably a bottleneck. This is probably the reason D800 has low FPS and noisy, moire ridden video for instance, the more pixels the less of the sensor surface can be read during each frame of video.

 

[msm]

Nikon probably doesn't need to do much sensor R&D for instance, since they have others making their sensors.

Agreed, but buying sensors from Sony presumably (?) makes the sensors more expensive for Nikon, putting cost pressure on the other aspects of their product.

Or it could be that Sony's higher sensor volume makes them much cheaper to produce and maybe even cheaper for Nikon too. There are probably good reasons behind Nikon's choice to buy sensors.

 

[DarkKnightNine]

Like I said before. Canon's "Answer" to the Nikon D800 (and future D900, and the Sony A7R) will come as a big bulky elephant sized 1D-body, with a price tag that most people can't touch.

Ok, then...but what are Nikon and Sony's "Answers" to the 5DIII, which has outsold the D800 and will vastly outsell the a7R? :

Why do people think Canon needs to play Nikon's game? The D800 was Nikon's attempt to play the game by Canon's rules (we'll see your 8-9 MP increase, and raise you by another 14 MP), and Nikon lost.

When someone attacks a Canon body, you always resort to raw sales. That'S not very interesting.

I agree. We need to look at more than 'numbers sold'. For example there are great movies that have not done super business at the box office. But they have been amazing.
To say Nikon 'lost' is perhaps harsh. As the IQ of the D800 is certainly better than 5d3. A photographer friend who switched from 5d2 to D800 showed me comparisons on his laptop and I cannot any longer defend the IQ of 5d3 vs D800. I do realize 'but but' of autofocus, responsiveness etc but am talking just about IQ.

I double down on that. Sales figures has Canon being complacement in the innovation Dept.

 

[Gino]

I'm more curious about the sensor performance, particularly its low ISO dynamic range. If Canon shows no improvement in this department, it's unlikely we'll see anything better coming out of Canon sensors in the next 4 to 5 years.

This is a good example of why we should be oh so concerned about sales figures. Canon has been behind in low ISO dynamic range throughout their sensor lineup for a few years now, and it hasn't hurt their dSLR sales.

If the roof on your house looks to be in excellent shape and doesn't leak, would you replace it? Unlikely…if it ain't broke, don't fix it. From Canon's perspective, their sensors 'ain't broke'.

Hi Neuro,

I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Canon is basically a tech company, and if a tech company is being innovative, then sooner or later they are going to be out of business. I also don’t think you can look at current sales to determine if a company will be successful, or profitable, in the future.

For example, take a look at Blackberry or Nokia, these two companies not too long ago were the 800 lb. gorillas in mobile phones. They had solid sales numbers, and now they are struggling to survive. I’ll bet when those companies were on top, their management was saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and now look at the situation they are in.

If Canon, Nikon, Sony and the other players don’t continue to deliver innovative products, then sooner or later they are going to be the next Blackberry/Nokia.

Just my two cents.
Thanks

 

[tiger82]

The standings can change quickly, too. Who knows, maybe the Leafs will bring home Lord Stanley's Cup this season.



But then again, as I live in Boston I should point out that it's pretty darn unllikely… Go Bruins!

Are you smoking Toronto crack?

 

[Loswr]

Sales figures has Canon being complacement in the innovation Dept.

Dual pixel AF uses 80% of the pixels on the imaging sensor for phase detect AF. The fact that a novel technology apparently does not benefit you personally doesn't mean it's not innovation.

I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

If Canon, Nikon, Sony and the other players don’t continue to deliver innovative products, then sooner or later they are going to be the next Blackberry/Nokia.

Agreed. But it seems that the only type of improvement that a certain group of individuals would consider "innovative" would be improved low ISO dynamic range, and all other innovations need not apply.