Does Sony's success open the door for Canon?

Wilt wrote in post #17886502
The June 2015 comment on nikonrumors does not seem to supoort your above contention: "DSLR sales are falling down - we all know that, but mirrorless cameras shipments appear to be generally flat since 2013 and mirrorless still represents only a fraction of the DSLR market." And here is the graph that accompanied that statement:

...does not make EVFs look like a healthy growing market, in its position now vs. in 2013.

Sony's motivation to create a new segment (EVF) is simply that Nikon and Canon have too much of a command of the dSLR market. When you have a hard time winning market share, make your products appear 'different' and 'better' in the buying community. Marketing 101, and what they teach in every business school.

In the traditional SLR world, Nikon largely had a strong grip on share, and Canon took advantage of the EOS line with its electronic lenses to differentiate itself from Nikon. The rest is history, but in the case of electronic SLRs and lenses, they were a true substitute technology for the traditional mechanical lenses and bodies. Ih the case of EVF there are some significant obstacles to still overcome before the EVF is in everyone's hands...viewfinder lag is inherent to an electronic viewfinder.

Two different data sources (my data came from NPD group), so you'll have to dig deeper to find the difference in the methodology. However, ff you read the dpreview link I attached it references the CIPA data when it points to year over year growth of mirrorless sales and a decline in DSLR sales in North America. North America is probably a more relevant market to benchmark in contemplating long-term trends, as global markets have gotten hammered and demand for all products have declined in these areas for the past couple of years.

Sony very wisely targeted the 'blue ocean' of mirrorless cameras because it has not had much success in the 'red ocean' of DSLR cameras. Doesn't take business school to figure that one out.

The question from here is whether or not mirrorless cameras have the potential to disrupt the DSLR market. It's anyone's guess at this point, but Sony is saying yes, Nikon is saying no, and Canon is unsure and all three have placed their bets in the market. We'll see how it plays out, but my gut says that the obstacles to overcoming the advantages of DSLR's will be easily achieved as the processing power of the camera bodies increases overtime, and beyond that removing the mirrorbox will start to yield benefits that aren't possible with a DSLR. We're already there in certain aspects.

If mirrorless cameras do disrupt DSLR's, then the status quo of the DSLR market doesn't mean a whole lot. Worse yet, burying your head in the sand and refusing to innovate like Nikon is can be disastrous....not that Nikon is doing too hot anyway. For extreme cases of what this looks like, reference Blackberry, Blockbuster, etc etc

mystik610 wrote in post #17886842
Two different data sources (my data came from NPD group), so you'll have to dig deeper to find the difference in the methodology. However, ff you read the dpreview link I attached it references the CIPA data when it points to year over year growth of mirrorless sales and a decline in DSLR sales in North America. North America is probably a more relevant market to benchmark in contemplating long-term trends, as global markets have gotten hammered and demand for all products have declined in these areas for the past couple of years.

Sony very wisely targeted the 'blue ocean' of mirrorless cameras because it has not had much success in the 'red ocean' of DSLR cameras. Doesn't take business school to figure that one out.

The question from here is whether or not mirrorless cameras have the potential to disrupt the DSLR market. It's anyone's guess at this point, but Sony is saying yes, Nikon is saying no, and Canon is unsure and all three have placed their bets in the market. We'll see how it plays out, but my gut says that the obstacles to overcoming the advantages of DSLR's will be easily achieved as the processing power of the camera bodies increases overtime, and beyond that removing the mirrorbox will start to yield benefits that aren't possible with a DSLR. We're already there in certain aspects.

If mirrorless cameras do disrupt DSLR's, then the status quo of the DSLR market doesn't mean a whole lot. Worse yet, burying your head in the sand and refusing to innovate like Nikon is can be disastrous....not that Nikon is doing too hot anyway. For extreme cases of what this looks like, reference Blackberry, Blockbuster, etc etc

Nikon's problem isn't "innovation," it's QC and customer service and consumer confidence issues. You can out spend your revenue on R&D, but if a customer is frustrated with repairs or a refusal for recall, then you lose a customer for life. That's Sony's problem and the real limit to its growth as a camera company.

Shadowblade wrote in post #17886386
I said mirror slap and mirror lag, not shutter. Shutter vibration can be completely eliminated with electronic shutters, while shutter lag can be greatly improved. .

Your first comment seemed to be as if EVFs did not have the mirror lag and mirror slap, and I interpreted that ('mirror slap') to point to 'shock' considerations. So I merely pointed out that EVFs do not have an inherent advantage in lessened shock, as evidenced by the A7R. (Yes, I know the more recent cameras address the shutter shock, but it does not change that EVFs do not have an inherent advantage in shock.

idkdc wrote in post #17886519
The mirrorless circlejerk is strong in this thread. I predict that DSLR vs. mirrorless will go the same route as DSLR vs. Rangefinder. Each has its own purposes. To trumpet one over the other and exaggerate a mass exodus is writing a fictional narrative. Canon has maintained 43% market share, Nikon has dropped 2% and Sony has picked up 2% over the past two years to reach 14% this year.

Circlejerk? Real mature buddy.

The difference between rangefinders and mirrorless cameras, is that that rangefinder were complemntary products that by nature, would never have surpassed DSLR performance. But mirrorless cameras have the potential to surpass DSLR's by the nature of their design.

Camera's are expensive, so we're naturally biased to whatever we spend our money on. But I challenge you to take your pentaprism hat off, and imagine that a mirrorless camera were released and it did everything you need your DSLR to do, but actually does it better. AND it could use your lenses to boot. Would you still stubbornly stick to your DSLR or the sake of sticking to what's familiar?

If the performance benefits are real, consumers will follow the emerging technology. For many people, that threshold has already been crossed with the current mirrorless offerings. As a portrait/wedding/event shooter, the advantages were made real well the a7rII dropped in August of last year, and though I've been shooting MILC's for a while, I finally ditched my 5DIII just a few months ago. Anecdotally in the forums here, we see a lot have done the same.

Looking at sales historical and current sales trends while somewhat useful, is not very reliable in market segments where new technologies are disrupting old ones and the forward view of the market will look very different. i.e., for fun, look what analysts were saying about cell phone sales in 2007 right around the time the iPhone hit the market.

So the question is....can mirrorless cameras truly surpass DSLR performance and as such, do they have the potential to disrupt the DSLR market? And hat impacts will that have to Sony, Canon and Nikon? We'll have to wait and see.

mystik610 wrote in post #17886883
Circlejerk? Real mature buddy.

The difference between rangefinders and mirrorless cameras, is that that rangefinder were complemntary products that by nature, would never have surpassed DSLR performance. But mirrorless cameras have the potential to surpass DSLR's by the nature of their design.

Camera's are expensive, so we're naturally biased to whatever we spend our money on. But I challenge you to take your pentaprism hat off, and imagine that a mirrorless camera were released and it did everything your DSLR did, but actually did it better. AND it could use your lenses to boot. Would you still stubbornly stick to your DSLR or the sake of sticking to what's familiar?

If the performance benefits are real, consumers will follow the emerging technology. For many people, that threshold has already been crossed. As a portrait/wedding/event shooter, the advantages were made real well the a7rII dropped in August of last year, and though I've been shooting MILC's for a while, I finally ditched my 5DIII just a few months ago. Anecdotally in the forums here, we see a lot have done the same.

Looking at sales historical and current sales trends while somewhat useful, is not very reliable in market segments where new technologies are disrupting old ones. i.e., for fun, look what analysts were saying about projected iphone sales in 2007.

So the question is....can mirrorless cameras truly surpass DSLR performance and as such, do they have the potential to disrupt the DSLR market? We'll have to wait and see.

Group think. What JFK's advisors were responsible for in the bay of pigs.

No, I wouldn't get a mirrorless for what I do professionally. You're posing a hypothetical for something that doesn't exist yet. There are pro's and con's to both camera types currently that probably won't get resolved in the near future (battery life, for instance) .

It's not a panacea or God's greatest gift to mankind as some people make it out to be. It's an option with cons and pro's.

The better analogy would be desktop vs laptop. They each have their purpose, but dollar for dollar, the desktop usually has more processing power.

Again, Apple didn't just succeed because of "innovation", they did so because of their customer service or perceived customer service. They actually lagged and continue to lag behind specs. They're not a measurebating company and are interested in real world balance (battery life instead of throwing too many processors in).

If anything, Canon is Apple and Sony is LG/Samsung.

idkdc wrote in post #17886901
Group think. What JFK's advisors were responsible for in the bay of pigs.

No, I wouldn't get a mirrorless for what I do professionally. You're posing a hypothetical for something that doesn't exist yet. There are pro's and con's to both camera types currently that probably won't get resolved in the near future (battery life, for instance) .

It's not a panacea or God's greatest gift to mankind as some people make it out to be. It's an option with cons and pro's.

The better analogy would be desktop vs laptop. They each have their purpose, but dollar for dollar, the desktop usually has more processing power.

Again, Apple didn't just succeed because of "innovation", they did so because of their customer service or perceived customer service. They actually lagged and continue to lag behind specs. They're not a measurebating company and are interested in real world balance (battery life instead of throwing too many processors in).

If anything, Canon is Apple and Sony is LG/Samsung.

Fair points. Like I said...we'll see.

One last point though...and this circles back to the OP's question:

I'm not speaking in hypotheticals because in the realms of certain types of photography, mirrorless cameras are already outperforming DSLR's. (AF accuracy, IBIS, exposure preview, eye focus, etc etc). It depends on what you shoot.

A common perception is that mirrorless cameras have to be small, and as such, will favor size over performance. As we're starting to see with the larger a7 bodies, and the DSLR sized lenses, this is not the case, and it's not unreasonable that a DSLR sized mirrorless camera would have a market IF the performance benefits were there. We're turning that corner now and the performance benefits are already real, hence Sony announcing a trio of massive lenses suited to wedding/event photography.

I'll jump in, and try not to cover too much ground again. Overall I think i agree with the OP that Canon/Nikon would be well positioned to jump in to a mirrorless segement while crossing over with the existing lens line. There's a couple paths forward, depending if the goal is hybrid AF or a smaller package.

The most likely path is to make a smaller package, and IMO the Sony A7rII and new 6300 are the model. Canon could jump in and do the exact same cameras, except they could adapt their own EOS lenses plus offer a niche set of new, short register mount lenses that would be for when you want to really be small and light. It makes a ton of sense to me, but we will see.

Another interesting idea would be a dSLR with an optial display on the back of the mirror. Flip the mirror down and it is SLR, flip the mirror up and the OVF becomes and EFV. That would the same size as dSLR, but very flexible. I wonder if anyone other than me is interested in such a thing?

JeffreyG wrote in post #17887303
I'll jump in, and try not to cover too much ground again. Overall I think i agree with the OP that Canon/Nikon would be well positioned to jump in to a mirrorless segement while crossing over with the existing lens line. There's a couple paths forward, depending if the goal is hybrid AF or a smaller package.

The most likely path is to make a smaller package, and IMO the Sony A7rII and new 6300 are the model. Canon could jump in and do the exact same cameras, except they could adapt their own EOS lenses plus offer a niche set of new, short register mount lenses that would be for when you want to really be small and light. It makes a ton of sense to me, but we will see.

Another interesting idea would be a dSLR with an optial display on the back of the mirror. Flip the mirror down and it is SLR, flip the mirror up and the OVF becomes and EFV. That would the same size as dSLR, but very flexible. I wonder if anyone other than me is interested in such a thing?

That could be useful for a video viewfinder and the 1DXII 16 fps in live view. All video is EVF except for flagship Alexa's anyways.

mystik610 wrote in post #17886842
Two different data sources (my data came from NPD group), so you'll have to dig deeper to find the difference in the methodology. However, ff you read the dpreview link I attached it references the CIPA data when it points to year over year growth of mirrorless sales and a decline in DSLR sales in North America. North America is probably a more relevant market to benchmark in contemplating long-term trends, as global markets have gotten hammered and demand for all products have declined in these areas for the past couple of years.

I looked up the NPD figures, and the difference is that NPD reported US only, whereas my prior numbers were worldwide:

"This is according to recent numbers put out by the NPD Group in which it revealed that as far as the US market is concerned, mirrorless camera sales are up by 16.5% over the past year. Thanks to the surge in sales, Sony is looking at a 66% increase in income from those sales. It would also seem that there is a tradeoff and that is DSLR sales have actually suffered."

idkdc wrote in post #17886901
Group think. What JFK's advisors were responsible for in the bay of pigs.

No, I wouldn't get a mirrorless for what I do professionally. You're posing a hypothetical for something that doesn't exist yet. There are pro's and con's to both camera types currently that probably won't get resolved in the near future (battery life, for instance) .

Yes, SLR is, by definition, a low-power-consumption design compared to a sensor that's working all the time. But, with a big enough battery, does that matter? Does it make much of a difference if your battery lasts three days instead of one day? Five days instead of two days? How hard is it to carry one or two extra batteries, or to change batteries?

No matter what technology you look at, you'll always find something which the older technology does better. If everyone thought that way, we'd still be hunting mammoths with clubs - easy to make, can't go blunt like a spear, can't run out of arrows, can't run out of powder... A horse can be fed on anything, but a car needs refined petroleum. But the newer technology has so many other advantages that, once the technology is mature and problems are ironed out, it mostly displaces the old one.

Driving a car is also an option with pros and cons over driving a horse-drawn carriage. We don't see too many horse-drawn carriages these days. Nor do we see too many TLR cameras, and large-format technical cameras and rangefinder cameras have both been reduced to small niches.

Some technologies are so potentially disruptive that they reduce all other categories to small niches. The SLR was one of those. On the minus side, it introduced mirror slap/blackout and took longer to go from pressing the button to taking the photo (since the mirror needed to get out of the way), but the fact that it gave true through-the-lens feedback and eliminated parallax error made other designs obsolete for most purposes. Mirrorless technology and AI is another such technology - sure, they take more power to run and have viewfinder lag (although it is possible to reduce this to imperceptible millisecond and sub-millisecond levels - as said earlier, OLEDs are extremely responsive, and hardware-based deconvolution to turn sensor data into a displayable image can also run at sub-millisecond speeds) but the advantages of true WYSIWYG output (not just in composition, but in exposure, white balance, etc.), intelligent AF (focus and track eyes, aim at faces, track the ball, etc.) potentially far outweigh the disadvantages. It's not a mature technology yet, though, so some of these advantages are yet to come to realisation.

You can't do much more with the SLR design than what has already been done. You can add a few more focus points, make the AF processor a bit faster, etc., but these are basically incremental changes. Without sensor data for AF and a powerful processor, you can't have an AF system that intelligently focuses on certain subjects or tracks a certain subject (current SLR AF systems don't actually track the subject - they merely know that you're pointing the camera at something a certain distance away and try to track gradual changes in distance while ignoring sudden changes, without knowing what object or pattern it is that you're actually tracking). Without continuous recording of data, you can't shoot retrospectively (e.g. take a shot of an unexpected moment 200 milliseconds ago when the lion yawned or the bird flicked a fish into its beak), that could be recorded into a buffer that was saved when you pressed the button. And all of these would be very useful features in action photography, once this initial issue of viewfinder lag is ironed out - and ironed out it will be, since there's no technical reason an EVF needs to lag by more than a millisecond or so.

If you gave me a mirrorless camera with a few milliseconds of viewfinder lag and the ability to intelligently track and focus on eyes, birds, faces, etc., I'd ditch the SLR setup for wildlife photography in a heartbeat. You can reduce viewfinder lag by using a faster display, faster processor and dedicated hardware, but you can never make an SLR intelligently track specific features.

Not a good example. Laptops sacrifice power for portability and smaller size. A mirrorless camera need not be any smaller or less powerful than an SLR - it just doesn't have a mirror. Yes, you can make one small, at the expense of other capabilites (something you can't really do with an SLR). But you can also make it the same size as an SLR and introduce all sorts of features which are impossible without a focus/compose-through the-sensor approach.

Nope, they succeeded because of marketing, accessibility and the 'cool' factor.

Wilt wrote in post #17887436
I looked up the NPD figures, and the difference is that NPD reported US only, whereas my prior numbers were worldwide:

"This is according to recent numbers put out by the NPD Group in which it revealed that as far as the US market is concerned, mirrorless camera sales are up by 16.5% over the past year. Thanks to the surge in sales, Sony is looking at a 66% increase in income from those sales. It would also seem that there is a tradeoff and that is DSLR sales have actually suffered."

Then NPD is consistent with CIPA. It makes sense that global sales have diminished outside of the US, as the rest of the world has been deep in recession for a while now, whereas the U.S. has been relatively stable and has enjoyed a strengthening dollar. As such, the U.S. market is a better barometer for measuring the receptivity of mirrorless cameras. It's also relevant because traditionally, mirrorless cameras have not sold well in the U.S., however for the Apr '14-Apr '15 period contemplated by both CIPA and NPD, mirrorless cameras have reversed course and sales are actually increasing while DSLR sales are decreasing. It's up to interpretation whether the growth of mirrorless sales come at the expense of corresponding DSLR sales, or if these are independent phenomena.... but it is what it is.

Ok, so ignoring your hyperbolic false analogy on the horse drawn carriage:

So make the battery bigger. What's that? Oh, two batteries! So I get to keep turning on and off my camera throughout a wedding day and replace the batteries 4-6 times per camera per wedding? I thoroughly enjoy having limitations just to tell the bride I don't need a big camera to shoot her wedding!

So I'll buy one when that happens from a company with a solid repair and professional services track record. I'm not saying you are (other than through your false analogy), but some people who say "DSLR's are dead!" (this is what I mean when I mention group think and the bay of pigs) are getting off a bit prematurely on that and missing the point that it's business decisions and consumer confidence not just technology that drives the market.

Well, again, looking at the market so far, that seems to be a losing strategy if we're to take a look at the Samsung NX1 (this is significantly bigger than the A7rii, is it not?). Again, this can change in the future, but that future isn't here yet. Mirrorless companies tout and people buy mirrorless for the perceived weight savings, at least in 2015-2016. In the current form factor, we still sacrifice computing speed (try uncompressed RAW in burst; from what I hear, it slows down considerably) and battery life (that's not improving substantially any time soon to close the gap between 400 shots and 1200 shots per charge). Try relying on the a6000 or a77 ii autofocus systems (which some on POTN have said a year or two ago would kill the pro sports dslr market for some reason) while covering a tier 1 sport (PAC12/NCAA Div I) from the credentialed side line. I know a Sony Artisan who tried this and was absolutely terrible at it. The laptop vs desktop analogy applies to current models. Newer models may change that. The newer models are not here yet. Consumer adoption of bigger mirrorless cameras is not quite here yet (at least DSLR-sized models).

Ok, ignoring that what you just said dates you a little and/or reveals that you're an industry outsider, do you think Apple would be as successful as it is today if they outsourced their repair services to the equivalent of Precision Camera in Connecticut like Sony and Pentax have? The perceived, if not real, value of in-house repairs and honoring of warranty add to the perceived value of an Apple computer (that and the "just works" impression given by vertically integrated software and hardware with minimal driver issues and hardware/software conflicts) that warrants the higher asking price. Sony doesn't have that yet, at least in North America, the strongest market on the planet right now for photographic equipment.

mystik610 wrote in post #17886932
Fair points. Like I said...we'll see.

One last point though...and this circles back to the OP's question:

I'm not speaking in hypotheticals because in the realms of certain types of photography, mirrorless cameras are already outperforming DSLR's. (AF accuracy, IBIS, exposure preview, eye focus, etc etc). It depends on what you shoot.

A common perception is that mirrorless cameras have to be small, and as such, will favor size over performance. As we're starting to see with the larger a7 bodies, and the DSLR sized lenses, this is not the case, and it's not unreasonable that a DSLR sized mirrorless camera would have a market IF the performance benefits were there. We're turning that corner now and the performance benefits are already real, hence Sony announcing a trio of massive lenses suited to wedding/event photography.

I think the autofocus depends on what you shoot. For what I do (weddings, including the low-light dance portions with speedlight and pack work, and PAC12/NCAA Div I tournaments), and after shooting with a Sony Artisan's gear for a bit, the current A7 series doesn't do it yet. I think it'll get there, it's just not quite there yet as you might make it out to be. It's probably good enough for quite a few people if that's what you're saying, just not for me and the colleagues I'm working with.

Wilt wrote in post #17884971
If mirrorless means that one is forced to look at an LED/LCD EVF display to see what is in front of the lens, then anyone using an EVF is handicapped by the fact that the camera must convert RAW to a displayable JPG, and then refresh the EVF with the image. Even if RAW-to-JPG were instantaneous, the EVF refresh rate of 60Hz means that a rapidly moving subject will have moved a considerable distance before the EVF is updated!

At 1/60 refresh rate for EVF, when the subject is a race car moving at 90 MPH (88 fps), in 1/60 of a second the race car will be 26.4" PAST where it is seen in the EVF. If capturing a winning race car crossing the finish line, it will be 26.4" passed the line before you press the shutter button! EVF lag at its worst. Why should Canon emulate that kind of handicap?!

If im shooting a race car driving 90 or 120mph or whatever my eyesight along with the camera is going to be following the car. The car may be going 90 but since im a distance from that car a simple few degrees turn of my head with the camera and its like im going 90 as well.
Then with the baseball example? Are you taking a picture of the pitcher or the pitch.
Ok this isnt meant for argument but that the examples kinda went over my head so i must be missing something.

idkdc wrote in post #17887638
I think the autofocus depends on what you shoot. For what I do (weddings, including the low-light dance portions with speedlight and pack work, and PAC12/NCAA Div I tournaments), and after shooting with a Sony Artisan's gear for a bit, the current A7 series doesn't do it yet. I think it'll get there, it's just not quite there yet as you might make it out to be. It's probably good enough for quite a few people if that's what you're saying, just not for me and the colleagues I'm working with.

For portraiture, where you're often (but not always) shooting with fast aperture glass, the accuracy of an AF system that isn't subject to miscalibrations and the AF sensor its worth its weight in gold. No more culling out shots because the AF system failed to hit its mark. No more messing around with MFA which is never perfect anyway.

I don't know how much experience you have with AF-C eye focus (present only the a7rII), but its outright been a game-changer for portraiture for me. Being able to continually track my subject down to his/her eyes and nail the focus every time means I don't have to mess with AF points anymore...it means I can focus on composition, interacting with my subject, and timing key expressions and moments (same reason that prior to MILC's, I preferred MF when possible during photoshoots). It also means I'm hitting critical focus on the eyes damn near 100% of the time, even if my subject isn't completely still. Something like that isn't possible without access to image sensor while composing your shot....so its unique to mirrorless cameras, and, despite the EVF's present limitations, it has a tremendous amount of upside.

The evaluation of the pro's and con's will of course vary from individual to individual...We'll see how the technology progresses in the future (I'm personally bullish on the upside), but the only point I'm making regarding the present state is that mirrorless cameras have very distinct advantages already, that depending on your needs and what you shoot, can make them a more attractive choice than DSLR's. The benefits of mirrorless cameras go beyond size alone, and this is the reason why Sony just announced these massive DSLR sized lenses.