The Online Photographer

I assume most people around here are visual, and like visual representations of information. I know I do. You might be interested in a recent infographic at NYT—it creates a bucket for Apple's trillion-dollar net worth and then drops in various combinations of various companies until it's full. It's very interesting to see visually the relative sizes of all sorts of companies, well-known and little-known. I searched in vain for camera companies, although that doesn't mean they're not in there. Maybe they weren't big enough to be useful. I am definitely not schooled in business or qualified to write about it, but as near as I can tell, I believe the total global digital camera market revenue is about US$20 billion, or roughly 1/50th the size of Apple. [UPDATE: But see Bill's Featured Comment below. My bad! And thanks to several other readers who also corrected me in the Comments. —Ed.]

It takes this many multi-billion-dollar companies to (almost) equal Apple. Some of the better-known ones in this graphic include Xerox, Western Union, Advance Auto Parts, News Corp., H&R Block, Whirlpool, Gap, Kohls, Macy's, Snapple, Viacom, and Harley-Davidson. Screen-grab from NYT.

That 50X behemoth is squatting pretty heavily on the camera industry. As one analysis puts it, mildly, "The global digital camera market is negatively influenced by the availability of superior camera functions on smartphones." (And then adds, rather startlingly: "apart from this, minimal customer engagement by the camera manufacturers and complex specifications have diminished the growth prospects of the market." But that's another discussion for another post.) I've always been curious about what's going to kill TOP, and it appears it might be something simple: I can't sell iPhones. If that's it, well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Access: If you never visit the NYT, you get ten articles a month for free. Recall, of course, that TOP officially recommends a subscription to the NYT for its photographic content, which is excellent (I also contribute to the Guardian for photo content). Finally, if you cannot see it, my apologies. It's just fun, not crucial.

The infographic is titled "Apple’s Value Hit $1 Trillion. Add Disney to Bank of America and...You’re Halfway There."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Stephen Scharf: "The seminal work on this of course, is Prof. Edward Tufte's The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Rated by Amazon as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th Century, if I recall correctly."

Mike replies: My brother once said that this book should be on everyone's coffee table, because it's so elegant and shows good taste better than more ostentatious titles.

Bill: "You are confusing market cap (how much all of the stock of the company is worth) with sales. Apple sales this year will be something like $250 billion, about 12X what camera sales are if you don’t include phones in camera sales."

David Boyce: "Plus one for The Guardian. Some great photo essays and photojournalism."

According to the sites Canon Rumors and Nikon Rumors, either Canon or Nikon or both will introduce either one or two serious new mirrorless system cameras either before or after Photokina in September.

In other words, the two industry leaders will now validate the business strategies and technical innovations of their more enterprising but less powerful competitors by horning in on those guys' markets. Sorry, is that too cynical a slant on the news? I guess so.

Anyway, the expectation has created a certain amount of furor as various interested parties hither and yon speculate on what, exactly, is coming.

Predictions. Great fun for some. Thom H. is one of the few who does it well, although he mainly succeeds because his discussions are interesting and enlightening whether the prediction is correct or not. Anyway, as they say about academe, the arguments are cutthroat because the stakes for the participants are so low.

I've personally never had much enthusiasm for the prediction pastime, although I know it's popular. One thing that drives me bonkers about American pool matches on YouTube is that the commentators are forever going on about what the player is just about to do. Why not just wait quietly until they do it? And then make whatever sensible comments it might be germane to make. It's such a mannerism that it comes off as slightly nutty, to this viewer at least. I never mention the sport of pool here, though.

But I don't see the point of nattering too much over rumors of future photo products, either. I do like to ruminate about what should be, but that's my "idealist" personality type coming to the fore—it's Utopianism rather than the gypsy fortune-teller urge. As to what people will do, well, I don't see much point in that crystal ball stuff. Just wait till it happens and then we'll talk about it.

All that aside, let's get back on track. If people like predictions, here are mine:

First, Canon and Nikon will follow each other, not necessarily Sony or Fuji or Leica or the Micro 4/3 consortium in all particulars. My theory about Leica in recent years is that it's been following the lead of Sony (it already has its A7[x] product in the form of the SL), but, culturally, Japanese companies tend to take their cues from their major Japanese competition. So whatever Canikon do, they'll both do it, and they won't do it just because Leica or Pentax etc. are doing it.

On the other hand, I think one of the new products from each company (if not right away, then following on) will be at a deluxe, high priced, carriage-trade price tier. As you know, the postwar fashion of Western countries aiming to be mostly middle class is over, and world economies are splitting into dual markets—not so much the haves and have-nots but the have-way-too-muches and the hoi-polloi, AKA the rest of us. Because we apparently all want to be like, say, Egypt. Accordingly, companies need to chase the discretionary dollars of the have-too-muches in order to maximize profits. So for example there were ten SUVs that cost over $100,000 in 2017, led by the 6-liter, 12-cylinder Bentley Bentayga for $230,000—that's a "have-too-muches" product right there. Whether Canon and Nikon choose to do this at the $6k level like Fuji or the $20k level like Leica remains to be seen, but one of their mirrorless products will probably leave ordinary working-stiff enthusiasts shaking their heads about excessive, out-of-reach cost.

And whatever they do at that level will mainly follow Chinese tastes. Which I don't really know anything about. Over the years it's been interesting to watch the reception in products made for specific places in the world and/or specific markets, and note how people outside of the target markets tend to evaluate those products as if they were made to appeal to them. For example, sometimes Japanese companies target mainly their home market, or women, or Japanese teens, and beardy grumpy white-male American and British enthusiasts argue over these products just like the development teams for those products gave a flip about their opinions. No no, Grampa.

Anyway given that both Leica and Fuji (and even Pentax) are making it rain from China with oversize-sensor cameras, it's possible we'll see medium-format mirrorless options from Canikon. My weakness as a prognosticator is that I don't know the size of those markets, or their profits, and Canikon will ignore any market it thinks is too small to bother with even if it's profitable.

Oh, and the new cameras will be ugly, because it's been a long, long time since we've seen a handsomely designed new Canon or Nikon.

That's, let's see, four predictions: Canikon will mirror each others' strategies, they'll be after the slice of the market that aren't price sensitive at least with some of their options, Chinese tastes will play a big part, and the cameras won't be pretty.

Techy questions remain. What formats? Dual formats? (In which case I predict the Fuji strategy, APS-C and medium format.) Or just one? (In which case I predict the Sony strategy, full frame.) Which lensmount? My guess there is that there will be new lensmounts from both makers with shorter flange distances than SLRs but with AF-enabled adapters allowing the use of the company's SLR lenses. They're unlikely to hobble themselves technically by sticking with currently lensmount specs—takes away too much of the edge.

I'm outta here now for my regular weekly date playing pool at the Moose Lodge with my buddies. (Sorry, did I just mention pool again?) After that I have a meeting. But when I get back I look forward to being soundly schooled by those of you who are much more up on the state of the rumors than I've bothered to be. Maybe some of the things I'm wondering about are already known. (All I know is that whenever we're talking about things nobody actually knows about, a lot of people always know much more than me. Then again, I predicted on the Miata Forum that they're wouldn't be a fourth-gen MX-5, so I'm clearly no good at predictions.)

I still say the best idea is wait and see. But insofar as gypsy predictions are fun, let us have at it, my friends.  :-)

Mike

UPDATE Monday evening: My buddy Loyle Egger, age 89, about to attempt a four-ball combination this morning at the Moose Lodge. He made this shot, but unfortunately scratched in the side pocket. (He was not the oldest guy playing with us this morning.)

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

San Warzoné: Seems like everyone is raving about the Sony mirrorless cameras and the great image quality, fast focusing, 4K Video and the EVF (electronic viewfinder). What is missing for me are the intangibles: ergonomics, ease of use, buttons and controls, the way the menus work, and the actual touch/feel handling. Nikon cameras have always had that hands on feeling of the way a camera should work. I have tried to 'like' my Sony A6300, but the tiny buttons, awkward menus and especially the EVF make me go back to my Nikon DSLRs. To my view the EVF is artificial looking and even harder to enjoy because of the non-circular eyepiece. I get that you can 'see' the image that will be captured in real time, but even after trying to modify and adjust the EVF settings to match my reality, it is not the same as a 'mirror image' on my Nikon DSLRs. Yes, it is smaller, lighter and produces quality raw files...but it's still not my cup of tea."

John Camp (partial comment): "A ~50-MP FF sensor in a small body with smaller lenses (but perhaps also taking F-mount lenses with an adapter) would be really interesting. Even more interesting would be a 4/3 aspect-ratio FF sensor with multiple aspect ratio options, but that ain't gonna happen. What I really fear (think) is going to happen is we'll get routine, boxy ~24mp cameras that'll be functionally no better than my Micro 4/3 Panasonics and that will be more or less blown off by the picture-taking world.

"I gotta say, though, this is the first time in perhaps six or eight years that I've really been curious about upcoming cameras."

PaulW: "This was a well thought out and fun read. I'm much less interested in what Canikon will announce than I am in how it will affect the rest of the camera industry. With two 800-pound gorillas jumping into the ring, things are gonna change. Interesting times ahead I think."

Thom Hogan: "In terms of 'mimicking strategies,' it sort of depends upon definitions. But I'd say that Nikon is likely to mimic Sony's strategy, while Canon will continue on the strategy path they are on. Canon appears to be doubling down on EOS M (APS-C), while about to offer a 5D Mark IV type of camera in mirrorless. Nikon appears to be about to duplicate the Sony A7/A7R strategy, with APS-C (DX) now relegated to a later date and a lesser role. But it's been difficult to pick out the details as both Canon and Nikon have prototyped/muled so many variations. We'll see soon enough. Both Canon and Nikon have Photokina press conferences scheduled (back to back), so you'd have to guess that the mirrors will be off come October."

The bike pictured on Harley-Davidson's home page might be aspirational for riders, but the rider pictured is aspirational for the company. He's not a member of the major demographic for the company's products.

Harley-Davidson, the American motorcycle maker based in my old hometown of Milwaukee, might be going downhill. Registrations of on-road bikes fell 6% last year, and it's been several years since H-D made its shipping targets. Sales of Harleys have mirrored, in advance, the decline in the number of non-Hispanic white males aged 45–49 who make decent incomes.

Two more trends have spelled trouble for H-D: people under age 30 have shown less interest in large motorcycles in general, and Harleys in particular, than predecessor generations; and there is reportedly a glut of used Harleys flooding the market as older riders transition to the gentler activities of advanced age. Harley's CEO, says Barron's, "knows that Harley can’t just make bikes—it has to create demand."

When I was (briefly) at Model Railroader magazine, it faced a similar problem. Model railroading is a huge, if quiet, hobby (most of it literally happens underground—or at least below ground level, in basements). In 2000 there were believed to be roughly 500,000 active model railroaders in the United States and Canada. The trouble has been that the peak of the demographic are middle-class males who were ten years old in 1950, when an electric train set was the number one most popular Christmas gift for boys. Individuals in that peak group are now 77 years old. Creating interest in the hobby among younger generations has been problematic, with only sporadic success. It's a time-, money-, and labor-intensive pastime. And it's generally only available to people who have enough extra room in their house or living quarters to set up at least a 4x8' sheet of plywood and leave it there.

(Many layouts are much more elaborate than that. At a workshop with model railroading gurus Bob Hayden and David Frary, we visited an avid model railroader in Houston. With his wife he had raised four daughters, each of whom had her own bedroom upstairs. When the eldest daughter went away to college, Dad requisitioned her room for his model railroad. When daughter no. 2 left, Dad knocked down the wall between the two bedrooms and enlarged the layout. The pattern held with the third daughter, and shortly after the last daughter left home the entire second floor of the house, by then one huge room with no walls, was entirely devoted to one enormous HO-scale layout.

...And then some: at one end of the house the exterior wall didn't allow enough room for a desired radius of track, so the fellow cut a big hole in the side of the house and built a bump-out, a sort of box attached to the outside wall of the home. He said when a train derailed in the bump-out, he had to get up on a ladder on the outside of the house and access it through a trapdoor. He claimed this was only inconvenient when it was raining! 

I don't recall the guy's name; someone out there might know. He was a rangy older guy with white hair who looked a lot like the late actor Jack Palance in the latter's later years.)

I'm not sure there are any identifiable demographic worries for the photographic industry quite yet; the digital transition involved such wholesale changes in habits and buying patterns that statistical trends have gotten swamped by the tsunami. Further complicating the picture is that the "digital era" is not steady-state; we haven't seen the last of the changes in the market, and it's even possible that we haven't even seen the major changes yet. But I'm sure cameramakers have been closely watching demographic patterns—at least since 2012 when the camera market peaked. What will happen when those of us who grew up shooting film start to drift out of the pool of buyers? Is the popularity of big DSLRs generational? What kind of cameras will smartphone snappers want if they get serious, as some percentage of them will?

My great-aunt Dickie, who died at age 101 and ten months, took her first ride on a Harley at age 95—she donned a helmet, climbed aboard a much younger friend's hog, and off they went. She reported it was "fun." One thing is probably true—while I'm guessing there are precious few 95-year-old Harley-Davidson riders out there, there's not yet any known upper age limit to the enjoyment of photography.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

scott kirkpatrick: "General aviation (small planes) also has an aging problem. But few pilots last as long as Captain John Miller, who flew until the age of 100. He kept his twin-engined Baron at Dutchess County Airport in Poughkeepsie, where I would hear about him. He barnstormed, flew early airmail routes, lived through the whole era.

"His sister, Lee Miller, was a photojournalist, friend of Man Ray, and one of the first to come back with photos of the Holocaust at WWII's end. John Miller is not the fictional character who saved Private Ryan."

David Comdico: "There is something a bit hypochondriacal about the incessant anxiety concerning the impeding death of the DSLR. Is it a side-effect of our ubiquitous neophilia? Amongst other cameras I own an F100 and a D810. Those two cameras have 18 years between them, shoot to different media, but are still remarkably similar to one another (the F100 viewfinder is nicer, but I digress). For sure, the F series is much older with the current modern shape arriving, as I understand it, in 1996 with the F5. That's over a 20-year iteration of a single industrial design in a product category that has seen massive disruption. That's pretty amazing. To me, the story should be instead about the improbable longevity of the DSLR."

Tim Bradshaw: "I think that big DSLRs are indeed generational, because I think they have become absurd. I use film almost entirely (because I like making prints in the darkroom). I have three Pentax MXs, and a few lenses. Every once in a while I think I really should start taking the whole digital thing seriously and I look at DSLRs. Well, Ricoh/Pentax make a DSLR I could use my lenses on now...and it weighs a kilogram. That is twice the weight (and probably more than twice the size) of the MX: it's two thirds the weight of my view camera (OK, discounting mandatory tripod, spot meter etc., so this is unfair). That's absurd. I can carry the MX with a 50mm lens in one hand all day and have done so many times. With a lens hood to keep rain off the lens it is small enough to be covered by the sleeve of my coat so I can do this in heavy rain, all day. I can do the same with the Ricoh GXR. I can't do that with the K-1, not even nearly: it's too big, and too heavy. If I bought one it would take lovely pictures but I would never use it."

Mike replies: The Pentax MX with a 50mm ƒ/1.4 M lens was very close to perfection, no? Funny how we move on, even from the near-perfect. But if you enjoy the darkroom work (I'm probably one of the few people who appreciates that, as I always loved working in the darkroom), what's not to like?

Winwalloe: "Your mention of this Harly Davidson ad campaign cracks me up: a casting for the campaign occured at a bar in L.A. I was in with friends (I was offered to take a shot at it but didn't). Who knows, it could have been a picture of me on this post haha. Elsewise, here's what this casting for Harley looked like:

Ade: "Apropos toy trains, I spent years trying to cultivate an interest in model railways, and gave it a 'proper' go once I achieved a decent disposable income and, due to living alone, a rental with sufficient space and nothing better to do with my spare time—only to discover that watching 'electric mice' still held little appeal for me. I found what was missing once I did what everyone was always telling me to do—went outside. I sold all my miniature engines and started again with slightly bigger trains in the garden. True, you need a garden with some space but the kits are reasonably priced and you can do as much or as little scenic modelling as you like (nature takes care of the rest). For a modest investment, you can even propel your trains with real steam. I guess this was the 'large format' equivalent of the modelling world - seems like more work with bigger kit but actually simplifies a lot of things and brings you closer to the original spirit of the hobby."

Mike replies: You know this, certainly, but for others who didn't know this was a niche, Kalmbach Publishing, which publishes Model Railroader, also publishes a magazine called Garden Railways for outdoor train layouts.

mike plews: "I suspect the demographic HD is looking to recruit is more likely to favor something like this. It is also worth noting that I am seeing more scooters and mopeds out on the street lately. Not the majority by any means but they seem to fold nicely into the hipster lifestyle."

Mike replies: That is the coolest thing ever.

Ernie Van Veen: "I took up motorcycle riding at the tender age of 10, and I haven't been willing to get onto another motorbike in the last 30 years (since my youngest was born). On the other hand, I took up photography in 2011 at the tender age of 54, and I just can't see a time where I would lose interest in photography or cameras (of whatever configuration). I can't image the arrival of grandchildren changing that."

Cliff R.: "Well you have wide appeal, Mike. I started reading TOP when I was in my 20s (33 now) and my 70-year-old dad also loves your blog. I was a young subscriber to Model Railroader in the early to mid '90s. Never could afford any sort of decent layout as a kid, of course, and as an adult I've been bitten by an even worse bug than model railroading or photography—flying!"

Robert Roaldi: "If people just bought motorcycles and rode them, the way people do in the rest of the world, as convenient and efficient transportation, I'd have no problem with them. But every neighbour I've ever had who owned a large bike seemed to think that it was their duty to put on aftermarket loud exhaust systems and make as much noise as possible. As far as I am concerned, their demise cannot come soon enough, and I'm an ex motor-head. For some reason, in North America, motorcycles seem to be a fetish, not a reasonable method of transportation."

Mike replies: This is a sore spot with me, as I'm sensitive to noise. I don't mean to be, I just can't help it. Not only are there laws on the books governing vehicle noise that are simply ignored in the case of big street motorcycles, but the mantra "loud pipes save lives" drives the logical part of my brain slightly to distraction. The idea is that being noisy alerts car and truck drivers more effectively to the motorcycle's presence on the road. The contradiction is that most of the same people who say "loud pipes save lives" are also against laws mandating the use of helmets.

I'll be quiet now.

Joe Massey: "Mike, I read your blog most days and very much enjoy doing so. Today, especially so. I just got back this afternoon to my computer after spending a couple of pleasurable hours running large scale trains on the outdoor layout of my friend John Carl. These are 1:20.3 'G scale' trains that are more than 2x the scale of the Lionel "O gauge" trains of my youth and much larger than the HO trains that have come to dominate the pages of Model Railroader (which I've been reading since 1952) so 77 year olds like John and I can see what we are working on when something goes wrong or a locomotive needs being put back on the track.

"John and I fit your description to a T: both born in 1940. We're like most men I know and like: we grew old but we did not grow up; we still play with trains. And I still play with cameras, another thing I've been doing since I had a Brownie that I valued almost as much as my Lionel 2-6-2 way back in the early '50s. And like cameras the digital age has come to trains which nowadays have digital controls and sound systems that provide digital downloads of the actual sounds of the prototype engines. Which just adds to the fun of being a 77 year old kid."

JohnMFlores: "If I had a nickle for every time someone talked about the graying motorcycle industry, I'd have approximately $88.35. Seriously, it is a topic of conversation at nearly every moto industry gathering that I've been a part of for the last five years. It's true and it's not just Harley Davidson. I see it at rallies and events all the time. Barring some miracle, motorcycles seem doomed to the margins as a hobby that the old people used to do, like scuba diving and rollerblading. And you know what? That's OK. As long as I can continue to ride and share my stories with whoever wants to read them, I'm OK.

"And what about photography? I don't know about you, but I see an awful lot of grey hair at photo events these days, and any time three photographers get together, the fourth couldn't make it because of sciatica or some other ailment that young folks (damn them) don't have. The iPhone is the gateway drug, of course, but are the young talents stepping up to DSLRs or mirrorless or drones or 4k video cameras or 360/VR rigs? I don't know. Just like motorcycles, as long as I can continue to learn and grow and share as a photographer, I'm OK."

Ed. Note: Motorcycling journalist John Flores is a regular contributor to RoadRunner magazine. He visited TOP World HQ last Summer—riding a motorcycle that was blissfully completely silent!

Mark Sampson: "Around 1977–82 or so I had a friend who was the director of a small and under-funded transportation (trolleys mostly) museum. His statement was 'Why should I play with toy trains when I can play with real ones?' Which we did."

Mike replies: I really don't know the story, but I believe Rod Stewart, the singer, who is a rail fanatic, has both a model railroad and a real steam locomotive which he plays with, down to the engineer's hat. He was the ultimate "get" for MR at the time I was there, but he wouldn't cooperate for an article. I gather he eventually relented and an article about him appeared, but I've never seen it.

Jeremy E: "DSLRs, mirrorless, and their ilk depend upon computers to process, and purchase of computers of all kinds is also in decline—people have computers for work, but not necessarily for personal use. If you look at active development of photography software at places like Adobe, it's going to heavy lifting/processing of images in a datacenter (the cloud) with enough UX in an app or a browser to present a face to the processing service and move pictures over the wire.

"There is always a place for professional work and equipment—I understand a lot of Instagram posts are big-time marketing and those 'amateur' pics are not from a smartphone."

Eric Brody: "Never forget that emergency room docs refer to motorcycles, all of them, as 'donorcycles.' In my day, working in a small southern Alabama hospital, I saw some impressive wrecks—people wrecks—whose lives, if they survived, would be forever altered."

A. Dias: "Harley-Davidson is trying to buy Ducati."

John McMillin: "The same aging-out peril is being discussed regarding electric guitars, which were declared dying in a recent Washington Post feature story. Besides the obvious issues of arthritis, hearing loss and a lack of contemporary guitar heroes in popular music, there's this, which relates to the Harley situation: the big guitar makes are so wedded to the past. Walk into any big guitar store—you know, the big nationwide chains under rumors of financial failure—and you'll see rows and rows of Stratocasters, Telecasters, and Les Pauls, and not much else. New designs must not sell as well as recreations of the 1950s innovations that rocked the world so long ago. By aping the past, manufacturers increase the mystique of old models, furthering their own problem."

Hotspur Closser: "Had I been a middle-aged white guy 20 years ago, I would have bought a Harley in a heartbeat. But being a middle-aged white guy in 2017, living in a busy college town in the age of smartphones and distracted driving, they couldn't pay me to ride one of their bikes. It doesn't matter how skilled or defensive a rider you are—it's only a matter of time before some eejit messing around on their phone takes you out."

Nikon has released three worrying notices in quick succession, most notably a "Notice of Recognition of Extraordinary Loss" that announces losses totaling more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the last three quarters of 2016.

More than half of that comes from the "Result of Solicitation for Early Retirement," meaning buyouts for 1,143 employees, most aged 40 and older.

Announced but not to be: the Nikons that never were

This follows the unusual announcement that the company will not be producing the three Sony-cloney "DL" cameras that were announced about a year ago. They've been cancelled and won't be coming to market. Development of the three cameras had been troubled with technical problems, and apparently Nikon no longer thinks that particular direction will generate revenue, so it's cuttings its losses. The high-profile product cancellation underlines the other bad news.

Possibly most worrying is the document "Revision of the Financial Forecast for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2017," which indicates worse performance in 2016 than the already pessimistic predictions.

Around the Web
There's a good summary of the news at Slashgear. For the financially literate, here's a quick take of the financial situation from Nasdaq.

In his article at DSLRBodies, Nikon gadfly Thom Hogan says "there’s no 'core philosophy' to what Nikon is doing. It’s all about cost management, for the most part. Yes, you have to manage costs, but that’s a lot easier to do if you produce the right products." Regarding the financial news, he notes that "there’s nothing in anything Nikon has announced that will tell us the pain is over," adding the prediction that "Nikon is about to become a smaller company. Possibly far smaller."

Mike
(Thanks to Kevin Purcell)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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John Krumm: "People were wringing hands over Olympus just a couple years ago during their financial scandal, and further back when they canceled the Four-Thirds system and switched to Micro 4/3. Now I hear some people say that Nikon needs to be more like Olympus.

"My guess is they will work it out. As a Pentax owner, I worry more about Pentax!"

Jim: "This is sad news. One of the few lessons I have learned from a life in business is that you can't starve yourself to prosperity."

Mark Walker: "I sell cameras. Nikon have lost hugely in the market from where I sit. They haven't respected their customer base. There has been a shameful rapid succession of 'upgrades' as well as the virtual public beta testing of production models: I believe there are still contested class actions pending. Canon seem to be faring better, and my perception is that the pro market has made a substantial shift in their favour.

"I don't have any bias against Nikon, I've used enough of their products and have too much respect for what they have achieved. But, they seem to be like a lumbering dinosaur getting shredded by the mirrorless raptors and they haven't responded with any form of dynamism, swatting away with 'upgrades.' Maybe they will contract to the mid and high range, but, they will need to be nimble and unless 2017/18 sees something radical in the lineup that will actually sell, well...who knows? It is difficult to understand where they are going and that has to be worrying."

Eamon Hickey (partial comment): "Nikon is now forecasting a 9,000m yen (that's 'nine-thousand million yen') net loss for fiscal 2017, or about 81 million dollars on 750,000m yen (6.8 billion dollars) in sales. That's about a 1.2% net loss. Not good, for sure, but Nikon's very strong balance sheet can easily handle a small loss like that. Nikon has been nicely profitable for the past six years (in both cameras and, to a lesser extent, lithography equipment), thus the strong balance sheet.

"Nikon does have long-term challenges in a shrinking camera market, no doubt. And the whole DL fiasco is, well, a fiasco. Just terrible business performance. And not the only bad show from Nikon recently. But it's important to keep things in perspective. Nikon is financially strong; it is coming off many years of making lots and lots of money (unlike nearly all other camera companies besides Canon); and there is time to adjust."

Paulo Bizarro: "In my opinion, Nikon just joined the 1-inch sensor compact camera market too late. Sony started it, followed by Canon and Panasonic. How many more such compacts can the market sustain? Sure, the DL 18–50 seemed nice on paper, given the focal length range. But, again, too late. Better take the loss now, than a couple of years down the road. Similar story to the Nikon 1 MILC system: has the best AF in the segment (or had at the time), but not enough to make a dent in a market dominated by the big electronic companies (Panasonic, Sony). Fuji was able to make a difference by basically betting in a coherent MILC ecosystem, rather than spreading their resources. Nikon's prestige comes from SLR and DSLR systems, and they have some great recent products there (D5, D500, 105mm ƒ/1.4 lens). Venturing outside of the comfort zone seems risky for them, because they are being reactive, rather than proactive."

With only a few offerings and a negligible number of lenses, maybe you didn't think much of Canon as a player in the mirrorless game.

But think again—according to Thom Hogan's analysis of BCN data, Canon is coming on like gangbusters in the cameramakers' home market of Japan, capturing 18.5% of the entire mirrorless market in 2016, easily surpassing onetime leader Panasonic and even squeaking past mighty Sony despite Sony's plentiful offerings in a variety of formats.

Note that Thom's chart is only for the Top Three and their combined market share, which is why figures for Panasonic don't appear in 2016 and 2015, and why Fuji, Nikon, Leica etc. don't appear on the chart at all.

Thom also notes that Japanese camera buyers are "price and size sensitive," greatly preferring small cameras and bargain prices.

Canon is now outselling Nikon two to one in Japan
Thom's other article of great interest is the one reflecting on BCN's recently released data on DSLR market share. It shows Nikon slowly slipping in the home market, and Canon going from strong to stronger.

Thom now has many sites covering many aspects of camera gear, but his core or legacy identity is as a Nikon site (the tagline on dslrbodies.com is "Supporting the Nikon F-mount on the Internet since 1994..."), so naturally his article concentrates on the ramifications of the data for Nikon. The article also charts the steady deterioration of Nikon's rank in lens sales, from 23.2% of the interchangeable lens market in 2009 to 12.5% last year.

Sigma has now taken over the No. 2 position in interchangeable lens sales in Japan, behind Canon.

Mike
(Thanks to Michael J. Perini)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Jim Bullard: "I'm not surprised. The 'M' cameras have taken a bum rap in the U.S. but I like the M3 in particular. I wish it had a fully articulated screen on the back but, on the whole, I love it. Good size, reasonable price, and great optics."

Geoff Wittig: "This is ironically bad news for us Canon users. Nikon's technical prowess over the years has provided the competitive challenge keeping Canon from becoming completely complacent. No doubt it's Nikon's brilliant D800/810 series (and their Sony sensors) that forced Canon to finally start addressing its lag in high ISO noise and dynamic range capabilities. If Nikon slips further and goes under (a distinct possibility, since Nikon is basically a camera/lens company, while Canon and Sony have far wider product lines), Canon may get even fatter and happier with what they already have. This would make me very sad; I greatly prefer the larger form factor of 'standard' DSLRs over mirrorless cameras, which just feel too small and fiddly to me."

According to a chart at Statista sourced from CIPA, CIPA members shipped 121.5 million cameras in 2011, and the interchangeable-lens portion of that was even greater in 2012, 2013, and 2014. But now both categories are down drastically.

(The chart is deceptive as regards 2016, because it reports the first half of the year, whereas the big shopping months are mostly in the second half. So the 13 million sales in the first seven months of 2016 might not be predictive of the final number for this year.)

Statista blames the downturn on smartphones. While I'm sure that smartphone cameras have had a large effect, mostly at the lower end of the market, I don't think it's the whole story at all. There are other things happening that I've observed firsthand among photography enthusiasts.

1. Single-chip digital cameras are reaching a point of sufficiency. The frenzy of excitement and desire for the latest improvements that we witnessed in the decade from 2003–2013 can't reasonably continue forever (at least not without another technological shift). More and more photographers are realizing they're perfectly happy with their older cameras. They're still upgrading regularly, but the intervals between upgrades are growing longer and more leisurely.

2. It's expensive to keep up with the very latest thing, and many of us have gotten burned...by ourselves. We overbought and got left with that faintly sick feeling of money flushed down the loo with no one but ourselves to blame. That breeds greater caution when making purchases...even when the latest toys still inspire strong acquisitive lust.

3. New digital cameras have to compete more than ever with secondhand digital cameras...more like the way film cameras once did. Call it the "Model T Effect": Henry Ford was strongly motivated to make the Model T into an Everyman's car, and he succeeded wildly in bringing the price down—way down—over the years. But one thing he didn't take into account was that, once three out of every four cars on American roads were Fords (true in the early 1920s), new Model T Fords would be competing with used Model T Fords...and even Henry couldn't make new ones cheap enough to compete with his own cars bought secondhand. Especially as cameramakers have learned that they can charge a price premium for the latest and greatest gear, more and more price-sensitive buyers are finding they can save money, lots of money, by buying cameras at the end-of-model-run closeouts or by buying little-used cameras that are one or even two generations old. These customers are upgrading regularly too, but it's not being reflected in the numbers for new camera sales. (This particular buying solution was much less satisfying when the pace of improvements was still rapid; it works better now.)

I think these three factors are having more effect on the sales of the kinds of cameras we tend to care about. (A possible fourth influence is that whenever some recreational activity becomes "all the rage," a certain percentage of those participating are just people who jumped on the bandwagon or who got carried along by the wave. As the period of excitement and popularity settles down, those people drift away. But I don't have reliable inputs about that effect.)

I came of age in photography in an era when the market for cameras was one of "measured growth," and the market for darkroom equipment—my niche, back then—was sleepy and all but saturated. It was the opposite in 2003–2013. Part of what we're witnessing is not a paradigm shift (although part of it probably is—I plan to upgrade my phone as soon as I can, entirely for the camera), but rather the inevitable ending of a period of unprecedented growth and activity.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Gato (partial comment): "A big factor, I think, is saturation. Almost everyone who wants a digital camera and can afford one already has one."

Bruce McL: "Desktop and Laptop computer sales have slowed down for some of the same reasons. Computers are 'good enough' to last six or seven years. Fifteen or 20 years ago, three years was a long time to keep a computer. By then the new ones were substantially better in ways that people could appreciate in day-to-day use."

Paul De Zan: "Spot on. Last DSLR purchase here was a Canon 6D three and a half years ago (still a current model today); last camera of any type was a Fuji X100T going on two years ago. Two certifiably ancient Nikon D40's still get 30% of my shooting time. Right now I barely look at new cameras. We have reached a certain equilibrium that really has nothing to do with phone cameras, although if sales keep falling they will inevitably get the credit for 'killing the DSLR,' because that's how feature writing (not journalism) works."

matthew: "It's really hard for me to pay $1,000+ for a new camera. Yes, the new camera will be better than what I have, but is it $1,000 better? Right now, the answer is no. And so every time I take my camera out, a small part of me secretly hopes that I break it so I can justify the upgrade."

John Krumm: "Everyone is trying to inflate a smaller bubble within one larger shrinking bubble. It's interesting that camera sales proved pretty recession resistant, unlike homes, cars and other big items. I found this chart on motorcycle sales, which is quite different. Unlike cameras, they are making a slow recovery. But also unlike cameras, they don't have a smartphone equivalent to compete with."

Wayne: "It kind of reminds me of my younger years when I purchased a new car every two or three years; now I purchase a new car only when I absolutely need one. It is not that I do not like new cars any less, it is just that I have finally figured out that new cars, once purchased, do nothing meaningful to improve my life...at least not beyond the two or three weeks of initial ownership. While my spate of new camera purchases did not last as many years as the episode with automobiles, I have finally learned the same lesson. Stupidity? Yes. Eternal stupidity? No."

Mike replies: I don't know...after spending 9–10 years each with a series of cars, I was prosperous enough for a few years to buy a new car every 2–3 years, and I'd do that forever if I could afford it. (Although I think I remember reading recently that the average American family can no longer afford the price of the average new car.) And I'd be very happy to have a cabinet full of the latest cameras without having to worry about the expense. I do see your point, though, and it's a good one—that the shine wears off quickly and the sense of reward fades.

John Robison: "Seeing this made me think, 'have I ever bought a new camera?' Looking back over nearly 50 years of messing with cameras I have bought dozens of used cameras paying anywhere from $1 to $900 (yeah, it was that Leica M that I had always dreamed about). Thinking about it the only new-in-box cameras I have ever purchased were discontinued and discounted models: a Minolta HiMatic 9, Rollei 35B, and Olympus E-410. I think the camera companies view customers like me as useless."

Salar: "I think the biggest factor is economic uncertainty. We're in a deflationary cycle and people tend to save instead of spend."

Steve Jacob: "2010. That was the year Sony's 16MP 4T IMX071 Exmor sensor hit the market and more or less maxed out the capabilities of Silicon mosaic sensors. It appeared in the D7000 and D5100, Sony NEX5, Pentax K5 and Fuji Xpro1 among others. It also got enlarged to create the 36MP sensor in the D800, which has identical pixel architecture. Why was this significant? Because nothing has radically improved on the QE and read noise performance of this sensor since. Nor is it ever likely to until we start using some different kind of light detector than a photodiode. You can only store so many photoelectrons in a certain volume of doped silicon. There have been small improvements—copper wiring, 5T dual gain, better processing—but nothing radical. Sixteen megapixels is enough to make 24x16-inch prints with exceptional quality; all these cameras have good DR and noise performance; and other than going full-frame there is little you can do to improve on them.

"There are other factors too—general weariness with hype and expectation, the crash of 2008 from which the world has barely recovered, stagnation of western living standards....

"But perhaps the most significant is that all these cameras appeal to traditionalists. They are just digital versions of film cameras, to which we all migrated with all our skills and expectations. A whole new generation that never owned a film camera find them cumbersome, complicated and plain hard work. They still resonate with a core enthusiast set, but outside that set they have limited appeal. Most people want something that has all the automated features of their phone camera (including 'intelligent' scene-sensing tone curves) but the IQ of an SLR. It will come, as phone cameras adopt the multi-module approach.

"Camera companies are trying to sell stick-shift muscle cars to a generation raised on the equivalent of self-driving Google cars.

"The mass camera market was always about lifestyle snaps, not art, wildlife or sport. Many of these people bought into SLRs simply because there was no alternative, but seldom took them off auto. Smaller film formats just weren't very good. Now, the same folks simply don't need to. Phone cameras are getting good enough and don't force you to use a PC, or complicated software. They just need to cross the quality divide, which means something that works like an iPhone camera, is no bigger than an iPhone, and does all the processing internally using its own scene analytics.

"It's quite possible to make a 'flat' camera using multiple phone camera modules which can even simulate variable focal lengths, arm it with a dedicated quad core Snapdragon processor and plenty of flash memory, and hey presto."

Barry Reid: "I live in a very trendy part of East London (by default as we arrived before the Hipsters). What I think may be happening is that as we enter the always-streamed digital world, the transitional technologies (CD, DSLR, BluRay etc) are being ditched. But the appetite for 'authentic' (read analogue) approaches to creativity remains and is increasing. These kids love their Vinyl records, OM-10s, Trips and Polaroids. I probably see more film cameras than DSLRs on a Saturday at our local market!"

Ilkka: "I am continuously surprised how good the digital cameras from a few years ago are. I have bought two 'new' cameras in the past two years but both were old stock of discontinued items. I just took my five-or-so-year-old Olympus digicam (XZ-1) out for use. Needed a small compact with decently fast zoom. Even that was bought secondhand at the time. Served its purpose very well. Couldn't have hoped for anything better. Very little reason to buy new cameras anymore."

Mike replies: We recently had a similar experience when I dusted off a Panasonic LX7 for my brother, who was visiting but had inadvertently left his own camera at home. He loved using it, and was very pleased with the results he was getting. And now that he's gone again I can't find it around here anywhere...seems to have disappeared...hmm....

Two interesting vectors this morning. ExploreCams, a site that allows you to look up images based on the camera or lens used, has updated its massive data crunch analyzing eleven and a half million pictures uploaded to enthusiast photo sites. They graphed the most popular cameras used, and then, for each camera, the five most popular lenses. Coming in at no. 1 is the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (now newly updated) with the EF 24–105mm ƒ/4 lens (in fact it's the most popular lens with all three of the top Canons...apropos Harold Merklinger's comments here the other day about the desirability of ƒ/4 lenses. Just sayin').

Of course this is a popularity contest. Being something of a natural contrarian, my immediate knee-jerk reaction to finding out the results of any popularity contest is to want to do the opposite. And of course results always depend on what data was used and how it was collected; doubtless there's a bit of anti-recency effect in this de facto poll...most photographers are using cameras they bought on average several years ago, and uploading pictures they took at some point in the past. The recent past, but the past. So it might be considered most accurate as a snapshot of enthusiast camera use at some point several years ago.

Graphic and data courtesy CIPA

Speaking of which, here's a recent graph sourced from CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) charting camera sales. The horizontal lines are millions of units shipped, with zero at the bottom and 5 million at the top; and each line is a successive year month-by-month: 2014 is the dotted purple line, 2015 the solid black line in the middle, and this year, 2016, is the solid orange line at the bottom, up to July.

This comes from an article at a site (no, the site is not about Sony despite its name!) for investors and money managers. The article is titled "Nikon Has Little Growth Potential Because of Rapidly Declining Camera Sales." Which pretty much gives you the gist of the article. Note, however, that the author is disputing another evaluation that came to the opposite conclusion. Note also that at the ExploreCams chart, Canon grabs the top three cameras and seven of the top 10. Although Nikon dominates the 11–20 bracket. Together, the Canikon duopoly's dominance shows very clearly. 

I don't know what to conclude from all this, except that it's apparent that most photographers are still using DSLRs even if they're largely happy with the ones they already have and aren't in as big a hurry to upgrade. The most-used mirrorless camera is the Sony A6000 (that thing really has been selling) at no. 22. The next one is the Fuji X-T1 (my current camera, also recently replaced) at the 28th slot.

I'm considering changing cameras again (more about that eventually) and I'm curious how my own consumer behavior intersects with the trends these links show. I'm already curious to see what the ExploreCams' chart will look like three years from now. Will DSLRs still dominate so thoroughly then? Will mirrorless start showing greater infiltration on the list? Time will tell.

Mike
(Thanks to Kevin Purcell and John Camp)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Ronny Nilsen brought up a very interesting point.

"Nikon and Canon are making money because they deliver what the average person wanting to buy a DSLR wants to buy. A competent camera with a kit lens. Most don't care about a full lineup of DX primes. They just want a cheap kit lens, and at most another tele-zoom. All that other stuff is for people like us reading TOP, and we are probably few compared to the number of DX customers. The primes are probably only wanted by FX users. Making an additional range of DX lenses for 5% of your customers (pro DX customers) is probably not profitable; let them use the FX lenses. I'd say that Nikon seems to be competent and know their customers well enough to realise that making lots of different DX lenses is not going to be profitable."

I do believe that neither Nikon nor Canon will ever make even a basic set of DX primes such as I outlined yesterday. But the point I want to make is that profitability in a camera system isn't necessarily evaluated on a product-by-product basis...only on a system-wide basis.

When I wrote "The EOS Revolution" for Darkroom Techniques magazine in 1992 or so—it was a major article at the time, and Canon bought reprint rights* so reprints of the article could be provided to customers at dealers and at trade shows—I was told specifically that there would be products in the system that would never pay for themselves. Canon understood at the time that the system concept—and this included the professional services department—was to bring as many photographers as possible under the Canon tent. Long a powerhouse of amateur SLRs like the famous AE-1, which was a record-setting bestseller in its day, and cash-rich because photography was such a small percentage of its overall business, Canon had its sights set on Nikon: it wanted to rival and even surpass Nikon as the choice of professionals. That was an audacious goal at the time.

The idea was that the system had to be complete so that no one would be turned away for the lack of a specific component—body, lens, or accessory. And, a specific product or system component might serve as a lure to get a pro to switch. Products didn't necessarily have to pay for themselves directly if they served these broader purposes. So, for example, it was assumed that the 24mm tilt-shift lens might never pay for itself in direct sales—but it might be a reason for a particular professional to switch from Nikon to Canon, and it might also remove another reason why someone might stick with Nikon despite having other reasons to switch to Canon. (I believe Nikon had 35mm and 28mm shift or "PC" for "perspective control" lenses at the time, without tilt.) The idea was that even if Canon never made a profit on that specific lens, if it brought a photographer into the Canon ecosystem, the company would then make money selling that photographer all the other bodies, lenses, and accessories he or she needed. More than enough to make up for the loss.

Sure enough, I heard from many photographers over the the ensuing decade or so who said they switched to the EOS system just for the tilt-shift lenses.

This brought up another fascinating idea, which was that in some cases it was important for a system component just to exist because a given photographer might simply want to know that it was available. At that time, it wasn't uncommon for professionals to buy a lens just for one specific assignment or job, billing it on to the client. There were all sorts of reasons why you "might need" a certain component in the future. What this meant was that a pro might choose a system because of the existence of system components they would never actually buy. That idea fascinated me.

So when Bruno commented:

"The absence of an 18mm ƒ/2 or ƒ/2.8 or a 23mm ƒ/2 for DX cameras is the very reason why in the end I switched to a Fuji X100 and then the X100T. My 10-year-old D200 body is still superior in handling and responsiveness to any modern mirrorless, but I need those damn lenses."

...This is a specific failure of the system concept. Here's a photographer who was driven out of the entire Nikon ecosystem because he needed two components that the system didn't provide. Even though those two components might be only a tiny fraction of his overall investment in Nikon products.

It's still a business decision, and it might be worth it to Nikon to lose Bruno as a customer. But according to the system concept as it was described to me by Canon's U.S. representatives in the early '90s, it doesn't necessarily matter if a specific DX prime (or any other specific system component) is never profitable by itself. If it keeps enough customers such as Bruno within the Nikon family, buying other Nikon bodies and lenses, then it might still be worth making...even from a strict profitability standpoint.

Mike

*Canon offered to pay me $1,500 for the reprint rights. I had been paid $750 for the article by the magazine. I saw this as a clear conflict of interest. Imagine the situation: you're writing an article as a journalist. You're supposed to be objective. But you know in the back of your mind that if you praise the company or the product highly enough, the company might triple the amount of money you receive for the article. Wouldn't that tempt you into praising the company or the product more than you intended to? Or more than you might have if there were no potential reward in the offing?

I sorely needed the money at the time, but I turned Canon down. I told them they could have the reprint rights if they promised to buy two full-page ads in the magazine within some specified amount of time (which would benefit my employer but not me). A Canon employee later crowed to me that Canon had already been planning to buy that much advertising and more, so Canon got the reprint of my article "for free." Which didn't concern me, of course—my only responsibility, as I saw it, was to preserve my own integrity.

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Keith: "When I switched from film (Minolta 35mm / Mamiya medium format) in 2009, I went with a highly rated camera at the time, a Nikon D90. Nikon was pushing DX format so I expected a full system. Never happened. I've since added a compact for travel (Olympus E-PL5 with 14–42mm and 40–150mm) and an E-M1 with 12–40mm and 40–150mm ƒ/2.8 PRO lenses. So there's over $4,000 I wanted to give Nikon but couldn't. And a 7–14mm PRO is next to be added. Oh well...Nikon's loss."

Paulo Bizarro: "What I see all the time, wherever I go, is that the majority of tourists that still carry a camera, carry an entry level DSLR with kit zoom. So I don't buy into this mantra that 'DSLR is (will be) a niche product.' Next up I see perhaps some tourists with mid-level DSLR (say a Canon 70D) with a better zoom. Or others with a Canon 6D or 5D with an L zoom. I can't remember seeing a tourist with a Fuji or Sony MILC...."

Doug: "I was a Nikon user for over thirty years, most recently shooting the D7000. When they introduced the Nikon 1 concept, I was thrilled. Why? Because I travel internationally for a living. Here, I thought, is a fabulous solution to my specific needs. Small, light, amazing AF and such promise for the future. But, Nikon chose to cripple the Nikon 1 system, afraid of cannibalizing its DSLR sales, I guess. Had Nikon simply offered an enthusiast-level Nikon 1 (like a D7200 equivalent) with a really good 1" sensor and a couple of fast zooms, I would still be a Nikon user. I'd own two bodies, three to four lenses, a flash, etc. And, I'd have touted the system to my traveling friends.

"But this was not to be. So, now I have left the Nikon family. This makes no sense to me. But, apparently, Nikon was content to lose me as a customer to save its DSLR sales. Irrational sales strategy in my view. Why would Nikon care what Nikon I shot as long as I shot Nikon? Oh well...I'm currently shooting Fuji, by the way."

Fuji got to design a new system from the ground up, un-hampered by legacy formats, lens lines, camera types, or customer expectations. That is one great big advantage right there. The last time something like that happened was probably when Canon switched to the EOS lensmount way back in the '90s, and the advantage eventually propelled the company into first place for the first time. No, the last time was when Leica invented the S system from scratch, and did such a beautiful job. It's a risk, but also a huge advantage when a company gets to start over.

[UPDATE: the 4/3 system in 2003 was another, although it and Micro 4/3 are special cases. Thanks to Scott for the reminder. —Ed.]

And Fuji stuck to one format for ILCs, with different bodies. (As J Wilson said in the comments last week: "For me, the real genius [of the Fuji X system] is that you can use the same set of lenses with a DSLR-like body (the XT's), a rangefinder-ish body (the XP's), and the various digital-brick shapes, led off by the XE's.")

Now consider that Fuji is well known to be thinking about jumping into medium-format digital.

Imagine...Fuji has one complete, well-designed system in APS-C. Add one similarly thoughtful and well-designed complementary system in medium format, leapfrogging all the FF offerings and with only very high-priced alternatives as competition. Wouldn't that be about the perfect market placement? Fuji could conceivably continue to storm the ramparts. Maybe it's not Sony that will end up leading the assault on the Canikon duopoly at all....

Just thinkin' out loud.

Would you buy a medium-format camera if it was affordable and part of a well-designed system, to complement what you already have? It would make me pause to think, I'll say that much.

Mike
(Thanks to J Wilson)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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MikeR: "Bigger sensor = bigger files = bigger drives = faster and multiple processor = major upgrade = $$$$$ = NO!!"

Herman: "I already have a medium-format camera."

[By the bye, I think friend-o'-TOP Herman might be our oldest reader. Can anyone beat a birthday of Oct. 10th, 1926? He's a heck of a photographer, too. —Ed.]

Luca: "Re 'Would you buy a medium-format camera if it was affordable and part of a well-designed system, to complement what you already have?' Give me 16 bit and a 4:5 or 1:1 sensor, without the need to sell a kidney, and that system will replace (not just complement) all my current ones, with the exception of Micro 4/3 just because of the size of the lenses. And please note that I haven't talked about megapixels: at medium format sizes and 16 bit, everything from 24 MP and over (hell, possibly even 16 MP) will be more than enough for me."

Will: "Re 'Imagine...Fuji has one complete, well-designed system in APS-C. Add one similarly thoughtful and well-designed complementary system in medium format, leapfrogging all the FF offerings and with only very high-priced alternatives as competition. Wouldn't that be about the perfect market placement?'

"About a decade ago, before the 645D was a certainty, I thought the same about Pentax. They were the only DSLR manufacturer that had really come to peace with APS-C and started making a useful lineup of lenses for the format. They had a great legacy system to build the 645 off of. It seemed to me that the last thing they needed to do was pursue 'full frame.' I still think APS-C and Medium format make for an excellent compliment, and I hope Fuji nails it. They've been nailing everything else, I'd say.

"Regarding the J Wilson comment, I've always thought mirrorless camera makers should get more experimental with camera design. I think someone should do a camera with a huge LCD on top and ergonomics resembling old waistlevel viewing cameras. I think systems need to jettison their commitment to a single aspect ratio. I'd be much more interested in an OM-D with a 3:2 aspect sensor (same diagonal, so wider but less tall), for example. Or a square sensor from any manufacturer. The way cameras work these days, any shape is possible. How about a 5:4 sensor in portrait orientation?

"Finally, one of my favorite things about the Fuji system is that they develop a sensor until they are happy with it, then they stick with it for a long time. I have three Fuji cameras that all have the same sensor, and as a result, I can shoot all three bodies at once and process the resulting images as a batch without ever making any workflow adjustments. Sure, you could do this by having more than one of the same camera, but that doesn't give the flexibility that adding an X100s gave me, for example. This new 24-MP sensor seems wonderful, but I won't want to upgrade until I'm able to update an X100 and an interchangeable lens camera simultaneously so that I can keep shooting in this way."