CIPA report: Overall Digital Camera market down by 27% compared to last year

Cipa
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CIPA posted their statistics for February 2018, and it’s a worrying picture they give of the camera industry.

According to CIPA, the overall digital stills camera shipments worldwide were down 26.6% compared to the same period of 2017. The figures are due to the compact camera market, which is shrinking year after year and now see as a 44.7% drop.

Shipments of DSLRs and MILCs together went down by over 5% (compared to February 2017). DSLR sales alone saw a modest 0.1% raise in shipment while MILC shipments dropped by 15.8%.

It seems people still love their DSLRs, despite all the mirrorless galore.

cipa[via CIPA]

Yet Again a Recycled Rumor Breaks the News

Canon Rumors

Again, an old rumor seasoned with some common sense made its round on the Internet, sold as breaking news. You guess, it’s about Canon’s upcoming full frame mirrorless camera, likely the most abused rumor since I started this site.

News outlets happily reported (again) that Canon is working on a full frame mirrorless camera, that prototypes are out, and that we will see this camera within a year. Well, nothing new here. People following CW knows that. We are reporting every bit we get about Canon’s full frame mirrorless camera since 2014. It’s a pity that some big news outlets stubbornly ignore us.

The non-rumor we are talking about (which you shouldn’t have issues to find) states that

  1. A Canon full frame mirrorless camera is coming – We know that since almost 2 years, we extensively reported about
  2. Prototypes of a Canon full frame mirrorless camera are undergoing field tests – We know that since over a year, we reported many times
  3. Canon may announce a full frame mirrorless camera within a year – We know since a while and reported it. Even Sony’s CEO said that Canon will announce a FF mirrorless within a year. Anyone involved in photography on this terraqueous globe of ours knows it.

If you have ever worked in R&D (Research & Development) then you know that prototypes (of electronic gear) are field-tested a long time before the final product goes to market, and that usually there are more versions of such prototypes. Depending by the criticality, electronic gear like digital cameras may be tested through prototypes years before it is announced. I am sure an important camera like Canon’s (hopefully) upcoming FF MILC has seen many prototypes coming and going, and not since a few months. And one more thing: the scope of prototypes is to get it right in the final product.

Besides all the murmuring and rumor-recycling, we know very little about Canon’s full frame mirrorless camera. All tidbits we collected and were told in the past are listed here. Please note that none of the following has been confirmed so far:

  • Dedicated full frame CMOS sensor
  • Different sources and sites were reporting that early prototypes exist, at least to be tested inside Canon’s labs. This intel came in 2016 and early 2017.
  • Canon is possibly working on a full-frame mirrorless camera with EF mount. There have been rumors saying that Canon is delaying this camera because of issues in implementing the EF mount. There is a lot of talk about this. If Canon manages to engineer a full-frame mirrorless camera with EF mount, thus allowing us to use our beloved EF lenses on a smaller and hopefully performing body, it will be a winner. Imagine what you could do with a MILC that goes along with your EF lenses. There is a serious chance we may see this.
  • The latest bit of info I got suggests Canon will announce a full-frame mirrorless camera with a sensor having a resolution of 36-38MP.
  • Announcement may come for Photokina 2018 (September), or later in 2019 Q1.

Stay tuned, we keep you posted with the important stuff.

Is Canon mirrorless taken seriously by the company?

Canon Eos M5 Mark Ii
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Canon mirrorless: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA

After reading Imaging Resource’s Dave Etchells interviewing Canon executives Go Tokura, Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi and Goshi Nakamura, I really wonder if Canon mirrorless will ever be a serious thing.

Canon’s answers to Dave Etchells questions about Canon mirrorless cameras and especially about Canon’s plans with the system and the technologoy, well, these answers are elusive and vague at best (as they were in another interview with Canon execs).

Some excerpts:

IR […] How do you see mirrorless fitting into Canon’s overall strategy generally? And are we likely to see more emphasis going forward, or do you view mirrorless as continuing to be more of a niche market rather than DSLR sales?

Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi: So in terms of how we look at the mirrorless market, I think there’s a regional variance that we can actually point out at the moment. Different regions have different penetrations in mirrorless market share.

[…] Canon offers both mirrorless and SLR products, and we will continue to do this. We will position those categories in that regard, and we would like to look at the ILC market as a whole to respond to the wide range of demands that are coming in with these two prongs.

IR: As you mentioned the mirrorless market is broadening, and with the EOS M5 Canon is now finally offering a true enthusiast-level mirrorless camera […] We’re wondering whether you see higher-end — if not professional — more enthusiast-level lenses on the roadmap for the EOS M family?

YM: I won’t be able to disclose any sort of future products, so there’s not much details that I can provide at the moment, but obviously there’s a growing demand for the enthusiast-level cameras. That’s why we’re seeing this progression of our camera series, and in a similar way we will start to see the strong demand for the lenses as well, for the enthusiast. We are looking at the market demand and seeing what sort of levels that we’re seeing, and we will probably be introducing products along with that.

Doesn’t sound exactly like “we cant wait to flood the market with high end EF-M lenses” nor it doesn’t sound as if Canon was fully committed to mirrorless (and their own EOS M system).

The interview touches more points (Dual Pixel AF, for instance) so be shure to head over to Imaging Resource to get the whole story.