by Veit on September 20, 2009
I have written (and will continue to write) about the Good Enough Revolution, including Steve Jobs being its (intentional?) master.
But the good enough revolution does not stop with consumer products – in fact, you can see it right when examining professional camera gear. Case in point: Canon.
With the advent of the Canon 7D, Canon now has two complete lines of professional gear: Top-of-the-line professional gear (1D for Action Shooters, 1Ds for Landscape/Full-Frame/Wedding shooters, f2.8 zoom lenses covering the entire range from 16 to 200 mm) and the good-enough line (7D for Action, 5D for Landscape/FF/weddings, f4.0 zooms covering 17 to 200mm). In fact, the good enough pro gear provides them with extra revenue, since not only pro’s and discerning amateurs use that gear, but also pro’s often use good-enough gear as backups to their top-of-the-line equipment. Canon clearly gets it that they need to offer two complete sets of cameras and lenses to the customers that are most profitable to them.
Contrast this with Nikon – they are sitting pretty in the camera department, mainly with the D700 and the D300s as good-enough cameras. But their glaring hole is in their lens line-up (see also bythom’s lens overview). No dedicated f4 pro glass, only variable aperture lenses. As much as I applaud Nikon for their strong camera line-up, they seem to have neglected upgrading their lens line-up and fail to offer two lines of pro zooms.
And that’s the reason why I would not buy Nikon today, if I had a chance to start all over again.
by Veit on September 11, 2009
Photoscala released an analysis on the world-wide DSLR market share gains and losses between the years 2006 and 2008.
Analyzing many sources, Photoscala's DSLR market share analysis shows Sony and Nikon as winners, Canon as the main loser.
I think there are three lessons to be learned from this analysis:
1. Brand matters
People shun smaller brands when they are under attack. A big part of Sony’s market share gain is attributable to their take-over of Minolta, thus giving DSLR buyers the confidence that their investment would be protected. As a result, people started to buy Sony again. But there might be another reason why Sony gained share:
2. In-Body Image Stabilization (IS)
Minolta was the first to release in-body IS – all the smaller guys followed. As pointed out in my analysis on the Panasonic GF1, it’s the trend of the future for entry-level DSLR, since it allows consumers, esp. the ones who trade up to their first DSLR and are used to in-body IS in compacts, to buy a wide range of non-IS lenses from multiple manufacturers. Both Canon and Nikon probably lost share to Sony in the entry level market over their lack of in-body IS. Expect at least one of the big guys to adopt in-body IS.
3. Great cameras in the mid- to pro-range
Nikon’s D3, D700 and D300 really improved low-light performance and became very well known for it, which explains why Nikon ended up in the plus and Canon lost even more market share. Canon had no such break-through in that sub-segment of the market at that time.
Who should be scared over these numbers? Mainly Canon, but also Panasonic. For someone who wants to break into the top 4 of the DSLR market, Panasonic needs to improve their market share very quickly. So far, they have not.
