Canon’s Pair of Major DSLR Announcements Last Year
From humble 1 and 2 MP beginnings we have seen DLSR’s reach double figure MP breakthroughs to take over from SLR’s in just about every way. I remember spending fortunes on film and developing and looking forward to the 10MP announcement.
I inititally decided to wait for the 10MP level to switch over to DLSRs.It did not take long for them to be proved wrong The last few years have seen the MP race bounding into the teens and even 20+MP’s. It happened way earlier.
In the beginning high MP’s were at a premium and cost a bundle, but these days you find mega-MP’s in Cell phones and pocket cameras.
So the SLR players like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Minolta and all the rest had to come up with more than MP’s. MP’s are no longer a distinguishing factor. The race among SLR (Now DSLR) makers is all about:
Very fast and powerful micro processors and extensive software to boot. The complimentary Optics technology we find in lenses. Lens attachment technology and compatibility issues. APS-C vs 4/3 technology. Sensor sizes. Architecture – Lenses, sensors, processor, storage. Computerer based artificial intelligence. (A DSLR these days has more processing power than banks needed for national networks in the 70′s and 80′s!)
Camera technology, especially DSLRs, have embraced a wide spectrum of leading edge scientific innovation, from micro electronics, micro mechanics, software and optics.
DSLR spend is heavily skewed in this market. Nikon and Canon claim close to 40% market share each. In a world market this vast being in the race in the remaining 20% is no mean feat and Sony, Pentax, Minolta, Kodak and several others are holding their own technology wise.
In such a competitive market what differentiates the winners?
Marketing obviously makes a difference. Brand recognition will carry a product over some rough patches, but if everybody excells you need to be innovative, imaginative and hit the market’s soft spots or get into their hearts, whatever the case may be.
In the race between Canon and Nikon, Canon has led with higher MP’s. Nikon has an edge with a slightly larger sensor and lower end pentaprism usage. Both can claim excellent ergonomics and Nikon fans always refer to some form of ‘right feel’ to their favourite models.
The race is tough and there are many excellent DSLR’s on the market. 2010 saw a large number of amazing Digital Camera releases and it is hard to pick winners in such a crowd. But Canon stood out with two of the greatest consumer DSLR’s, the Canon T2i and Canon 60d. See the reviews here: canon Rebel t2i and the Canon 60d Review.
Canon clearly understood the need and took a lead in focusing beyond the MP factors. The rapid invasion of DSLR’s into the Video market proved to be a good wave to ride. We saw a number of announcements claiming sophisticated Video technology but as newer cameras of all manufacturers were released they showed up weaknesses in the earlier models. The releases piled on the features:
Video and sound, HD video, Frames per second, True HD, live view, autofocus, live focus, in camera editing, better and better LCD technology and external sound. Not least was the spate of increases in pixel options from 640 to 1080, etc.
In this frantic race cluttered with constantly improving features, with each manufacturer trying to find just the right mix at the right price to capture more consumer spend, Canon’s EOS Rebel T2i and EOS 60D found two sweet spots, at the higher end of the Rebel range and in the middle of the very narrow Prosumer range.
Both Cameras were announced with an array of leading edge features that seemed to be right on the consumer Dollar target. The main features that made people take note and spend their well earned dollars were:
- Live autofocus.
- A huge array of improved in-camera functions
- External Sound features.
- Yet again higher pixel Sensor(18MP)
- Great ergonomics (again)
With these two cameras, Canon hit the sweet spot in the DSLR market in 2010. Can they follow this up in 2011? Is Canon’s Rebel T3i the leader in 2011? Was there enough of a gap in the market between the T2i and the 60d?
Perhaps Nikon or Sony will give Canon a race this year. We can expect an exciting come back from both of them. Nikon’d D5100 seems to be more on target. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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