Canon’s Pair of Winning Digital SLR Camera Releases 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.
Experts told me that the 10 MP mark would be when Digital cameras would come up to scratch to compete with film.It did not take long for them to be proved wrong Digital camera technology came up to scratch very quickly, with 2,6,10 and even 20MP’s It happened way earlier.
Today just about every mobile includes a Digital Camera and Pocket size digitals cost next to nothing. High MP’s are ubiquotous
DSLR manufacturers are being challenged to excell in other areas to claim elite status. MP’s are no longer a distinguishing factor. The elements that provide DSLR’s with the ability to provide great imaging has changed to:
Processers that can deliver high FPS and Great file sizes and store them in milliseconds. Lenses – Speed, light magic, autofocus and anti vibration, or stabilisation. 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!)
Few other industries have embraced electronics, micro mechanics, software developments and other leading edge technologies to the extent that Digital cameras have. And DSLR’s have done so at a mega scale.
DSLR spend is heavily skewed in this market. Nikon and Canon claim close to 40% market share each. The remaining 20% of the market is shared by Sony, Pentas Minolta and several others. The market is vast, so this does not make these guys minor players at all.
What then makes for a winner if everyone has access to or has developed leading edge technology?
There is no doubt that once you have the technology, marketing is the next big gun. 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.
Canon has led Nikon in the MP race for some time, while Nikon’s APS-C sensor is a fraction larger than Canon’s and Nikon has also managed to include pentaprism viewfinders much lower in the range than Canon without it seemingly affecting weight or price. Ergonomics is somewhat indefinable, especially in an otherwise very specific feature based race, but it gets to the user’s heart and loyalty. All players lay claim to good ergonomics. Canon and Nikon’s fan base seem to be the most loyal.
My own view is that Canon won the 2010 consumer DSLR round with the Canon T2i and Canon 60d See the reviews here: canon Rebel t2i and the Canon 60d Review.
The focus for DSLR’s in 2010 went beyond the MP race into other functions. 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. Video features were crammed into DSLR relentlessly:
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:
- On target ergonomics
- A huge array of improved in-camera functions
- External Sound features.
- True live view
- A smugde proof, 3:2 aspect ratio, 1080Px LCD
With these two cameras, Canon hit the sweet spot in the DSLR market in 2010. Can Canon follow this up in 2011? They seemed to have a good start in 2011 with the announcment of the T3i, but the market has responded sluggishly. Was there enough of a gap in the market between the T2i and the 60d?
Watch Nikon and Sony 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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