On 24/05/10 10:18 AM, Bruce wrote:

Under these circumstances, the only DSLR purchases that make any sense
are those from Canon and Nikon. None of the other brands can be
guaranteed to be in production in three years' time.

True, if you want to be sure of an upgrade path and continued
availability of lenses and accessories, you do not want to stray from
Canon or Nikon. Choosing a D-SLR body is almost like getting
married--divorces are messy and expensive.

It's pretty sad that no other D-SLR system has even been able to reach
10% market share, and other than Sony, they're not even in the high
single digits. You see the results in terms of product offerings. Other
than Sony, no one has the resources to invest in sensor development so
they fall further and further behind. You're also stuck with inferior
in-body VR/IS because other than Canon and Nikon no one has the
resources to invest in lens development.

Olympus also has the problem that they can't increase the sensor size on
4:3. Canon and Nikon can do APS-C or full frame (or anything in-between)
and in most cases you can use the same lenses (though you can use EF-s
lenses with an adapter on Canon full-frame models you really wouldn't
want to do this).

There may be a market for interchangeable lens P&S cameras like Micro
4:3 and Sony NEX. NEX is too new to know its chances, but Micro 4:3
sales have been underwhelming.