Canon, Nikon mirrorless = Disney and FOX on DVD

RichA wrote:
People who remember the inception of DVD on Mar 1997 will remember the
laggards. The studios who sat back, and watched everyone else do the
market ground work for them, to establish if the format was a good
idea. Meanwhile, when Disney finally did begin releasing, they
charged the highest price of any studio for it's offerings. This
worked out well for them, as clamoring children wanted the Disney
features. But they showed no leadership, and neither have Nikon or
Canon or (far behind) Pentax. They let Olympus, Panasonic, Sony and
Samsung build the market and teach people about the new kind of
cameras.

From their point of view I think that makes perfect sense. Nikon and Canon
completely dominate the DSLR market, don't they? If there's a "new kind of
camera" that is supposed to challenge the DSLR (and it remains to be seen
whether it can effectively do that), why would Nikon or Canon be in any
hurry to essentially compete against their own market-leading products?

Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro Four Thirds,
and make that a sort of universal standard in the way that the old M42 screw
mount once was. As long as it's only Panasonic and Olympus making m4/3
stuff, its future appears to be very limited.

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sep 6, 1:16 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:

From their point of view I think that makes perfect sense. Nikon and
Canon completely dominate the DSLR market, don't they? If there's a
"new kind of camera" that is supposed to challenge the DSLR (and it
remains to be seen whether it can effectively do that), why would
Nikon or Canon be in any hurry to essentially compete against their
own market-leading products?

This is how Digital Equipment Corporation came
to not be a player in the micro-computer market,
and eventually went bust. They were thoroughly
dominant in the minicomputer world, and didn't
pay much attention to those little toy computers
based on microprocessor chips. Until it was too
late.

You should compete with yourself because
*somebody* is going to. If you don't play,
and the new market turns out to be important,
you'll be trying to get into it in a few years
from far behind the pack.

Well, as far as mirrorless ILCs are concerned I suspect Nikon is probably
doing just the right thing now, and presumably Canon is as well even if we
haven't heard anything about what they're doing. It now seems practically
certain that Nikon's offering will have a sensor size giving a 2.7x lens
factor, as has been rumored all along. That seems small enough not to
cannibalize sales of their small-body DSLRs, and to allow the design of very
small lenses, while still giving a significant increase in sensor size over
their compact models.

I'm still not persuaded there's actually a need for such a camera, but of
course we will see.

Whatever it turns out to be like, I doubt it will take F-mount lenses --
even with an adapter (unless some functions are given up). If I'm right
about that, it might be an issue.


Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro Four
Thirds, and make that a sort of universal standard in the way that
the old M42 screw mount once was. As long as it's only Panasonic and
Olympus making m4/3 stuff, its future appears to be very limited.

And Zeiss and Cosina (lenses).

And Leica too as far as lenses go, but I don't think any of those have much
of a stall in the marketplace. It's mainly just Panasonic and Olympus.

Another body
manufacturer would be nice, I agree.

Yes, at least one more. What I think would really make a sort of tipping
point would be if there were enough bodies being produced to attract the
interest of the high-volume lens makers Tamron, Tokina and Sigma.

RichA wrote:
On Sep 7, 3:34 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sep 6, 1:16 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:

From their point of view I think that makes perfect sense. Nikon
and Canon completely dominate the DSLR market, don't they? If
there's a "new kind of camera" that is supposed to challenge the
DSLR (and it remains to be seen whether it can effectively do
that), why would Nikon or Canon be in any hurry to essentially
compete against their own market-leading products?

This is how Digital Equipment Corporation came
to not be a player in the micro-computer market,
and eventually went bust. They were thoroughly
dominant in the minicomputer world, and didn't
pay much attention to those little toy computers
based on microprocessor chips. Until it was too
late.

You should compete with yourself because
*somebody* is going to. If you don't play,
and the new market turns out to be important,
you'll be trying to get into it in a few years
from far behind the pack.

Well, as far as mirrorless ILCs are concerned I suspect Nikon is
probably doing just the right thing now, and presumably Canon is as
well even if we haven't heard anything about what they're doing.

I'd still like to see them take a hit as punishment. Like Nikon did
in the 1980's when they lagged (purposely) on AF. They deserved the
pain.

Well, I have no interest in punishing Nikon for anything. I assume they will
do what they think is best for Nikon, and that is fine with me. I don't
believe "they lagged (purposely) on AF." Minolta beat them to market with
the first really successful AF SLR in 1985 (and very impressive the Maxxum
7000 was; I had one) but then Minolta beat everybody else too.

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sep 7, 2:34 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Another body
manufacturer would be nice, I agree.

Yes, at least one more. What I think would really make a sort of
tipping point would be if there were enough bodies being produced to
attract the interest of the high-volume lens makers Tamron, Tokina
and Sigma.

Sigma does make Four Thirds, but not Micro that I can find.

And Micro is the only flavor of Four Thirds that makes sense to me.

I suspect Panasonic and Olympus are pretty happy not
to have that, right now!

I wonder. You may well be right, but on the other hand if there were enough
makers that m4/3 became a real standard, Panasonic and Olympus might benefit
too. It didn't seem to hurt Pentax or Praktica when all those other
manufacturers started turning out M42 screw-mount cameras. For the first 15
years or so that I owned SLRs, I bought various different makes *because*
they had that "universal" screw mount.

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:52:30 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sep 7, 2:34 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Another body manufacturer would be nice, I agree.

Yes, at least one more. What I think would really make a sort of
tipping point would be if there were enough bodies being produced to
attract the interest of the high-volume lens makers Tamron, Tokina and
Sigma.

Sigma does make Four Thirds, but not Micro that I can find.

And Micro is the only flavor of Four Thirds that makes sense to me.

I suspect Panasonic and Olympus are pretty happy not to have that,
right now!

I wonder. You may well be right, but on the other hand if there were
enough makers that m4/3 became a real standard, Panasonic and Olympus
might benefit too. It didn't seem to hurt Pentax or Praktica when all
those other manufacturers started turning out M42 screw-mount cameras.
For the first 15 years or so that I owned SLRs, I bought various
different makes *because* they had that "universal" screw mount.

People always seem to give the credit for the M42 to Pentax/Practika when
it had already been out for some years with the Edixa series of cameras.



--
Neil
Linux counter 335851
delete ‘l’ and reverse ‘r’ and’a’

Neil Ellwood wrote:
On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:52:30 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sep 7, 2:34 pm, "Neil Harrington" wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Another body manufacturer would be nice, I agree.

Yes, at least one more. What I think would really make a sort of
tipping point would be if there were enough bodies being produced
to attract the interest of the high-volume lens makers Tamron,
Tokina and Sigma.

Sigma does make Four Thirds, but not Micro that I can find.

And Micro is the only flavor of Four Thirds that makes sense to me.

I suspect Panasonic and Olympus are pretty happy not to have that,
right now!

I wonder. You may well be right, but on the other hand if there were
enough makers that m4/3 became a real standard, Panasonic and Olympus
might benefit too. It didn't seem to hurt Pentax or Praktica when all
those other manufacturers started turning out M42 screw-mount
cameras. For the first 15 years or so that I owned SLRs, I bought
various different makes *because* they had that "universal" screw
mount.

People always seem to give the credit for the M42 to Pentax/Practika
when it had already been out for some years with the Edixa series of
cameras.

It was generally called the Pentax-Praktica (or Praktica-Pentax) mount at
least in the U.S., but my understanding was that it actually originated on
the Contax S. I remember the Edixa having it (a friend of mine had one), but
I don't know when Edixa started using it.

"Neil Harrington" wrote in message
...
Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro Four Thirds,
and make that a sort of universal standard in the way that the old M42
screw mount once was. As long as it's only Panasonic and Olympus making
m4/3 stuff, its future appears to be very limited.

And since Olympus have dropped their consumer 4/3 DSLR cameras it's even
more limited IMO.

Trevor.

Trevor wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote in message
...
Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro Four
Thirds, and make that a sort of universal standard in the way that
the old M42 screw mount once was. As long as it's only Panasonic and
Olympus making m4/3 stuff, its future appears to be very limited.

And since Olympus have dropped their consumer 4/3 DSLR cameras it's
even more limited IMO.

Interesting -- I didn't know they had dropped the 4/3 DSLRs, but then I
don't really follow Olympus that closely.

The original 4/3 cameras never made a lot of sense to me anyway. Maybe a
little *cuter* than a DX (etc.) camera but not enough smaller to make a real
difference.

But m4/3 is different. I love the Panasonic G1 and G2.

Bruce wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote:
Trevor wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote in message
...
Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro Four
Thirds, and make that a sort of universal standard in the way that
the old M42 screw mount once was. As long as it's only Panasonic
and Olympus making m4/3 stuff, its future appears to be very
limited.

And since Olympus have dropped their consumer 4/3 DSLR cameras it's
even more limited IMO.

Interesting -- I didn't know they had dropped the 4/3 DSLRs, but
then I don't really follow Olympus that closely.


As Trevor said, Olympus has dropped the *consumer* DSLRs.

The E-30 (prosumer) and E-5 (professional) DSLRs are still available.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification.

Bruce wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote:
Bruce wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote:
Trevor wrote:
"Neil Harrington" wrote in message
...
Personally I would love to see more makers getting into Micro
Four Thirds, and make that a sort of universal standard in the
way that the old M42 screw mount once was. As long as it's only
Panasonic and Olympus making m4/3 stuff, its future appears to
be very limited.

And since Olympus have dropped their consumer 4/3 DSLR cameras
it's even more limited IMO.

Interesting -- I didn't know they had dropped the 4/3 DSLRs, but
then I don't really follow Olympus that closely.


As Trevor said, Olympus has dropped the *consumer* DSLRs.

The E-30 (prosumer) and E-5 (professional) DSLRs are still
available.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification.


You're welcome, Neil.

As a former E-1 user, I still take an interest in Four Thirds DSLRs.
We even manage to sell one occasionally, but demand has dropped almost
to zero.

Four Thirds was quite a brave attempt to offer something new, a system
that was specifically designed for digital from the outset. Most of
the lenses were outstanding performers with very high resolution,
almost all being near-telecentric with an absence of colour fringing.

But the small sensor size meant that Olympus got left behind in the
megapixel race. The E-1 had 5 MP which was competitive when it
appeared, but was soon eclipsed by Canon's 1D Mark II with 8 MP. Canon
now offers 21.8 MP, with more to come very soon. Olympus is still
stuck at 12 MP.

It didn't help that the original Four Thirds sensor manufacturer
(Kodak) completely lost interest at the time an 8 MP sensor was being
developed. That sensor was very noisy but it was released anyway.
That all but destroyed Four Thirds. All subsequent sensors came from
Panasonic.

Sadly, the relationship between Olympus and Panasonic is now
approaching the same dysfunctional state as that between Olympus and
Kodak a few years ago. Panasonic won't offer Olympus anything more
than 12 MP sensors but sells 16 and 18 MP sensors in its own LUMIX
Micro Four Thirds camera bodies. Olympus has designed its own 12 MP
sensor but it is manufactured by Panasonic. Olympus' dependence on
Panasonic cannot be healthy.

All very interesting. Thanks again.

I agree it's an unhealthy situation if Panasonic is not being the sort of
cooperative partner that it should for the good of the Micro Four Thirds
standard. That seems certain to discourage any other manufacturers from
joining m4/3. It looks short-sighted to me, but then I'm not in that
business of course.