Canon remains top-dog in dSLR market, but Nikon closing in fast

[HEXUS]

An IDC report indicates that Canon's superiority may not last through 2008.

Read more.

[JimNastics]

Any stats on how Pentax and Samsung are doing? The K10D and GX10 were / are phenomenal cameras and I hear the GX20 and K20D have followed suit. It'd be nice to see these two making strides, particularly Samsung who have really tried to make an impact with their pricing. It's just a shame that the majority of people are still blinkered by Canon and Nikon.

[Saracen]

I'll tell you why I'm somewhat blinkered by Canon. I've spent a lot of money on Canon accessories, especially lenses, and I don't fancy selling them all and starting again.

That doesn't mean I can't see the advantages or disadvantages of other makes, and it doesn't mean I might not buy one if I were starting with a clean slate. But the sheer simple fact of it is that I'm not starting with a clean slate .... and neither are a lot of other people. It remains a simple fact that a large percentage of the market are effectively tied in because of their existing investment, and that means the market leaders are likely to retain a large proportion of their existing users on that basis alone.

Also, if you're starting from scratch, selecting your camera means you're also selecting the system you can choose from for lenses. Canon and Nikon have a huge range of lenses, including specialised options like tilt/shirt perspective control lenses, macro (including 5:1 macro), and so on. Yes, I know the Pentax will use any Pentax lens, current or old, and the stabiliser is built into the body, and that's an advantage ..... but .... the range of new lenses is far greater if you go Canon or Nikon, so if you buy into Pentax from a clean slate, you either have to start looking at second hand lenses (which had both advantages and disadvantages), or you have to accept a considerably reduced range of options.

And that brings me on to third-party lenses. In the third party segment, even Nikon play second fiddle to Canon. Tamron, for instance, nearly always produce the Canon variant first, because of the size of the potential market, and the even the Nikon variant can arrive months later. The Pentax variant tends to arrive some time after that .... if it ever does.

Yes, the Pentax cameras are pretty good. But Pentax also alienated a fair few dedicated users with their pricing strategy of their first DSLRs in the UK. I personally know two long-term Pentax fans that were so angry at what they saw as being ripped off that, whether right or not, they sold up ALL their Pentax gear (or in one case, gave a lot of it away) and swore never to buy Pentax again.

Do Pentax make good cameras? Yup. Though with the likes of the D300 to compete against, they're got a tough benchmark to match. But are people "blinkered" for going for Canon or Nikon? No. There are, for many people, very good reasons for doing so.

Pentax certainly haven't yet come up with anything anywhere near good enough to tempt me to sell up my Canon gear to switch .... though Nikon had me thinking about it with the D300.

[BUFF]

Sony managed to hang onto 3rd place in 2007 with 6% & basically with 1 body, the A100.
They are now upto 4 bodies & at least in Japan their market share has leapt to nearly 15%.
Still a long way from CaNikon's ~40% each but they have more lenses & at least 1 more body to launch in 2008.

[starbuck]

I have a nikon D50 DSLR, my original choices were between a nikon and canon. Sony are starting to have some really good DSLR's now and normally at a great price. As always though, the amount of megapixels is not as important as the quality of the image produced which is mainly determined by the lens and the firmware on the camera.

I cannot fault my D50 as used it for my friends wedding and got better pictures than the professional photographer did.

I think one of the most important parts of the DSLR market though, is the entry level. Professional photographers will spend thousands on a good setup and know how to tweak them to get the best results. The entry level market is becoming more popular as casual photographers want better quality at a lower price so the entry DSLRs have to take great pictures out of the box as well as having a myrid of options to adjust as the experience of the user increases. DSLR's are cameras which an amatuer will have for years and so the quality of the camera has to justify this.