Canon has ammended their Q2 2022 financials with their thoughts about the future of the camera market. It's one that we tend to agree with. The entry-level market formerly represented by the Powershot line and EOS Rebel line is essentially over for the obvious Smartphone reasons.
A few years ago Canon did say that they see the future of the business to be in producing products to target specific types of users. Now Canon thinks that they will see growth in the prosumer and professional spaces. A Sony executive's recent silly claim that Smartphones would surpass ILCs in performance within three years aside, Canon will continue to listen to customers and produce targeted products to meet their ever changing needs.
Canon also says that they will continue to produce DSLRs as long as their is demand. I would not expect new DSLRs to be announced, but cameras like the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III will be a viable tool for years to come.
Below is an excerpt from the ammended financial presentation.
Q1. What is your outlook for the external environment in 2023 and the sustainability of your growth going forward?
A1. Even if production around the world recovers smoothly, it will probably take around a year for the inflation caused by the shortage of goods, which arose from supply-chain disruptions etc., to subside naturally. We expect to continue growing as we have transformed our business portfolio and will actively invest to further enhance our products.
Q3. Amid concern that semiconductor capital spending will slowdown, what is your outlook for semiconductor lithography equipment demand in 2023?
A3. Considering the current situation of semiconductor shortages and the technological innovation that is occurring now, we expect demand to remain strong. For this reason, we will continue to invest in production expansion, with a plan to increase our production capacity by at least 50% in the future.
Q5. What is your outlook for the camera market going forward? Additionally, will you continue to offer both Mirrorless and DSLR cameras?
A5. The camera market has largely bottomed out at its current size. Going forward, we expect the professional and advanced amateur segment to expand further and that products will become more highly developed. Accordingly, we expect the overall market to grow from now on. As for DSLR cameras, we will continue to supply products as long as there is demand.
This is a strange comment to prefix their lithography question. National security with associated committed government spend into local/regional fabs plus means that more fab equipment is going to be needed for the near future. At some point, there will be excess capacity - even within political geographies as demand slowly stabilises. Cheap/simple screen drivers circuits will be incorporated into new processor designs for instance or options to run on 7-10nm lithography will alleviate supply chain for cars, PCs etc.
There will be continuing need for finer lithography technologies though with phones etc driving demand.
Disruption to TMSC/Taiwan's infrastructure would be a massive global issue... or North Korea hitting South Korea/Japan.
Battery life would be something they can work on to improve in future models, another thing would be better reliability with no freezing issues. Perhaps they could also integrate with social media and have the ability to upload a picture instantly like you can on a phone, as long as they don't make these features subscription based. A global shutter would be an improvement they could work on as well for high end models.
The builtin focus stacking uses AF for the starting point, it would be nice to have the option to set the start and end points manually and have the camera figure out the required amount of shots needed. Magic Lantern has a module for that, so we know it’s possible.
Allow cameras to sync to each other over bluetooth, set the same date/time, share GPS, self timers, etc.
A mode for DoF bracketing where the camera closes down the aperture after each shot and raises the ISO in a burst. For some macro shots I’m in such an awkward position that doing anything besides pressing the shutter is impossible.
A modern version of A-DEP, where the camera sets the DoF to keep all detected faces in focus. Saying ‘stay parallel to the focus plane’ doesn’t work with toddlers :)
Store the IBIS/ILIS telemetry in the movie clips, like Blackmagic is doing for better stabilization in post.
Same for stills and photogrammetry.
Tilt/shift helper modes that suggest settings based on the image in the evf.
Software focus limits for stills and video. No more of the camera trying to focus on the riverbank behind a dragonfly in flight :)
Store the DPAF based depthmap in the image, like Apple does for their fake bokeh mode. Lightroom can already use that depthmap for masking.
Display optional DoF tickmarks on the focus distance bar in the EVF.
And a hardware one: A twin light flash with modeling lights suitable for video, for half the price of the MT26-ex, €1400 is too pricey for such a flash, in my opinion. I 3d printed small adapters to mount AL-M9s on the MT24 brackets as a stopgap measure:
Also allowing third party apps and/or firmware similar to iOS / android smartphones or perhaps full integration/connectivity with smartphones ?
I find it very frustrating how slow and cumbersome it is to just post an image to social media.
On my smartphone I can do a quick edit and instantly post an image to social media but on my dslr I have to remove the card, load it onto my laptop, import into lightroom, edit it and wait for it to upload to LR mobile and then on my phone save the image to apple photos and then post to facebook. Although if I import it into apple photos I save several steps. How many people who have only used smartphones would put up with this nonsense ?
I know once I do switch it will be the best thing I could have done...Although I will be buying native glass again.. $$$
Once the mirrorless segment has decent battery life it will be the R1 or 5DSRs (no AA) replacment.
Happy to wait another year or 2 as I have waited long enough allready :ROFLMAO:
Practical and automated tilt-shift lenses would also help the out of plane toddler situation. (Identify desired subjects, tilt and shift to achieve best focus - though my invention works with any AF lens using updated firmware).
Optically a modern (Canon etc) lens on a MILc will yield stunning results, yet despite the talk touted by manufacturers about how short flange instances and wide throats would result in smaller and lighter lenses, instances of *significant* size and weight advantages are rare.
Canon has thankfully made a couple of steps in the right direction by offering 600mm F11 and 800mm F11 lenses as alternatives to the gigantic and hugely expensive L versions, and also has the lightweight 85mm macro. I'd like to see a lot more of these lightweight lenses.
Why e.g. produce F2.8 macro lenses, when hardly anyone shoots macro at full aperture? For most purposes (including stacking) people will be shooting macro at F5.6 or smaller apertures, so it would be good to see a stabilised 180mm F5.6 macro. Likewise it would be great to have a light and compact close-focusing 300mm F5.6.
With DSLRs, it was necessary to have wide apertures in order to get a bright viewfinder image. There will be some who want/need very wide apertures for very shallow d.o.f. but IMO there is a real need for smaller and lighter lenses, and many of us would happily sacrifice a couple of stops to get them.