A Brief Outlook on the SLR World

The SLR world is now on a race.

Before '06, it was a marathon.

Just like Arsenal and ManU from '99 to '06, traditionally, there were only 2 main players; Nikon and Canon. These are probably the most arrogant competitors of all. While they set the pace for the SLR industry, they also control the price.

They are so arrogant that they somewhat ignored their lesser sister industry; the point+shoot (PnS) world. When competitors came in, did Canon and Nikon took out their armor and fend them off? Nope. Coz, to them, SLR is the Holy Grail and they have its secret well guarded.

But little that they knew that the PnS world would turned up to be a good training ground for future SLR player. New players came in and, with intense competition, brought out tremendous amount of innovations while keeping the price lower and lower.

Consumer electronics giant such as Panasonic, Samsung and Sony, came up with bright, colorful, affordable and smart PnS cameras. They've made huge leaps in image quality and even old boy like Canon seems be to stamped all over.

Panasonic came up with Image Stablizer. Sony with 3" touch screen LCD. Minolta with its telescopic lens. Samsung with cheap huge megapixies. All with hi-def video + audio recording. And what did Canon and Nikon do? They stuck with their boring tin colored designs.

It's obvious that to Canon and Nikon, the PnS industry is just a Carling Cup. The real crown is the SLR world. That's the Premier League.

But, the law of progression is inevitable. As Panasonic and Sony has got a strong grasp in the PnS business, they next have their eyes on the Premier League. And if Canon and Nikon think this is just a small boy in a marathon, little did they know that this boy is also Japanese and has got lots of training.

For almost 50 years, there have not been such a massive innovation from the SLR industry. Titanium bodies and kevlar shutters were used decades ago. It's an ancient technology. The biggest innovation was that it went digital and introduced LCD to playback the captured images. Casual improvements were focused on image quality. That's all.

For traditionalist such as Nikon and Canon, they mainly serve industry standard professionals. And to cater to non-pro enthusiasts, they shaved on features from their top models, hence coming up with lower-range models. And for photo hobbyists, they'll skimp down more features and give them an empty box that looks like an SLR that comes with a hole to mount the lens. That's their modus operandi.

PnS users still draws a solid line between their small wonder to an SLR. The argument is; why go for a something that's a size of a gorilla when their PnS has 10x more features. Well, that's until the subject of image quality comes in.

For cameras, image quality is all about light control. And it gives its final bounce on a sensor. This is where it makes a difference. The bigger the sensor, the better it is. And SLR's sensor makes PnS sensor looks like a microbe.

But, if you think about it, that's about the ONLY thing that separates these 2 worlds. If a PnS can give an image with a quality of an SLR, wouldn't that be the greatest camera ever? This is when the chilly wind blows on Canon and Nikon.

Sony wants a piece of that lucrative Premier League. Just like Ambrahamovic, Sony bought over Konica Minolta and germanized all of the SLR know-hows. Re-branding a loser name such as Kohneeka MeenOLtah to Sony was probably the best decision ever. And coupled their innovations from the PnS world, such as Live View, Digital Range, tilting LCD and image processors, it took them just 2 years to capture a huge chunk of the SLR market from the traditionalists. In fact, they took MORE than Pentax, Olympus and Fujifilm combined, even though these are the SLR old boys.

Sony did not stop making a storm in the entry level market. They carried on with a highly successful mid-range model. And topping it off with a pro-range model that had Nikon & Canon stumped for words. And the biggest ammo of all: Sony also revolutionized a new pricing range for SLR.

Sony did something very different from Nikon and Canon. They give almost ALL of the available features that you'd find from a PnS to their SLRs. Very different from the tradionalists where their approach was to shave off features from the higher level models to create a lower level model.

Of course, just like Arsenal and ManU, there are supporters who'd stay ignorant to all these. To them, everything that Canon or Nikon does is the 'right' thing, and Sony or other makers does nothing but making bad decisions. Little that they realise (or ignore to realise) that it is Sony that's setting the pace in the SLR world right now and Nikon and Canon are actually scrambling not to be left behind. Obvious truths are:

1) Sony came up with Live View.
Now ALL of Canon and Nikon's new model have Live View.

2) Sony came up with Digital Range in its entry level model.
Now, C & N is following suit.

3) Sony created sub-RM2K SLR.
Now C & N too has entered that market.

4) Sony came up with a >20MP full frame mid-size camera.
Now Canon is following suit with it's 5D MII. And rumors has it Nikon will up it's D700 (D4?) to have >20MP too.

Now, if Canon and Nikon is the leader, why are they scrambling to follow Sony, who has just been in the market for 2years?

Now, Canon and Nikon are trying their best to gain back thier position as SLR's technology leader. And they're doing it by stooping low and learning from the PnS world, hence the introduction of Video Recording and Face Detection.

But, overall, this is a good thing for the consumers :-)