Does the manufacturers leader board swing?

Mangelwurzel

Mangelwurzel

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Yes
I've only been into photography for about a year.
I went the Canon road mainly because the couple of friends i had that we're into photography had Canons.
A year later i'm reading Joe McNally books and hearing about Nikons flash system.
I love Zack Arius' work and also because he uses Canon and Nikon systems. I read recently on his Twitter that he found the 5DMkII hard to focus in low light and got his D3 out and had no problem.

I don't want this to be a Canon Vs Nikon thread but i'm interested to hear views from photographers that have been around a while whether the market leaders shift from time to time. Afterall if Nikon have been top for the last 20 years then i wouldn't expect Canon to still be in business so i guess there must be some shift from time to time.

I've currently got a beginner setup. An entry level DSLR and 3 budget lenses.
My question is should i sell up and go the Nikon road early or continue to invest in canon flash systems and lenses.

I presently shoot alot of landscapes but my main goal is to be a creative portrait/editorial photographer (yeah i'm working on that one :help:).
 
Canon have been market leaders for decades. Over 50% market share last time I heard, to Nikon's 30%. All the others are nowhere in comparison. Canon are also a huge and diverse company. Nikon as a company are tiny by comparison.

But Canon are not market leaders in everything, and Nikon's DSLR range is very strong right now, especially at the top end. But it was only a couple of years ago that everybody was worrying about Nikon not even having a full frame DSLR, let alone the market leading D3.

People also say the Nikon flash system is better, but that the Canon lens range is better. I can't see you going wrong investing in either brand. Or indeed most of the others.
 
HoppyUK said:
Canon have been market leaders for decades. Over 50% market share last time I heard, to Nikon's 30%. All the others are nowhere in comparison. Canon are also a huge and diverse company. Nikon as a company are tiny by comparison.

But Canon are not market leaders in everything, and Nikon's DSLR range is very strong right now, especially at the top end. But it was only a couple of years ago that everybody was worrying about Nikon not even having a full frame DSLR, let alone the market leading D3.

People also say the Nikon flash system is better, but that the Canon lens range is better. I can't see you going wrong investing in either brand. Or indeed most of the others.
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I wouldn't say Canon have been market leaders for decades, but Nikon certainly took their eye off the ball at the pro end of the market and lost a lot of ground for a long time. However, it's swings and roundabouts in that arena and the teething problems Canon had with the MkIII 1D didn't do them any favours and has let Nikon back into the game.

The consumer end of the market is a whole different ballgame - without wishing to start a flame war, imho Canon's lower end products tend to be built down to a price, on paper they offer far more than similarly priced Nikons, but at the sacrifice of ergonomics (well documented) and build quality (personal opinion).

The consumer Nikons, whilst (again,my opinion) are more solidly built, are to be found seriously wanting when it comes to the level of specification they offer compared to the competition, I mean, who came up with the idea of removing the af motor from the D40 etc in order to save a few inches, ounces and pounds sterling?

When it comes to marketing Canon are far more clued up than Nikon. Gray lenses that can be instantly identified at every major sporting or news event? Stroke of genius.

Not to be outdone, Sony have made clear their plans to become the number 2 in the UK market in the very near future. Having had a wee play with an A300 I can see where they get their confidence from, like Canon they offer a lot of bang for the buck, but unlike Canon they have no history, or brand identity (save that for producing rather good televisions etc) to rely on, so I don't think Nikon have anything to worry about right at this moment, but I'll bet their watching their corporate back....
 
To the original question: yes, simple as that

IMHO at the moment Nikon are ahead in just about everyway except long telephoto lenses.

If I were starting now I'd probably go Nikon, but in a few years time who nows? Canon may easily be ahead of Nikon.

The main point is neither will ever be too far ahead of the other, there will always be competition between them which is good for us as the are always striving to improve to better the other
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I wouldn't say Canon have been market leaders for decades
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For over 20 years. Canon's great strength, apart from making rather good kit, is their size. Far bigger than any of the other 'old' camera brands. For example, it was only Canon that made anything of the video camera market. They don't need help from the big consumer electronics firms.

But things change. It used to be the 'big five' of Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, Olympus and at one time they were pretty much even pegging. Sony, Panasonic and Samsung did not make a single camera between them.
 
Uneducated_Rick said:
IMHO at the moment Nikon are ahead in just about everyway except long telephoto lenses.
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I wouldn't quite agree.

The very big telephotos (300mm f/2.8 upwards) from both Canon and Nikon are superb and about as optically perfect as you could reasonably expect. Historically the Nikons tended to be a bit pricier but even that doesn't seem to be the case since the winter price increases.

But Canon does score over Nikon in three different areas of the lens range:

(1) High quality hand-holdable telephotos. Nikon has nothing to compare with Canon's triumvirate of the 100-400L, 300mm f/4 L IS, and 400mm f/5.6 L.

(2) Pro quality f/4 zooms. Canon offer the 70-200, 24-105 and 17-40 f/4 zooms and Nikon don't have anything similar.

(3) Fast primes. Nikon don't have anything to match Canon's 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2 or 85mm f/1.2.

HoppyUK said:
People also say the Nikon flash system is better, but that the Canon lens range is better.
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I agree.


Uneducated_Rick said:
The main point is neither will ever be too far ahead of the other, there will always be competition between them which is good for us as the are always striving to improve to better the other
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HoppyUK said:
I can't see you going wrong investing in either brand. Or indeed most of the others.
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That's the bottom line. For most people it really doesn't make very much difference.
 
StewartR said:
I wouldn't quite agree.

The very big telephotos (300mm f/2.8 upwards) from both Canon and Nikon are superb and about as optically perfect as you could reasonably expect. Historically the Nikons tended to be a bit pricier but even that doesn't seem to be the case since the winter price increases.

But Canon does score over Nikon in three different areas of the lens range:

(1) High quality hand-holdable telephotos. Nikon has nothing to compare with Canon's triumvirate of the 100-400L, 300mm f/4 L IS, and 400mm f/5.6 L.

(2) Pro quality f/4 zooms. Canon offer the 70-200, 24-105 and 17-40 f/4 zooms and Nikon don't have anything similar.

(3) Fast primes. Nikon don't have anything to match Canon's 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2 or 85mm f/1.2.

I agree.


That's the bottom line. For most people it really doesn't make very much difference.
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:agree:
 
HoppyUK said:
I wouldn't say Canon have been market leaders for decades
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For over 20 years.
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Really? So how exactly were Canon 'market leaders' in 2000 when they didn't have a pro spc DSLR and Nikon had the D1? Why were there far more Nikon touting pro togs at the Sydney Olympics than Canon ones?

The fact is that there is not one market, there are a multitude of markets and not one manufacturer has led in all at the same time. Sure, one compnay can have the bragging rights over the other in terms of unit sales, or reveneue sales overall or for a particualr product sector, but the figures are pretty much meaningless.

Anyone buying into either system will be more than adequately supported. In fact, I'd say that anyone who can't envisage themselves paying more than £500 for a lens in three years would be adequately supported by any of the DSLR manufacturers.
 
Gut feel says Nikon are ahead at the moment with the release of the D3 and other FX-spec cameras. Canon dropped a clanger with the 1DIII, but appear to be recovering.

The key question is "if I bought now, which brand would I get". I'd be thinking very hard about Nikon now rather than Canon, but would be balancing that against the less varied Nikon lens range. Tough choice at the moment whereas a couple of years back it would be an easy Canon choice.
 
Tobers said:
I'd be thinking very hard about Nikon now rather than Canon, but would be balancing that against the less varied Nikon lens range.
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Sorry, but I don't buy this 'less varied lens range' stuff. For 99.99% of photographers both the major manufacturers has lenses ranges whihc will far exceed their requirements. The sole exception is the Canon MP-E 65mm f2.8 Macro which is a seriously specialised peice of kit.

Sure Nikon don't have an f:1.2 lens in it's range, but who actually needs one over f:1.4? Use an 85m f:1.2 on full frame with a subject 5m away and the depth of field narrows from 29cm to 24.5cm when compared to shooting at f:1.4. That's a whopping 4.5cm difference, and it would be one shot in a trillion where that kind of tolerance would make a difference.

Unless you compare one manufacturer's complete lens range one by one against the nearest equivilent from the other and match the results against your own photographic requirements, no-one is in a position to place one range above another.

I'd go further and to add that anyone thinking about purchasing a DSLR should only even worry about lens range should be able to envisage buying a £500+ lens within three years. If not, every DSLR manufacturer has a good enough range of lenses in conjunction with the 3rd party manufacturers to fulfill their needs.
 
HoppyUK said:
For over 20 years. Canon's great strength, apart from making rather good kit, is their size. Far bigger than any of the other 'old' camera brands. For example, it was only Canon that made anything of the video camera market. They don't need help from the big consumer electronics firms.

But things change. It used to be the 'big five' of Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta, Olympus and at one time they were pretty much even pegging. Sony, Panasonic and Samsung did not make a single camera between them.
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:thinking:

So what you're saying is because Canon produce printers, photocopiers etc, whereas Nikon are "just" a specialized optics company, Canon are better? That's like saying a Ford is better than a BMW, because Ford also build vans and BMW don't.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
:thinking:

So what you're saying is because Canon produce printers, photocopiers etc, whereas Nikon are "just" a specialized optics company, Canon are better? That's like saying a Ford is better than a BMW, because Ford also build vans and BMW don't.
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This sounds very like trolling FITP!

What I said was that Canon are bigger than the other main camera brands, including bigger than those famous old names that have gone to the wall. It is one of the factors that has kept them ahead since the early 1980s, since which time they have consistently sold more photographic products than anybody else.

That has given them overall market leadership, but they have also held leadership in many individual sectors along the way. Canon might not always be first with innovative new products (though often they are) but whatever you're looking for, you can be sure that Canon will have something good to offer.

That doesn't mean that size is everything; it's just a factor. It's quite possible to be too big and arguably Kodak fell into that trap (though there's surely much more to Kodak's demise than sheer size). And I don't think that BMW necessarily needs to get any bigger - they are big enough. There's nothing Ford can do that BMW cannot simply due to scale.

I am not a Canon lifer BTW. If I was starting again today, it would be with Nikon. And I also wish Sony well. We need a bit of competition for our cash.
 
Personaly im a Canon fan and i would never use any other camera but saying that i have heard very good things about Nikon like you said low light focusing, i think Nikon have recently pulled ahead in the race but Canon have finally realised they need to step up hte game and they are bringing out really great cameras at the moment especially entry level and mid range cameras so i would go with Canon because i think there systems are better and getting better also they have a larger lens range, good luck :thumbs:

zak
 
HoppyUK said:
What I said was that Canon are bigger than the other main camera brands
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Bigger than Samsung? They sold more cameras in the UK than anyone else in 2008 and as a global corporation they dwarf Canon. Infact, in 2006 Samsung's GDP was larger than Argentina's.
 
Uneducated_Rick said:
Why does disagreeing = trolling?
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No, disagreeing is fine. It just read to me a bit like argument for the sake of it, but maybe that's my interpretation. So apologies. But the comparison with BMW and Ford is irrelevant.

As for Samsung, no way do they fit my definition of market leaders. Canon wins that one by a country mile. There's probably some Chinese manufacturer churning out more disposable cameras than anyone else, if that's your measure.
 
HoppyUK said:
As for Samsung, no way do they fit my definition of market leaders. Canon wins that one by a country mile.
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And there we get to the nub of your argument, it's your, as yet, unexplained "definition". Sorry, and there's me working on definitions based on economics when all along we were talking fanboy stuff!
 
This thread has been really informative.
At my current level it probably wouldn't make any difference if i had a D3 or a Tesco disposable but it's nice to be armed with a bit of history :)

I had two concerns:
Carry on investing in Canon and regret it later or
Jump ship and buy a Nikon system only to regret it when Canon bring out the next best thing.

No-one has a crystal ball and the grass is always greener etc etc

I feel a bit more reassured now as to where my hard earned cash is going (well the little the wife lets me have anyway :lol:) so thanks alot for the history lesson :thumbs:
 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9882670-39.html?tag=nefd.top has some sales data showing market share and growth for the year 2007.
Digital SLR market share was 42.7% Canon, 40% Nikon, the other manufactures make up the remaining. This is a change from the previous year of 46.7% Canon and 33% Nikon so evidently there is a shift happening, whether it's a longer term trend is another question.
Further to this the growth of Nikon has been vast compared to Canon.

"Nikon SLR shipments grew at a 71.1 percent rate, much faster than Canon's 29.3 percent rate, IDC said."

Read the article for all the facts :)
 
HoppyUK said:
This sounds very like trolling FITP!

What I said was that Canon are bigger than the other main camera brands, including bigger than those famous old names that have gone to the wall. It is one of the factors that has kept them ahead since the early 1980s, since which time they have consistently sold more photographic products than anybody else.
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I beg to differ, it's not trolling at all, it's a valid comparison. In both cases one company operate in niche markets (Nikon and BMW) whereas the other companies are players in several different market segments, indeed two-thirds of Canon's revenue comes from selling office equipment, not photographic. (Source: Reuters)

Globally, Canon have been losing dslr market share to Nikon for several years now - in 2006 the split was 46.7% to 33% in Canon's favour, by the next year this had shrunk to 42.7% to 40% (source: IDC). Nikon dslr sales for the year ending March 2009 were 3.3 million (source: Nikon) up from the 2.98m in 2007, when Canon sold 3.18m. It was reported in Amateur Photographer back in January that Canon sales were down 28% in the last quarter of 2008, equating to a 67.7% fall in operating profit for the camera division, compared with a fall of 81.5% in operating profit (90.9% net) for the Canon group as a whole. Make of that what you will.

What was it you were saying earlier about famous old names going to the wall? ;)
 
NorthernNikon said:
Sure Nikon don't have an f:1.2 lens in it's range
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Nikon still punts out the 50mm F1.2 manual focus doesn't it? I know it's not AF and it's not 85mm and it perhaps doesn't compare, but I just wanted to be a pedant...

that said it's not on the website, though it is in my nikkor lens brochure..?

dave
 
Mangelwurzel said:
I had two concerns:
Carry on investing in Canon and regret it later or
Jump ship and buy a Nikon system only to regret it when Canon bring out the next best thing.
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As has been said, you won't go wrong with either, from both companies you will get knowledge and experience, but you really shouldn't give a seconds thought to market share, just think about what area(s) of photography will take your interest, have a look through the lens lists of each, and try and decide which lenses would work for you.

Market share doesn't decide who has a better product, when I go out with the camera, I stand alongside people with different manufacturers, each will happily tell you what they like or dislike about each, but when all is said and done, it is down to preferences and requirements, who sells more has never been discussed.
 
Seems a bit silly really - your unlikely to be using the whole range of top tier lenses unless you sponsored anyway, in which case you'll get what your given ;-)
 
Flash In The Pan said:
I beg to differ, it's not trolling at all, it's a valid comparison. In both cases one company operate in niche markets (Nikon and BMW) whereas the other companies are players in several different market segments, indeed two-thirds of Canon's revenue comes from selling office equipment, not photographic. (Source: Reuters)

Globally, Canon have been losing dslr market share to Nikon for several years now - in 2006 the split was 46.7% to 33% in Canon's favour, by the next year this had shrunk to 42.7% to 40% (source: IDC). Nikon dslr sales for the year ending March 2009 were 3.3 million (source: Nikon) up from the 2.98m in 2007, when Canon sold 3.18m. It was reported in Amateur Photographer back in January that Canon sales were down 28% in the last quarter of 2008, equating to a 67.7% fall in operating profit for the camera division, compared with a fall of 81.5% in operating profit (90.9% net) for the Canon group as a whole. Make of that what you will.

What was it you were saying earlier about famous old names going to the wall? ;)
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Okay, but let's be clear about market leadership. That belongs to Canon, as it has done for a very long time. You can slice and dice your definition any way you like, but Canon always comes out on top even if other brands are closing the gap. I'm not saying you are questioning that FITP, but others are.

And for the record, my definition of the camera market extends beyond DLRs, to include compacts. Since compact sales roughly outweigh DSLRs by about 20:1 in volume (as they always have) then that seems like the most meaningful way to look at it.

I still don't get the BMW/Ford thing. BMW are massive. So what if they don't make vans? They have chosen not to, but they could if they wanted. Any manufacturer that can afford to spend $1m every day of the year on Formula One is not niche by any stretch of the imagination.

And neither is Nikon. Niche is the likes Mamiya, Bronica, and Leica (the non-Panasonic bit). These companies have failed largely because of their small scale and inability to fund the switch to digital. Yes, I know Leica is still technically still alive, but the last rights have been administered.
 
I shot Nikon before spending 2 years with Canon. I came back with the D3 release and the one think that really made me think hard was the lack of a 35/1.4 and losing the 85L.

I haven't missed either - the 35/2 is pretty decent and the 85/1.4 every inch as good as the 85L. The 1.2 vs 1.4 issue is a complete non-issue. That said, if Nikon release a 35 or 28 1.4 I'd be all over it.

What I have gained is a far superior UWA (14-24 vs 16-35) and standard 24-70mm, and a 50/1.4 that clearly has the EF 50/1.4 beaten. The 70-200's are a wash for me.

BUT - all of this stuff is better than most of us. Pick one, and be done with it.
 
HoppyUK said:
I still don't get the BMW/Ford thing. BMW are massive. So what if they don't make vans? They have chosen not to, but they could if they wanted. Any manufacturer that can afford to spend $1m every day of the year on Formula One is not niche by any stretch of the imagination.

And neither is Nikon. Niche is the likes Mamiya, Bronica, and Leica (the non-Panasonic bit). These companies have failed largely because of their small scale and inability to fund the switch to digital. Yes, I know Leica is still technically still alive, but the last rights have been administered.
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Haven't you just contradicted yourself? Perhaps if I replace the word niche with specialised, but the comparison is still valid, Nikon and BMW both operate within tightly defined market segments, whereas Canon and Ford are both much larger companies with diverse business interests.

In 2007 Canon only sold 200,000 more dslrs worldwide than Nikon, which doesn't seem a lot,considering, as you have pointed out, the vast difference in corporate size.

Canon's main photographic stock-in-trade is compact cameras, a market with much tighter margins which even Canon admit is shrinking rapidly....


Oh and on the f/1.2 issue, as stated above, the 50mm AI-S is still produced and readily available in Japan and the US,for around £350.
 
I don't want to labour the point.

I thought I'd relay some good news though, and that is the camera market continues to grow. I found these figures from GfK, an independent and highly respected research company that is used by all the major manufacturers to monitor the opposition. You have to pay a lot of money to get brand specific and model specific data, but they give away this headline stuff.

It shows substantial continued growth in camera sales in all major markets. The first few weeks of 2009 are 5% up on last year (volume).

http://www.gfkrt.com/news_events/market_news/single_sites/003781/index.en.html
 
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