Panasonic pioneered mirrorless cameras 15 years ago and Sony made the first affordable full frame mirrorless camera. It wasn’t until 2018 with the Canon EOS R that the market leader had an answer. Fast forward to 2023, and why is it that Panasonic and Sony have squandered their lead in mirrorless cameras to Canon? Both companies had a massive head start. Panasonic got to the market 10 years ahead of the EOS R launch, and Sony came up with the first a7 E-mount camera in 2013, a full 5 years earlier than EOS R mount came into existence. During this time Canon only had the entry level EOS M series, and DSLRs. Now DSLRs are dead, EOS M is gone, yet there’s a familiar name at the top of the sales chart. Let’s take a look at what has gone on here. The first clue is that the camera market isn’t really about cameras. It’s about the lenses. In the DSLR days the dominant lens mount was Canon EF. Even for video shooters, with their Metabones adapters on Sony and Panasonic cameras, EF lenses had widespread use. It has taken a LONG time for Sony, Sigma and Tamron to establish a wide range of full frame E-mount mirrorless lenses. And in the grand scale of things, L-mount has only just got started. Between 2008 and 2018, for 10 years Panasonic only had Micro Four Thirds which was never a widely accepted alternative to full frame for photography. This meant...
Published By: EOSHD.com blog - Friday, 22 September, 2023