We saw it with Kodak and film->digital and now we may be seeing the same kind of death with DSLR->mirrorless in a big name like Nikon or Canon. Meanwhile, Sony got into it early and is eating everyone's lunch.
We saw it with Kodak and film->digital and now we may be seeing the same kind of death with DSLR->mirrorless in a big name like Nikon or Canon. Meanwhile, Sony got into it early and is eating everyone's lunch.
My camera is from shortly after 2010, incidentally, and I don't see a need to upgrade. At the same time, mounts are chaos. I have many thousands of dollars of lenses, and I'm not ready to make that kind of investment again, especially with the kind of uncertainty we have in the market.
Nikon and Canon likely got in too late, but the flip side is their mounts are better designs than E-mount. Coming in years later, they learned from Sony's mistakes. If they don't die, Sony might be squeezed out, or might make yet another mount.
Sony's support for A-mount all these years was less than acceptable.
What I would buy into is a mount-agnostic camera which adapted to A-mount, F-mount, K-mount, and EF-mount lenses with everything working (autofocus, video, etc.), and conversely, lenses which adopted to multiple mounts. Sigma almost did that, but mount conversions cost about as much as new lenses. There ought to be a swapable part.
Mostly same boat. I had (well, still have) a Nikon D70 from 2004. Just last year I benched it in favour of a Nikon D300s from 2009.
I've bought newer lenses because lenses have appreciably improved over the years, but in general I really don't think the camera tech has moved that far for most people's application.
I love Nikon, but I've spent... maybe $500 with them directly over my lifetime (35mm prime + 50mm prime bought new). With the F-mount remaining more-or-less compatible for over 60 years, there's a huge used market for their lenses and the older camera bodies are still workhorses a decade later.
It's sad, but the fact that they haven't been trying to wring every last cent out of the market with different lens mounts, planned obsolescence in the bodies, etc may in fact be a significant factor in their downfall.
Canon is stuck with 2 mounts, the EF-M and the RF, with the RF being the more future proof one. But there is no way to adapt the EF-M to the RF. And there is no way to adapt any other MILC mount to RF.
Meanwhile, the Nikon Z-mount is as close as you can get to a universal mount. You can adapt almost everything E-mount, everything Laica, everything DSLR. And there are videos on YouTube doing just this. Its a combination of the largest diameter with the shortest flange distance.
I forsee Canon getting stuck in indecision.
One major limitation of E-mount is diameter. E-mount is 46.1mm to Canon's 54mm and Nikon's 55mm. I think a lot of the other limitations can be fixed, but that one is a bit tough for Sony. That means they will run into issues with vert fast/wide aperture lenses.
Nikon goes down to f/0.95 on their 58mm.
Nikon seems like the clear winner here.