This is apparently announce week for the Nikon mirrorless camera. I'll save the details on the new gear for when Nikon makes their formal announcement on Wednesday, but I did want to point out something: the game is now officially on.
By the end of the week, the only significant player without a mirrorless interchangeable camera should be Canon. Consider the top ten camera maker list:
- Canon: no entry.
- Sony: NEX 3c, NEX 5n, NEX 7 (APS)
- Nikon: two models (2.7x)
- Samsung: NX100, NX200, NX20, etc. (APS)
- Panasonic: GH2, G3, GF3, etc. (m4/3)
- Kodak: no entry.
- Olympus: E-PM1, E-PL3, E-P3, etc. (m4/3)
- Fujfilm: no entry.
- Casio: no entry.
- Ricoh/Pentax: Q (compact), GXR (APS)
Six of the teams are playing in this new mirrorless league, four aren't. Of the top five camera makers, four are playing, one is not. Of the four that aren't playing, Kodak is slowly getting out of cameras, and Fujifilm is rumored to begin playing--they've certainly tinkered at the margins, and the X100 gives them something to point to while they consider their position.
Put another way, once Nikon enters, camera makers that claim 57% of the camera market will have mirrorless entrants (the four non-players represent 35% of the camera market, with the remainder of the market split amongst quite a few smaller entities, and one of those, Leica, technically has a mirrorless system).
So we have three very distinct choices:
- Samsung and Sony have chosen a large (APS) sensor. While the cameras are compact, the lenses tend to be the same size as those for consumer DSLRs. These competitors have chosen a quality advantage for a size disadvantage.
- Nikon has apparently chosen a small (2.7x) sensor. This should result in an advantage in size at the disadvantage of quality. (Pentax also picked small, but they picked "too small." )
- Panasonic and Olympus, who really kicked off the craze, are right in the middle, with a sensor (m4/3) that is one notch below consumer DSLRs in size but one notch above Nikon's choice. Technically, that position compromises size and quality compared to different competitors, but represents a possible Goldilocks choice ("just right").
What we have here is a marketing opportunity. Each group has something that they can point to that distinguishes them from the others. The question is thus "who's going to be the best at marketing their advantage?"
Olympus and Panasonic had two years to establish a clear marketing position. I'm still not sure what that position is. Sony seems to be making NEX into "smaller SLTs," so they're not exactly driving a clear position even within their own cameras. Nikon historically hasn't been a great marketer, either.
Someone's going to have to deliver a clear marketing message to win this contest. If they don't, here in the US the game will depend upon the same thing it's always depended upon: who has the best shelf space and dealer coop program (that would imply Nikon followed by Sony).