CIPA statistics for SLR and mirrorless

Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) is the organization of Japanese camera makers and companies making related devices. Their newest statistics for third and fourth quarter of 2011 makes for the first time division between single lens reflex cameras and non-reflex cameras in their category interchangeable lens cameras.

I collected their data into a colorful graph below.

This image has Q3 2011 on the left side and Q4 2011 on the right side. From top we have SLR shipments to Japan (red) , Europe (green) , Americas (blue) , Asia (yellow) and Others (grey). Below white demarcation line we have the shipments of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras to same destinations. The graph shows percentual shares of shipments during both times. Actual total shipments for Q4 was less than Q3.

The share of mirrorless rose from 19% in Q3 to 27% in Q4. It is now a little more than the share of SLR shipments to Europe which is again the biggest marketing area for ILCs. In Japan mirroless surpassed SLR during Q4.

Otherwise the graph rises only questions. Like, why did shipments to Asia drop so dramatically, below 50% in quantity? How much are the effects of Asian nature catastrophes seen here? For how long will Canon stand looking at their ever diminishing market share in their home market? 

I would guess mirrorless will be bigger than SLR by early 2013.

This graph is about camera bodies. During 2011 lens sales world wide rose by 12% for 35mm lenses and by double of that for smaller formats. 35mm lenses have now a 22% marketshare of all lenses. In Japan 35mm lens sales declined by the same 12%. 

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SLR, bye bye!

35mm (or slightly larger or smaller, doesn´t matter) single lens, eye level reflex camera, just like most of today's system of cameras are - was not born in Japan, not in the USA, not even in West Germany, but of all the world's countries, in the DDR ie in East Germany. Contax S was the first reflex camera with a pentaprism which generates a right sided image. The year was 1949. As such, Eastern Germany is here no wonder, since the Second World War accelerated the optical research in Germany as much as elsewhere. Zeiss Ikon VEB was in possession of that know-how. Even in Sweden, the military aerial camera manufacturer Victor Hasselblad had progressed at the same time from the first wooden models to somehow operating reflex camera models.

Previously there had been twin lens reflex cameras and rangefinder cameras. Production of single lens reflex cameras, however, was more difficult, requiring more moving parts, finer mechanics, better optics and exact timing. Still, there had been single lens reflex cameras already during late 1800s, and even a few 35mm models in the 1930s. Pentaprism was thus not a necessity but waist-level finder with its wrong-sided mirror image, of course, could not be the ultimate way to observe the world through the lens.

What has happened since then? The system camera was created, at least in the sense as we know it today. Nikon F can probably be considered as the first true system camera, and then it was 1959. Focusing screen brightness was learned to be measured, and the first such body for sale was by Topcon in 1963. Film became moved by motor and the mirror clacking got faster. Even autofocus became possible in the early 1980s. Finally, film itself was surpassed by the digital censor in the 1990s. That's it, from a photographer´s  perspective nothing has happened since Contax S, only the engineers have been very industrious.

Personally, I jumped into SLR camera world in 1974. Since then I have always had a 35mm size SLR camera except for a small break before the EOS 5D. Of the above steps I was witnessing auto-exposure and auto-focus coming and the film disappearing.

But now, during the last two years, I have been growing away from the mirror clacking. Canon and Nikon finally had to go this fall. Of SLR cameras, I still have medium size with digital backs - but why? That must be figured out during the next year!

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