Two bits of camera market news this morning. If even just itty bitty bits. These days we’ll take what we can with the smartphone — iPhone! — garnering most of the mindshare in recent years.
Nikon president Yoshiaki Tokunari was quoted in a Yahoo Japan article where he (ever so) briefly talked about the camera market. Also of note, especially to those who follow the cinema side of things, was is reference to video capabilities and RED (without mentioning the name).
“We are seeing signs of recovery in interchangeable lens cameras… China has grown to the same level as Europe, and the growth rate is large in emerging countries such as South Asia.” Semiconductor exposure equipment, which Nikon and Canon handle, is an industrial machine that burns circuits onto silicon plates. Plans for new semiconductor factory construction across the country are a tailwind, and Tokunari expressed his enthusiasm for expanding sales, saying, “There are business opportunities.”
Source: Yahoo Japan
The remarks came from an interview in Minato Ward, Tokyo.
Per Yahoo Japan, Tokunari also touched upon the importance of video, saying that “video performance is required in recent years.” He then noted the intention to incorporate video capability from RED Digital Cinema into future Nikon models. Nikon acquired the US-based cinema camera maker earlier this year for an undisclosed amount.
So first we know that there appears to be signs of a “recovery” in the ILE camera market.
And, second, that, indeed Nikon appears to already be working on incorporating the IP and tech it acquired from RED into its cameras.
Video Makes the World — and Social Media — Go Around
YouTube was the key early player in the world of video. YouTubers and channels led a tidal wave of disintermediation, if not outright destroying the traditional broadcast and TV model, then at least dealing a serious blow.
Those were the good old landscape video days — and YouTubers and content creators on that platform, thankfully, still mostly produce in some variation of the 16:9 HD and 4K aspect ratio.
Then, along came the new socials like TikTok and Instagram and Snapchat. All of a sudden, vertical was very much in vogue. That made a lot of sense as this was the smartphone camera generation, shooting everything with their iPhones and Androids. You weren’t likely to see these short films at Sundance or Cannes. But the views and reach were and are undeniable. Welcome to the influencer economy.
So really it’s no surprise that traditional camera companies like Canon and Nikon and Sony and Panasonic have, in recent years, recognized this trend and released models targeted at this vast array of new video shooter.
Meantime, on the other side of the market is the more traditional cinema camera buyer. Those who are shooting indie films, commercial projects, high end wedding films, corporate fare, and those sorts of things. My guess is that this is where the real margins are. You get volume perhaps with the entry level content creator products, but you get way more profit with the cinema gear.
In any case, all of this to say: it’s only a matter of time before Nikon incorporates bits of RED into its product roadmaps. No doubt the company could use a boost to its video fortunes where it has lagged the competition, most notably both Canon and Sony.
I would expect to see Redcode (the compressed RAW algorithms that retain quality while reducing file sizes) in Nikon bodies. Probably with a different name? That’s the big one I can see. And maybe some of the sensor designs as well. Clearly those would be the two big IP driving pieces that Nikon likely wanted.
The only other question that remains is when.
