Early last week Sony announced their DSLR offering, the A100. There are plenty of reviews and resources on the web and I see no need to rehash what people with much more time, experience and access can do. I can armchair analyze however.
This is major. Sony’s entrance makes it the third consumer electronics manufacturer after Panasonic and Samsung to enter the DSLR market. This does not bode well for…Nikon. Of all the pure-play Japanese camera makers, it’s the only one left standing and its marketing, R&D and PD budgets are magnitudes smaller than those of its competitors – Canon, Sony, Samsung or Panasonic. I’m not so optimistic that Nikon will survive the upcoming onslaught. There are just too many competitors gunning for its number two spot in the DSLR world.
Personally, within a decade I see the market coalescing around Canon, Sony and Samsung (?). Olympus/Panasonic have concentrated on building well-made niche DSLRs. Nikon? The crystal ball’s cloudy. There’s just so much that’s unknown that making statements about what “they should do” are meaningless.
But for now, I guess I’ll keep buying Nikon glass (albeit with a little worry).