Nikon crisis: Operating profit forecast down 30%.

Also Nikon is suffering the digital camera market collapsing. Bloomberg reports:

Nikon plunged 11 percent, the most since August 2013 and the biggest drop on the Nikkei 225. The camera maker forecast 30 billion yen in operating profit for the year ending March, missing the 49.8 billion yen estimate of analysts. The company also slashed its 2017 operating-profit target to 38 billion yen, down from 110 billion yen in June.

Full data can be read at Nikon.

Fuji announces a new impressive 4.0 firmware update for the X-T1!

Fuji did it again…make current X-T1 owner very happy again :)

They announced the new 4.0 firmware update that will be released by end of June (Source: Fujifilm).

Here is the list of improvements:

(1) New AF system with Zone and Wide/Tracking modes for effortless capture of moving subjects
(2) Improvement of AF accuracy (The built-in phase detection pixels have the detection range of 0.5EV, an improvement from the previous 2.5EV, delivering phase detection AF performance that enables fast focusing in low-light conditions and on low-contrast subjects.)
(3) Eye Detection AF
(4) Auto Macro mode
(5) AF improvement in the Movie mode

Other Improvements

(1) Improved Shutter Speed Dial operation
(2) Exposure Compensation control in Manual.
(3) Finer lines on the framing grid enhances visibility
(4) Name of Silent mode changed to avoid confusion

Mirrorless news roundup…

Fujifilm X-A2 Review (ePhotozine).
Samsung NX1 Shooter’s Report Part II (Imaging Resource).
Samsung NX3000 review (CameraLabs).
Waiting for Azulejos (shot on the A7).
Nikon 1 J5 Review (ePhotozine).
The Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) Brings B&W Photography to New Dimensions (Bhphoto).
10 Amazing Sports Photographers Who Use Mirrorless Cameras on the Job (Mirrorlessons).
Full-frame DSLRs gone by 2025 claims Dr. Rajiv Laroia, imaging startup Light (Imaging Resource).

Worldwide camera shipment analysis for 2014. A very bad year for DSLR and Compact cameras.

Graph 1

Based on the latest CIPA data Dicahub drew those useful graphs. Note that the CIPA data shows the worldwide “shipped” cameras sold by Japanese companies (Samsung and Leica for example are not included).

Graph 1 (on top of this post):
It shows that camera shipments are decreasing over the last two years. Compact camera sales crashed, DSLR fell down and also Mirrorless had a small decrease of shipments.

Graph 2:
A really small good news is that compared on a year to year basis only compact and fixed lens cameras had a small increase compared to last year (remember that graph 1 showed a decrease based on a two year basis).

Graph 3:
compacts are increasing (I think the reason is large sensor high-end compacts.)

figure 4
5. [2012.01-2013.07] mirrorless ratio of system camera was mostly under 20%.
6. [2013.11-2014.12] mirrorless ratio of system camera was mostly about 25%.
7. mirrorless ratio looks like stepped-increasing; [~2013.07] & [2013.11~], except [2012.10-2012.12] 8. we can’t know mirrorless ratio will be stepped-increasing.
9. panasonic forecasted mirrorless ratio would be reached 28% in 2014, but it was not realized.
10. samsung forecasted mirrorless will sell more than slr in 3 years, but I think it is difficult.