Has Canon officially lost the youth market in photography? I think they have...
I recently had the privilege of covering one of the coolest races I've been wanting to shoot since I first heard about it - TX2K. This is a race that involves a lot of exotic cars going head-to-head in an elimination ladder - many breaking 215mph with a Nissan GTR breaking 237mph this year. Anyway, this was not my typical group of photographers I get to work with...most of the people out there shooting weren't professionals working for any publications, so I got to see a lot of new faces. Most of the photographers there were between the ages of 18-25, judging by the looks of them, and upwards of 90% of them were shooting on Sony. Canon was very poorly represented...but Nikon even more so.
I was told over 90 people were given official media access (get to be trackside with a vest) and if I had to guess, only 8-10 photographers were on Canon and maybe half of those were on Canon mirrorless. I personally saw only 3 people using Nikon. Literally everyone else was shooting Sony mirrorless.
Eventually I found myself chatting with several of them and I brought up the fact a lot of them were shooting Sony. Do you know what several of them they told me? Lenses and price. Several months ago, I made a post about how Canon would lose the market of up-and-coming photographers if third party manufacturers were left out of the RF mount. It was very interesting to see this on display.
I said this because I can still remember what it was like to be an up-and-coming photographer that eventually became a full-time professional. Along the way, I could only afford a Canon L-series lens here and there. I bought the best body I could realistically afford, and then I bought the best lenses I could afford. This allowed me to stay within the Canon ecosystem and grow into it. Right now...I don't see that as an option for photographers looking to buy new cameras. I know Canon always says people can adapt EF mount lenses but that is NOT something people want to do. Sure, that makes the transition easier for a lot of us since we can still use our older lenses as we migrate over, but "fresh" photographers going out and buying a Canon R6 or EOS R seldomly do so with the intention of adapting lenses and they can't really afford ANYTHING on the Native RF mount.
This is a very big deal in my opinion and I don't see it working out very well for Canon in the long run.
I recently had the privilege of covering one of the coolest races I've been wanting to shoot since I first heard about it - TX2K. This is a race that involves a lot of exotic cars going head-to-head in an elimination ladder - many breaking 215mph with a Nissan GTR breaking 237mph this year. Anyway, this was not my typical group of photographers I get to work with...most of the people out there shooting weren't professionals working for any publications, so I got to see a lot of new faces. Most of the photographers there were between the ages of 18-25, judging by the looks of them, and upwards of 90% of them were shooting on Sony. Canon was very poorly represented...but Nikon even more so.
I was told over 90 people were given official media access (get to be trackside with a vest) and if I had to guess, only 8-10 photographers were on Canon and maybe half of those were on Canon mirrorless. I personally saw only 3 people using Nikon. Literally everyone else was shooting Sony mirrorless.
Eventually I found myself chatting with several of them and I brought up the fact a lot of them were shooting Sony. Do you know what several of them they told me? Lenses and price. Several months ago, I made a post about how Canon would lose the market of up-and-coming photographers if third party manufacturers were left out of the RF mount. It was very interesting to see this on display.
I said this because I can still remember what it was like to be an up-and-coming photographer that eventually became a full-time professional. Along the way, I could only afford a Canon L-series lens here and there. I bought the best body I could realistically afford, and then I bought the best lenses I could afford. This allowed me to stay within the Canon ecosystem and grow into it. Right now...I don't see that as an option for photographers looking to buy new cameras. I know Canon always says people can adapt EF mount lenses but that is NOT something people want to do. Sure, that makes the transition easier for a lot of us since we can still use our older lenses as we migrate over, but "fresh" photographers going out and buying a Canon R6 or EOS R seldomly do so with the intention of adapting lenses and they can't really afford ANYTHING on the Native RF mount.
This is a very big deal in my opinion and I don't see it working out very well for Canon in the long run.