Canon, Nikon Face Off in Major DSLR War

By Cho Jin-seo

Staff Reporter

The popularity of Internet blogs and mini-homepages has made digital photography a national hobby of South Korean youngsters. On any sunny day, there are endless flows of young women strolling on the cobbled street by the Kyeongbok Palace, with digital cameras in their handbags or hanging around their neck.

While the point-and-shoot compact camera market is thought to be almost saturated, camera makers are now focusing on the high-end digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. Those expensive cameras were once for professional photographers and photojournalists, but now they are becoming more and more popular among amateurs especially those in their 20s and 30s.

DSLR is a digital camera that uses an automatic mirror system and a prism to direct light from the lens through the viewfinder, so users can see the same image through viewfinder with the image to be printed on the photo sensor. This kind of camera also allows users to use various types of lenses, which are another main source of income for the camera makers.

It is Japan's Canon that has long dominated the DSLR sector in Korea and abroad. Especially in Korea, the firm is thought to occupy more than 70 percent of the market.

The runner-up in the DSLR market is Nikon, another Japanese maker famous for its film cameras. The two firms are now preparing for a big battle later this month, releasing high-end models respectively.

Nikon has announced that it will launch its new top-end camera named ``D3'' on November 23 worldwide. Priced at around 5 million won, it is by far the most expensive and most powerful digital camera mass-produced by the company.

Though the hefty price puts the new camera out of reach of ordinary consumers, the D3 is still drawing extraordinary attention from photographers all over the world. One reason is that it is likely to become a new flagship product for Nikon after its long-loved F series film cameras. Furthermore, the D3 symbolizes Nikon's determination to take back the leadership in the digital single-lens reflex market from Canon. Winning the high-end DSLR market will bring a domino effect to lower class models, as the quality of DSLR camera is often used as a barometer of the firm's optical technology.

``D3 is in the eye of the storm,'' a Nikon Korea official said. ``Photographers tend to have very high loyalty to camera brands, because the lenses of each brand is not interchangeable with others. But it seems that many Canon users are considering shifting to Nikon this time.''

Canon is also preparing for the upcoming battle with its latest product, the EOS 1Ds Mark III. The firm has an advantage in the competition, since almost all photojournalists are using the EOS models. But Nikon is coming out fighting, offering generous discounts to photographers, especially those who work in the news industry.

``I think Nikon is determined to devour Canon. They are handing out the D3 cameras almost free of charge,'' said a photographer of a daily newspaper. ``It seems that the tide is turning to Nikon.''

More bad news for Canon is the controversy over the stability of its EOS D1 Mark III camera, the previous model launched this May.

From last month, there were complaints from Canon users that the Mark III camera has a serious problem with its auto-focusing function, producing blurred pictures.

Though the company is denying that this is a product recall, it has confirmed that there was a ``minor'' problem in some products and said that it will fix it later this month. But the action is probably coming too late, and the damage has already been done. More than 200 users have signed a petition for a complete product recall at SLR Club, the largest and the most influential digital camera community in Korea. They even staged a street rally this weekend in Seoul.

Apart from the two giants, several other makers such as Sony and Olympus and Korea's Samsung Techwin are making DSLR cameras but their combined market share is considered to be less than 10 percent. Though the firms do not reveal their actual sales figures, Canon and Nikon are thought to be occupying more than 90 percent of the DSLR market in Korea, and more than 50 percent of the world market.