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A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Jeff Ooi, Malaysia

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VR, OS, IS, OIS, SSS... Oh dear, my camera!

Sep 28, 2006 17:05

Let me feed you with some camera jargons. Do you have a VR lens for your camera? Or OS? Or IS? Or OIS? Or SSS?

OK, those acronyms are fast becoming indices of your digital lifestyle. VR is Nikon's definition for Vibration Reduction. The feature presently comes in only expensive lenses. VR is touted to provide faster shutter click which, under low-light conditions and at small aperture readings, could reduce shake-induced picture blur by as much as the equivalent of three F-stops. Accepted, it's marketing talk, but there are also many professionals who say the technology works in producing sharper pictures.

Not surprisingly, other makers don't let up on the race. Canon has come up with IS (Image Stabilizer), Sigma with OS (Optical Stabilizer); Panasonic with its Mega O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilization), Sony with SSS (Super SteadyShot).

Among the brands, Panasonic, Sony and Olympus have built their shake-reduction features onboard the camera body, while the rest are on the lenses.

They all have one aim. To sell the regular commodity at some 20 percent higher premium, and early adopters abound.

Apparently. The camera and lens makers are casting their nets wide to capture new market segments that would give them better margins than the regular point-and-shoot compacts. But the consumers are getting smarter and asking tougher questions nowadays.

Paul Choo, an award-winning photographer using the Canon format, was visibly agitated when he saw Sigma introduce the new OS 18-200 F/3.5-6.3 DC lens in the market during the Fotokina Camera Show in Cologne.

He was asking if Sigma would roll out more of its popular lenses to include the OS function. This was a significant question because Sigma manufactures lenses for the price-conscious consumers, giving reasonably stunning picture quality at almost half the price that the top two brands would normally charge.Though the comparison is not exactly apples-to-apples, it's close enough to be meaningful for budding SLR users who want to stretch their dollar.

And Choo was also looking at the possibility if the top two dSLR camera makers, namely Nikon and Canon, would incorporate the shake-reduction feature onto the camera body instead of limiting it to the lenses and selling them at a premium.

"Being a Canon owner, I find this an important and interesting shift in the dSLR camera/lens market scenario," Choo said. "Sony's entry into the dSLR market with its Alpha 100 has already eaten into the share of market which used to be monopolized by Nikon and Canon," he said. The biggest single draw of Alpha 100, I believe, is its SSS body which virtually makes all lenses you attach to its body IS/VR-ed."

What if Nikon and Canon held their horses and refused to build the shake-reduction feature on the camera body? Would their market share be threatened now that Sigma is expected to introduce more shake-reducing OS lenses for the price-sensitive segment?

Will this force the top two to also include IS/VR in their camera bodies, perhaps in the non-pro range, to fend off the likes of Sony and Panasonic and other competitors in the dSLR market?

There are many ways that Nikon and Canon can react and not react, said Choo.

Scenario 1: Include IS/VR in their non-pro bodies. But then, this will also indirectly affect the sales of their IS/VR lenses. Will the increase in sales of their entry-level dSLRs (with IS/VR bodies) help to compensate for the drop in sales of their IS/VR lenses?

Scenario 2: Not acting on Scenario 1. Give them a few more years with the marketing might of Sony, and they will slowly, but surely, become a bigger player in the dSLR market. Can Canon and Nikon handle the new market scenario in the near future?

Scenario 3: Also, not acting to Scenario 1, Sigma's OS lenses ( taking into consideration that Sigma will introduce more OS lenses which will be cheaper than Canon's/Nikon's IS/VRs) will ultimately also affect the sales of the top two's IS/VR lenses.

Scenario 4: Facing a two-prong attacks from their competitors; and with Canon/Nikon dilly-dallying in the mean time over the in-body anti-shake feature, they might not only lose sales in entry-level dSLRs, but also sales in their IS/VR lenses due to the double whammy effect

Well, while you are drawing up your Christmas shopping list, the jury is still out!

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About Jeff Ooi

Jeff Ooi is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who's spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene, on anything and nothing. Which doesn't really explain why most of his own technology is about three years out of date. He doesn't even own a PDA after his Palm V crashed. He's on 3G, though... Lemak Lemang refers to coconut-flavored sticky rice stuffed in a bamboo container.