DSLRBodies

It’s not often these days that we have an “eventful” week with DSLRs, but the past week produced two eyebrow raising bits to be aware of.

First, Nikon introduced firmware 1.30 for their D850 DSLR. This new firmware adds the Portrait Impression Balance feature to your choices when creating out-of-camera images (it’s not particularly relevant to raw files, though it may change the white balance preconditioning data slightly). That Nikon is adding features to a body that is now over five years old is encouraging, and suggests that the company is still paying attention to the users of that camera and wishes to extend its sales life.

On the other hand, the Canon 1DX Mark II seems to be on its way off sales (the Mark III is the current version). B&H [advertiser link] and some others are now offering a US$2000 (33%) discount on this still excellent DSLR. This is a limited time offer, though it’s unclear how limited (probably by supply more than calendar). 

Note that DSLRs aren’t dead: close to 2m of them were shipped (mostly by Canon and Nikon) in 2022. However, we’re now in the portion of the life curve where continued sales deterioration is likely to occur on a rapid basis. During 2022, DSLRs fell to just under one third the ILC shipments (mirrorless was the other two-thirds). Moreover, the average selling price of DSLRs is now significantly below that of mirrorless bodies, which means a lot of the continuing DSLR volume is still in the lower-end consumer products. 

Still, it’s heartening to hear any DSLR news these days, as it’s not the primary product the camera companies want to sell you.