Not that anyone manages to keep to their New Year’s Resolutions, but wouldn’t it be nice if the camera companies publicly stated theirs and we could hold their feet to the fire?
Here are my proposed New Year’s Resolutions for each of the camera companies. (Careful, my tongue is exploring a remote side area.)
Canon
- We’re finally going to give the Kiss of Death to Kiss (the cameras, not the rock band). Oh wait, some of you will see us Stormtroop the Rebels instead. Well, okay, we’re really just likely to use those names for something else now. But you get the idea, old Kiss/Rebels bad, upcoming Kiss/Rebels good. Something like that. Marketing will figure it out, we think.
- We’ll have a lot of product sales this year. Make of that what you will.
- For all of you who bought expensive, highly capable RF lenses, we’ll finally get around to producing a body that might show whether those are any good or not. Likewise, for those of you who bought inexpensive R and RP bodies on sale, we'll finally start producing some RF lenses that live down to your expectations.
- If you bought an EOS M model, we’re happy to report that you should buy additional lenses from Sigma now. That’s what you wanted, right?
Fujifilm
- We built a camera with IBIS, which turned out to be unpopular. So we’ll put IBIS in a popular camera instead. Yes, we know we should have done that in the first place.
- Traditional dials, no dials, different dials, we’re still unsure what to do about dials. But we got rid of the Direction pad! We’ll look to see what else we can remove.
Nikon
- We’ll get away from the middle and release something that’s not 5, 6, or 7. Wait, oh, we forgot about the D6, which may be a middle number but not a middle camera. At least the D780 has an 8 in it. Hmm. Well, our engineering is better than our marketing, naming, and messaging.
- We’ll introduce more cameras this year than last because, well, you know, market contraction.
Olympus
- We have already established a clear and exciting product roadmap for the coming months.* It will look very much like our previous clear and exciting product roadmap.
- We will or won’t sell the business. Or maybe we will or won't close the business. We'll do something with the business.
Panasonic
- Let’s see, we made m4/3 cameras that could use Olympus lenses, full frame cameras that can use Leica lenses, and we even made a pro video camera that can use Canon lenses. We’ll make some more stuff this year that can use other company’s lenses.
- Wait, did we forget to make the GH6? Or is that supposed to be this year? Sorry, someone removed the calendar from the Salarymen room. We’ll let you know as soon as we find it.
Pentax
- We’ll do something this year to remind you that we still exist and are completely relevant. Really. At least that’s what we’re thinking right now. We’re asking the Ricoh executives if that’s okay as we speak...
Sigma
- Hey, we’ve got a full frame camera that actually sells and that some people like. Did you see that? Now what do we do?
- We will make versions of our big, heavy Art lenses for any mount we can figure out. In some cases, that will make the lens bigger than it originally was. We call that Art+.
- We’d like to publicly thank Canon for the extra business. Anything else you need us to do, Yamada-san?
Sony
- We promise that we’ll stop selling six or seven generations of a camera at the same time. The warehouse is starting to have troubles figuring out which box to ship for an order, since they all look alike.
- One of the Senior VP's finally got around to trying to set up one of our new cameras, and couldn’t figure out the menus. We’ll either fix those menus, or tell you how to do what he couldn’t figure out how to do.
- We’ll try real hard not to release another 35mm or 50mm lens. No promises, though.
* Yes, that was an actual management quote. You can hold them to that resolution!
