Ricoh Exec Predicts That the Pendulum Will Swing Back to DSLR from Mirrorless Cameras in the Near Future

Ricoh has an optimistic outlook on the future of DSLRs.

Specifically, the company thinks that consumers will eventually shift away from mirrorless cameras and come back to DSLRs in an assessment that is contrarian to say the least.

Ricoh's General Manager of the Marketing Communication Department, Global Sales and Marketing Center, Smart Vision Business Unit Hiroki Sugahara told Imaging Resource of his future predictions:

“Currently, mirrorless is a newcomer, so of course, many users are very interested in the new systems; they want to use [them]. But after one or two years, some users who changed their system from DSLR to mirrorless [will] come back to the DSLR again.

…

Because as I said before, each system has its own benefits or appealing points. The mirrorless camera is very convenient to shoot, because users can [see the] image before shooting. But, I believe the DSLR has its own appealing point, because users can create their own image from the optical viewfinder. People can see the beautiful image through the optical viewfinder, and then think how they can create their pictures — for example, exposure level setting, or white balance, or ISO — and then imagine how they can get [the photo they want]… So, the DSLR market is currently decreasing a little bit, but one year or two years or three years later, it will [start] getting higher.”

As we said above, this is a contrarian view and a minority one at that. Not many analysts see this trend on the horizon and even more have some issues with the general reasoning employed.

Nonetheless, it does make for interesting topics for conversation. And, as usual, we would love to hear your thoughts on Sugahara’s statement. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below

[Imaging Resource]