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Jan. 19, 2006
After 100 years of making cameras, lenses, and related photographic equipment, Konica Minolta announced today that it is selling off its key camera and lens assets to Sony. It also announced the demise of its film, paper, and photo processing products by 2007. For the multitude of faithful KM owners, this news will come as a shock. But if you've been following the Konica Minolta press releases, specifically those from last July that announced a strategic partnership with Sony to develop new DSLRs, this sell off is no surprise.
 Today's Konica Minolta press release out of Japan was filled with comments regarding the shrinking market for its photographic products and the difficulty the company faced in the competitive digital camera world. Here's the real English translation: I'm not sure how much the digital camera market is “shrinking”, but there are signs that the dramatic growth in sales of digital compacts is starting to level out. Not so for DSLR sales, which are fueling the profits of the dominant players such as Canon and Nikon, but apparently not Konica Minolta. There are several reasons for Konica Minolta's losing the DSLR battle. Unlike Canon and Sony, Konica Minolta doesn't make its own CCD imaging sensors and several other key components for its digital cameras. In fact, the sensors in the 7D and 5D (plus several compact models) are made by Sony—as are the sensors in the Pentax *ist DSLR series and most Nikon DSLRs. The extra cost for these sensors placed KM at a financial and marketing disadvantage.
After last year's KM/Sony announcement, many analysts thought the partnership would culminate in a DSLR using technology from both companies, with perhaps one model labeled Sony, and another model branded Konica Minolta. In this relationship, Sony would benefit by breaking into the hot DSLR market with an interchangeable lens model that used the KM's Maxxum/Dynax lens mount system , plus KM's sophisticated dedicated flash system that's light-years (pun intended) ahead of Sony's HVL-F32X flash. Konica Minolta would benefit by jumping out in front with new sensors and Sony image processing technology, presumably at a lower cost. But from the first announcement last year, it appears the writing was on the wall for Konica Minolta to dissolve its camera division into Sony.
Does this mean the end of the innovative anti-shake feature built into the Maxxum 7D and 5D DSLRs? Not likely. In fact, with input from Sony's own stable of optical image-stabilization engineers, the anti-shake feature on future Sony DSLRs might be better, cheaper, and smaller than the system found in the Maxxum 7D and 5D. I expect to see a Sony DSLR in working condition by the time Germany's giant Photokina show opens in September 2006, and here's what I predict it will have: A 10.3 MP CMOS sensor, live video preview to a 2.5-inch LCD on the back, built-in image stabilization, a dedicated hot shoe for new Sony flash systems and older KM flash units, backward compatibility with KM lenses, dual storage slots for SD and Memory Stick Pro, and a long life InfoLithium rechargeable battery. Don't be surprised if it also features a more advanced electronic viewfinder than we've seen to date, instead of an optical one.
By the time that show comes around, I wonder if other traditional camera companies might also be absorbed into their larger electronic-giant partners? Only time will tell, but where would that leave us?
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