Canon has officially launched the much awaited EOS 5D Mark IV in India. The new high end professional camera comes packed with 4K recording making it the first 5D range professional video camera. But the company sure has taken a hit by the massive popularity of hi-end camera phones.
We spoke to Canon India President and CEO,
Kazutada Kobayashi on what it means to Canon when almost all smartphones in the market are cashing in on camera as their key feature. He says that the increasing popularity of the hi-end smartphone cameras has led to a huge drop in the sale of their point-and-shoot cameras where Canon is losing 50% of the market in the segment but the company sees a clear silver lining too. The company is of the view that smartphones have made photography extremely popular and Canon believes that two out of ten smartphone users are likely to be interested in serious photography from their initial tryst with their smartphone photography. Canon points out that most of their buyers already use smartphones yet they go for their entry level professional cameras to quench their thirst for good photography, an interest purely triggered by smartphone photography. This heightened interest in photography led by smartphone cameras have resulted in the growth of regular entry level cameras to 30,000-40,000 units per year.
Canon has its sharp focus on
wedding photography in India as it has been the biggest market for Canon’s professional range of cameras for many years now. The new camera from Canon, EOS 5D Mark IV is especially designed for the wedding photographers apart from wildlife, studio and sports photographers. The EOS 5D Mark IV features an all new 30.4 megapixel full frame image sensor. The camera comes with standard ISO setting of 100-32000, further expandable to ISO 50-102,400 and it also records 4K videos at 30fps and supports image extract from the high-resolution video.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV (body only) is priced at Rs 2,54,995 and will be available from September 8. Canon has big expectations from its
DSLR segment where it aims to achieve 50 per cent market share in the India market soon. The company is also planning to expand its retail presence to 400 image squares all across the country by end of 2019.
Well, while the sale of Canon’s point and shoot cameras have halved with the popularity of smartphone cameras, the company is more excited about how the 20% of the smartphone camera users want to move on to the professional cameras with heightened interest in photography thanks to the camera phones.
Canon India CEO says “enough for me”.
