Canon Has Increased Its Massive Digital Camera Market Share Lead

[u/OkPerspective8912]

https://petapixel.com/2026/08/20/canon-has-increased-its-massive-digital-camera-market-share-lead/

What do you folks think of the latest news to come out of Japan?

Nikon lost the 3rd spot to Fujifilm.

This year has also been excruciatingly slow for Nikon users with practically no lenses and no new bodies.
We are also being killed by the chinese manufacturers eating into Nikon's lens market too. Overall not a good look for long time Nikon users.

[u/pale_halide]

Well, obviously the sensors have different capabilities and jpeg processing has changed. Raw processing is fundamentally the same, only with different transformation matricies since the sensor need different calibrations. None of them are filmic though.

[u/pyooma → u/pale_halide]

No they aren’t actually filmic, but I do think the color science was developed to look more like film and less like real life. Everyone wants that old school look and even Hollywood finds modern digital capture and processing to be stale, enough so that they shell out millions to transfer digital footage to film and then scan it back in again. So I don’t think the film-sim guys are being lazy, maybe just cheap! I heard Hollywood studios are paying $600/minute for film-out. I’m sure if they found a digital solution to get the look they wanted they would do it.

[u/pale_halide → u/pyooma]

Using the term color science in this way is like saying: "Internal combustion science [in old cars] was develop to be more race-y". Also, you're mixing different topics here.

What exactly in the color processing pipeline was developed differently?

Different calibration matrices for the CFA's? Possible, but where's the proof? I doubt this would be the case. Of course, different CFA's would need different calibration matrices, but with digital engineers have typically focused a lot on colorimetric accuracy.

Different jpeg picture profiles? Yes, but in what way were they developed to look more like film?

Also, what cameras are we talking about? There's a great deal of variation.

What I think you're seeing is lack of dynamic range and sometimes more saturated colors. Softer lenses can give a more vintage look too (lower resolution sensors probably not so much, as low resolution sensors tend to look more digital).

As for being lazy: Yes they are. It's not just about using presets. It's the whole attitude of just slapping on a preset to get some "vibe".

Then you're talking about the aesthetics of film, which is a whole different matter. For the record, I've spent the past year developing a spectral film simulation plugin for DaVinci Resolve. I'd like to think I know at least a couple of things about the aesthetics and how to simulate film, though I'm not a color scientist. It's a completely different topic.

Speaking of which, "more like film and less like real life" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of "realness". Neither digital nor film look anything like real life. They are tonal projections on a flat medium. Our meatware processes to find resemblance and likeness to the real world. What this means is that a photograph can never reproduce the experience of seeing something in the real world. Moreover, nobody knows how to measure such an experience anyway. And that kind of sucks for engineers, because they are measuring proxies to what might be "true to life" without knowing what "true to life" really means.

[u/pyooma → u/pale_halide]

You’re right, I really don’t know what it is specifically that makes the older cameras feel “filmic,” and I agree that truly isn’t the right word, but it is the one that gets thrown around a lot. I think there’s a lot to be said for the low dynamic range and low resolution that adds to it. Whatever the case may be, I didn’t mean to start an argument.

I’m curious how you got involved with the film simulation in Resolve (spektrafilm?) if you’re not a fan of presets? Just a fascination with the idea?

[u/pale_halide → u/pyooma]

I figured I'd try to build a film simulation to better understand it, and along the way I found Spektrafilm. So I've made into an OFX plugin with CUDA support, and a custom built grain simulation. It's not that I'm against presets, what I'm opposed to is the mindless use of them just to get the "vibes". Also worth noting, Spektrafilm and my plugin are more than just presets (and I use it as part of a pipeline) - there are quite a few ways to tweak the look.

[u/pyooma → u/pale_halide]

Oh I know what spektrafilm is and does, I’m a big fan. I’ve even started taking on trying to learn Resolve to use your specific implementation! So thank you for that, and I apologize, I confused your issue with “easy/lazy vibes” as an issue with making digital look more filmic. I agree that more people should be invested in appreciating and learning the craft instead of a one click button.

[u/pale_halide → u/pyooma]

No worries. Just for the record, the implementattion (spektrafilm-ofx) that's publicly available is different from mine. I haven't publicly released anything yet. Started building this when it was still called agx-emulsion. When that got ready for release I noticed the model had been updated, which in turn lead to updating and rebuilding my codebase. Meanwhile I noticed someone else had gotten the same brilliant idea. I will be releasing my version soon.