# Canon vs. Tamron



## unfocused (Jan 30, 2012)

Another "rumors" site focused on a brand that shall remain nameless but which starts with "N" says Tamron has moved into the #2 spot among lens makers in Japan. 

That's pretty impressive, especially since their lineup is fairly limited. Tamron's two top lenses are their 18-270 all-in-one and their new 70-300 zoom. This makes me wonder if we won't see an all-in-one soon from Canon and also, I wonder, if we are due for an upgrade to the non "L" Canon 70-300mm IS. And, if we are, I wonder how Canon improves on this lens without hurting the "L" version. 

Of course they can leave off the weathersealing, but it seems like they would need to improve the optics, IS and maybe the focusing. But, they might be worried about hurting sales of the "L" version, which I suspect haven't been all that stellar anyway. On the other hand, they may figure the two are focused on such different markets, if they can sell five or six non "L" versions for every one "L" it might be worthwhile.

What do others think?


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 30, 2012)

Tamron Tokina is making and selling lenses for Canon, Nikon, Sony, and micro 4/3, so they have a broad market. 

The article also did not explain that the Japan earthquake and the flooded Nikon Thailand factory seriously hurt sales and production.

This is a excellent example of using true but misleading stastics, as news reporters either do out of ignorance, or to support their view.


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## DJL329 (Jan 30, 2012)

unfocused said:


> This makes me wonder if we won't see an all-in-one soon from Canon...



Doesn't the EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS count as an "all-in-one" zoom? 

(Yeah, I know, it's not in the same price range as the Tamron zooms.)


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## neuroanatomist (Jan 30, 2012)

Interesting read. Not sure what it means for Canon, or how they will interpret those data. But, I've said elsewhere that while a lot of people who shall remain nameless but are quite vocal about this Nikon camera or that Nikon camera 'blowing away' the Canon counterpart, the overall sales figures certainly point to Canon doing many things right...


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 30, 2012)

Where are Canon and Nikon on the Mirrorless Cameras. no wonder Sony is going after Olympus, a merger would move them to the top in at least one category. 

Mirrorless SLR (Miracles SLR) digital camera
Vendor Share of sales (%) 
Olympus 36.6 
Panasonic 29.3 
Sony 27.3


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## well_dunno (Jan 30, 2012)

Is there any generally accepted source for annual DSLR sales by brand?


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## katwil (Jan 30, 2012)

DJL329 said:


> unfocused said:
> 
> 
> > This makes me wonder if we won't see an all-in-one soon from Canon...
> ...


To be fair, the Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS is an all-in-one in that price range. I’d rate it a little below my Tamron 18-270 PZD in terms of reach, size, and focusing noise, but it’s certainly a decent lens when paired with older xxD or xxxD models.


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## Kernuak (Jan 30, 2012)

In the UK at least, some dealers promote Tamron Zooms as ideal second "kit" lenses at entry level. By that I mean, they promote them as a second lens to buy at the same time as buying the DSLR kit. If that also happens in other countries and still happens now, then, I could see how they could sell large volumes. I was sold a Tamron 55-200 when I bought my 400D and while the build quality was non-existent and the manual focus ring was close to unusable, the image quality punched way above it's weight for the price, which was cheap, at £99 (increased now) if bought with the kit, otherwise I think it was £199.


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## VerbalAlchemy (Jan 30, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> Interesting read. Not sure what it means for Canon, or how they will interpret those data. But, I've said elsewhere that while a lot of people who shall remain nameless but are quite vocal about this Nikon camera or that Nikon camera 'blowing away' the Canon counterpart, the overall sales figures certainly point to Canon doing many things right...



The sales figures are interesting. Canon leads the markets in all categories-- but not by the same margin. If Canon sells camera bodies in much larger volumes than Nikon, why is Canon's lead in lens sales relatively smaller? Do Nikon users buy more lenses on average than Canon users? 

Off the top of my head... For professional grade, top-of-the line lenses, both companies offer strong options, and I'd be surprised if there's a huge difference in this segment. Nikon offers a few cheap primes on the wider end that Canon can't really compete with, so this could skew some numbers in the enthusiast segment-- but I'd be surprised if it skewed _that_ many numbers. Nikon lenses can be adapted to other cameras (i.e. m43) more easily than Canon lenses, so third party use could drive a limited number of Nikon sales (this segment, though, seems to have a fondness for the used market, which would mitigate impact in Nikon's primary sales statistics). In a sense, I think some buyers might actually be more biased toward purchasing Canon lenses because third parties like Tamron and (to a much bigger extent) Sigma seem to have trouble reverse-engineering Canon's AF algorithms-- a problem that doesn't seem to plague the Nikon folks. So a Canon disadvantage doesn't seem likely to come from third party defectors, as such as scenario might actually be more palatable for the Nikon crowd. I suppose the high-end third party manufacturers (i.e. Zeiss) might draw some sales from Canon-- but this is a very expensive market segment, so the effect of someone buying a Zeiss 21mm instead of a Canon 24mm L seems limited. 

I'm just suprised Canon's lead in bodies is over 18% while its lead in lenses over Nikon is only about 10%. I realize that this figure refers to sales shares, which makes it difficult to extrapolate WHICH lenses and WHICH bodes contributed to these figures, as the sales distribution across the companies' respective inventories could be part of an informed metric. The percentages were just so plainly different without this additional math, though, that I was surprised.

As for the OP, Tamron only makes a few truly decent lenses (17-50, 28-75, 70-300 VC, off the top of my head) but all of these lenses are relatively good deals relative to their L/high-end equivalent (the 17-55 IS, 24-70, and 70-300 L IS, respectively). Based on Amazon sales rankings and internet chatter, I think the enthusiast and budget filmmaking communities (bright aperture zoom is important) give Tamron some additional markets. I doubt that these sales figures contribute as heavily as superzooms and the "second kit lens" sales pitches-- but I'm not surprised to see Tamron rate so well. I am surprised that Sigma, which ALSO offers lenses for many mounts and enjoys a broad market place, is not more competitive. I've also felt that they're price a little higher than they should be, relative to Tamron or Tokina quality offers. But I've only tested, never owned, a Sigma lens, so I'm no authority.


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## elflord (Jan 31, 2012)

VerbalAlchemy said:


> The sales figures are interesting. Canon leads the markets in all categories-- but not by the same margin. If Canon sells camera bodies in much larger volumes than Nikon, why is Canon's lead in lens sales relatively smaller? Do Nikon users buy more lenses on average than Canon users?



It's not clear that this means a whole lot. For example, it could mean that the pros and enthusiasts are split more evenly, and Canon have a greater edge among the crowd who just buy the kit lens. Given most of the volume in camera bodies is in the cheaper bodies (partly because they come out more often and partly because there are more of these users) 

Impossible to tell without more data. 



> Nikon lenses can be adapted to other cameras (i.e. m43) more easily than Canon lenses, so third party use could drive a limited number of Nikon sales (this segment, though, seems to have a fondness for the used market, which would mitigate impact in Nikon's primary sales statistics).



Yes, Nikon's lenses work better with mirrorless because some of them have manual aperture. That makes life convenient those who use Nikon and mirrorless, but manual focus lenses tend to work better with manual focus, and older manual focus lenses (e.g. like Canon FD, Konica Hexanon) are very good value, so they are generally preferred.


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## Ellen Schmidtee (Jan 31, 2012)

VerbalAlchemy said:


> The sales figures are interesting. Canon leads the markets in all categories-- but not by the same margin. If Canon sells camera bodies in much larger volumes than Nikon, why is Canon's lead in lens sales relatively smaller? Do Nikon users buy more lenses on average than Canon users?



My impression is (a) lots of Canon body owners have one or two lenses, say a superzoom or 18-55 + 55-250, (b) Canon body owners, even relatively new ones, often buy lenses by other brands, often to save money, and (c) the few Nikon body owners I know started off with two or three lenses, sometimes because they've got a deal on ebay which contains a short kit + long kit + fisheye(!).


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## wickidwombat (Jan 31, 2012)

i owned a tamron 18-270 once.... for a day before I sent it back because it was such a steaming pile of rubbish
soooo i would say it occupies the #2 spot but i'm not talking about ranking. It's just #2


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## NormanBates (Jan 31, 2012)

there are some very very nice tamron lenses, like the 17-50 f/2.8 non-VC and the 70-200 f/2.8: better than any alternative at their price range

they also have some dirt-cheap interesting options, like the 70-300 f/3.5-5.6 (pretty decent as a 70-150 f/3.5-4.0 for only $160)

they also have the rubbish that many newbies want to get: the 10x and 18x zooms that sound great to uneducated ears but deliver absolutely horrible pictures

and they build all those for a lot of camera systems

so yes: it's not surprising that they'd sell so many lenses


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## Hillsilly (Jan 31, 2012)

Its a pity that there isn't more data. I'd be curious to see if the fixed lens category really is shrinking, whether the mirrorless market is growing and how slrs are performing.

In many markets around the world, Sony outsells Nikon. But I'm a little surprised that Tamron sold more lenses than Nikon, given their limited range. I can only assume that kit lenses weren't included in lens sales.

Does Tamron make lenses for other manufacturers (ie rebranded as Canon, Nikon, Pentax etc)? Maybe that's how they get their numbers up.


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