The Nikkei Industry Map Financial Yearbook includes detailed shipment data for Japanese mirrorless camera manufacturers, offering an exact breakdown of the global camera market:

This figure is for mirrorless camera shipments, so it does not include shipments of digital SLRs or compact digital cameras. Looking at the trend in mirrorless camera shipments from 2021 to 2025, it appears that the mirrorless camera market is expanding. Nikon's shipments appear to be steadily increasing by roughly 100,000 units.

2024

1. Canon: 2.05 million units

2. Sony: 1.63 million units

3. Nikon: 760,000 units

4. Fujifilm: 490,000 units

5. Panasonic: 160,000 units

6. OM Digital: 130,000 units

2023

1. Canon: 1.96 million units

2. Sony: 1.53 million units

3. Nikon: 630,000 units

4. Fujifilm: 380,000 units

5. Panasonic: 140,000 units

6. OM Digital: 120,000 units

2022

1. Canon: 1.54 million units

2. Sony: 1.25 million units

3. Nikon: 530,000 units

4. Fujifilm: 360,000 units

5. Panasonic: 140,000 units

6. OM Digital: 140,000 units

2021

1. Sony: 1.4 million units

2. Canon: 1.17 million units

3. Fujifilm: 400,000 units

4. Nikon: 290,000 units

5. OM Digital: 200,000 units

6. Panasonic: 180,000 units

Source: https://dclife.jp/camera_news/article/etc/2025/0902_01.html

Sobering numbers for us micro 4/3 types. I wonder why Fuji doesn't have more of a presence underwater (or maybe they do and I just don't know about it).

54 minutes ago, d2b said:

Sobering numbers for us micro 4/3 types. I wonder why Fuji doesn't have more of a presence underwater (or maybe they do and I just don't know about it).

The situation for M43 for underwater use is quite dramatic. Generally, it's not doing well because the worldwide trend is Full Frame. It's not enough to repeat a thousand times that for 90% of users, the cropped format has huge advantages underwater.

OM is just scraping by, and there are rumors of a new financial crash. The new models after Oly seem to be the finalization of products that were already partly started by Olympus.

Panasonic didn't manage to repeat the success of the GH5, having delayed the move to PDAF for too long. Now the GH7 is practically perfect, but it seems to be too late. It doesn't help that Nauticam is the only one to produce a housing and sells it at absurd prices, even though it's not a top-of-the-line model.

Panasonic has renewed its entire Full Frame lineup and has nice cameras on par with the other manufacturers. By the way, due to economies of scale, today almost all Panasonic FF cameras have the same body. A true unicorn for us, since we have to change housings every time. Yet I discovered purely by chance that Nauticam has Panasonic FF housings and also a port chart.

The L-Mount consortium is starting to have the largest lens lineup of all. But we divers know that the devil is in the details and that the lens choice for our purposes is very limited. But we know how restrictive lock-in is. It's difficult to break old habits and common beliefs, and it's very expensive to switch from one system to another.

Fuji really has some nice cameras in its catalog, but here too, I think only Nauticam has a model in its catalog. The fact is that all the manufacturers have practically remained artisans, and Nauticam is the only one that has scaled up to an industrial level. So it's able to steer the market. No criticism, just to be clear. It's the market, baby!

I have to say that Nikon is the most active brand of all. Although it has always been the go-to brand for underwater photography, it lost a lot of clients (towards Sony) for having delayed the move to mirrorless for a very long time. Now, however, it seems to have a second youth, and its Z models are very solid, and it's gaining ground not only in underwater photography.

I shoot video, and we'll see if anyone offers valid alternatives in a cropped format.

It’s almost hypocritical of me to say this b/c i jumped ship from M4/3 to Canon (APS-C, though) - but i really do hope OM Systems gets its act together and keeps things going. There is very much a market for a camera system, that is smaller/lighter/easier to travel with than APS/FF but more functional than a compact system.

Sadly, underwater photographers are likely not a large enough market to keep the OM line afloat - and given that no housing has been released for the OM3, it is a little worrying what the future holds for MFT.

The biggest issue for Fuji is the limited lens lineup I think with only a handful suitable to use underwater. I really hope m43 keeps going, the small lenses are great, relatively inexpensive and very easy to travel with and it seems to be the camera of choice for macro shooting on land, I follow quite a few people using them macro shooting of bugs etc.

I always liked OM cameras but in film days I had the Nikon F and FMII Titanium instead because they just fit my hands better and these days it is Sony and Canon. Is the OM really that much smaller than a Sony or Canon APS camera? Not really comparing them side by side and now the new Sony FF cameras are awfully small as well.

One thing for the OM was that the cameras were/are rugged and weather resistant. The little consumer level Canons, like my EOS R50, are beautiful little cameras but they feel plasticky and are not ruggedized for heavy outdoors use. My Sony A6400 at least has some weather and dust sealing though not awfully inspiring.

Edited September 7Sep 7 by Nemrod

There are several camera size comparison tools available online:

https://pxlmag.com/db/camera-size-comparison

https://camerasize.com/compare/

https://cameradecision.com/size-comparison/7zSI-vXzL

It would be more work, but also more interesting, to put together a size+weight comparison of housing+body+lens+port.

8 hours ago, Nemrod said:

I always liked OM cameras but in film days I had the Nikon F and FMII Titanium instead because they just fit my hands better and these days it is Sony and Canon. Is the OM really that much smaller than a Sony or Canon APS camera? Not really comparing them side by side and now the new Sony FF cameras are awfully small as well.

One thing for the OM was that the cameras were/are rugged and weather resistant. The little consumer level Canons, like my EOS R50, are beautiful little cameras but they feel plasticky and are not ruggedized for heavy outdoors use. My Sony A6400 at least has some weather and dust sealing though not awfully inspiring.

It's not so much the cameras but the lenses - compare an Olympus 60mm macro with a Canon RF100mm macro. 185 grams vs 730 grams, 82 x 56mm vs 149 x 82mm and less than half the price. Or the Olympus 12-40 f2.8 vs the Canon 24-70 f2.8 - 382 grams vs 900 grams and the Olympus is 40% of the price. The olympus lenses also generally focus closer with more magnification (apart from macro lenses) and will work in smaller domes. On the macro front both are 1:1, however with the 2x crop factor a 1:1 lens fills the frame with a subject half the size on Olympus, so less need for diopters.

18 hours ago, d2b said:

It would be more work, but also more interesting, to put together a size+weight comparison of housing+body+lens+port.

The third link that I posted will show weight and give a clunky size comparison of body+lens combos. The permutations created by adding housings and ports would increase the task by an order of magnitude or more!

18 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

It's not so much the cameras but the lenses - compare an Olympus 60mm macro with a Canon RF100mm macro. 185 grams vs 730 grams, 82 x 56mm vs 149 x 82mm and less than half the price. Or the Olympus 12-40 f2.8 vs the Canon 24-70 f2.8 - 382 grams vs 900 grams and the Olympus is 40% of the price. The olympus lenses also generally focus closer with more magnification (apart from macro lenses) and will work in smaller domes. On the macro front both are 1:1, however with the 2x crop factor a 1:1 lens fills the frame with a subject half the size on Olympus, so less need for diopters.

Great observations.

However, it must be said that at least Panasonic has somewhat betrayed the spirit of M43 with its camera bodies. In the various iterations, the camera bodies of the top-of-the-line models have become bigger and bigger. I believe a GH5 is bigger than a Sony A7. The GH7 is way bigger than the A7RV.

This is because the video functions generate a lot of heat, and even since the GH6, the camera has had built-in fans.

In the dedicated forums, everyone has been asking for years for a small rangefinder body with all the latest technological advancements. Like a G85 or even a GM5, which on the used market cost almost as much as new ones. Panasonic doesn't seem to listen to its clients. Yet, you just have to look at Fuji with its compacts that have sold a ton.

P.S.

Here I'm adding a rumor that the internet has been talking about for a year and has become a running gag: DJI entering the mirrorless market with a Full Frame.

Many hope for its entry into this market because of its innovative and disruptive capabilities, believing it can shake up a market dominated by the Japanese. It has now been the undisputed leader in the world of drones and gimbals for years. It created an innovative camera like the Ronin 4D, which is also used in cinematic productions.

For now, there is no news.

But if you look at the lens market, it's clear that Chinese brands, which until recently had cheap and good-enough quality products, have now scaled up, aiming for mid-to-high-end products at extremely competitive prices. I'll only mention Viltrox (which started many years ago with simple mount adapters) and now has several AF lenses for Sony and has entered the L-Mount consortium (which DJI is also a part of).

On 9/8/2025 at 12:41 AM, d2b said:

It would be more work, but also more interesting, to put together a size+weight comparison of housing+body+lens+port.

There you go. Did that a while ago, before I was permanently cured from the Full Frame disease. All will depend on the lens/port mostly, albeit housings tend to be heavier as well.

Example below, full spreadsheet attached. A few basic formulas so you can update data on Macro, Standard, WA and Fisheye tabs and the main tables will magically auto update. It has pricing tables too, though numbers there are rather few years out of date.

weight.xlsx

Edited September 9Sep 9 by makar0n

32 minutes ago, makar0n said:

weight.xlsx

Are these Nauticam housings? I just stuck my Nauticam OM-1 housing on the scale with 60mm macro port and 45° viewfinder installed and it's weight was 2.9 kg. No camera inside. Similarly my OM-1 bare camera with battery is 610 gr on my scale. Are those weights for bare camera or do they include lenses etc?

They say phones and AI will kill photography, but what I see is each year more units are sold!!

Wasn't the Spinning Jenny invented in 1764 supposed to kill off the textile trade?

6 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Are these Nauticam housings? I just stuck my Nauticam OM-1 housing on the scale with 60mm macro port and 45° viewfinder installed and it's weight was 2.9 kg. No camera inside. Similarly my OM-1 bare camera with battery is 610 gr on my scale. Are those weights for bare camera or do they include lenses etc?

So "Housing" column refers to not just the body housing but also all "general" ports and stuff one would need to carry i.e. say macro/standard/WA/fisheye. "Camera" would be body + lenses corresponding to the ports choices in the "Housing" column. And "System" would be a sum of both.

Basically my idea was to figure out how much crap I would need to carry travel wise and how does it compare to others. Strobes/arms/focus lights etc are excluded, and so are gadgets like viewfinders.

There is also a separate table listing "System" values for each config.

Each tab (Macro/Standard/WA/Fisheye) has a setup listed for each camera so lens, port, extensions, diopters and whatcha not for each config (so you can also edit and have the main table update on its own, well unless you insert things possibly, formulas are rather simple). Nauticam part numbers are also there. Of course this was based on my assumptions, there could be a better lens choices for some etc. And no wet lenses are included, so a bit outdated to some degree.

All data refers to Nauticam, since they carried all the housings. Note that these are based on whatever I could find on the internet back then, did not have every part to actually weight it (Ha maybe this is an idea - all Waterpixies could contribute and we would have a nice shared Excel with all possible configs and actual weights...). For bodies I suspect some are w/battery, some without. OM1 seems without at 520g, though official weight is 599g with.

Planned to add Aquatica but never really properly started on this one.

Do not be afraid to open the Excel 😂

Edited September 9Sep 9 by makar0n

6 hours ago, makar0n said:

All data refers to Nauticam, since they carried all the housings. Note that these are based on whatever I could find on the internet back then, did not have every part to actually weight it (Ha maybe this is an idea - all Waterpixies could contribute and we would have a nice shared Excel with all possible configs and actual weights...). For bodies I suspect some are w/battery, some without. OM1 seems without at 520g, though official weight is 599g with.

Planned to add Aquatica but never really properly started on this one.

Do not be afraid to open the Excel 😂

Thanks, my OM-1 weighed in at 610 gr with battery and two cards, so seems my scale is close to right and agrees with data. It does prove one thing though that a m43 system is significantly lighter than even Sony full frame - the OM-1 system is only 60% of the weight of the Sony. So the camera size and weight doesn't have as much influence as you might think, the weight of lenses and accessories does add up.

9 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Thanks, my OM-1 weighed in at 610 gr with battery and two cards, so seems my scale is close to right and agrees with data. It does prove one thing though that a m43 system is significantly lighter than even Sony full frame - the OM-1 system is only 60% of the weight of the Sony. So the camera size and weight doesn't have as much influence as you might think, the weight of lenses and accessories does add up.

Probably the main thing that has cured me from the wretched disease - once I add strobes, lights, all small accessories, laptop and other crap that cannot be carried in the hold, then I am on 12-14kg already. With the "generous" 7kg hand baggage allowances airlines have nowadays that already means one sneaky check in with a giant puppy eyes and a smile as wide as a river. Adding another 4-5kg (or more, since ofc you need WACP and not WWL then) is just nope.

Handling is no better - as it is heavier and bigger size wise, getting on/off a rib with swell, or diving in a current and dragging extra cylinders is just no way Jose.

And another important aspect - my skills are nowhere near maxing out m4/3 capabilities. Getting FF at 3x the price (say for a1) would make barely any difference, kinda 80% of the cost for 20% of the quality situation...except here it would be more like few % max unless I would start suffering from a pixel peeping fetish. Better spend the funds on actual diving and practice using what I have. Sure for some real pro's out there this might make sense from a commercial point of view, but how many of those are out there? And they can usually take a better picture with a some basic compact (as in old, bottom of the barell etc, there are some real good choices out there too!) than most of us with a FF I suspect 🤣

So I am keeping my fingers crossed for OM System ;)

Edited September 10Sep 10 by makar0n