Top Camera Manufacturers • PhotoTraces

Are you struggling to determine the best camera brands that exist today? Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the number of camera brands on the market, and you’re just not sure where to turn?

You’ve come to the right place.

Because this article is going to give you an overview of all the best camera manufacturers out there. You’ll discover who they are and what they offer.

First, I’ll talk about the biggest and most relevant players in today’s camera market: Canon, Nikon, and Sony. For many years, Canon and Nikon have dominated the digital photography space–but in recent years, Sony has become the main competitor (particularly in the mirrorless market).

Next, I’ll discuss smaller brands, such as Fujifilm (which creates APS-C cameras and recently entered the medium-format market), Panasonic (which uses its own Micro Four Thirds system to create quality cameras), and Olympus (which designed the original Four Thirds system and working on an impressive mirrorless lineup).

By the time you’ve finished this article,
you’ll know all about the major camera brands–and you’ll come away knowing the
best camera brand for your photography.

Let’s dive right in.

Global Digital Camera Brands Market Share

Five brands dominate the global digital camera market. Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fujifilm, and Panasonic are the major players in this space. According to recent reports, Canon tops the list with 47.9% market share, followed by Sony with 22.1%, and Nikon claiming 13.7%. Fujifilm and Panasonic follow with 5.6% and 4.4%, respectively. It shows a clear dominance of Canon over other digital camera brands. 

However, you should take into consideration that Canon and Nikon still sell plenty of DSLR cameras. At the same time, Sony, Fujifilm, and Panasonic only manufacture mirrorless camera models.

If we check the dynamic from 2020 to 2021, we can see an increase in the market share of Canon, Sony, and Fujifilm at the expense of Nikon, Panasonic, and other smaller players such as Olympus.

Global Mirrorless Camera Brands Market Share

The global mirrorless camera market is an ever-evolving industry, with various brands competing for the top market share.

Sony and Fujifilm have about 10 years of a headstart on Canon and Nikon. But in recent years, Nikon and primarily Canon heavy invest in mirrorless technologies. As a result, Canon is about to catch up with the biggest player in the mirrorless market, Sony.

Currently, there are five major players in this field: Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, and Panasonic. According to recent statistics, Sony holds the largest portion of the market share at 32,1%, followed by Canon with 28,2%, Fujifilm at 11,6%, and Nikon at 6,8%.

Best Camera Brands Today

As I explained above, this article reviews the biggest camera brands and explains their place in today’s digital camera world.

The first brands on this list are the most relevant to photography today

And while the remaining brands are still
important, they don’t come close to competing with the big players in the camera
space.

Now let’s take a look at the biggest camera
company out there:

1. Canon

The Canon brand is the current leader in the
camera space, though Canon is most known for its high-quality DSLRs and DSLR
lens lineup.

The Canon company was founded in 1937 and is responsible for a number of milestones across the 20th century: Canon was the first company to include a micro-computer in a camera, it was the first company to produce a camera with eye-controlled AF, and it was the first company to produce an image-stabilized lens available to the masses.

Canon EOS R6
Canon’s best selling full frame mirrorless camera

Even as the market has shrunk, Canon has
maintained the largest product line in the camera industry. The company still
produces its own (full-frame and APS-C) sensors, as well as cameras, lenses,
and accessories.

Today, Canon offers several lines of hobbyist and professional DSLRs, including the vaunted 1D X series, the 5D series, and the Rebel series. New iterations of Canon cameras include Canon’s Dual-Pixel autofocus, allowing for ultra-fast focusing in Live View (something other camera brands still struggle with). Canon also offers high-quality point-and-shoot cameras, such as the Canon Powershot series.

Canon EOS R10
Canon’s best selling mirrorless APS-C camera

For many years, Nikon has been Canon’s main competitor – but the rise of Sony has added another contender for the top spot in the imaging business. While Canon has dominated Sony in the DSLR space, Sony has been a mirrorless powerhouse; this is an area where Canon is currently lagging but making great strides in an effort to become competitive.

Over the next few years, expect to see Canon
shift its focus more heavily to its full-frame mirrorless lineup.

Best Selling Canon Camera Models

2. Nikon

For many years, Nikon has been Canon’s main competitor, with the two imaging companies battling it out in the consumer and professional camera field. While Canon has consistently claimed the top spot, the Nikon Corporation is actually older–it was founded in 1917 by three big manufacturers of optics and quickly rose to become a leading optics business.

Nikon Z7
Nikon’s flagship full frame mirrorless camera

Nikon’s current product lineup includes some of the best DSLRs available, such as the Nikon D850 and the Nikon D5 (soon to be followed by the D6), as well as three powerful mirrorless options (the Z6 and Z7 for full-frame users and the Z50 as an APS-C snapper). Nikon also owns the Coolpix lineup of point-and-shoot cameras.

In some areas, Nikon is the most vaunted imagining company out there, frequently chosen by professionals due to its incredible image quality and dynamic range capabilities. But Nikon has recently fallen behind Sony in several key areas, including overall camera sales, and is scrambling to catch up in the mirrorless market. Plus, Nikon struggles to compete with Canon and Sony’s phase-detection focusing technology – which holds back Nikon DSLRs when working in Live View.

Nikon Z50
Nikon’s best selling mirrorless APS-C camera

Like Canon, Nikon has lagged in terms of mirrorless adoption and is currently feeling the effects of this shift; while the Nikon Z6 and Z7 were hailed as an impressive entry into the full-frame mirrorless kingdom, the company has a long way to go before it can go toe-to-toe with the likes of the Sony A7 series.

Best Selling Nikon Camera Models

3. Sony

While Sony was founded back in 1946, the company only produced its first digital camera in 1988. And it wasn’t until Sony acquired Konica Minolta’s camera division in 2006 that Sony’s camera business really took off, putting Sony in a position to compete with the other leading camera makers allowing the corporate giant to dominate the mirrorless industry.

Sony a7 III
Sony’s top selling full frame mirrorless camera

Today, Sony is the world’s largest manufacturer of digital sensors – and even supplies some of its main competitors with camera sensors, including Nikon, Fujifilm, and Panasonic. Not to mention that Sony dominates the smartphone camera sensor market, producing around 70% of the world’s smartphone sensors.

Related: Sony a6100 vs a6400

This dominance in sensor technology gives Sony
a key advantage when it comes to producing their own APS-C and full-frame
cameras: Sony leverages this expertise to build cameras with incredible image
quality and the most accurate focusing system available. Plus, Sony’s huge
market cap allows the company to innovate with incredible speed, to produce
cameras such as the Sony a7R IV, the a6600, and the a9 Mark II.  

Sony a6600
Sony’s top rated mirrorless APS-C camera

Sony’s only weakness, if you could call it that, is its ergonomics – the small camera bodies, combined with small grips, don’t offer the ease of use that Canon’s DSLR cameras offer.

Best Selling Sony Camera Models

4. Fujifilm

Fujifilm is a company known for its APS-C mirrorless cameras, and, most recently, its medium-format cameras. At the time of writing, Fujifilm ranks as the fourth-largest player in the digital camera industry.

Fujifilm has a long history in the camera market, going all the way back to 1934 – and it spent a number of years competing with the dominant force in the camera industry at the time, Eastman Kodak.

Fujifilm XT5
arguably the best APS-C camera today

While Canon, Nikon, and Sony focus heavily on technical prowess and cutthroat profitability, Fujifilm is known for its unusual products and unique method of doing business. Fujifilm cares deeply about camera aesthetics, creating carefully-designed retro-style cameras that feature mechanical dials and an old-timey film look (though the cameras themselves pack high-quality digital sensors).

Related: Switching from Sony to Fujifilm

Fujifilm also invests heavily in color science in order to mimic the look of Fuji classic films, and the company regularly releases firmware updates years after a camera has been released, something unusual in today’s innovation-focused world.

Fujifilm XS10
best entry-level APS-C camera today

These days, Fujifilm is most known for its APS-C mirrorless cameras, including the X-T3, a very affordable but high-quality crop-sensor body, as well as its medium format cameras, including the 100 megapixel GFX 100.

Best Selling Fujifilm Camera Models

5. Panasonic

Panasonic began as an electrics company back in 1918 but went on to become the producer of Lumix digital cameras, including the lauded Panasonic Lumix S1R and Panasonic Lumix S1 full-frame mirrorless cameras. Panasonic teamed up with Leica to create full-frame mirrorless lenses, resulting in Lumix Leica lenses.

Despite its recent forays into a full-frame mirrorless territory, Panasonic invests much of its business in Micro Four Thirds cameras, having developed the Micro Four Thirds System with Olympus. This is reflected in lens compatibility, as you can use Olympus lenses on Panasonic cameras.

Panasonic LUMIX GH6
top choice for video recording

Note that Panasonic also specializes in video recording and is a leading brand among videographers.

Best Selling Panasonic Camera Models

6. Olympus

The Olympus camera business goes all the way back to 1936 and has successfully navigated the waves of digital and mirrorless explosions to offer high-quality mirrorless and DSLRs to today’s consumers.

Olympus designed (with Kodak) its own camera
system, designed specifically for DSLRs: the Four Thirds System. This was then
developed by Olympus and Panasonic into the Micro Four Thirds system, which is
used by a number of companies (Olympus and Panasonic among them).

Olympus E-M1 Mark III
Olympus’ flagship mirrorless model

The Four Thirds System utilizes crop-sensor
technology to create high-quality digital images, and with Olympus’s camera
bodies has come effective in-body image stabilization and impressive
weather-sealing. While Olympus is hardly at the top of the digital camera pack,
it has remained a solid contender in the industry thus far.

Best Selling Olympus Camera Models

7. Pentax

These days, it’s tough to find a camera brand that isn’t investing heavily in mirrorless tech–unless you look at Pentax.

While Canon and Nikon struggle to catch up to
Sony’s mirrorless lineups, Pentax stubbornly remains a producer of full-frame
and medium-format DSLRs, including the Pentax K-1 and the Pentax 645 series.

Pentax was created in November 1919, though
the company has experienced some turbulent changes in recent years. In 2006,
Pentax merged with Hoya. Then in 2011, the Pentax imaging business was
purchased by Ricoh, which is now pushing its current focus on DSLRs.

Pentax K-1 Mark II
Pentax top rated full frame DSLR camera

While Pentax is famous for its impressively
durable DSLRs, it remains to be seen whether the company’s DSLR-focused
approach will survive the mirrorless onslaught.

Best Selling Pentax Camera Models

8. Leica

Leica was founded in 1869 and was a big player in the film game–though the digital turn has left Leica treading water in recent years.

These days, Leica focuses on its L-mount
mirrorless cameras, including APS-C and full-frame camera bodies. And in 2018,
Leica, Sigma, and Panasonic created a series of L-mount lenses that can be used
on both Leica and Panasonic camera bodies.

While Leica offers beautiful aesthetics and
amazing design, cameras and lenses are overpriced and underdeveloped; in other
words, the company has struggled to stay fresh in an increasingly tech-focused
world.

Leica Q – $5K APS-C camera

9. Hasselblad

Hasselblad is an imagining company with a rich history, going all the way back to 1841. Hasselblad produces high-end imagining equipment, and focuses almost entirely on medium-format cameras (which were used to capture images by Apollo program astronauts).

In 2020, Hasselblad offers a number of
medium-format cameras, including the X1D-50c, which was hailed as the first
mirrorless medium-format digital camera ever made. Cameras like these
consistently cost over $6000, making Hasselblad cameras a tool of professionals
alone.

10. Kodak

Mention film photography, and people immediately think ‘Kodak,’ – for a good reason. Eastman Kodak is the company that invented color film photography and dominated the film photography business for much of the 20th century.

Though Kodak was the company to invent digital
photography, it failed to account for the digital explosion. This led to
financial insolvency in the 2000s, at which point the company declared
bankruptcy and sold off a slew of its patents. While Kodak still exists as a
company, it no longer produces camera equipment.

So while you can find used Kodak equipment at camera shops and on eBay, any new camera gear bearing the Kodak label is produced by none-Kodak manufacturers who license the Kodak name.

FAQ: Best Camera Brands

Why Do People Love Fujifilm So Much?

As a Fujifilm shooter, I can tell why I love Fujifilm cameras. 

First, it is because of their aesthetics, unique form factor, and controls. Fujifilm cameras are like a natural bridge between film and digital photography. Inside, it has all the advanced tech as any other brand but uses unique mechanical controls that mimic old film cameras. Some people like it, but some prefer a more modern design. 

Before shooting with Fujifilm, I used Canon and Sony cameras, and I prefer the mechanical dials approach for controlling the camera.

Second, Fujifilm has a customer-friendly approach to updating old cameras through firmware updates. You can have a 3-year-old model and then upgrade its software for free, extending its functionality to the latest features that did not exist when you bought the camera. It eliminates the need to upgrade your cameras often to have access to the newest tech.

Is Fujifilm Better Than Canon

If you evaluate the two brands, Canon is still the photography industry leader. It has an unprecedented number of camera and lens models. No matter what type of photography you do, Canon has a combination of the camera body and quality lens for you. 

But if you look at one segment of digital cameras, crop sensor (APS-C) cameras, Fujifilm has an edge. 

Fujifilm’s advantage is that it does not manufacture Full Frame cameras, and all its efforts and RND budget are invested in the APS-C cameras and lenses. On the other hand, Canon emphasizes the Full Frame market and, as a result, neglects the crop sensor segment. Since I have no plans to switch from an APS-C to a Full Frame model, Fujifilm builds better cameras for my needs.

But at the same time, if I had to use Canon cameras, it would not limit my photography. It is just more fun to use Fujifilm.

Does Fujifilm Use Sony Sensors?

In the modern times of global consolidation, all camera manufacturers, except Canon, use Sony sensors. Sony is today’s biggest and most advanced manufacturer of digital sensors.

Even though Fujifilm uses Sony sensors, it managed to put a unique spin on it. It developed an X-trans filter array. The filter array is responsible for interpreting the colors captured by digital sensors. It means that if you have 2 identical Sony sensors used by different companies, Fujifilm will produce a different look and image quality.

Once again, some photographers love X-trans sensors, but some prefer a traditional Bayer filter array (Nikon, Sony, Pansonic, Olympus).

Even though X-trans sensors bring some challenges, their advantages justify their existence. I learned how to deal with challenges and want Fujifilm to continue using the X-trans sensors.

What is the Best Canon Camera for Beginners?

There are plenty of choices for beginners in the Canon line of digital cameras.

Canon still manufactures DSLR camera models, which are a fantastic choice for beginners. For example, Canon Rebel T8i is a great choice.

If you want to take a mirrorless approach, the apparent choice is Canon EOS R10.

Do any Professional Photographers Use Nikon?

Absolutely. In recent years Nikon had bad press because of its marketing missteps. Even now, Nikon is struggling financially. But it never prevented Nikon from designing and manufacturing great cameras.

Today, Nikon sells the best DSLR cameras ever made in both full-frame and APS-C segments (D850 and D500).

Plus, Nikon has the most loyal users. They had to wait a little longer for Nikon to produce top-notch mirrorless modes, but today, Nikon has a complete mirrorless line of cameras, from entry-level to pro-level models (Z50, Z5, Z7).

Is Canon Easier to Use than Nikon?

No, it is not. Two leading brands have different menu systems, different ways of customization, and body designs. I can not say that one brand is easier to use than another; it is just different. You need to learn and get used to it.

Is Nikon Discontinuing DSLR Cameras?

I don’t have inside information regarding the Nikon DSLR line, but at the time of writing, Nikon still manufactures and sells DSLR modes. And D3500 and D5600 models are still great choices for beginners.

Is Fujifilm Better than Sony 

Both brands manufacture excellent APS-C cameras. I switched to Fujifilm after shooting for 4 years with Sony models (a6xxx). I prefer Fujifilm. But I have to admit it is a personal preference.

See also: Fujifilm vs Sony

But since Fujifilm does not produce full-frame cameras, Sony has an edge in this segment.

If, at some point, I decide to move from the APS-C form factor to Full Frame, the obvious choice will be Sony.

But I believe that Fujifilm produces better APS-C cameras.

Is Canon Rebel Good for Beginners?

The Canon Rebel is the most popular line in digital photography of all time. Most professional photographers working today started their journey with Rebels (including myself).

And even today, Canon Rebels is an excellent choice for anybody starting with photography. But at the same time, I suggest starting with the mirrorless model Canon R10. Mirrorless is the future, and DSLR is the past.

Best Camera Brands | Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve finished this article, you
should be familiar with the top ten camera brands out there today–and you
should have a sense of the perfect camera brand for your needs.

Remember that Nikon, Canon, and Sony are the ‘big three’ among the digital camera companies, while Fujifilm, Olympus, and Panasonic are more specialized brands. Pentax, Leica, and Hasselblad, are struggling to remain relevant unless you’re in the market for a medium-format camera (Hasselblad), and Kodak is now completely obsolete.

So pick a camera brand and get shooting!

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