Canon takes aim at #1 in mirrorless

Canon issued its corporate strategy conference and it contained some interesting points that relate to Canon's own cameras and imaging systems. What has gained the most notice is that they expect to have the same lens growth per year as they have in 2020-21 until 2026 (Around 8 new lenses per year).  Canon when the EF mount was first announced released a dizzying amount of new lenses, so Canon doing this for the RF mount isn't a real surprise. 

That surprisingly to some, doesn't really excite me all that much - a few reasons; 

• As they did with the EF mount, Canon seems to be doing EF to RF "conversions" where possible, so it's entirely possible we'll see more re-baked EF lenses in the future.
• By suggesting that this is an important way of increasing sales and profit, Canon is suggesting we are going to get more professional versus consumer-grade lenses (ie: expensive lenses).  I have always been one to love Canon's bang for the buck approach when it comes to the EF mount, with various options and a lot of them quite good in the value proposition.  While Canon has a few such lenses for the RF mount, they are few and far between.
• Plans change.

Canon also delivered a warning shot to the other mirrorless companies by stating that they are taking AIM to be the #1 supplier of mirrorless cameras. Canon doesn't make these kinds of corporate targets that often and when they do, they usually hit them.  Canon has to also go far more to the consumer level if they expect this to happen - does this mean that the RF mount gets serious APS-C? I honestly don't think that Canon should continue to have separate mirrorless mounts going forward, but they have waited perhaps too long to pull that bandaid off, and now it's really going to hurt.  Companies such as Sigma and Tamron will also have a say in how quickly Canon can reach these goals.

Canon, to hit their targets for the Imaging Group of 1 trillion Yen (around 8.6 billion USD) also expects to develop new network cameras and systems - including the start of the mass production of their SPAD sensor which can basically see in the dark.

Canon also mentions that nanoimprinting is reaching the stage of mass production.  While I have not seen any reason why nanoimprinting can not be used for sensors, it's never mentioned either by Canon or other sources. Nanoimprinting has the ability to print "wide field" exposures which could mean that multiple IC on wafers gets created at the same time.  Also nanoimprinting can go down to under 5nm in resolution making it far superior to other Canon lithography technology. Of course, the big market for nanoimprinting is the NAND flash memory market, however, if Canon could leverage this technology to make cheaper full-frame sensors, it could be groundbreaking.

• Canon Global