TIPA WORLD AWARDS 2019
Regular readers of this magazine will know that our mirrorlessversus-D-SLR discussions have been going on for quite a while, gaining more momentum as the higher-spec mirrorless cameras started to arrive from the likes of Fujifilm, Olympus, Sony and Panasonic. Now, of course, both Canon and Nikon are in on the act with their full-35mm format systems, so it’s only natural to assume that this is having some sort of impact on the D-SLR market. But we’ve only been assuming… until now.
This is partly because the sales figures for D-SLRs haven’t really shown much of a decline despite the steadily increasing choice of competitive mirrorless cameras becoming available. Perhaps this isn’t all that surprising given there’s still a good range of models available from entry-level to high-end. However, this will inevitably change because the sobering truth – dramatically revealed with this year’s judging of the annual TIPA World Awards – is that the number of new D-SLRs being released has slowed to a trickle. And a very small trickle at that, because during the period of eligibility for the 2019 awards, there was just one new D-SLR introduced. One. Un. Ein. Uno. Yī. And this camera wasn’t a brand new design either, but actually an updating of an existing one. Slim pickings indeed. So, as a result, this year’s TIPA World Awards has just one category for D-SLRs – logically called ‘Best D-SLR Camera’ – versus four in 2018 and six back in 2016.
We all sort of knew this was happening, but here’s the hard evidence and, to be honest, it’s just a little bit sad because for a great many of us, the D-SLR has been at the heart of our photography for a very long time. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and what’s on offer with the current crop of mirrorless cameras is very exciting… as evidenced by the winners in the expanded eight categories for the configuration in this year’s awards – with sensor sizes from Micro Four Thirds to medium format.
How Does It Work?
The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) is a non-profit group of photography magazines – established back in 1991 – dedicated to maintaining high standards of independent and reliable editorial content as well as recognising and rewarding excellence and innovation in the design of imaging products.
TIPA started out as predominantly a European organisation, but over the last decade or so has expanded its horizons to gain a more global reach. Today, there are TIPA member magazines in the USA, Canada, China, India, Brazil, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Hungary and, of course, Australia. Additionally, the Japanese Camera Journal Press Club is, collectively, a single member, so TIPA represents around 40 photo magazines with a huge readership world-wide. A key benefit of membership – apart the ongoing requirement to maintain standards of presentation and content – is the ability to communicate with other editors, see what they’re doing with their magazines, share information and ideas, and gain more of a global perspective about what’s happening in our industry. Each market is different – economically, socially and geographically – but there’s the common objective of promoting photography via publications that are informative, entertaining and inspirational. TIPA also runs its own program of independent camera testing via the Cologne-based test labs of Image Engineering. These results are made available to member magazines who can use them as they see fit. At we use these test charts
