Think about how cool it would be if cameras and lenses were interchangeable. I don’t mean just that you can put any number of lenses on your camera body. I mean if you could buy a camera body made by one manufacturer and mount a lens made by any other manufacturer. A Nikon lens on a Pentax body. Or a Sony lens on a Canon body.

At that point, camera companies would be competing based on price, quality and features.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that is currently the case. Most people, when they go out to buy a camera, are presented with only a small number of options. Walk into most camera stores and you would be lucky to find cameras from more than three manufacturers. (It’s almost always Canon, Nikon and a token “other” brand.) Even among those, you will find only one or two models from each manufacturer. The buying decision is made from among these limited choices and is usually heavily influenced by the “guidance” of the salesman behind the counter.

Here’s the thing, once you’ve bought into a system, you are pretty much stuck with that system forever. The only way out is to sell all your gear (usually for less than you paid for it) and start all over again with a new system. Or to buy and use two systems side-by-side. Both are very expensive propositions.

Most people never even give a serious look at any systems other than the one they’re using. They don’t even know if there’s a more user-friendly menu, or some innovative special feature, or better quality lenses that might be available to them if they were using a different system. They don’t even know if the shape or weight of some other camera might feel better in their hands. Or if another camera’s battery lasts longer. Or one renders certain colors better than another. They are missing out on a lot.

If cameras and lenses were truly universal, you and I could share lenses (or flashes or other accessories) no matter what brand each of us was using. People would spend more time trying out cameras to find one that feels more natural for them to use. Hard-core hobbyists and professionals might get different cameras for special uses; one with a fast frame rate for sports, another that’s weatherproof for hostile shooting environments, a third with great low light performance for nighttime. The whole, pointless debate about which system is better would go away and people could concentrate on what really matters: taking great pictures.

When Olympus first invented the four-thirds mount, they tried making it “open source”. They invited others within the industry to sign on and adopt the standard. A handful did: Leica, Panasonic, Fuji, Kodak. A few others didn’t but probably should have: Sony, Pentax, Konica-Minolta, Sigma. No one ever expected Canon or Nikon to surrender their death grip on their customers.

When looked at from the camera manufacturer’s point of view, there are a few big reasons why not to sign on to this concept of universal interchangeability.

1. It would mean abandoning their old mount. They would be abandoning all their loyal customers who are already invested in the existing configuration. They would also have to retool all their factories for the new standard. (Canon has done this twice in its history, though both times it stuck with a proprietary mount. It was just a different proprietary mount than the one which came before. Then again, even having done this they’ve still managed to become the largest in terms of camera market share.)
2. A measure of pride would be dented by switching to someone else’s standard. Even if they had a hand in developing it, making the switch would be somewhat akin to admitting that the technology and configuration they were touting last year is inferior to the new standard.
3. Worst of all, they would no longer have a captive population of customers. If it were easy for consumers to brand hop, they would have to build brand loyalty through actual quality and value. Maybe they’re doing that now and maybe they’re not. There’s just no way to really know for sure.
4. They would also give up quite a bit of profit potential. It’s not at all uncommon for high-end models from each of the manufacturers to cost three times as much as entry level models. They certainly are better and have more features, but are they really three times better? More to the point, is a high-end model from any given maker “better” than a comparably high-end model of another brand? Or an entry level model for that matter? Camera prices right now are relatively arbitrary. Greater competition between brands would mean pricing that more closely reflects features, quality and value.
5. Most camera company profits are in the glass. A few camera companies price their camera bodies low enough to just barely make a profit on them. This is a sort of loss leader strategy. Because accessory mounts are proprietary, once you buy into their system, you’re locked in for life. There is a very high likelihood that you will buy at least one “better” lens some time throughout your entire lifetime. There’s a fair likelihood that you’ll buy more than one. While it’s true that a good deal of optical precision goes into the making of high quality lenses, there is still room for a good bit of profit in selling lenses and other add-on accessories.

Maybe what I’m dreaming of is completely unreasonable. After all, it is a little like wanting to put a Ford motor and a Subaru hood scoop on my Toyota. Come to think of it, why aren’t cars more universal?