Picture Unusually cold winter during December and January in most places in Japan apparently affected business for many photo imaging dealers. Digital SLRs, however, were certainly a sunny spot in the cold winter, reports Camera Times, a trade weekly.

In Osaka, the second largest market in Japan, digital SLRs became a timely savior for some specialty dealers. “Without Canon EOS 5D and Nikon D200, I don’t know where we would be,” confides an Osaka specialty dealer, continuing, “With those DSLR sales we were able to make more or less the same level of profit as last year.”

The dealer also says that best selling DSLR brand at his shop is Canon taking some 40 percent followed by Nikon at 20 percent, and others at 10 percent. Expensive lenses list-priced at around ¥200,000 (US$1,700) sold quite well, too. He looks forward to a good business in spring when Konica Minolta/Sony, Olympus/Panasonic, Pentax/Samsung are all expected to come out with new digital SLRs borne out of their collaborations. As digital SLRs sold well in his shop, 512MB memory cards were in short supply and the card business also gave him due profit, reports the journal.