Demand For High-End Cameras is Soaring (economist.com)
- Reference: 0175016151
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/09/17/1546226/demand-for-high-end-cameras-is-soaring
- Source link: https://www.economist.com/business/2024/09/12/demand-for-high-end-cameras-is-soaring
The Camera and Imaging Products Association reports the average camera price has tripled in six years as manufacturers shift focus to high-end models. Fujifilm's X100 series, launched in February at $1,600, is sold out and commanding higher prices on secondary markets. Nikon and other brands are [2]following suit , prioritizing premium offerings. From a report:
> In a Japanese interview with Yomiuri, Nikon's president, Muneaki Tokunari, acknowledged that while smartphones harmed overall sales of digital interchangeable lens cameras, they may contribute to the demand for high-end cameras. Not many years removed from dire straits, Tokunari also outlined Nikon's ambitious expansion plans, including its recent acquisition of RED Digital Cinema.
>
> Tokunari says that many camera businesses were recently operating at a loss and that some competitors excited the photo business altogether. This was, unsurprisingly, driven in large part by the massive growth of the smartphone market and the improving quality of smartphone cameras, which reached the "good enough" stage the late Steve Jobs predicted years before the camera industry felt the sting of smartphones.
>
> However, "We are now in an age where smartphones and digital cameras can coexist," Tokunari explains in the machine-translated Yomiuri interview, initially spotted by Digicame-Info. "Global sales of digital cameras have fallen to one-twentieth of their peak. However, domestic companies are doing well. The top five companies hold most of the world's market share. This is a rare example in Japanese industry."
[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2024/09/12/demand-for-high-end-cameras-is-soaring
[2] https://www.economist.com/business/2024/09/12/demand-for-high-end-cameras-is-soaring
Leica is high...but those others? (Score:2)
Alright, Leica's are $$$.
But the Fuji crop cameras are not $$$....just average priced. The GFX digital "medium format" cameras, while a bit more money, aren't outrageous in price.
And with Canon and Nikon..they have models in all ranges.
The thing is, there are still quality and looks issues you can do with full camera bodies with larger sensors and higher quality interchangeable glass.
Hell, adopting older vintage lenses on a modern camera will give you looks for video and stills you just can't get on a
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The Fujifilm X100 is $1200 MSRP. The X100VI is $2,0000. Not the 6-8K that the Leica Q3 goes for but I'd still call that $$$ for a fixed-lens camera when you can get technically comparable cameras from their competitors for around $500.
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> The Fujifilm X100 is $1200 MSRP. The X100VI is $2,0000. Not the 6-8K that the Leica Q3 goes for but I'd still call that $$$ for a fixed-lens camera when you can get technically comparable cameras from their competitors for around $500.
Ok...guess it depends on your disposable income, and interest and intent on cameras.
Photography has, historically, NEVER been a cheap hobby.
I work semi-pro on my stuff...I don't do it for a living, but I do it to make money on some of it...and I like shooting concerts, etc.
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> And with Canon and Nikon..they have models in all ranges.
Having models and developing modes are two different things. Both Canon and Nikon have announced they are abandoning the low end camera world and have actively made moves in that direction for several years now. Which makes sense since you're competing with smartphones when you develop a sub $1000 camera. There's no roadmap announced by Nikon for a Z30/Z50 replacement. They already bailed from DSLR (Canon still produces high end DSLR and has stopped manufacture of low end ones). Both have announced the end
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I pretty much play only in the pro or semi-pro area with photography.
DSLRs are dead...no one's using the mirror slappers anymore.
I've retired my old Canon 5D3....getting the new R5II....mirrorless.
But yeah....point and shoots are dead, with few exceptions like the Leica Q3.
But there will still be several models, for instance...Canon will still have the R6's for awhile and I think there is a R7 with a crop sensor?
I know Sony still has several models and so does Nikon.
But yeah..point and shoots and VERY
OF (Score:2)
How much of this demand is driven by OF? That's the question I have.
I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
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I highly doubt many "professional" photographers or cinematographers are filming on iPhones. Don't get me wrong cell phone cameras have come a long way and look nice, but dedicated cameras have also benefited from the same advances in technology and look comparatively even better.
And the reality is that for OnlyFans the "fans" would likely be far more forgiving of camera quality compared to other types of work.
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Thanks for your post, I was struggling to understand what "OF" meant! Which is exactly not what I wanted to be searching for on my work computer.
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I am not an OnlyFans subscriber, so I can't make any definitive statements. However, OnlyFans is very competitive. A small number of people seem to make a lot of money. For everybody else, they are fighting to get attention. You even see aspiring starlets buying paid ads on other social media. Once somebody is a "fan" of a creator, I guess maybe they forgive camera quality, but if you are trying to stand out among thousands, I imagine that the initial images that people see are a make or break moment.
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> I am not an OnlyFans subscriber, so I can't make any definitive statements. However, OnlyFans is very competitive. A small number of people seem to make a lot of money.
I suppose even if they don't make much, they are pretty relaxed.
I watched a OF content creator giving an interview (on a podcast) and she said that she does solo work, and it gets hard to get up for the daily grind (I decided to leave that sentence as is.) but she makes less than a thousand a month for daily masturbation videos. Other than the very few, for most, it's like that.
What is worse, after they decide to stop, it's all out there, and once on the intertoobz, it's somewhere, forever.
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https://www.imdb.com/list/ls099338955/
https://www.cashify.in/12-movies-which-you-never-knew-were-shot-completely-on-iphone
Look at the specs on the latest iPhone. It's more than capable and exceeds a lot of what was used even a couple years ago, costing many times more.
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> https://www.imdb.com/list/ls099338955/
> https://www.cashify.in/12-movies-which-you-never-knew-were-shot-completely-on-iphone
> Look at the specs on the latest iPhone. It's more than capable and exceeds a lot of what was used even a couple years ago, costing many times more.
Spec wars. Now how are the tiny lenses better than the big ones on the DSLRs?
The lenses mean a lot. Look up the specs on the Nikon D1 camera. Abysmal by today's standards. But I've made good quality 16 by 20's from them.
I hope you do know you are arguing for smartphone superiority over professional equipment with professionals and artists here. Not a great look.
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These cameras are not great at video. For example the X100 is a $1,200 camera that can only do 720p 24fps. There are way better video focused cameras for that price.
You're incorrect - need an eye exam? (Score:2)
> I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
If you think that, you haven't viewed a FF vs iPhone on a monitor...or you have BAD cataracts. The difference is massive, especially indoors. I might get tricked if it's a beach shot on a sunny day and there's too much light to handle, but there's no scenario where you wouldn't need to wear sunglasses in which an iPhone looks anywhere as good as a Full Frame camera with a good lens from the same year. The difference is massive as a FF sensor would be VERY cumbersome in a phone and if you could get the sa
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... not once did I say an iPhone compares to a FF camera. lol
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> Pros don't use phones. The quality is terrible. There's a reason YouTubers and porn producers buy real cameras and it's not out of boredom or hipsterism. Next time you're around a buddy with a good camera, have him take a picture indoors with a good camera and one with the best smartphone on the market...now view it on a 4k display. You'll see why you're incorrect.
True, dat.
When used within their "sweet spot" the phone cameras do an okay job. Good lighting, no zooming, and no speeding objects. But damn, that sweet spot is pretty small. And there's a reason modern smartphones have 3 separate lenses. You can't do a real zoom lens so you have to have different lenses to minimize just blowing up pixels to pretend zoom. And people often discover just how awful the images are if they zoom way in, in low light conditions.
The technology to make a tiny lens that has a p
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> Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
Bullshit.
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> How much of this demand is driven by OF? That's the question I have.
> I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
Why wouldn't the ladies take their OF pussy pix with the iPhones if the quality is so good that iphones are placing the professional equipment? Think about it.
Anyhow, I have an iphone 13 pro max, and while I've taken some decent images and vids with it, it is severly limited in in camera effects. No pull focus, the rolling shutter problem, the lack of control over DOF. I could maybe do documentaries with no effects, but can't imagine doing full featured work.
Same for an Android, in case someone thinks
Mirrorless (Score:3)
My daughter had an assignment to take some nature pictures. She doesn't have a phone so I gave her our old Sony NEX mirrrorless camera that doesn't see much use anymore. I hooked up the fast 50mm prime lens, showed her how to use the scene dial and sent her off.
The pictures she took are better than those made by my wife's new iPhone. They are more detailed and have better depth of field. Colors look better, too. The NEX is about ten years old at this point. My daughter had never used a real camera before and took fantastic shots.
While steadily improving, phone cameras are still no substitute for a real camera with a big sensor and a whole bunch of lens in front of it.
Re: Mirrorless (Score:3)
Because there is no depth of field with a phone lens. Only a fake blurred background
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Mirrorless is certainly much better than a phone camera, in that regard - but full-frame, in turn, has the advantage over the typically smaller mirrorless sensors.
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> Because there is no depth of field with a phone lens. Only a fake blurred background
Ugh, you are spot on. The fake blur just doesn't look right at all.
Depth of field is all about the weirdly named "circles of confusion" which means that as the distance grows further away from the focus distance, the individual "points" of the image will become larger and larger circles. And the receding circles tend to grow at a lesser rate than the approaching circles. And the circles all over lap, so the result is blurriness dependent on distance.
I tried to simplify this, because I think I might be
This is not surprising (Score:2)
Phone cameras are good enough for snapshots
The market for simple, cheap cameras is dead
People who either want superior image quality or have enough money to afford an expensive trinket, get a premium camera
I use a Sony A7-IV, shoot RAW and use post processing software. I get excellent results, far better than a phone can deliver
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The market for simple cheap cameras is the mobile phone market now. And they've gotten good enough that, to be better, you need larger sensors and more glass. Unfortunately, those things are expensive, so it's not a surprise to me that the high end market is flourishing. However, sensors are now cheap enough that I would hope you could get a good body for about 1k. For a 6k rig, I would want to think that the rest of the money was in the glass.
fashion (Score:2)
It's a fashion accessory for assholes.
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Oh so you must own several then
Military uses? (Score:3)
With Ukraine war blowing the lid off drones of all kinds being mainstream military tech, powered mainly by off the shelf civilian technologies it makes me wonder. Those fixed wing medium cost drones that operate high end cameras on a platform that's in low six digit cost. Where do their camera modules and lenses come from?
Note that I'm not talking about cheaper everpresent Mavics and other quadcopter drones and their clones doing low end reconnaissance, but the medium end fixed wing drones that all are found from both sides with integration of "whatever we can find on the market for good price and suitable performance". Though it's quite possible that these camera modules are used in the upper end quad copters as well.
It seems that a lot of this boom is in fact same as ongoing boom in other drone parts. Civilian technology repurposed for military use, because it's actually better and cheaper than military grade hardware made for same purpose.
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You can order MIPI camera modules by the tray, with CSI being the most common and the widest range of capabilities. For the most part you can hook up a wide range of camera modules to a device's CSI port. Some microcontrollers and SoCs have multiple MIPI/CSI ports and can handle multiple streams (multiple ISPs and multiple encoders).
I think if I wanted to order camera modules for fairly sophisticated industrial uses, like on a drone. I would go for ones for automotive use because they handle temperature ext
Well, it makes sense (Score:2)
There's high end cameras, and phones for everything else.
Pro tip: If you stay one major release behind the curve, there are some hot deals on ebay, where people are dropping last year's model for this year's flavor.
My Sony A7R5 cost quite a lot (Score:2)
I got on the AR7 price escalator. I moved across from Canon DSLR to the new hotness - the Sony mirrorless full frame camera. The first one being the A7R was relatively inexpensive. I got the A7RII, A7RIII, skipped the A7RIV, but then bit the bullet and ponied up the large sums of cash for the A7RV. I absolutely love the camera and it's a lot better than the first generation, but I wished it didn't cost 3x s much for something which is in the same product line as the original. It feels like I'm on the Sony
AU (Score:2)
Except now how can you know whether a beautiful photo is taken at a nice place with a good camera or just an AI fabrication?
Appearances partly responsible (Score:3)
Pro photographers find it harder to charge people money for photos taken with a cellphone. It needs to *look* professional.
With that said, there are applications for high-end cameras that are very much required. Cellphones don't have interchangeable lenses, greatly limiting the flexibility for true enthusiasts.
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> Pro photographers find it harder to charge people money for photos taken with a cellphone. It needs to *look* professional.
Correct. Most clients would feel very pissed off if the pro they were paying thousands for turned up with a phone camera which was possibly not even as good as the one they had in their own pocket.
My father was a pro photographer in film days. That was when every Tom DIck and Sally had a 35mm SLR, probably an "amateur" Pentax K1000 or Olympus OM10. Sure, there were professional 35 mm cameras like the Pentax LX and Nikon F3, but they all looked the same to a casual onlooker. So my father used a medium fo
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Hey, don't make fun of the Pentax K1000! That was my first "real" camera! Pretty amazing, actually, because it required *no* battery to operate. The only thing the battery did was power the light meter.
Wealth disparity (Score:3)
explains this. The top 10% or 20% vs. bottom 80%. Refs:
[1]https://usafacts.org/articles/... [usafacts.org]
[2]https://static01.nyt.com/image... [nyt.com]
"To be in the bottom 50% meant a family had less than $122,000 in wealth. That represented about 64.3 million, or half of, families in 2019, owning just 1% of the nation’s wealth. Further, of this group, some 13.4 million families (about 1 in 10) had negative net worth: they didn’t even have a slice of the pie."
[1] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-this-chart-explains-americans-wealth-across-income-levels/
[2] https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/09/opinion/inequality-hppromo/inequality-hppromo-superJumbo-v2.png
Likely a fad. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sens
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For some people, certainly. For serious photographers, glass matters. You will never get the quality of a Leica lens from a smartphone, regardless of how much the sensor and image enhancement is improved. In this case, size matters.
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OK but this "premium" camera market sector is a bit different - it's not about full-frame (or bigger) DSLRs and big glass - it's more about the camera as an object of attention in itself.
Fujifilm's own ad copy for the X100 says it best:
> the stunning 6th-generation X100VI offers an indulgent, tactile image-making experience that delivers unforgettable content in every creative moment.
That screams "influencer," not "professional photographer."
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In the case of Leica, the cameras (and lenses) are both art objects and superb devices. The use demographic is, indeed, mixed between professional photogs and influencers, but the same was true of high-end DSLR and later high-end mirrorless cameras. What really brought (some of) the Leicas to influencers' attention - as well as Fuji - is the size and known glam-feedback-loop.
Leica is the Rolls Royce, not the Mercedes/Lexus (Score:2)
A Leica is a rolls royce...a status symbol. Most pros use Sony now, with strong segments in Canon and Nikon and a few using Fuji's relatively new GFX format. I am sure they're a joy to use, but their pro share is drastically dwarfed by more serious camera makers.
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> A Leica is a rolls royce...a status symbol. Most pros use Sony now, with strong segments in Canon and Nikon and a few using Fuji's relatively new GFX format. I am sure they're a joy to use, but their pro share is drastically dwarfed by more serious camera makers.
I dunno...I don't know any other company that is making a full frame dedicated monochromatic camera besides Leica.
I LOVE my M10M....use it all the time.
I think Phase One makes one, but it's at least $36K for back alone I think?
I did think I hea
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> And as far as the Fuji GRX line...those bodies have come down in price to be actually competitive with the upper line Canon's and Sony's....the GFX100 II S is like $4999.....that thing is amazing....
> I'd certainly consider these to be serious camera makers, no?
Good cameras are like any other commodity, people will have their preferences. For myself, my next camera will probably be the Zfc Nikon, with the adapter for the F mount lenses. I don't know if this is considered a High End or not at around a kilobuck. But it reminds me of and feels like the old Nikon F2 camera I cut my teeth on, and I have a lot of older Nikon lenses.
That's the important part for me - I still use classics like the 55mm Micro-Nikkor with its superb flat field performance. And I'd buy the
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> For myself, my next camera will probably be the Zfc Nikon
The only Nikons I own are still the old 35mm ones, AND I have the lenses to go with them...
I've been toying with gettin the ZF (I want to stay full frame, not crop sensor, and the price different isn't that much)....because I too like the external controls.
I'd likely use it only to adapt lenses to....both my old Nikkor F lenses as well as a lot of vintage glass I've been having a lot of fun with...especially some of the old soviet lenses and the tr
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> For serious photographers, glass matters.
And truly "serious photographers" have never been anywhere near the majority of the market. Leica's "record sales" (whatever that means) nothwithstanding, smartphone cameras gutted the market for dSLRs and mirrorless cameras - as the Nikon exec admitted.
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>> For serious photographers, glass matters.
> And truly "serious photographers" have never been anywhere near the majority of the market. Leica's "record sales" (whatever that means) nothwithstanding, smartphone cameras gutted the market for dSLRs and mirrorless cameras - as the Nikon exec admitted.
They sure did. And DSLR's are nowhere near as convenient to take nude twerking or dick pix with as a a smartphone. Outside of professional or "Prosumer" use, the purpose built cameras like SLR, or DSLR were kind of like Vanity items. I have a collection of Nikon Lenses that I parted with a lot of money to pick up, so Ima getting a mirrorless Nikon for Christmas.
Re:Likely a fad. (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends. The modern celebrities that kids want to emulate are Youtubers. Cell phone cameras look Ok for that, but any halfway decent dedicated camera looks better.
A lot of people go through the phase of giving the social media influencer thing a try and end up buying a decently expensive camera as part of that. Sure they get tossed aside by most after a while, but then there's always a new group of aspiring "influencers" buying new ones again.
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Maybe you can explain why footage from Saving Private Ryan shot with expensive movie cameras 25 years ago looks good compared to today? Even though you could see the choppy framerate, the lack of motion blur and sharpness of each frame stood out. Peak 35mm right before the end and move to digital?
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umm like a iphone pro ultra maximus dickus kind of money to burn every 2 years?
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It might be a fad, but I wouldn’t call it analogous to the vinyl craze. Vinyl isn’t actually better than digital (and is in many, many ways worse). Dedicated cameras do produce better photos than do phone cameras. Even my decade-old Sony A6000 (which only cost me $500—far less than the cameras discussed here) blows my iPhone 14 Pro’s camera out of the water with just the cheap kit lenses it came with.
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In a weird coincidence I too have the A6000 and an iPhone 14 pro. While the A6000 has a larger sensor and better megapixel rating (for whatever that is worth, the megapixel game is mostly lies and distortions), the software with the iPhone is so much better at making photos look good, even at night. The Sony software, even when it came out 20-ish years ago, was total and complete crap. It's just really, really bad.
the A6000 does not have a viewfinder, only a screen, which is impossible to see in true day
Re: Likely a fad. (Score:2)
But then you haven't actually taken the picture. You choose the composition and the moment but that's about it.
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Where do you draw the line for "taking the picture"? How is the iPhone, with all its software edits on the fly, not taking the picture? If you use a DSLR and shoot in RAW, are you taking the picture? Even if you spend an hour afterwards editing a single shot via Photoshop?
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> Where do you draw the line for "taking the picture"? How is the iPhone, with all its software edits on the fly, not taking the picture? If you use a DSLR and shoot in RAW, are you taking the picture? Even if you spend an hour afterwards editing a single shot via Photoshop?
I see your point and where you're going with this....
I'd argue, however, that a human photographer, doing edits from RAW images himself...still is taking the picture, since HE is the one editing it after setting the composition.
I'd argu
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Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I believe taking a photo with a modern phone is still "taking a picture". The composition and "choosing the moment" are 2 things that you, as a human, do fully, and they're very important part of "taking a picture". Now, yes, the phone also does a first layer of edits. DSLRs also do (hence the noticeable color difference between Nikon and Canon). Heck, even on film, depending on what film you chose, the picture will come out different. Regardless, I don't think what the
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>> Where do you draw the line for "taking the picture"? How is the iPhone, with all its software edits on the fly, not taking the picture? If you use a DSLR and shoot in RAW, are you taking the picture? Even if you spend an hour afterwards editing a single shot via Photoshop?
> I see your point and where you're going with this....
> I'd argue, however, that a human photographer, doing edits from RAW images himself...still is taking the picture, since HE is the one editing it after setting the composition.
> I'd argue letting a computer do it all...well, that's more towards the point of the parent post asking "if you are taking a picture or just setting composition"....
> I think if the human is there from setting composition...tripping the shutter...and "developing" the image with crops, contrast, color grading, etc....that person is still "taking the picture".
> I think that makes the distinction.
> Thoughts?
There are a lot of different viewpoints about "the image". Some people like Henri Cartier Bresson, believed that the image taken must be printed "as on the film". That you choose the moment, and take it, and that's it. I've always thought that was kinda bullshit - apologies to the good Mr Bresson. Ever since I started making images in the late 1970's, I would touch up exposure and composition as needed, which of course has to happen on a 8 by 10 created from a 35mm image considering the different aspect ra
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If you are a photographer, it is only ok to do global adjustments. If you start editing sections it is no longer considered a photograph.
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Point n shoots are dead and gone but DSLR / mirrorless cameras have a niche for being able to fuss with settings with knobs and buttons on the fly and not filling up some cloud storage account that wants to nag you for another $5/mo. Like the difference between mobile gaming and a Nintendo Switch, or a multitool and some bespoke blacksmith knife: sure the former does what the latter does for the most part but there's a niche there for the dedicated hardware. Where the niche persists it is going to trend
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The DSLR market is dead, everyone wanting interchangeable lenses is going mirrorless. However, the cameras this article is talking about are neither of those, they are all high-end fixed-lens cameras.
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> The DSLR market is dead, everyone wanting interchangeable lenses is going mirrorless. However, the cameras this article is talking about are neither of those, they are all high-end fixed-lens cameras.
The DSLR market is not dead. Nikon, Canon and Pentax still make and sell them. You are also wrong about the cameras in the article : it mentions the Q3 which is a fixed lens compact, but also M-series cameras which are interchangeable lens rangefinders. Rangefinder cameras were supposed to die a death even before DSLR cameras were, but here we are.
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DSLR is very dead. Yes they still sell them but when was the last time they released a new model? The last Canon was what, 2020 with the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III? Nikon's latest is the D780 in 2020. Both high end full frame cameras targeted at pros. The last consumer DSLR from Nikon was the D3500 in 2018, and from Canon the EOS 90D and Rebel SL3 both in 2019. Mirrorless is now over 70% of new sales for non-fixed lens cameras and that is growing every year.
> You are also wrong about the cameras in the article : it mentions the Q3 which is a fixed lens compact, but also M-series cameras which are interchangeable lens rangefinders.
Oh guess you have a subscription, I don't. Can you
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> DSLR is very dead. Yes they still sell them but when was the last time they released a new model? The last Canon was what, 2020 with the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III? Nikon's latest is the D780 in 2020. Both high end full frame cameras targeted at pros. The last consumer DSLR from Nikon was the D3500 in 2018, and from Canon the EOS 90D and Rebel SL3 both in 2019. Mirrorless is now over 70% of new sales for non-fixed lens cameras and that is growing every year. You perhaps forgot the D6 that was introduced in 2020. That's a serious bit of kit for being dead.
> But claiming that a camera that has not been replaced in a bit over three years in no way indicates that the DSLR market is dead. This is not the Smartphone market, where new models are introduced every year lest they fall behind. You are using the smartphone metric to compare against very professional equipment that lasts a long time.
> You don't need to replace professional DSLRs every year. Indeed the presumed dead D6 uses lenses, many of which date back to 1959, which is why people like me that have a sizable investment in lenses stick with Nikon. Even the new Mirrorless with their Z-Mount lenses have an adapter that continues the legacy.
> When I started in Photography, I used a Nikon F2 that was already 10 years old. It functioned well until I retired it for an F3, which I used for several years until getting a D1, Which was over 20 years ago, and Nikon is only up to the D6 now. As I noted, it is high end professional equipment that serves its users well, and for many years.
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DSLR has lost 70% of their market share to mirrorless (because remember: at one point DSLR was basically 100% of all sales for interchangeable lens digital cameras, today they account for 30%) and that trend will not stop. A lot of pros will keep using them just because of their investment in glass, but for new people coming into the market they will probably go with mirrorless. There is zero compelling reason for them not to. And for the consumer market, they are very, very, very dead.
> But claiming that a camera that has not been replaced in a bit over three years in no way indicates that the DSLR market is dead. This is not the Smartphone market, where new models are introduced every year lest they fall behind. You are using the smartphone metric to compare against very professional equipment that lasts a long time.
No I'm not, and I'
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> The DSLR market is dead, everyone wanting interchangeable lenses is going mirrorless. However, the cameras this article is talking about are neither of those, they are all high-end fixed-lens cameras.
The DSLR market had been dying for a long time, and will continue dying for many, many years in the future.
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There is a new class of compact, cheaper but still expensive, fixed lens cameras like the Fujifilm X100 series. They have manual controls and decent auto modes. Fujifilm has film emulation modes that are really good too, and nice big sensors.
They are a step up from phones in terms of image quality and the skill needed to use them, but also cheaper and simpler than DSLR/mirrorless cameras. A new niche that appeals to amateurs and people who want to carry something small and light, but want more than their ph
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People saw the movie Civil War and want to be war photojournalists.
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I recall "Under Fire" being pretty good but my wife (and, hence, I) walked out of "El Salvador". War, like Sex, is a common source of material in Hollywood, probably because neither is likely to stop and both continue to sell tickets. Inspite of Hollywood's typical vacuity.
I like fine cameras and won't apologise for owning some but something that doesn't come up in these quarrels is that phones and their environment are incredibly complicated. It doesn't matter about the image they take; nothing you see vi
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Nothing like sitting in a tent documenting a person gettng their limbs amputated with a bone saw, and the only thing that person has is a bullet to bite on (where the phrase "bite the bullet" comes from) as they go through unimaginable agony as the procedure is performed. Never mind the battlefield where the soldiers don't just cleanly fall down and lay there., or the horrific screams and men going insane right on the spot and getting shot by their own army when they try to dessert. And of course "the camer
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Its unlikely a fad, but more folks finally upgrading. Its a surge in demand, that will definitely die down for a few years until the next upgrade cycle. It also may be social media folks finally making enough money to upgrade to these newer cameras that can do photo/video.
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No it's 100% a fad driven by a trend on TikTok. Not a bad fad all things considered if it gets some people into photography, but that's what is driving it.
> It also may be social media folks finally making enough money to upgrade to these newer cameras that can do photo/video.
The X100 mentioned in the article only does 720p/24fps video.
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> Its unlikely a fad, but more folks finally upgrading. Its a surge in demand, that will definitely die down for a few years until the next upgrade cycle. It also may be social media folks finally making enough money to upgrade to these newer cameras that can do photo/video.
I think it's like the claims that the desptop is dead, first killed by laptops, then tablets.
And then people updated their desktops.
No, it's a continuing trend (Score:2)
Snapshot cameras are effectively dead. The smartphone killed them. Good cameras continue to be popular. This has been the trend since the death of film.
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> This has been the trend since the death of film.
Rumors of films demise have been greatly exaggerated....
In fact, there's quite the resurgence in film....new cameras coming out, even new film emulsions coming on market.
Myself, I love shooting medium format film...hard to find a digital sensor that shoots 6x17......
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>> This has been the trend since the death of film.
> Rumors of films demise have been greatly exaggerated....
> In fact, there's quite the resurgence in film....new cameras coming out, even new film emulsions coming on market.
> Myself, I love shooting medium format film...hard to find a digital sensor that shoots 6x17......
A friend that takes pix of bike races that I provide comms for still uses film cameras. While I do digital now, he found a kindred spirit. We bring in our old film cameras to ooh and ahh about every race. He has a freaking F2 that I drool over, and I brought in my mint RB-67 that I picked up for 250 dollars some years back. (it was left at a rental, and never picked up - some insurance company paid dearly for that loss is the best I can figure.
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As they say "the best camera you have is the one you are holding when something happens". Thankfully we are pretty much out of the 'potato,' era when it comes to phone cameras and the need to document something right away.
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I don't think it is a fad. I think there is a real market.
There are WAY more people producing video content today than there were 20 years ago; or even 10 years ago. So makes sense that the demand for high end camera is going up.
$2000 for a good camera is ridiculous if you take pictures of pretty bird once every other month. But if it is tool of your business, then it is really not that much money.
Look at the number of youtube channels that make decent money. Or streamers on twitch or whatever that make dec
Not a fad - cameras beat phones in quality (Score:3)
> This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sensors on our smartphones and action-cams are the norm these days.
Nearly every word you wrote is just factually incorrect. First of all, an iPhone can only match a full frame when you view it on a small screen, like your watch and if you have bad eyesight, your phone...yeah, they look the same when you view it on your Apple Watch...view it on a 4k monitor and you'll see why we still have cameras. The image quality difference is striking. That's why every pro photographer uses a full frame camera. If you were correct, modern pro cameras would be iPhone sensors with a l
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>> This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. ....
> Nearly every word you wrote is just factually incorrect....
^^^ Mod this latter up. The OP was spouting bullsh1t.
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I disagree with the OP, but also with you somewhat.
When I got into photography, phones didn't have cameras (or maybe they did? but like.. shitty grainy flip phone photos). I used my DSLRs for years, simply because they produced better photos than anything else commonly available. The sensor was still small, but it did the job for what I needed (i.e. it's for photos on a wall, not like.. commercial posters). There were better cameras out there, or more expensive ones, but I didn't want to spend for nor car
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> ... It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly...
You are obviously out of touch with serious photography (as was the writer of TFA). I am into it, and was not even aware of a "craze", only of the market settling down after covid and after all the point-and-shooters have put their budget DSLRs away in favour of their phone cameras. The people using "high end" cameras are professionals and serious amateurs, as they were before (and during) the digital camera craze which peaked c2000-2010 when numerous cheap and cheerful DSLRs were made available for casua
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> Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors.
I can't speak to their mirrorless cameras, but... with Nikon, at least, you could mount and use almost all of their vintage lenses on most of their dSLRs - and glass has always been much more important to photographers than the camera bodies themselves.
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>> Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors.
> I can't speak to their mirrorless cameras, but... with Nikon, at least, you could mount and use almost all of their vintage lenses on most of their dSLRs - and glass has always been much more important to photographers than the camera bodies themselves.
Exactly. All my Old Nikon lenses fit on my new body - some of the old ones need a little filing on the fstop tab, but that's easy. And some of the old lenses are really good, like my Micro Nikkor 55 mm lens. I used that as much for group shots as macro work, because of its flat field.
Re: Likely a fad. (Score:2)
> It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on
Though unlike with vinyl, it isn't a total downgrade compared to existing alternatives. I can't say I've felt the need for a dedicated camera, but they do have measurable improvements over smartphone cameras. Vinyl only has the exact opposite, being inferior in every way to even 80s era CDs. Dynamic range, signal to noise, unusable lows, inaudible highs, you name it. Worse, the idiots that buy today's vinyl don't seem to understand that the sound engineers create them from digital masters now, because the a
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> This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sensors on our smartphones and action-cams are the norm these days.
Don't forget - every single improvement for smartphones is an improvement for digital cameras as well. The presumed death of DSLR's is based on the concept that high end photography is fully capable by a cheap Android phone, and hasn't happened yet, mainly because it won't.
The culprit is the lens. Fact is, the tiny lenses on Smartphones just can't measure up to the bigger lenses on DSLRs. It is physics. The tiny focal lengths needed to use that tiny lens on a very thin body rules it out.
Aside from th
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> This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze.
Vinyl record craze is strange in a world where a superior alternative exist. There is no superior alternative to a dedicated high end camera. If you think Smartphones are comparable then you are absolutely delusional.
There will always be professional cameras for ... actual professionals who recognise smartphones for the cheap consumer toys they are.
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We're not talking about retro cameras that take film. These are highly functional cameras that can do things no smartphone can. You'll simply get much better photos, in a wider range of conditions, even when they're set to automatic idiot operator mode. There's just no getting around the better overall quality of full-frame sensors & decent lenses, & then all the ergonomically designed knobs & switches that give responsive control over the photos you take.
Smartphones are great for "good enoug