Camera shipments continue to fall

And this is exactly were smartphones fail miserably. Most of those moments/memories/snapshots will die with the smartphone one or two years after the picture was taken.
Have you ever seen an ad on Craigslist "Lost my iphone in the park. Please return it as it contains the only photos I have of my Baby..."

Murchu said:
If all you need is a camera to record moments/ memories/ snapshots, you don't really need anything more than a smartphone. I can't see anything but the camera market shrinking, as dedicated cameras become a niche product for those who shoot photos for aesthetic reasons and also those for whom smartphones do not suffice (kids sports, etc).
Click to expand...
 
This type of news always leads to fun discussions. What I personally noticed the last... four years or so, was that P&S's were all leveling out in terms of features and all had a decent enough level of image quality. There's simply no innovation in them, so why buy one when your phone works OK for most shots?

Heck, some of the camera apps on my iPod Touch now have way more features then the last Canon Digital Ixus that I bought. Not to mention WiFi uploading to Flickr, Twitter, etc.

I am glad to see that the higher end stuff is doing well though. It was the Canon Powershot G12 that got me really interested in doing more hands-on photography. It got me out of auto mode, so to speak.

Nowadays I really enjoy using my Fuji X100S, and it certainly seems to be selling great judging by the fact that's sold out everywhere, all the time. I have high hopes that that type of camera will survive the coming P&S apocalypse.
 
Always fun to see enthusiasts slagging smartphones while top-flight photographers (members of Magnum, etc.) are using their phones right next to their big iron, & posting amazing work to their Instagram feeds.

It's just a tool -- and an extraordinarily convenient, fluid, and low-profile tool, at that.

I'm not in that league but I happily use my phone right alongside Fuji X's, Leica film gear, medium format film gear. It's the point-and-shoots that have lost their place in my day bag and it seems I'm not alone there.


express by Semilog, on Flickr
 
one reason for the falling camera sales in mirrorless and dslr could be that there is no demand for a camera that could do what cannot be done with today's cameras. plus dslrs really need to die and mirroless needs to stop being glorified P&S.

the positive side of this situation could be that photography once again might become a small industry for dedicated photographers.
 
Evolving technology changes paradigms all the time. People are still out there shooting as ever before, now its easier and cheaper for the masses.

I don't know if magazines, brides, high-caliber portraiture want their shoots done on your iPhone. Does the iPhone or Apple tablet compete with Leica or Canon glass? Hardly.

I'm having a fantastic time shooting B&W with my M7 and shooting color with my M8 which only had 2K actuations when I purchased it.

Regards -
 
There are undoubtedly a ton of reasons why camera sales are dropping. But from my perspective a big one is the cost. If my income is dropping, my mortgage/rent payments are hard to come by, and I am not real positive how much gas I can afford to put in my tank, then the cost of a new camera is just not in the cards, especially when I already have one in my phone. I know that the pictures aren't great, but they are better than nothing. I would love something better but have you seen the prices on some of those cameras? I can't afford anything like that anytime soon! Besides, if I do need a bigger camera for my vacation or an important event, I can always borrow Dads.
 
Margu said:
one reason for the falling camera sales in mirrorless and dslr could be that there is no demand for a camera that could do what cannot be done with today's cameras. plus dslrs really need to die and mirroless needs to stop being glorified P&S.

the positive side of this situation could be that photography once again might become a small industry for dedicated photographers.
Click to expand...

Market saturation may play a small part of this considering that in the Fuji annual report, they specifically called out camera phones as the single biggest reason for the poor sales in their p&s line.

A small industry that u dream of means that the bread and butter money that these camera companies depend on to finance their r&d is not going to be coming as much from the p&s segment, which means they are going to need to have better margins on their other products.

Gary
 
Or it could go the other way and the industry caters more to the only customers they have left, meaning more innovation/development in the enthusiast/prosumer market...
 
This is much more typical then you think.

And the more I age the more I'm glad that memories of my family are preserved in prints and negatives.

If it's only a few photos that really matter, I wonder why we bother at all...


moderator said:
For the photos to be lost, the user would have to be never posting on facebook, not be sending photos to friends and relatives, and never syncing their phone. That type of hermit, is just not the typical user.

As one ages, it becomes apparent that only a few photos really matter, it is not really all that interesting to have 1,000 Raw images of baby's first successful potty.
Click to expand...
 
Your post made me laugh! I picture the typical iPad photographer in front of me holding a 8x10 sized tablet in front of his/her face, trying hard to see anything on the screen in the sun and I imagine the "extraordinarily convenient, fluid, and low-profile tool"

I certainly use my phone camera if I have nothing else. But certainly not happily.

semilog said:
Always fun to see enthusiasts slagging smartphones while top-flight photographers (members of Magnum, etc.) are using their phones right next to their big iron, & posting amazing work to their Instagram feeds.

It's just a tool -- and an extraordinarily convenient, fluid, and low-profile tool, at that.

I'm not in that league but I happily use my phone right alongside Fuji X's, Leica film gear, medium format film gear. It's the point-and-shoots that have lost their place in my day bag and it seems I'm not alone there.


express by Semilog, on Flickr
Click to expand...
 
I dunno but I think this whole digital thing is a passing fad and soon we'll be back to real cameras.

Heavy sarcasm warning.
 
8800871731_2912289f20.jpg
 
Digital has finally reached a film equivalent with D700 and other 10/12 MP cameras.
Most will not want better.

Economy is poor and luxury items are the first to not be purchased.

Nice to view pics on an iPad , easy and fast. It is still just as hard to get get good prints from digital as film. Most labs are wildly out of control. If you find a good one, you need to send them a decent file. Best of all, then you you use the economy service where they do nothing but print. But then you need to understand color management and have good computer equipment. 99% have neither.

A camera phone seems ideal for most happy snaps now.
 
semilog said:
Always fun to see enthusiasts slagging smartphones while top-flight photographers (members of Magnum, etc.) are using their phones right next to their big iron, & posting amazing work to their Instagram feeds.

It's just a tool -- and an extraordinarily convenient, fluid, and low-profile tool, at that.

I'm not in that league but I happily use my phone right alongside Fuji X's, Leica film gear, medium format film gear. It's the point-and-shoots that have lost their place in my day bag and it seems I'm not alone there.


express by Semilog, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Nice! But I'd like it better in B&W. (I know, just the push of a button in post <sigh>).

s-a
 
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