oftheherd
Veteran
There, I fixed it for you.
Helenhill - why didn't you tell me that before I began feeding my old film camera GAS? I feel so let down.
willie_901
Veteran
The growth of phone photography confirms two principles.
The first has nothing to do with photography. Convenience trumps quality.
This is the iPod effect where compressed, low-quailty content became acceptable due to ease of use. By now improvements in compression algorithms and the decrease in mobile memory costs have restored some of the quality. For some photographers, the preference for JPEG over raw is similar. But I do only mention this on;y to point out the parallel. I do not mean to criticize or disparage JPEG users. After all, I often listen to compressed audio content. I also listen to to .AIFF audio content on my smart phone and tablet as well.
Second, the commercial success of phone photography proves content trumps technical quality.
Phone photos are meant to be shared. For the most part phone photos are not intended to be viewed in the future. They are simply visual text messages. Quantity (the ability to take a photo and share it with very little effort) trumps quality. For better or worse, this is how the majority of photography has been done since the advent of micro-circutry. People would buy a compact 35 mm camera for birthdays, holidays, trips and other special events. The percentage of film used to create art or documentary records was small compared to images that resemble the majority of phone photos taken today. The only difference is more of these throw-away, one-time use photos are made. In casual conversation ask your friends how many photos survive from their childhood? Ask them when was the last time they saw the 35mm compact-camera photos from their tenth birthday. If you ever talk to people who buy abandoned storage lockers, ask them how many photos, slides and negatives they have dumped in the trash.
The first has nothing to do with photography. Convenience trumps quality.
This is the iPod effect where compressed, low-quailty content became acceptable due to ease of use. By now improvements in compression algorithms and the decrease in mobile memory costs have restored some of the quality. For some photographers, the preference for JPEG over raw is similar. But I do only mention this on;y to point out the parallel. I do not mean to criticize or disparage JPEG users. After all, I often listen to compressed audio content. I also listen to to .AIFF audio content on my smart phone and tablet as well.
Second, the commercial success of phone photography proves content trumps technical quality.
Phone photos are meant to be shared. For the most part phone photos are not intended to be viewed in the future. They are simply visual text messages. Quantity (the ability to take a photo and share it with very little effort) trumps quality. For better or worse, this is how the majority of photography has been done since the advent of micro-circutry. People would buy a compact 35 mm camera for birthdays, holidays, trips and other special events. The percentage of film used to create art or documentary records was small compared to images that resemble the majority of phone photos taken today. The only difference is more of these throw-away, one-time use photos are made. In casual conversation ask your friends how many photos survive from their childhood? Ask them when was the last time they saw the 35mm compact-camera photos from their tenth birthday. If you ever talk to people who buy abandoned storage lockers, ask them how many photos, slides and negatives they have dumped in the trash.
The iPhone gives better quality to the average Joe then cheap film compacts such as 110 and 126 cameras did in the past...by a good margin. More so than many 35mm compacts as well (many of which had one shutter speed and aperture). That is the reason phones do so well with people (multiple apertures and shutter speeds even if automatic)... they can get better photos, easier, than 20 years ago.
Ronald M
Veteran
Total waste? That's harsh... they are still the only digital camera with a mechanical rangefinder still being made. That is important to many people on this site.
aizan
Veteran
how much will the demand for film decline when the baby boomers start dying off? are there enough new film shooters to replace them? will the film market collapse before then?
NazgulKing
Established
First, he wasn't the first person in the thread to bring up the film bit. Second, if people are so conscious about their use of film, perhaps they should resist reading threads related to digital, since "it's really none of their concern" either.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Wrong assumption, it seems. From what I see where aren't only boomers who are with film, but many babies (to me
)mani
Well-known
It's a funny reflection of the mindset on this forum, that the moribund state of the digital camera market almost instantly devolves into attacks on film and film-users.
Anyway, the obvious signs are there of a market about to dissolve very very fast: hardly any manufacturers are making money selling digital cameras, and some are truly bleeding. Soon the only digital offerings will be expensive jewelry for the extremely well-heeled, and astronomically priced 'pro' gear. Everyone else will have to make do with a phone or tablet.
Anyway, the obvious signs are there of a market about to dissolve very very fast: hardly any manufacturers are making money selling digital cameras, and some are truly bleeding. Soon the only digital offerings will be expensive jewelry for the extremely well-heeled, and astronomically priced 'pro' gear. Everyone else will have to make do with a phone or tablet.
robert blu
quiet photographer
Probably I'm in the minority group but I'm one desiring to buy a more versatile digital camera than m1 leica x1 and I feel confused because of too many new cameras, new versions arriving on the market too quick, too oft.
robert
PS: of course I am not the one giving troubles toe the worldwide sales
robert
PS: of course I am not the one giving troubles toe the worldwide sales
DominikDUK
Well-known
Digital cameras are on the decline digital photography is on the rise.
Most People are perfectly happy with the results they get from their phones and what's more important they can upload it directly to their social media site of choice. Photography today as in the past is mostly a vehicle for a private bit of narcissm social media has helped that trend.
As a final word Kodak Film is on the decline the film mfg. companies that have created a niche are on the rise. Film and digital are not that different
Most People are perfectly happy with the results they get from their phones and what's more important they can upload it directly to their social media site of choice. Photography today as in the past is mostly a vehicle for a private bit of narcissm social media has helped that trend.
As a final word Kodak Film is on the decline the film mfg. companies that have created a niche are on the rise. Film and digital are not that different
Bill Clark
Veteran
The iPhone does a nice job with videos as well. I like receiving videos my son sends of our 8 month old grand son. And FaceTime is another nice feature.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
Mani,
I'm sorry that my pessimism about the long-term prospects of the film market gets under your skin. I would like to be optimistic (especially given that I use a lot of 120 film for a lot of purposes - I am very attached to my Fujis, my Rolleiflex, and my Autocord - as well as an expensive new Silvestri), but the film sales numbers are the numbers, just as the sad and continual decline in the variety of film materials has been out there for more than a decade. It cannot have escaped your notice that 35mm movie film recently and barely survived what easily could have been an extinction event (see the Kodak-Hollywood deal). And who knows what effect that might have had on 35mm film production (maybe none - but maybe enough to make it unprofitable). There are high barriers to entry, irreplaceable machines are wearing out, and environmental regulations are getting tighter. We can expect film prices to go up over time, and that will impact demand.
Contrary to your repeated misreadings (and misstatements) of my views on film's long-term prospects, it doesn't bother me in the least that people like to use film. I would like them to use more so that I can continue to buy it in the future. But when I see people sanguinely predicting the end of digital cameras/photography and the immortality of film, I am reminded that I am old enough to remember when Smith-Corona declared that word processing on computers was a fad.
The decline of standalone camera sales does not mean that digital cameras are "dying out" or that all digital camera sales are imploding. From a practical standpoint, it just means the form of the device that is eating at the film market (cost and convenience, as noted, being big factors for consumers) has gone from being a digital camera in a separate box to a digital camera in a phone.
Dante
Aristophanes
Well-known
Five years ago CIPA completely dropped any reference to film photographic equipment in sales numbers as the volumes and revenues were too small a fraction to be considered part of the larger market.
Film and digital neither compete with nor really influence each other save for some nostalgia, itself a one-way street.
The best thing that may happen for film is the devolution to Kickstarter status as it gets the tiny niche away from quarterly reports and can have a more direct connection to its consumer base.
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
I suspect a great number of those 90 million cameras sold in 2012 were to the trendy types who have moved on to some other fad than DSLRs, perhaps that accounts for the Lieca numbers being so good.
mani
Well-known
That precipitous fall has already happened, and the transition now is hardly from film to phone, it's from DSLR (or even mirrorless) to phone instead.
Some countries are seeing an increase in film use (the UK for instance), and as others have pointed-out, niche film suppliers have found a reliable way to survive the long-term.
That sort of strategy isn't open to the majority of digital camera manufacturers - Sony are not going to be producing tiny batches of A7's for a small number of enthusiasts (not at prices they could afford anyway).
What's more, the majority of camera producers are (increasingly loss-making) subsidiaries of much broader companies. I guess there's a hope on forums like this that the shareholders and owners of those companies will continue to support their hobby out of the kindness of their hearts.
There have been no attacks that I can see... just "real" talk about film.
KM-25
Well-known
Color? It is still in a free fall, I am fairly skeptical of the market that Ferrania is expecting but we'll see....
But black and white?
Different story entirely, it is on a steady incline upward as a niche, Ilford / Harman is doing really well. As far as age goes, it is actually the baby boomers and older I hear dissing film the most while shooters in their teens, 20's and 30's tend to love film because it gives them a break from the constant drone of the tech & computer movement.
I'm not sure what the heck is going to happen to digital, because frankly it seems to thrive utterly on getting people excited to try what is next rather than the images they make, so it is like dating a girl who changes her personality every week because she does not know who she is. Pre-digital, big companies like Kodak pulled in billions from "Doing the rest" as you "Take the picture". Now all that is gone and what is left is what was once the snapshot now turning into a graphic for a text or Facebook post. As pretty as the packaging on a item purchased may be, once we open and remove said product, the pretty package has served it's purpose and is discarded....the same thing is happening with the snapshot.
In some ways, when it comes to pulling in long term big bucks from selling cameras, Nikon and Canon became as short sighted and hubris filled as pre-chapter 11 Kodak did...they just rested on their laurels and did not give potentially massive industry disruptions a serious enough look. Or... they did and they knew there was not a damn thing they could do about it.
Digital as a new era to be ushered in has matured. But digital as a device to record our lives will be forever immature, because it is designed to keep people coming back who thrive on tech and the latest gadget and convince those who don't thrive on it that they need to in order to take better photos. Can that keep big camera companies afloat? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, I enjoy a great career in which I use more and more black and white film and less digital and expect to keep on reaping the benefits of that.
Aristophanes
Well-known
Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax/Ricoh, and Fuji all fall into those categories and have for decades. With the exception of Nikon (which has an industrial arm) all the Japanese optical makers have been conglomerates. This started well before digital.
Becoming profitable might be easier if they downsize and adapt and lose some of the competition (bye-bye Casio).
All industries go through this.
Dante_Stella
Rex canum cattorumque
I would imagine a draw-down in this order:
1. Pocket/purse compacts
2. Mirrorless
3. DSLR
Part of this is that as you move down the list, the cameras have capabilities (to say nothing of ergonomics) that due to physics and packaging, cell phones are unlikely to match. A lot of the difference with 2-3 will boil down to whether mirrorless cameras can be made with the ergonomics, responsiveness, and video capabilities that people associate with DSLRs. I do get the sense, though the numbers don't really bear this out (yet), that companies in the mirrorless market like Fuji are trying to get people into upgrade frenzies, and that eventually, customer patience will burn out as the market saturates with things that have very similar specs. I would expect big consolidation, both within lines and across manufacturers, just to keep the scale necessary to continue production.
The CIPA numbers are not granular enough to differentiate between grades of DSLR, but I suspect the pro segment (Canon and Nikon metal beasts) is not going anywhere - and the more amateur product segment is going to mirrorless.
Dante
1. Pocket/purse compacts
2. Mirrorless
3. DSLR
Part of this is that as you move down the list, the cameras have capabilities (to say nothing of ergonomics) that due to physics and packaging, cell phones are unlikely to match. A lot of the difference with 2-3 will boil down to whether mirrorless cameras can be made with the ergonomics, responsiveness, and video capabilities that people associate with DSLRs. I do get the sense, though the numbers don't really bear this out (yet), that companies in the mirrorless market like Fuji are trying to get people into upgrade frenzies, and that eventually, customer patience will burn out as the market saturates with things that have very similar specs. I would expect big consolidation, both within lines and across manufacturers, just to keep the scale necessary to continue production.
The CIPA numbers are not granular enough to differentiate between grades of DSLR, but I suspect the pro segment (Canon and Nikon metal beasts) is not going anywhere - and the more amateur product segment is going to mirrorless.
Dante