Digital camera market is collapsing

[Duane Pandorf]

I think its pretty simple to figure out what's going on. There have been several articles out there describing the situation and it appears the Nikon and Canon still haven't grasped the situation. Sony thinks it has but is lacking in a couple key areas as in lens selection and software interface.

The smartphone has conquered the P&S market in that you can make a decent photo and instantly upload to your favorite site, whether social media or blog.

IMO, the majority of photographers who want something a little better than a smartphone/P&S to make photos of their children doing things like sports buy an affordable DSLR with kit lens.

What they find out is that with a kit lens (f3.5-5.6) just doesn't cut it for action. There's a reason "pro" sports photographers use the big guns with fast zoom lenses.

Plus the average consumer does not dig any further into the camera than putting it on "P" Auto everything then just pointing and shooting. The camera does good enough and they see no reason to upgrade when the next newer version of that camera arrives. The kit lens from Nikon or Canon hasn't changed either.

Then there's the pro line. How much difference is there between the Nikon 800E and 810? Is it enough to justify upgrading?

OK, there will be a few in the low end DSLR market that have the funds to buy into the pro line to get the photos they want of their fast moving children.

Then there's us here on the camera forums that enjoy the niche photo market.

Whether expensive Leica rangefinders to the latest mirrorless cameras that require a little more knowledge and experience that the "P" Auto crowd.

The problem Nikon and Canon have right now is too much overlap and nothing special to get anyones attention for new money.

We've hit the apex in digital sensor quality that's better than what average people could do with film. However, there are those that will argue its now the ISO wars.

IMO the ISO wars are no different that when so many took photos of brick walls to compare lenses. Today's cameras are very good. They don't take bad photos.

 

[jarski]

read around time of photokina, by someone from Sigma (I think) saying that digi-camera market is just returning back to normal (due to smartphones). camera makers made and sold their products before the digi-boom, and will adjust again to new normal. maybe their gains are not as big as used to be, but camera market isn't collapsing anywhere.

 

[jsrockit]

I stated on p1 that my new i6 was an impressive camera. Now, I have not spent *that* much time with it, but I am starting to think that may be just a bit of an overstatement on my part.

Maybe "impressively convenient camera" is more apropos. I am no optics engineer, but it would seem to me that I am seeing a good bit of distortion in my images. Circles tend to be egging especially around the edges.

I'm not underestimating the impact of camera phones. They work well for those that are into using photos for social interaction. However, there should be a good clip of people who continue to want to do photography in a more serious manner and cameras will be there for that group to buy. I really think the low-end market is the only market that may dry up. The iPhone isn't replacing a Nikon D810 with a 400mm lens or a Leica M240 with a Noctilux. OR even a Fuji X100T for that matter.

 

[KM-25]

I think it is going to be fine, because people on here take their photography serious enough to plan accordingly. It's not only the big camera companies that have to adapt but the folks who are more serious image makers too, the current crop of niche film users is proof of that:

Adapt, hoard, shoot, repeat....🙂

 

[Aristophanes]

You would think a site like RFF would not be threatened by a phone with a camera...

Like Kodak saying film was not threatened by digital.

 

[Aristophanes]

In all discussions of this nature I always feel that some important considerations get overlooked.

One of the big missing parts is that of comparison to past markets.

For example, in the heyday of the 80s, how many cameras were sold? Now adjust for population and wealth increase. How do these numbers compare to today's market?

Millions of people own cell phones and take photos with them. They don't have dedicated cameras. But how many of these people owned cameras of any significance in past generations? How many of them upgraded regularly?

Maybe the mid-to late aughts was a sort of anomalous set of perfect market conditions for the camera industry. Big population, wealth and a stable and growing economy. Combine that with exiting new technology that made it much easier for many people to take up photography and you have a bubble. And it's now bursting like they always do. Companies have to figure out what to do after.

What I'm getting at is is the camera market going through a period of adjustment the end result of which will be the following:

1. P&S and disposable cameras (as used in past generations) will be completely replaced by cell phones. This sector will (already has) seen huge growth because people who didn't own a camera in any past generation now automatically own one. This last part is the sort of "false scare" if you will.
2. Dedicated camera sales will return to levels typical of the 70s/80s/90s adjusted for population with perhaps a small decline.

Or is something else going on? Are cell phones going to eat up everything?

There was no Flickr or YouTube or RFF in the past. A few more local galleries and maybe more local photography clubs, especially in schools, but overall the capacity for Joe Average to reach a broader audience has been critical to the explosion of digital camera sales, DSLR to smartphone.

That market and the cultural impetus appears to have slowed, especially with the Instagram purchase by Facebook being a "jumping the shark" event IMO.

Always keep in mind that many households in the past owner multiple cameras.

P&S cameras with larger sensors and better optics still have market legs. They need market separation from smartphones to continue to exist, and this will be done.

 

[Sparrow]

Like Kodak saying film was not threatened by digital.

... well ... they did say that at the time didn't they?

 

[NJH]

The thing that would worry me is the development cost of today's equipment. The big camera companies need to shift a lot of units at the sort of prices they are charging in order to make any money. As an example of doing it on a small scale look at Leica as mentioned earlier, that is more like how much your kit is going to cost in the future if the industry has to drop back to film era sales volumes.

In the medium term consumer digital looks a dead duck for these reasons, expect instead to see lens modules appearing very soon to use with your phone.

 

[jsrockit]

Like Kodak saying film was not threatened by digital.

Come on... not at all. 🙄 So, you really think the iPhone is going to put all other (digital) cameras companies out of business? We are not talking about a changing of the guard regarding technology (analog to digital)... we are talking about one product (the iPhone) killing all other digital cameras. It's silly.

 

[kbg32]

Irony that Kodak invented and developed the technology that brought about its demise. Smart engineers, dumb management resting on their laurels. Camera phones will/and are, replacing P&S. That segment will eventually dry up except for a few niche products. Canon is finally going to release a real full fledged EVF camera next year. A little too late?

Harp all ya want for the good ole days. Technology is here to stay. Most people, the majority of consumers, not us niche camera users, care more for convenience. If the camera in their phone is good enough, it is.

 

[Ranchu]

It's not really silly, though. Go to the zoo, there are 98% cell phones, and maybe 1 in 300 dslrs. Plus some joe with a L35AF, that was me.

 

[mani]

Come on... not at all. 🙄 So, you really think the iPhone is going to put all other (digital) cameras companies out of business? We are not talking about a changing of the guard regarding technology (analog to digital)... we are talking about one product (the iPhone) killing all other digital cameras. It's silly.

It's not 'one product' it's a whole ecosystem of products: smartphones (Apple, Android, Windows), phablets, tablets.
And it's not the higher-end products that are being directly replaced, it's the volume market that sustains those products, and pays for the R&D and the 'niche' cameras used by enthusiasts. The whole market is disappearing from underneath - that's why it's happening without you even noticing.

But as others have said, just look around: when I take a walk through the old town nowadays I'll see four or five digital cameras (if that), tens of people using phones or tablets to take pictures, and often a couple of young kids with film cameras. A few years ago those proportions would've been totally different - with no film cameras to be seen and DSLRs of some sort round every tourist's neck.

I'm finding the same thing at work: only one of my colleagues (at a young startup with 26 employees) has a 'real' camera, but three of the others have already bought the larger iPhone 6, and by the time they really arrive in Sweden I'm guessing most of us will have one.

What I'm reading in this thread seems amazingly naïve: by all accounts the camera manufacturers are suffering incredibly fast losses. Massive industries can't adapt to losing so much of their market at such a pace, these are lumbering organizations with planning that has to project years in advance. They have assets and workforces, machinery and factories that need to be fully utilized or disposed of (often at great expense in itself).
None of that is going to be fixed by a few enthusiasts hoping to continue buying their favorite cameras at the price level of the last decade, nor by 'better marketing', nor even by adding network capabilities to 'real' cameras. All of that is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

[Sparrow]

Come on... not at all. 🙄 So, you really think the iPhone is going to put all other (digital) cameras companies out of business? We are not talking about a changing of the guard regarding technology (analog to digital)... we are talking about one product (the iPhone) killing all other digital cameras. It's silly.

... it may well be silly but that is what those statistics suggest isn't it?

 

[Aristophanes]

Come on... not at all. 🙄 So, you really think the iPhone is going to put all other (digital) cameras companies out of business? We are not talking about a changing of the guard regarding technology (analog to digital)... we are talking about one product (the iPhone) killing all other digital cameras. It's silly.

Smartphones are going to force the legacy optical companies to...wait for it...focus.

They can no longer count on a bulk sale, mass market, channel stuffing P&S market.

But they are driving DSLR's into commodity prices to keep volumes up. The small DSLR and mirrorless are everywhere even during the smartphone onslaught. There is a steady if declining demand for "real cameras". No doubt.

 

[KM-25]

2014, Says the DSLR toting wunderkind to the guy with the film camera, "Wow, is that a film camera? I didn't think anyone used those anymore!"

2028, Says the iMedia-3 carrying wunderkind to the guy with the DSLR, "Wow, is that a DSLR? I didn't think anyone used those anymore!"

Paybacks are a B😀TCH!

 

[Range-rover]

I think they're always be a market for the camera that we enjoy to use (dslr's
mirror-less and the like) and you'll have the same people using other things
like phones and other. We just have to show the lost ones there's a better way.

Range

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Digital cameras market is becoming smaller because of phone cameras and their quality, but that's in a mass, home, family level... Amateur and professional digital cameras, as film cameras and film, will stay here long after all of us. The reason isn´t bussines only: it's just that we like all those cameras, and we pay for all of them and we (and then others) would pay and will pay more for playing with the toys we really like. I've been hearing "film is dying" for 20 years now... What died was its massive market: its ultracheap price. I see everything's basically the same, with small changes.
Cheers,
Juan

 

[Pioneer]

It has been touched on once or twice but when the sales begin to dry up the money dries up. When the money dries up the R&D dries up just as fast. Once the R&D dries up then all the neat, new advanced technology dries up. Then sales dry up even further. That death spiral is hard to escape. It usually takes time but it seems that everything happens faster these days.

Then you move to the other side. Smartphones with cameras are selling like hotcakes. Lots of sales. Lots of money. Lots of R&D. Technology improves rapidly. Pretty quickly an aftermarket of accessories starts appearing. This cycle, while it lasts, is very self-sustaining. It won't last forever because nothing does, but the smartphone world is on the up elevator while the camera is on the down elevator.

There will always be a professional market, but we are going to start finding out pretty soon just how long some of this technology will actually last. And there will be a niche market where new forms of film cameras and digital conversions will appear from time to time, at least as long as they can get a start through Kickstarter or its future equivalent.

It may not happen at all, or it may not happen right away. We haven't seen the kicking and screaming phase or the merge and save me phase. The big companies may come up with something new that the consumer likes.

Who knows? Predictions are a dime a dozen and most entirely miss the mark.

 

[noisycheese]

I hold the smart phone entirely responsible for this trend ... it's hard to think any other way. Why buy a real camera any more?

Because you want to make real exhibit quality prints?

Or because you are serious about photography?

Or because you want to make the image making decisions rather than letting your phone make them for you?

Or because you want your photographs to be better than the twenty billion snapshots that are uploaded to FaceTube every day?

😉

 

[Range-rover]

I can agree with the above.

Range