bmattock
Veteran
I thought this was an early April Fool's joke...
Interesting story, though. This is NOT photography as we know it.
This is an industry struggling in the throes of ... something. I dunno what.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
Digital cameras are 'dinosaurs', declares Kodak chief
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I thought this was an early April Fool's joke...
Interesting story, though. This is NOT photography as we know it.
This is an industry struggling in the throes of ... something. I dunno what.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Interesting. The example given (photos using metadata to associate) kinda sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Do people really need that? Want that? With many consumers (most?) not even knowing how to using 1/10th the features of their current digicams .... I dunno.
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
I think that he's explaining subconsciously why their consumer digital cameras just don't cut it.
bmattock
Veteran
Trius said:
I think you've hit it, exactly. No one is sure where the industry is headed - what people want. There is a vague feeling that more can be done - but what? What do people want to do with photography beyond taking photographs and sharing them with family and friends?
Interesting times. Any big company could guess wrong, bet the farm, and wipe out. Small companies have a chance at a hundred-year old market that they were locked out of a few years ago. Anybody could come up with a winner.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
vsolanoy
Established
I think he's right... most people leave the camera on the green box and take pictures. Even on the simplest cameras, most people haven't figured out what the different icons mean... twilight/lowlight, portrait, close-up, etc...
Unlike the brownie box cameras, people do expect things like zoom and a flash you don't have to change the bulb on (grin).
If you think of it even more, he's still right with the state of technology... the concept of what a lens, aperture, shutter speed, and shutter (well, I guess these are technically absent with consumer cameras), what's changed and is the inherent weakness in a digital camera is the silicon that captures the light... poorer resolution, potentially poorer color rendition and contrast, and the need to put a brain into the camera to optimize a photo to cater to consumer tastes. Even with video capture, most people can't figure out what to do with the low quality video that the camera produces...
Unlike the brownie box cameras, people do expect things like zoom and a flash you don't have to change the bulb on (grin).
If you think of it even more, he's still right with the state of technology... the concept of what a lens, aperture, shutter speed, and shutter (well, I guess these are technically absent with consumer cameras), what's changed and is the inherent weakness in a digital camera is the silicon that captures the light... poorer resolution, potentially poorer color rendition and contrast, and the need to put a brain into the camera to optimize a photo to cater to consumer tastes. Even with video capture, most people can't figure out what to do with the low quality video that the camera produces...
bmattock
Veteran
gabrielma said:
Actually, I think Kodak's cameras are doing as well or better than most in the market they've picked for themselves recently - consumer-grade digicams. They did abandon the pro line DSLR recently, as I'm sure you know - but they still have a huge investment in the underpinnings - the newly declared 39mp Hassy has a Kodak chip, as I recall (it was announced today I think).
Retail sales market analysts reported around Christmastime that Kodak had the number one market share at companies like Walmart, Best Buy, etc. Canon number two and coming up fast. HP and etc, playing tail-end charlie.
So I think Kodak has some wiggle room to experiment - hard to say if they have much room, though. And yes, it does look like a bit of thrashing around.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
parks5920
Well-known
and here it is baby, kicking ass and taking prisoners!! Nikon and Canon don't have a chance!
http://cgi.ebay.com/COOL-Cigarette-...580108877QQcategoryZ48544QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/COOL-Cigarette-...580108877QQcategoryZ48544QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
bmattock said:
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
I know a number of friends that bought Kodak digital cameras (non-pro) around "the Holidays" and Canon as well.bmattock said:
I've seen the pictures taken with the Kodak cameras (is there a smiley for ::blech::?) Many of them returned them, some didn't care or know better (and that's something vsolanoy was referring to). The others are very happy with their choices.
I don't know anything about sales or anything about their numbers, but I wonder if they're considering "consumer satisfaction" in the equation. Brand loyalty is paramount in this business.
jan normandale
Film is the other way
bmattock said:
my daughter still uses film. Gave her a nice Olympus and some fine primes and tele's for Xmas. She has a job w Canon. She goes to Wally world, Best By, and all those types of retailing outlets. She sells a ton of Canon digi PS w a dock/printer set up. Even the big guys eventually dip down from great heights to pick the 'low hanging fruit'
Anyone know how to make their own 35 mm bw film?? I think I may look into this, right after I shovel the snow.
x-ray
Veteran
I believe people buy features whether they use them or not. More is better? Try to buy a cell phone that's just a phone, no games, camera etc. I recently heard that point and shoot digital sales have slumped due to increased sales of picture phones. Consumers know very little about what they are buying and believe the low res picture phone is everything they will ever need. I recently shot an architectual job over a week and delivered multiple DVD's of 47.5 meg files from my 1DsII canon. After the shoot the marketing guy for my client said he wanted to make some of the images in eight foot prints. I explained (to a brick wall) that these were large files but not large enough to make high quality 8 foot prints. I said that I would need to go back and reshoot on 4x5 or even 8x10. He finally nodded his head like he understood but I didn't think he really did. The next question was, "can you make small jpg files of these images and put them on 1 CD, I don't have a dvd drive in my computer". He still didn't understand that large prints and quality litho printing requires large high quality files. I had another marketing director ask me to put their job on floppies for them. I explained it would take 60 floppies for each immage and that wasn't possible to break up the image into seperate discs. I said that it would take about six hundred floppies to put the entire job on. To me this just proves how little even clients that should know actually know about digital photography.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=5045
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=5045
S
Socke
Guest
bmattock said:
I don't know, too. But since digital is pretty good in emulating film now, it is a good idea to search for something which is genuine for digital and can't be done with film.
Edit:
Attached there is a mobile phone picture in the original 1280x1024 pixel from a Sony Ericson V600i
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ClaremontPhoto
Jon Claremont
Some phones have flash and even look like cameras too.
Fedzilla_Bob
man with cat
"Without human instruction, a picture will use its metadata to find another picture with related data and assemble into new groups based on how they relate to one another. For example, imagine being able to access every picture ever taken of your son or daughter at Christmas, whether it's part of your collection or those of relatives and friends."
Wait - has Kodak developed some form of AI? Without human instruction?
Yeah right - I think that the original instruction set will have come from someone. I also can't imagine how metadata will be spontaneously generated. Would take some awesome pattern recognition to interpret, then codify all those snapshots of fingers over lenses, so that they could all be displayed with images from fiends (intentional) and family all over the globe.
Poppycock.
Wait - has Kodak developed some form of AI? Without human instruction?
Yeah right - I think that the original instruction set will have come from someone. I also can't imagine how metadata will be spontaneously generated. Would take some awesome pattern recognition to interpret, then codify all those snapshots of fingers over lenses, so that they could all be displayed with images from fiends (intentional) and family all over the globe.
Poppycock.
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XAos
Well-known
Forget features, forget resoution. The single biggest thing the consumer digicams lack is a takethepicturerightnowdammit shutter that does what I tell it and let me live with the results. Even if I'm stupid and impatient, I'll figure it out - it IS digital after all. I don't think they understand this either, they're still trying to anticipate this and that and figure out any nifty cool useless thing they can do with it. Oooh oooh ooh I know we could try to figure out if the person looks like someone we already know and label the file with their name...
I think too the dgicam market is still missing the boat - either making 35mm slr lookalikes with ridiculously huge lenses for their sensor and aperture, or pusheredummy pocket cams. They need to think Auto-110 and fit the lenses to the sensors in an interchangeable lens platform.
I think too the dgicam market is still missing the boat - either making 35mm slr lookalikes with ridiculously huge lenses for their sensor and aperture, or pusheredummy pocket cams. They need to think Auto-110 and fit the lenses to the sensors in an interchangeable lens platform.
RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
Fedzilla_Bob said:
Don't forget what George Eastman once said:
You push the button, we do the rest.
😛 🙂 😀
R.J.
Fedzilla_Bob
man with cat
GREAT! 🙂RJBender said:
So there is real Eastman DNA in Perez' claims. A little bit of PT Barnum too. 😉
RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
.. a little smoke... a few mirrors. If this guy was some sort of mad scientist I would probably be impressed.
R.J.
R.J.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Yeah, well, it (what Perez is talking about) all depends on software; I'll leave aside the "what does the market want?" question for now.
Anyone here believe Kodak is a software company?
Earl
Anyone here believe Kodak is a software company?
Earl
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
And then, of course, Dinosaurs are not dead,in the mind of the public they are still alive; the kids in my practice love the little plastic models of them and Jurassic Park was a blockbuster 😀. I think all these "new-new-new"marketeers have a point in that the Human race loves to have bright new coloured beads to play with - for a short while, but they forget that if you ask a kid to make train noises, it will go choo-choo-choo without ever having seen a steam engine.
XAos
Well-known
bmattock said:
Socke said:
I think they're in the throws of the the end of the free lunch / westward expansion / y2k bubble / ever expanding market where everyone pretends the rules have gone out the window and the rules of economics changed just because somebody discovered something new.
