What happened?

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you, Bill, to stick around.

What happened? They were produced in tens on millions (FSU) and hundreds of thousands (Japan and Leica). Many from 1930ies and 1950ies still works. My M4-2 from ... for $650 still works after GW style of shooting. With service/parts required. But it just works.
Makes sense now? They are not gone. They are in use. Some. Film ones. Which is niche market. Hundreds is thousands shrunk to small market. Why? 40$ EOS 300 AF does the same for 90%. And EF AF Canon lenses (for less) are better than Leica M lenses. Sorry, I tested. It is visible on pictures.

Digital RF? Tiny niche as well. Why? Most just aren't sissy to use something old. This Sony A7 crowd with with manual focus lenses. Costs less, works well. Same size, battery made in Japan cost much more less than Leica just China made. Several time less. And it helps many people with deteriorated vision.

And EVF/AF is dirt cheap. Like nothing to make comparing ORF.

Rights the bell?

 

[Dogman]

Lots of stuff happened. SLRs were more versatile--lenses from 6mm to 2000mm. Nikon F's could be used to take pictures on the weekend and you could use them to drive nails at the construction site Monday through Friday. We photographers got old. Our eyes no longer worked very well and AF came along to solve that. Then digital comes along and the price of the only digital rangefinders left standing went through the roof. Few could afford them, especially when lower priced brands worked fine and most people couldn't tell any difference in the image quality. And don't forget computers came along to level the field in optical designs so those expensive lenses were unnecessary. The the mirrorless designs made cameras smaller and performance better. Probably a few more things happened along the way....

So here we are.

 

[jsrockit]

I’m going assume Bill did not mean what happened in the late 50s since that answer is easy. I’m going to assume he means more recently. For me, mirrorless happened. Fuji Rangefinder shaped cameras happened. AF fits my style better. Mirrorless APSC came into its own with small lenses, high quality, and relatively low prices. It made the Leica M seem crazily priced after that.

 

[RichC]

For most serious photographers, the SLR was easier to use and gave better photos, making rangefinders obsolete. The same happened with the launch of decent electronic viewfinder cameras - notably the Sony A series: the last remnant of optical viewfinder cameras - the digital SLR - will become essentially extinct too in a few years.

The next major change is computational photography, where artificial intelligence manipulates the image in camera, so there will be no need to, say, focus or select the depth of field as these can be decided after taking the photo. In short, these AI-controlled cameras will stop showing truth and instead depict what we want to see rather than what we actually see.

 

[leicapixie]

As a pro doing color work in '60's it was SLR.
I love my M3 same period but easier to use SLR.
Really accurate viewfinder with many lenses.
Pentax Spotmatic about 90% same as image in Kodachrome slide mount..
NIkon-F an exact 100%, so one had to make sure part of image not covered by mount!

NB. The Nikon-F was same price as M3 and M4 with 50mm Summicron where I lived... It was not easy to afford.

 

[jsrockit]

In short, these AI-controlled cameras will stop showing truth and instead depict what we want to see rather than what we actually see.

Photography has always been a distortion of reality.