World wide camera sales less than 10% from 2010 (Page 6): Perhaps you should check YouTube and find out why you take such terrible pictures with your cell phone.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Bbarn wrote:

I use a land line for most phone calls and rarely use my smartphone for anything but phone calls and text. I average less than 1 minute and 1 text per day, and less than 1 pic per month on the smartphone. I find smartphones phone call quality rather poor. They text, surf, and take pictures better than they handle phone calls. That's why they are popular. Still worth less than $10 per month to me.

Perhaps you should check YouTube and find out why you take such terrible pictures with your cell phone.

Bbarn Loc: Ohio

traderjohn wrote:

Perhaps you should check YouTube and find out why you take such terrible pictures with your cell phone.

I never said anything about the quality of smartphone pictures. I simply don't enjoy taking pictures with one, and seldom use it for that.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Smartphone cameras are so good that most people don't see the need for a separate camera. Why carry two devices when one is enough?

You see, there are people who take pictures, and there are photographers. We are photographers. We like all the gear and all the details associated with it. The cell phone people see something nice, and they take a picture and post it.

Camera sales will continue to decline.

gouldopfl

Do you carry a compact camera for those unexpected times when out and about? I did for several years, however the high level phones for 99% of those shots can be done with your cell phone. I always shoot in RAW so I can post process if I want. I am not big on social media and don't post much

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Bbarn wrote:

I never said anything about the quality of smartphone pictures. I simply don't enjoy taking pictures with one, and seldom use it for that.

"I find smartphones phone call quality rather poor."
Yes, you did.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

traderjohn wrote:

Of course, they are photographers. They have taken... (show quote)

There are many whole websites dedicated to "iphoneography". In 2010, at one of the last Photo Marketing Association International meetings (in Anaheim that year) just a few years after the iPhone was introduced, I attended a class on it. The presenter was a crazy guy who had thousands of impressive examples. He made his point — to the horror of many in attendance — that the smartphone camera was here to stay, with many advantages over conventional dedicated cameras. That was despite the fact that most of the cameras were under 5 MP at the time!

GOOD ENOUGH is the enemy of great.

hjkarten Loc: San Diego, California

There is a very useful article at
https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones-vs-cameras-closing-the-gap-on-image-quality/
that provides a very clear comparison of the use of smartphones vs. compact cameras vs. DSLR/Mirrorless.

The comparison is presented in the context of the history of the smartphone, technological comparisons that have contributed to the rapid progress in image quality of smartphones, artistic comparison, etc. It is one of the more objective articles on the topic. The differences in image products are nicely documented.
Other similar articles deal with ergonomic benefits of each technology. (i.e., smartphone vs. "real cameras").

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

gouldopfl wrote:

I just read an article from Petapixel that says Canon is getting ready for a world where world wide camera sales will be less than 10 million units compared to 121 million units 10 years ago. I would assume that much of this is due to smartphone sales.

It makes me wonder how much of this is loss is from sales of lower end cameras rather than the mainstream cameras used by hobbyist and professionals. Has the market significantly contracted at those levels?

Almost all of this is caused by smartphone use. Try a find short range zoom P&S camera. They are all in the smartphones. And most smartphone manufacturers even put software in the phones that allow the user to correct images and modify them for social media use. The sales chart that I saw a year or two ago proved it. The sales of smartphones with good cameras (for what was good 10 years ago) was equal to the 120 million of cameras then. As the smartphone sales continued their exponential climb, sales of stand alone cameras started their exponential drop. The lower end cameras are the ones that suffered the most, especially the P&S. Olympus use to have about three different categories of P&S. Now even Nikon is ending Coolpix P&S. They cannot compete with the smartphone P&S.

But the P&S was never a majority of the stand alone market. People now just expect a good P&S to come with any smartphone, whether the smartphone is cheap or not. So the sales decreases nowadays are mostly from mid to upper end cameras. This is also why many camera companies like Olympus do not really have an entry-level camera any more. The E-M10 mkIV has features that no entry level camera would normally have. It is going to come down to who wants to really stay in the market. And although the market is going to get smaller still remember that it is an exponential curve. That means the curve flattens out somewhat and sales will decrease much slower downward. At some point, they will become relatively "stable". Who will be left remains to be seen.

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

wdross wrote:

Almost all of this is caused by smartphone use. Tr... (show quote)

I guess I’ll hold on to my Coolpix.

Bbarn Loc: Ohio

traderjohn wrote:

"I find smartphones phone call quality rather poor."
Yes, you did.

Read what you copied above. Better yet, carefully examine it. You'll see that I said nothing about smartphone picture quality. If you look real close I said I found smartphone phone call quality rather poor. I consider a phone call a vastly different medium than a photograph.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

ronpier wrote:

I guess I’ll hold on to my Coolpix.

Do. My wife will hold on to her Olympus XZ-1.

gouldopfl

Sound quality takes into account the quality of your phone, the carrier and the quality of the service and your location. I have been with ever carrier except Verizon and haven't had a land line for almost 10 years. I have had a cell phone since the "brick" when I worked at AT&T. I've changed carriers everyone I have moved due to quality issues. At home I always use my wifi but when I am away I always use the network. All phones are now using VOIP and technically using your phone at home over WiFi should be the same

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

wdross wrote:

Do. My wife will hold on to her Olympus XZ-1.

It’s funny that my Coolpix S9600 still works great even though Nikon is not going to produce P&S cameras. Don’t want the DSLRs to hear. It may make them nervous that they may be next!! lol

anotherview Loc: California

Your comment about sums up the situation.

On a planet with over 7 billion humans, however, I expect a sizable contingent thereof will continue using what we like to call "real cameras."

Snapshooters like taking pictures yet do not want to learn the ins-and-outs of photography.

jerryc41 wrote:

Smartphone cameras are so good that most people don't see the need for a separate camera. Why carry two devices when one is enough?

You see, there are people who take pictures, and there are photographers. We are photographers. We like all the gear and all the details associated with it. The cell phone people see something nice, and they take a picture and post it.

Camera sales will continue to decline.

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

anotherview wrote:

Your comment about sums up the situation.

On a planet with over 7 billion humans, however, I expect a sizable contingent thereof will continue using what we like to call "real cameras."

Snapshooters like taking pictures yet do not want to learn the ins-and-outs of photography.

That is such a blanket statement if I’ve ever seen one.