wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

Much of that is due to the death of the point and shoot and low end DSLR markets thanks to the smartphone. 2020-21 will be an anomaly due to the covid shutdowns and travel industry. I think the hobbyist/enthusiast market is alive and well. New opportunities will arise.

gouldopfl

I would love to see the hobbyist market continue to grow. The cost of entry is going to determine if that. Photography is one of the more of costly hobby's to get into and stay in. I suspect that the majority of new sales is still going to be at the low to medium end and ff manufacturers IMO are still producing enough glass for the newer systems and are not helping 3rd parties. Canon and Nikon do not publish their mount specifications as do Sony and the L mount. Accessories are more important than the bodies IMO.

JBRIII

I have often wondered how much of the available money people have now goes to cell phones and related expenses, phone bill, streaming charges, etc. It's true the phones provide a lot, but the things they provide did not exist for most people prior to say 1970 or 80. Basically, hos much disposable income that once bought cameras, or whatever, is now going to cell phones, especially buying the newest model each year?

gouldopfl

High-end cellphones are starting to drop with the iPhone 12 and the Samsung S21. The iPhone Pro is now 999.00 and the Pro Max at 1099. The Samsung S21 ultra is 1199 and the base model is 799.00.

With millions more units being sold than cameras this is not good news for the camera industry IMO. It will be in the next year or so that a cellphone will be about the same price as cellphones. The overall costs can be less year to year for cellphones. Last year I traded my Samsung S9 for a S20 during a promotion and it cost me 175.00. I can now trade in my S20 for S21 for 99.00 or upgrade to the Ultra for 299.00 and then the incremental cost to upgrade is smaller. The highend cameras are getting better each year. The software and features get better with each new model year.

The camera companies need to keep making their cameras less expensive to compete. Interchangeable lens cameras will always cost more if more than kit lens purchased so that will be a decision by the consumer.

FWIW, Sony released a cellphone dedicated to photography for 2500.00 today.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

JBRIII

Some things are expensive because they are rare or very difficult to make. But many things are expensive because of demand which may be due to illusionary belief. You print a book expecting to sell a 1000 copies and price it accordingly, of course no one other than the experts buy it. I remember when Turbo Pascal came out for $29.95, all the experts laughed as the market was something like 50,000 per year, I believe it sold 10X that in a year. I don't know how much a great lens really costs to make, but know at $5000 or more, you are not going to sell many. There is great lens for UV to 900 nm (no focus shift), it has been made for decades, yet cost I believe over $6000, used or new. How many people interested in UV and IR might buy it if it cost even $1500. Also, seems to me more people are interested in B&W photography than buy the special Astro versions of DSLRs, so why no similar B&W versions of DSLRs?

Dr J Loc: NE Florida

Good job! I like your sense of humor! :-)

gouldopfl

Interesting oh historical point. Borland was not founded by Phillpe Kahn, it was started by 4 extremely brilliant individuals who left after Kahn bought Turbo C. These individuals had created a complier which would create the same machine code from their C,C++, Pascal and assembler language compilers. They then formed a language/compiler company. This group minus 1 person who passed away a few years back, still exist and have created one of the most full featured and fastest Big Data platform which is used by several corporations and universities. This platform has continued to grow and expand the functionality with a product from HPCC Systems.

John Hicks Loc: Sible Hedinham North Essex England

Phones as far as I am concerned take snaps and cameras take photographs.
A phone camera will not take the photographs which I wish to take ie. 2000th of a second shutter speed 800 and above is. And items to photograph which need 400 mms lens up to 800 mms lens. Camera sales are down due to the pandemic when things return to normal camera sales will increase.

gouldopfl

John, Camera sales are down from 121 million units in 2010 to around 10 million units in 2020. This has nothing to do with a pandemic, but everything to with the huge number of people moving to cellphones. No one is saying a cellphone can replace the power of an 800mm lens. The new Galaxy S21 can produce a true 12 mp file. I always carrier a small pocket zoom camera for those times when a unexpected event or just a 1 off quick shot was needed. These new phones are better than most of these. I no longer keep the pocket camera along. I no longer take the pocket camera along. I shoot in RAW and have been able to do some nice post processing fee so it is great to have. Will I ever part with my FF camera, not till I can't physically handle it, but that does not mean there isn't a place for cellphone cameras. The manufacturers of cellphone sensors and the features are progressing more rapidly than interchangeable lens cameras. The camera manufacturers now have a declining market to share and all of the numbers show the decline isn't over.

markjay

First - Actually, the sales and number of high end bicycles is increasing significantly in the market. Take the largest American company - Specialized. It is a growing company with revenues close to $500 million. All of their efforts are in better and more expensive bicycles - not their low end bicycles which start at about $5-600. Try to buy their newest models that cost $5,000 +, and you will have a hard time finding them due to over demand.
If you think a bike that costs next to nothing is as good as a costly one - you are not a cyclist. You only use a bike to ride 15 minutes to a grocery store and not much else. Try to ride for 40-50 miles, which is what most cyclists ride 3-5 times a week, and you wont be able to stand up after using a next to nothing priced bicycle.
This is a foolish comparison. Its like suggesting that that professional sports photographers with the ocean of white lenses, would be just as good if they used their iPhones.

Second - the reason camera sales are declining is the companies are greedy and charge far too much for them. if you forget about the cost of a lens,, the body is the "camera". what is it? A case with electronics. Nothing more. Compare that to a laptop. They are far more expensive than laptops,, yet electronically, they have far less components, and much cheaper components. So why are they more expensive ? There is no justification. Dell or Lenovo could make a camera body and sell it for 1/4 the cost of what Canon charges.

gouldopfl

I do not know what the costs were to develop say a Canon EOS R5 or the newly announced Sony A1, but I believe the costs are pretty high and there is a very limited number of photographers that will put out the price. Nikon should have a development advantage as Sony develops their sensors, usually from existing technology, but Nikon will continue to charge the same for cameras in the same range. I personally believe that Canon RF glass is exceptional. Sony glass is also very good. Sony's mount specifications are open allowing for 3rd party companies to quickly adapt and create good third party options, more for the hobbyist market which is necessary for Sony to sell more units.

Canon and Nikon do not publish their mount specifications forcing 3rd party vendors to reverse engineer their mounts. I know that Samyang and others are shipping RF mount lenses, however I suspect they do not use all communication channels and are essentially an EF mount that will run using a technique similar to the Canon EF - RF adapter.
How many hobbyist can afford 2k plus for a lens? Not many and so we look to companies like Sigma and Tamron who create excellent lenses for a better price. The RF mount was introduced in 2018 and there are still no RF mounts available in 2021 from Sigma or Tamron. While both say they are working on them, they continue to release Sony and Amount lenses because of open standards. Just like the software business where so much software is open sourced it is time for Canon and Nikon to publish their mount specifications. Until that happens both will continue to produce mostly expensive glass.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Assuming every photographer in 2010 was interested in buying the newest cutting edge full-frame camera, without regard to price, there's still 90% less of them putting their money where their GAS is in 2021. You and your friends have a lot of equipment to start buying if you're going to pull the companies behind Sony and Canon out of their nosedives.

But, just remember: If Sony mirrorless cameras were better than DSLRs, they would be more expensive.

anotherview Loc: California

A full frame camera is an electromechanical device. Laptops have one moving part -- the hard drive -- and even that it is going away.
So the makeup of the device plays a part in cost of manufacture.