gwilliams6

The CIPA report for June is out: worse than previous years (again)

The camera market keeps shrinking. What product strategies and brands will survive. ?

https://photorumors.com/2019/08/04/the-cipa-report-for-june-is-out-worse-than-past-years-again/?fbclid=IwAR2bdKOQOiQUxHvAvcYqmTIAkWD5MMLcH4BYSPcqnvSDPiA_VuFfD6xdVaI

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Well, if everyone has a camera, in one form or another,
who's going to buy them?

Maybe they are approaching market saturation.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

This covers all ‘DSC’ .... what are they?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I believe that DSC is the acronym for Digital Sensor Camera.

Ched49 Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.

I wonder, who really cares as long as we have our gear with us. I mean, what difference does it make, really?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Haha. Maybe in a few years there will only be 500 cameras to choose from instead of 1500.

Bill_de Loc: US

I wonder when or if this will slow down innovation in the imaging software industry?

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DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

Or two or three cameras. Even GAS cannot expand infinitely.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Imaging technology is driven by far more then the consumer camera market. Industry, astronomy, the military, and various gov't agencies, such as the CIA and NSA, spend billions financing R&D. Do you think Kodak developed digital photography because they saw a huge consumer market? Hardly. They did so because the CIA wanted a better system for getting photos from their spy satellites then parachuting film back to earth in the hopes of catching it.

aardq

20 years ago people bought cameras to take photographs. Most were more than casual shooters. Today most people with a phone that takes pictures think it is a camera, and of themselves as some kind of photographers. The pic for the most part, stay on the SD card and when it's full they get another card. Just not the same.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Maybe it is exactly the same. I don't believe your second statement was true as you originally conceived of it. Almost everyone I knew had a camera twenty years ago, which they used to document their lives. At gatherings they would pass 6"x4" photos around; now they send copies of images from phone to phone without need of a gathering {how is "stay on SD card" relevant if they can send copy to everyone??}.... how is that different?

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

How much innovation has been there the past few years?? A company like Sony can release a new camera every year, but there is little change - almost like changing fins on cars in the 1950's - and I see very little yearly change in PhotoShop or LightRoom, certainly not enough to justify getting a new version with new tail-lights. That is why people complain about the subscription model - they wouldn't bother making an annual purchase if the model didn't charge them every month whether they get the new tail-lights or not.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

It all depends.
My D3200, my D7100 and my A900 all take good enough pictures for my size of 8x11 max print.
I do lust for a D850, which is tempered by the realization that my shots will not improve.
Except for some oddballs (lol) the selfie generation is quite content with cell phone cameras.
They'll goto dinner, shoot 100, delete 95, share the others, and move on. No prints.
They will NOT carry a heavy camera, a couple lenses and spare batteries. NOT!
Check the 2019 iPhone camera specs. $$$? Compare the price of an iPhone with the price of a D7500 AND a new cellphone. And it fits in your pocket. Add a 64/128gb sd card, you're golden everywhere.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

It is not uncommon for technology-based products to reach a point of 'developmental maturity,' at which there is no reasonably achievable advance possible at anything close to a reasonable cost. It is very possible that digital cameras are approaching the point that there is not a meaningful "next great thing." An objective look at the D850, for instance, reveals that despite the great wave of hype and excitement that accompanied its release, there really is not any earth shattering advance over the D810. Yes...there are some very nice new features and some incremental performance improvement, but without the frenzy and marketing momentum, there was really not a rational justification for very many people to spend $3400 to replace a D810.

Disclosure: I have a D850 that I added as a second full frame body to accompany a D810. I like it quite a lot. But without the need for more operational flexibility, there would have been no real motivation to ditch the 810 for the 850 at that level of cost.

The point is that by any reasonable measure, digital photography is either at or quickly approaching a very real technological plateau. Half of folks here proclaim loudly that newer, more capable cameras don't make any difference, and I'll bet that most of the other half couldn't provide a reasonable list of innovations that they would like to see (and be willing to pay for) beyond what they own today. The rational truth is that the "new" mirrorless products do not represent a tech revolution, but rather a simple incremental evolution which actually favors the manufacturers by simplifying their manufacturing processes, reducing their costs, and providing an opportunity to try to bump up prices. Whether it is working is very much debatable. I have seen unsold mirrorless cameras on the shelf at every camera store where I shop for a number of weeks. That means that the initial frenzy has died out much faster for these models than for the previous couple of rounds of new SLRs. In addition, there is already downward pressure on the prices of these models, again very much sooner than for previous rounds of new camera introduction.

To me, the message is clear, and I have stated it here before. Instead of bemoaning the situation, we all need to be promoting our hobby and working to bring new practitioners in to it. It would help a lot if we worked together to promote and encourage new photographers, have patience when they ask questions, and bring them along with us. Young ones are best, but any new photographer expands us as a group and also helps expand the market for manufacturers.