burkphoto wrote:
Why the surprise? The "real camera" (whatever that means...) market has been shrinking since about 2000.
First to go were film cameras. Many of those were replaced by digital point-and-shoot and bridge cameras, but "serious" photographers bought their first dSLRs.
Next, the smartphone wars heated up in the late 2000s, and the point-and-shoot market dried up because NO ONE in their right mind wants to carry more than one point-and-shoot device. (Let's see, do I want to carry a dedicated camera the size of a cigarette pack, or a smaller smartphone (supercomputer in my pocket) that can do any of two million different things, just by downloading the right applications?)
What's happening now is a slow erosion of the remaining market. I reflect back on the 1960s and '70s, and see a photography hobby that demanded good SLR gear to get decent results. But today, a smartphone is adequate to yield similar results for many kinds of photos, and even better for others. And the fact that it is nearly always connected to the Internet for social media sharing makes it ideal for recording family events.
We still need interchangeable lens cameras for our most serious work, but less often. Fewer buyers of SLRs ever wanted to do that level of work, anyway. They just thought they did. I know lots of folks who bought Nikons, Canons, Minoltas, Pentaxes, and even Petris, only to let them sit in rotting leather bags for decades.
Hell, I worked for a photography company for decades, but I put down my personal SLRs for years when we were both working and raising kids. We had several point-and-shoot cameras, and no time to bring out the big bag.
In 1982, I was in Anaheim for the National Audio-Visual Association / International Communications Industries Association, with splinter meetings of the Association for Audio-Visual Technicians, Association for Multi-Image, and the Industrial TV Association. I took a day after the convention and went to Disneyland with a Nikon F3, five lenses, and ten rolls of Kodachrome. I would never do that now! I reserve my serious camera system for serious work — "intentional" photography. I use my iPhone for everything else. It's a compromise, but it's always with me!
Why the surprise? The "real camera" (wha... (
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And now, with Samsung and others that are putting a 5X zoom lens inside that slim and trim smartphone (more zoom than my wife's Olympus XZ-1 P&S), there will be even less need and/or requirements for some to move to a larger, heavier camera, even to the likes of an Olympus E-10 as small and light as it is. The market for larger cameras is still going to shrink some more both fortunately and unfortunately for the photographers here at UHHs. Unfortunate because some of the manufactures of today's cameras will not be here in the future. And fortunate because the remaining manufacturers will be producing the most technologically advanced cameras the world will ever see.