ggab Loc: ?

It's a shame I will never own such a lens. @ $12,000 and $13,000 it is just a bit out of my price range.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You might find that renting one for a specific purpose does put one on your camera / in your hands.

Waterfall9

I miss my RB medium format camera images, but not the $2.00 cost per shot for equipment and processing. The costs are still present but in software and computer power. I figure my Canon 5D Mark III maybe costs less than 10 cents per shot but my time has become infinitely woven into learning new software and processing. Topaz labs I see is showing off new software today that cleans up jpgs and AI software yields an amazing improvement in upgrading toward quality images and this technology is bound to improve. Since most images for people are just snap shots I think the market for small camera phones is a lot stronger than most suspect.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Photography is not art. A camera is a machine that is constructed of plastic metal and some glass components. It is controlled by various dials and selections to the different enclosed software programs. It is powered by a battery.
You take the picture you then upload the picture to a variety of different software programs on your electronic laptop or computer. You then move the sliders within the program by your pen or manually until you get something close to what you want. Then edit that in a different program move those sliders in a different fashion and are now pleased with the result and you proclaim it ...Art. No, it is as it was the very beginning a picture.

ggab Loc: ?

Your right. The problem I might/would have is that I prefer to own. Once I rent one and use it, my mind would look for ways to spend the large sum of money to buy one.

MilRic

MeTo

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

Cell phones photos are for the selfie generation who want instant gratification. Most people are lazy and don't want to do the work to take really good images. But those of us here know that the end results do not begin to compare. It's apples and oranges.

Print a large image from each and see which is sharper. Need a filter or lens switch good luck with that one. And by filter I mean the one you place on the lens not some damn app that has presets you can't modify.

Not saying phones won't get better over time but until they address sensor size and lens quality they are not even close to each other.

For Canon to make this statement is a self defeatist attitude and they may as well close up shop it the future is so bleak.

I will shoot with a regular camera until I can no longer do so. The rest of the people can continue to take selfies that people scroll by on Instagram or Facebook with out stopping. The rest of us will keep trying to create images that inspire and are works of art that people will stop and look at.

Two different types of markets that I doubt will merge into one product line. In the 60's Polaroid was the cell phone camera of that time and we see where they are today. Fads are fads and come and go with each generation but art stays and future generations will want to see that not a bunch of Polaroid images.

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

Ok not art then you have a ways to go yet huh? It takes an artist to control the camera and the software. The device does not make the art. If you do nothing to your images you are nothing more than a snap shooter too.

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

You really don't know?

duane klipping Loc: Bristow iowa

LittleRed

I agree with you GrandmaG in the fact that cellphones will surely replace the point and shoot type cameras in the future. I also agree that most of us oldtimers using a DSLR will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Some will have a cellphone as a quick backup for our main camera for those quick snapshots that tend to crop up when they don't have a "real" camera with them. (Won't be me as I do not and will not ever have a cellphone). I started many years ago in film with a 35mm Practica, moved to Canon film, then to Canon digital where I am now. Will always be. However, the one thing you have to remember is that the numbers of us oldtimers is dwindling, thus the number of staunch DSLR's are too. Who is going to replace us and continue to buy that said equipment. There will be some newbies who want to make a profession of photography or some sort of art that requires a "real" camera. But a majority of the young people now have no interest at all in using such a "large" object for their snapshots or selfies. They would sooner reach into their purse/pocket and take out a smallish cellphone and click away, then press a button and quickly send it to their buddy in Timbuktu! I look at my daughter (she's now 41), her husband and all their friends whom all have cellphones and as far as I know no DSLR's. They are all "professionals" working for a high tech company. They are some of whom should be now buying the cameras, but they are not. The perfect example of what I'm talking about is related to the church my wife are now attending. When we first started there 40 years ago we had 250 members, we now have 87. At that time we had a large active youth group of 70, no we have less than a dozen (mostly under 8). The rest of us are oldtimers (I, at 77 is one of the youngest). What will happen to church when we are gone. Will it survive??? This is the same question relating to DSLR cameras. Will they survive??? Probably but not as it is at present! Once us oldtimer DSLR's are gone, who will replace us? As the number of reasonable priced camera users declines will the camera companies start making only the more high end models? That will make only those who can afford the higher costs as DSLR users. That for sure would count me out, being a retired senior on fixed income.
Only time will tell, but luckily not in my lifetime.

LittleRed (Ron)

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

I read these doom and gloom predictions about something. Driverless cars are going to replace my beat up Camray; Global warming is going to flood my beach front property; Cell phones are going to make my D7200 obsolete (oh wait, it already is). Interesting to speculate on these changes. Who, in the 1950s, would have believed anything would replace film cameras? As small electronic components continue to replace bulky mechanical units, who knows. A major breakthrough in electro/optical research could replace bulky lenses and after that...

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

My wife and I did the camera shuffle. I got her D800 leaving me with an excess D700. I thought it would be a good camera for my daughter who takes lots of shots (she owns a dog day care center and is always providing shots of her 'guests' to the owners). She is 43 and a heavy FB user. Her comment was "No thanks, they are too complicated and I can't be bothered learning yet another toy".
So we are doomed.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

rangel28

It's all about convenience and price. Most people are perfectly satisfied with the quality of the photos they are taking, as the vast majority of cell phone photos are looked at on a cell phone, computer screen, or shared on a social media site. Convenience, and the price of a DSLR or mirrorless camera (plus lenses) will scare off the majority of the population. I think Canon or Nikon would be smart to cater to the high end crowd in the future, those already invested in interchangeable lens cameras, and entry-level, to lure people into their ecosystems, with the hope that they too will one day want to buy a $2,000 DSLR or mirrorless camera. I went to a wedding last year and the only people with a DSLR were me and the two professional photographers taking photos of the wedding. Everyone else was using their cell phones, iPads, and some were using point and shoot cameras.