LaForet: Dedicated Cameras are Coming to an End for all but PROS

[Pao Dolina]

I am sharing this on every photo forum I am a member of as we are either working or hobbyist photographer who have probably bought a mirrorless/SLR camera. I find it a fun topic to talk about, assuming you aren't selling these still cameras.


Vincent LaForet was the first to promote the coming of HD video onto SLRs making his thoughts on the ongoing decline of still cameras have weight.


Without further adieu read this blog post below.


http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2015/02/24/prediction-the-age-of-the-standalone-still-camera-is-coming-to-and-end-for-all-but-pros/


Note to Vincent: Get someone to proof read for you. ;)


This video below expounds LaForet's thoughts with some rounded numbers


http://youtu.be/bfCJDIf-NeA


Here are some more precise numbers to supplement the blog and video.


http://lensvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Infographic-1920-1200-ver-2-0.jpg


Source: http://lensvid.com/gear/lensvid-exclusive-what-happened-to-the-photography-industry-in-2013/


Production, Shipment of Digital Still Cameras in 2014 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-2014_e.pdf)


42.8 million - still cameras covering point & shoots, mirrorless and SLRs
- 29.28 million point & shoots
- 3.17 million mirrorless
- 10.32 million SLRs


Production, Shipment of Digital Still Cameras in 2013 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-2013_e.pdf)


61.0 million - still cameras covering point & shoots, mirrorless and SLRs
- 44.19 million point & shoots
- 3.18 million mirrorless
- 13.64 million SLRs


Production, Shipment of Interchangeable Lenses in 2014 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/s-2014_e.pdf)


22.3 million lenses covering crop & full frame
- 5.7 million full frame lenses
- 16.6 million crop lenses


Production, Shipment of Interchangeable Lenses in 2013 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/s-2013_e.pdf)


25.88 million22.3 million lenses covering crop & full frame
- 6.01 million full frame lenses
- 19.87 million crop lenses


vs


1.3 billion smartphones shipped in 2014 (http://www.techinasia.com/idc-smartphones-shipped-2014-apple-samsung-xiaomi/)


Of which 1 billion are Android and 193 million are iPhones (http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/29/android-breaks-1b-mark-for-2014-81-of-the-1-3b-smartphones-shipped-in-total/)


Makes me wish I used all the money I spent on Canon & Apple gear went into Apple stock at $7.00/share in 2002.


What makes the smartphone market so big is that a sizeable chunk of smartphone users are on contract so they get upgraded phones every 12, 24 or 36 months. These upgrades are "pushed" on them rather than us working/hobbyist photographers "pulling" these upgrades with our still cameras.


I also think just like the PC shipping figures still cameras are either abandoned in favor of smartphones/tablets or upgraded based on need (the subject they're photographing needs XYZ feature or the camera broken down and isn't worth repairing).


Less than 1% of those buying a still camera of any sort buys a SLR. The 1% of the 1% of SLR buyers buys a double grip pro body like a Canon 1D X or Nikon D4S.


It puts into perspective where/who we are today. Doesn't it?


With this in mind do you find yourself thinking perhaps the next upgrade you will skip all together?

[Bill Graham01]

Honestly, I can't see this happening in the time frame he proposes("in the next few years"). Here's my reasoning:

1) Physics is physics, there's no way the glass you can pack into a smartphone will equal the image quality of a Nikkor 800 f/5.6 VR, etc..

2) Ditto for sensors.

3) Even if the smartphones close up the gap in IQ a little there will still be lots of non-professional enthusiasts that will be wiling to come off the hip for the ultimate in image quality.

I'm not knocking camera phones, it's just that they're not there yet and unless there's a quantum leap in electronics and optics they won't be there in "the next few years". IMHO... I use my iPhone a lot for pictures, it's always in my pocket. But the IQ doesn't compare to my Nikon gear and, as an amateur enthusiast, that's what's important to me.

I just got back from a trip to Yellowstone, it was really convenient to shoot with the iPhone for group shots and some panos and incredibly easy to share them but the Nikons were the go-to rig for shots I really want to remember and print. Not to mention that most of those go-to shots I never could have gotten with the iPhone.

My $.02/worth, YMMV.

Best,
Bill

P.S. Did you post this over on Naturescapes? I'm having a deja-vu moment..

[Pao Dolina]

Bill, yeah I shared it also there.

Is this your first post since registering in March 2014?

I think the market will end up being high end for the most part catering to pros and pro-like applications so we wildlife photographers are pretty much safe.

- Point & shoots with larger image sensors are starting to surface as early as 2009.

- Pentax entering the full frame this year and medium format still camera market and a few years earlier.

- Sony entering the full frame mirorless market and offering medium format sensors to Pentax, Hassleblad, Mamiya, PhaseOne, etc.

- Still cameras without or weaker AA filters and higher pixel count.

- Lenses that can resolve higher density image sensors.

Overall the competition within the still cameras market will drastically improve.

Although I worry that upgrade cycle may lengthen like that of the 7D Mark I. A lot of people were expecting the Mark II to arrive in 2012 but it arrived in 2014.

But it comes to mind, is upgrading for the upgrade's sake worth doing anymore? Or perhaps skipping a generation or two may make more sense until say our gear gets too worn out economically repair.

[Mike Hitchen]

You could argue that the current success of the DSLR manufacturers has been built on a near-fantasy, a freak of circumstance.
The sort of people who now have their phone/tablet as their sole imaging device are the sort of people who in the days of film would probably never owned a camera (or had a compact in thish the had Christmas both ends with a holiday in the middle) - cameras were blinking expensive back then. In the late 80s and 90s the production costs dropped and people could start to afford cameras a bit more but even then the % of population with a camera was still relatively low. Alng came digital and the sheer ability to take as many photos as you want, and see them immediately simplified everything and it all looked so more attractive: electronics costs were coming down and if you wanted a decent camera a DSLR was really the only option so people bought one not because they needed it but because it was the only game in town, helped by electronics costs plummeted to the point where cameras became a commodity.
But hot on the heels of this was the camera-phone hybrid which caught everyone off-guard and suddenly all those people who didn't relaly need a DSLR and had zero intention of ever upgrading it, decided a phone was a better option for them. For some reaosn this caught the marketing men off guard.

[Bill Graham01]

Pao,

Yeah, I guess this is my first post. I joined here(twice, hence the 01 username) after I made my first trip down to Viera and started reading Artie's blog. He speaks well of the forum here and I've just been visiting on and off, learning in the process.

I agree with you that the market will probably end up at the high end, the trend seems to be for most photographers that the camera they have is good enough for their needs. If I hadn't acquired a taste for wildlife photography a couple years ago I'd still be shooting with the D800 and D300(Heaven forbid! ;) ) And Nikon would have sold one less D4s, D810 and D7100. So it's turning into a niche market, there will always be folks looking for whatever minimal gain they can get no matter the cost. But the rest of the market has pretty much matured, the last camera they bought meets their needs and they don't see spending any more on incremental improvements that they can't see the benefit from when they post their photos on Facebook or email them to Mom.

In my view, the camera manufacturers have gotten hooked by the digital boom, expecting their customers to keep buying new cameras every year or two based on minor advances in technology. What they aren't acknowledging is that they've probably sold their last camera to most of their customer base. I think it's going to be like a return to the film days when camera bodies got updated every 10 years or so, the manufacturer will have to offer an extreme advance(like aperture-priority metering with the F3 or autofocus with the F4) to get users to shell out for the upgrade.

Or maybe the manufacturers need to address the fact that our workflow is essentially still the same as it was in the '60s: The camera takes the picture, once you're finished you take the media out and do what you will with it. Which today means you load the card into a reader attached to a computer, use an app to copy the files, rename them to something meaningful either in the transfer process or afterward, develop the images in another app and then distribute them using whatever app fits your needs. And the manufacturers don't seem to have a clue as to why they're losing sales to smartphones. Really? To me it seems obvious to the most oblivious observer: It's just too freaking much work to use their cameras!

It's going to take a radical change in direction for the mature camera manufacturers to maintain a minimum level of sales or even stay in business, the old ways just aren't cutting it anymore(as witnessed by the sales figures quoted by Mr. LaForet). I hope they do, I'd hate to see Nikon go out of business. But even if they did I'd be happy shooting with my current cameras and lenses for as long as I'll last.


Just my thoughts, I'd like to hear more from you and others.

Best,
Bill

[dankearl]

Silly article and silly premise.
Since when was high end camera equipment ever the norm?
The sales spike was abnormal to begin with.
Back in the the day of Kodak instamatic, when everyone had one, only the "pros" were
shooting medium format.
The IPhone is just the instamatic of the times.
Photographers that use DSLR's are more numerous now than photographers that used high end large or medium format cameras back in the "old" days.
Nothing has changed, the spike in high end equipment was temporary but was never going to be the norm.
More people than ever before are shooting with high end photography equipment.
The numbers may be down from the peak but are higher than ever in historical terms.

[David Stephens]

Hip millenials are investing in high end cameras, just like in prior generations. My youngest daughter and her boyfriend are techno-geeks and both own high end cameras and analog records. They both own iPhone 6s, have laptops with multiple OSs and maintain vast digital archives, but they see and hear the value in high resolution, whether it be sight or sound.

Last time I looked, (a quarter or two ago) Canon's interchangeable lens business was staying relatively steady. The P&S business was in the dumps, but the mid to high end was still doing well.

[Pao Dolina]

Actual shipments in 2014
Forecasted shipments for 2015

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7610/16573061874_fbbcef8d4e_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/rfvgU7)
CIPA2015Forecast (https://flic.kr/p/rfvgU7) by alabang (https://www.flickr.com/people/91429492@N00/), on Flickr

Point & shoots is the most affected in drop in sales.

Interchangeable lenses and bodies the least affected.

People on photo forums will still buy dedicated still cameras.

People who dont will probably use what they have until it is too expensive to fix or just get a new smartphone.