Camera shipments cut almost in half

[Admin]

Between January and June 2013 Japanese manufacturers shipped just short of 30 million digital cameras - that's a 43% drop in a single year.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/08/01/camera-shipments-2013-CIPA

[surfinJ]

iPhone and other mobilephone cameras I bet.

[PonoBill]

Pretty astonishing, they either need to add a lot of functionality to cameras or deal with a MUCH smaller market. Especially point and shoot. If your point and shoot camera can't record the location of the shot, access your photo database to identify faces, share selected pictures to the cloud and permit immediate editing and enhancement then it's not as capable as a smartphone camera--so why carry it. The camera you use is the handiest one--the one in your pocket.

If it had those capabilities it should also do GPS navigation since it would have a GPS. Have it make phone calls and presto--smarphone with a better lens. 

I think there's a market for single function devices but they have to link to smartphones. For example, someone could make a dent in the GoPro market with a linked waterproof, tiny camera that streams to your smartphone. GoPro is going that way, but maybe not fast enough to hold current share. One of the limits is 802.11. Photo and video streaming to a recording device needs gigabit bandwidth. Certainly possible in short range devices, but not currently available.

[pdxmike]

The feature I'd like from a camera is to be able to make a phone call with it.

I've always been a big, traditional 35 mm SLR user, but started using a pocket camera for most situations even before they were any match for quality with the large SLRs.  It's better to have a poor quality camera in your pocket than a great one in your closet.  Now the phone cameras' quality is so good, you hardly need to compromise on quality, and you get more features and convenience than a camera.  Plus you're carrying it anyway.  There's no reason to have a separate camera for 99% of situations. 

A while ago my client took out his iPhone, clicked some pictures, pressed a button, and showed me an instant 360 degree panorama.  I know a photographer who was doing the same thing years ago, but needed a $10k or $20k camera to do it, and it wasn't instant.

I still use my pocket camera daily, but only because I have an old phone.  The large SLR only comes out when I really need a viewfinder, extreme wide angle, perspective control, etc. 

[Admin]

The problem that the camera companies face is that I shot this on my phone:

http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=0.0,0.0,1

[MJF]

Hopefully, they will put more money into their SLR and 4/3 cameras now.  Smart phones will kill the point and shoots that were meant for family photos and quick snapshots, but they won't kill the SLR. Not unless a smart phone comes out that I can attach my 200 mm F2.8 lens to.  So far, the engineers haven't been able to beat big glass or the rules of optics. It is always about the glass, not the camera itself.  I use the smartphone for 90% of my snapshots (except my scuba diving), but for great photos with depth of field and animals in the jungle a long way off, I will stick with my SLR.

Mike

[pdxmike]

The problem that the camera companies face is that I shot this on my phone:

http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=0.0,0.0,1

Whoa!!  Couple in the room on the 14th floor, third window from left in the precast concrete building with the 4 black mechanical units on the roof need to get curtains! 

That's what my client did with his in a minute in a restaurant, but it was dark, small interior so not nearly so dramatic. 

I agree with both you and MJF--smart phones are not just more convenient, they're better than SLRs for some things, but not for all.  The thing I'm seeing--esp. with myself, but also more broadly--is that the types of photos that people want is changing due to technology changing. 

For instance, in architectural photography, the old standard was a large format camera wth perspective control, used by a pro who'd take no more than one perfect photo per hour--maybe 4 or 5 to describe a building.  Now the old square or even 2:3 35 mm formats seem constricted now that everyone sees everything in 9:16 wide-screen format for movies and websites.  Resolution is almost irrelevant on a computer screen compared to making prints for printing in a magazine or book or brochure. 

And why spend a fortune creating one view of a room when for much cheaper anybody can do a whole panorama or video and show the entire space--like the room views on every el cheapo hotel website? 

So I hope smart phones will improve to do the things SLRs still do better (and I'd love to see people get hooked on photography by their phones, then move to SLRs, leading to improvements in SLRs).  But SLRs are still going to lose ground simply from people caring less about the things that SLRs do better.  Same thing was true with film--film did some things better than digital, but it's dead.  Same with LPs vs. CDs, vacuum tubes vs. no vacuum tubes....people stopped valuing what they did better. 

[SUPflorida]

can't wait to see them tackle the telephoto...now that would be an awesome addition to my Iphone....

[Bean]

Not exactly telephoto but there are iPhone cases with multiplying lenses available.

[Tecpartner]

Yeah, but instead of butt dialing, you might get yourself into some strange situations...".is that a telephoto smart phone in your pocket, or are you happy to see me..."

[pdxmike]

Yeah, but instead of butt dialing, you might get yourself into some strange situations...".is that a telephoto smart phone in your pocket, or are you happy to see me..."

Then you could respond with, "I guess we could find out if I try my automatic flash".

[PonoBill]

Actually, telephoto can be trumped with resolution for all practical purposes. Most telephoto lenses have modest initial aperture. It's only when you start running out of photons that you need more glass to compensate. The separation of image feasible with a small lens but a very high res CCD is pretty high--on the order of 350mm at f7. Thy zooming on the panoramic gigrez photo linked above. If you zoom in on the park you can find people sitting around the edge and you can make out the brand of their shoes.

[pdxmike]

That's a good point.  I remember that being the argument with film cameras for going to medium format, or for choosing one format over another.  For instance, in a 6x7 film format, you could crop the negative and make a print either horizontally or vertically from the negative, and your negative area even after the cropping would be no smaller than a full 35 mm negative.  And the more squarish format let you crop less of the image away when you made a standard 8x10 print than what happened when you made an 8x10 from a wider-shaped 35 mm negative. 

Also, if you crop an image taken with a standard lens, the zoomed-in portion is the same as if you took the photo with a telephoto lens.  Telephoto lenses don't change perspective, as people believe, so much as they crop the edges of the image away. 

So you're right--unless you're a purist, why not just take a high-resolution standard image, then crop it later, vs. cropping it upfront with a lens.

[pdxmike]

This thread has me thinking about the photographer/paddler who went to Mark Raaphorst at SIC and asked him if the F16 would perform well in areas with lower light levels than Hawaii.  Or said he thought maybe the F16 would be large for him, so could he order an F30? 

[peterp]

For stills, the top-end smartphones now service 99% of the Social Media addicts needs. For video & sound the quality is there for most Youtube editors as well.

On my trip to Maui I used a combination of S3 Galaxy smart phone, GoPro Hero3 and a Nikon AW100 Coolpix. I brought my Sony Z1 for more serious (zoom/low-light) video/sound as well but literally used it once, complete waste of baggage space.

If only I could merge the advantages of the 3x above small cameras into my smart-phone:.....ie. go-pro mount attachable, waterproof, viewfinder (not screen which mosts cases doesn't work in daylight), wide-angle to narrow-angle, externally accessible memory card and connected to the net.

The best camera is the one you have on you, and apart from when I was actually downwinding, the nikon and my phone were on me the whole time.