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What market? Smartphones and high end cameras aren't really comparable. They compete in the sense that they're both able to take pictures, but they don't compet

by tpeo 9y ago

What market? Smartphones and high end cameras aren't really comparable. They compete in the sense that they're both able to take pictures, but they don't compete across all possible dimensions. I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones and crappy cameras certainly are, but not not smartphones and high-end cameras. But using cheaper parts does make cameras crappier, so doing so in order to engage in price competition is choosing to compete with smartphones. Which is what I don't understand. Because, as far as I know, firms should engage in product differentiation as long as it's possible.

noselasd 9y ago
> What market? It's a great question and I don't know. What I do know is that I have not bought/used a dedicated camera since about the time smartphones came along. Nor have any of my family members - they all used to have dedicated cameras used to take holiday photos, photos of their children, birthdays and so on. Now they just use their phone. This must have an effect on the camera manufacturers.
jamesrcole 9y ago
Camera makers do or have produced cameras with lesser or comparable qualities (for at least certain classes of use, such as for everyday users). These compete against smartphones. Another case is the users who might buy a higher end camera but now find that decision hard to justify when for their purposes smartphones are at least adequate. A third case is there being less of a demand for professional photographers these days, in part because of smartphones, which also is a kind of competition that higher end cameras have to deal with. The bar of what smartphone cameras are capable of doing keeps rising, keeps eating into the territory of what previously required a standalone camera. All these things are competition that eat into profits, which in turn may affect those companies' abilities to produce high end cameras. Eg they may only be able to use cheaper components compared with what they could afford in the past.
dagw 9y ago
but these don't look like substitute goods I know lots of people who used to carry DSLRs everywhere but who now only carry their iPhone.
- ghaff 9y ago
  As I wrote the other day in a different context, when prices got low enough, a lot of people bought DSLRs with cheapo kit lenses, turned the control dial to Auto, and lugged them around to take snapshots for posting to Facebook. For the most part, smartphones have gotten good enough that, if that's how you use a DSLR, you should mostly leave it at home. Many people do have a number of lenses and use DSLRs for creative control but they may not even be a minority. Heck, I'm a relatively serious amateur photographer and I often don't bother carrying a dedicated camera today if I know I'll just be doing some occasional casual shooting.
  - nradov 9y ago
    I'm mostly one of those people, but I still often lug the DSLR because even the best smartphone cameras still suck at shooting distant subjects. They may have a lot of megapixels, but the lenses and sensors are so small that once I crop the shot down I end up with something I would be ashamed to even post on Facebook. Even the cheapest DSLR kit zoom lens produces dramatically better images.
    - matwood 9y ago
      On a recent vacation I found myself leaving my 70-300mm on my dslr for times I need reach, and using my iPhone7+ for other shots. Worked out pretty well.
- tpeo 9y ago
  I know about two of those people, but I attribute their change of heart more to a passing fad.
- matwood 9y ago
  I'm actively trying to become one of those people. The weight alone is a pain while traveling/hiking.
wjnc 9y ago
The companies historically creating cameras had a business model creating low to high end cameras. That's unravelling. Coping with quickly changing markets is hard. So even though smartphones and high end cameras aren't compatible and not substitute goods, the institution creating those cameras suffer with no good alternative as of yet. Hence the movement towards crappy high end cameras.
- tpeo 9y ago
  Yeah, I see it now. But then it ceases to be an issue of direct competition between high end cameras and smartphones and becomes an issue of shrinking economies of scale and scope e.g. raw material orders become smaller and lose previous supplier discounts and crappy camera designs which were "subproducts" of better designs are no longer feasible and thus all the cost falls on high-end designs instead of being split among several models.
matwood 9y ago
The point is that as software improves, phone cameras are starting to compete in the traditional dslr arena. On my last vacation I took a roughly 50/50 split in pictures between my dslr and iphone7+. Of course the dslr can do more, but the ease that a phone + software can make a wide range of really nice pics is eating into the consumer level dslr market. I like taking pictures, so I don't mind fidgeting on my dslr for the perfect shot. Meanwhile my wife has taken multiple great looking pics on her phone is wondering what I'm doing ;)
nakedrobot2 9y ago
>I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones have destroyed the compact consumer camera market. There is no hyperbole there. Professional cameras? Sales of those are going down also, depending on how you define them of course (SLR is probably appropriate to call "professional")
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  Sales of prosumer and up SLRs are going down primarily because newer models don't add enough useful features to justify the price. The new Nikon D850 looks like a great camera, but if you have a D810 that's working just fine the minor improvements that the D850 bring could be hard to justify for the price tag ($3.3k US). People who buy that level of camera understand, moreso than the general public, that, for example, an increase from a 36 to a 45 megapixel sensor may be nice, but in the end the photos both cameras produce are still great and whoever sees them in print or exported for the internet would never be able to tell the difference.

by tpeo 9y ago

noselasd 9y ago

> What market? It's a great question and I don't know. What I do know is that I have not bought/used a dedicated camera since about the time smartphones came along. Nor have any of my family members - they all used to have dedicated cameras used to take holiday photos, photos of their children, birthdays and so on. Now they just use their phone. This must have an effect on the camera manufacturers.

jamesrcole 9y ago

Camera makers do or have produced cameras with lesser or comparable qualities (for at least certain classes of use, such as for everyday users). These compete against smartphones. Another case is the users who might buy a higher end camera but now find that decision hard to justify when for their purposes smartphones are at least adequate. A third case is there being less of a demand for professional photographers these days, in part because of smartphones, which also is a kind of competition that higher end cameras have to deal with. The bar of what smartphone cameras are capable of doing keeps rising, keeps eating into the territory of what previously required a standalone camera. All these things are competition that eat into profits, which in turn may affect those companies' abilities to produce high end cameras. Eg they may only be able to use cheaper components compared with what they could afford in the past.

dagw 9y ago

but these don't look like substitute goods I know lots of people who used to carry DSLRs everywhere but who now only carry their iPhone.

ghaff 9y ago
As I wrote the other day in a different context, when prices got low enough, a lot of people bought DSLRs with cheapo kit lenses, turned the control dial to Auto, and lugged them around to take snapshots for posting to Facebook. For the most part, smartphones have gotten good enough that, if that's how you use a DSLR, you should mostly leave it at home. Many people do have a number of lenses and use DSLRs for creative control but they may not even be a minority. Heck, I'm a relatively serious amateur photographer and I often don't bother carrying a dedicated camera today if I know I'll just be doing some occasional casual shooting.
- nradov 9y ago
  I'm mostly one of those people, but I still often lug the DSLR because even the best smartphone cameras still suck at shooting distant subjects. They may have a lot of megapixels, but the lenses and sensors are so small that once I crop the shot down I end up with something I would be ashamed to even post on Facebook. Even the cheapest DSLR kit zoom lens produces dramatically better images.
  - matwood 9y ago
    On a recent vacation I found myself leaving my 70-300mm on my dslr for times I need reach, and using my iPhone7+ for other shots. Worked out pretty well.
tpeo 9y ago
I know about two of those people, but I attribute their change of heart more to a passing fad.
matwood 9y ago
I'm actively trying to become one of those people. The weight alone is a pain while traveling/hiking.

wjnc 9y ago

The companies historically creating cameras had a business model creating low to high end cameras. That's unravelling. Coping with quickly changing markets is hard. So even though smartphones and high end cameras aren't compatible and not substitute goods, the institution creating those cameras suffer with no good alternative as of yet. Hence the movement towards crappy high end cameras.

tpeo 9y ago
Yeah, I see it now. But then it ceases to be an issue of direct competition between high end cameras and smartphones and becomes an issue of shrinking economies of scale and scope e.g. raw material orders become smaller and lose previous supplier discounts and crappy camera designs which were "subproducts" of better designs are no longer feasible and thus all the cost falls on high-end designs instead of being split among several models.

matwood 9y ago

The point is that as software improves, phone cameras are starting to compete in the traditional dslr arena. On my last vacation I took a roughly 50/50 split in pictures between my dslr and iphone7+. Of course the dslr can do more, but the ease that a phone + software can make a wide range of really nice pics is eating into the consumer level dslr market. I like taking pictures, so I don't mind fidgeting on my dslr for the perfect shot. Meanwhile my wife has taken multiple great looking pics on her phone is wondering what I'm doing ;)

nakedrobot2 9y ago

>I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones have destroyed the compact consumer camera market. There is no hyperbole there. Professional cameras? Sales of those are going down also, depending on how you define them of course (SLR is probably appropriate to call "professional")

iamatworknow 9y ago
Sales of prosumer and up SLRs are going down primarily because newer models don't add enough useful features to justify the price. The new Nikon D850 looks like a great camera, but if you have a D810 that's working just fine the minor improvements that the D850 bring could be hard to justify for the price tag ($3.3k US). People who buy that level of camera understand, moreso than the general public, that, for example, an increase from a 36 to a 45 megapixel sensor may be nice, but in the end the photos both cameras produce are still great and whoever sees them in print or exported for the internet would never be able to tell the difference.