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Smartphones wiped out 97% of the compact camera market
- dboreham 4y agoArticle is paywalled so I haven't read it, but surely the reason is not that smartphones are better than cameras as being cameras. The reason is that a) smartphones are good enough cameras for most purposes (e.g. people were happy with 110 film cameras in the 1970s) and b) people already paid for and are carrying a smartphone so they need a compelling reason to also buy and carry a camera (see (a)).
- ymolodtsov 4y agoThis makes total sense. Most people are far better off with a smartphone. Easy to use, photos are right there, preserved in the cloud, etc. What Apple and others killed is the lowest possible segment. There's still a pretty healthy ecosystem of small-ish mirrorless cameras and, of course, DSLR, which you could buy if you need one. I really like my Fujifilm and all the nice buttons it has. But one of the key advantages is that its photos simply look different from an iPhone.
- Tepix 4y agoMeanwhile, 360° cameras are being discovered by more and more people and achieve awesome pictures unlike any traditional cameras. Also, the subject is always in-frame.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoI don't like myself in frame, I prefer sharing my view.
- Tepix 4y agoYou can always reframe the video after recording.
- jleyank 4y agoProbably wiped out the gps market also. My map supplier for my phone gave up and I assume it was from trying to compete with google maps. Was a loss for me as the maps worked offline…. “Good enough” and only one thing to remember. Nailed the pager, voice recorder and related markets as well.
- ThatPlayer 4y agoWiped out most of the pocket-sized handheld gaming market too. Not because phones are better at gaming, but they're "good enough" entertainment with social media, streaming, music, etc.
- Gigachad 4y agoI have a feeling that social media and video streaming probably replaced casual on the go gaming. It's more addictive.
- rwky 4y agoWhich is a shame IMHO I really love(d) my DS/3DS wish they still made that form factor, you can't exactly carry a switch in your pocket.
- coffeebeqn 4y agoThere are gameboy pocket sized devices made still that run emulators. But you’re stuck with no new games and grey area legality
- sincerely 4y agoI love emulating old games, but let's be clear: by grey area legality you mean illegal, right :) Unless you're dumping ROMs yourself of games you own...
- ThatPlayer 4y agoThey do run Linux, so sometimes new games can be made to work on them, like the new TMNT Shredder's Revenge: https://youtu.be/DpVwO8Z8z-E https://youtu.be/DpVwO8Z8z-E . And some newer devices can run Android for new games there.
- nszceta 4y agoTheir atrocious firmwares are responsible for some part of this. These devices poorly integrate into the lifestyle and workflows of smartphone users.
- artemonster 4y agoYeah even „high end“ dslr have serious issues reliably connecting to a smartphone to offload photos or apply settings as a remote. Also naming your lineups like HgZ150Hz-G3XL and make many of them with tiny differences doesnt help. As if these dinosaurs cant adapt and have to die? Anyways…
- cratermoon 4y ago> naming your lineups like HgZ150Hz-G3XL Panasonic LUMIX, is that you?
- nszceta 4y agoThe real tragedy is that these manufacturers have excellent optics and image processing technology but it's all for nothing if people don't want or can't use it.
- joos3 4y agoAgree. Fujifilm seems to be the only camera manufacturer really focused on firmware & UX design. They have almost Apple-like seamless usability and tend to keep updates rolling for 5 to 10 years.
- Niksko 4y agoYes, kinda. Other comments about camera makers being pathologically incapable of making good software are mostly true, Fuji just seems like the best of a bad bunch. My X100V is awesome. But there are definitely rough edges, particularly around the functions that interface with my phone. This should be bread and butter for cameras these days, but sadly it's still a fairly slow and sometimes buggy process to get photos from my camera to my phone, or to use my phone as a remote control. As for the camera interface and features itself, they're fine, but there are seemingly weird limitations. Only 7 custom simulations? No option to apply a custom sim after I've taken a photo? And the locked down nature is pretty annoying. I know that there are Android based cameras which opens up a whole can of worms, but there's money to be made with a camera that can leverage the wisdom and ingenuity of the internet to provide upgradeable features. Especially when camera lifecycles are pretty long, you're not cannabilizing your own market if you let people provide custom paid film sims that I can directly load into my camera
- yamrzou 4y agohttps://archive.ph/M1i4k https://archive.ph/M1i4k
- FeistySkink 4y agoSony hasn't updated their compact lineup in years, which is sad because many people love those cameras. Especially the RX and HX series. I always carry a compact with me.
- wkjagt 4y agoRicoh is still making their wonderful GR series. I have a GRiii which I love.
- adav 4y agoWhich model is considered by photographers as the last "best" compact camera?
- egman_ekki 4y agoCanon Powershot G7 X Mark III is pretty decent.
- piva00 4y agoRicoh's GR III and IIIx are really good.
- joos3 4y agoSeconding Ricoh GR III & IIIx. Absolute pleasure to use. They might release an updated version (called GRV given Japanese superstition around number 4?) in 2023 or 2024.
- rythie 4y agoThe Sony RX100 series would be in most top lists. Though personally I'm not sure why they went with a slower lens from the mark 6 onwards. The ZV1 continues with the a similar lens from earlier models. I have the RX100 mark iii, that's still quite good.
- FeistySkink 4y agoI second the RX100 series. As a step up, there is RX1 with a full frame and fixed lens. And HX99 the other way with a smaller sensor, but goes all the way up to 720mm.
- Existenceblinks 4y agoSame, RX100-M3 is my webcam now. (X-T30 for anything else)
- lm28469 4y agoThe fuji x100 lineup is real nice: https://jonasraskphotography.com/2020/02/04/fujifilm-x100v-first-look-preview-the-desert-island-camera/ https://jonasraskphotography.com/2020/02/04/fujifilm-x100v-f...
- sgerenser 4y agoIt also replaced 13 of the 15 items on this radio shack ad from 1991: https://www.trendingbuffalo.com/life/uncle-steves-buffalo/everything-from-1991-radio-shack-ad-now/ https://www.trendingbuffalo.com/life/uncle-steves-buffalo/ev... (one of which is indeed a compact camera)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rob74 4y ago> AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone Only if you squint and accept streaming and/or webradio as a replacement for "real" AM/FM radio. Funnily enough the ubiquitous Qualcomm chipsets already include a radio receiver, but most manufacturers don't activate it...
- ravoori 4y agoIndeed. And one of the reasons I'm clinging on to the venerable LG V35
- WithinReason 4y agoVery cheap phones still often have FM receivers, but as a phone gets more expensive features get removed: No radio, no SD card slot.
- sumtechguy 4y agoMost chipsets have the FM receiver. Most do not bother to hook up the antenna. As it would be one more thing for them to support and test.
- Gigachad 4y agoDidn't they all require wired headphones to function? That's probably why it got dropped.
- arnaudsm 4y agoI traveled to Japan recently with an middle-end smartphone (Samsung A72 with 12+35+60mm) & a middle-end DSLR (APS-C with 18-55mm), that I bought the same price. Surprisingly, picture quality was on par. Low-light, stabilization, everything. I sold my DSLR since. APS-C sensors aren't relevant anymore, only full-frames can beat smartphones nowadays.
- okasaki 4y agoThat's just not true. Even a 1" compact with a decent lens (like Sony RX100) is better than any phone. Not to mention that phones have awful ergonomics.
- personjerry 4y agoPhones have perfect ergonomics for carrying everywhere, and that's my primary requirement for a camera!
- okasaki 4y agoPerfect for carrying it in a pocket sure, not at all great for carrying it around in a hand. A compact camera is wider but shorter in two other dimensions, so it's easier to carry.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoTrue. Hand grip with shutter trigger exactly where my finger rests — can't beat that ergo.
- Existenceblinks 4y agoTaking photo with phone is utter horrible. I admittedly can't take a decent selfie with one hand. Even holding chopstick is easier.
- 4y ago
- xvector 4y agoXR glasses will do the same to the smartphone, and I can't wait.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoI'm not sure. Watch didn't replace the phone. (Although if the watch took photos I might just leave the phone at home more often.)
- Damogran6 4y agoThe watches that took photos _sucked_...which was one of the reasons I'm betting Apple didn't include one on their first (and subsequent) Apple watches.
- OJFord 4y agoI just came back from Delhi, and thought similarly (just camera specifically rather than smartphone actually) there, that I'd have loved to have something like Google Glass, but more subtle looking, for discretely taking photos without standing out so much - I missed a lot because I just didn't feel comfortable framing the shot, looking like such a tourist (I was visiting family, didn't see anyone else like that) - but of course I did look at them, would've been great to just touch the side of my glasses or whatever to take the photo. Day to day though, as a smartphone replacement... unless/until I need prescription lenses I don't think it's enough to make me want to start wearing glasses.
- cypress66 4y agoXR glasses don't solve the HID part (I don't think people will start pointing at things in the air. Even if they do it's much more tiresome).
- cesarb 4y ago> I don't think people will start pointing at things in the air. There are other possible input devices. For XR glasses, the most natural would be some sort of gaze tracking. Another option would be an indirect device like a mouse or trackpad (most desktop and laptop users don't point directly at things in their screens), or even a set of cursor keys for menu selection.
- jwmoz 4y agoI'm actually looking at buying a nice simple older compact to maintain the look and feel of older digital pictures.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoFunny, this video just came up on my YT feed last night: https://youtu.be/H4e90hYMnhg https://youtu.be/H4e90hYMnhg He (photographer) explains the draw of decade-old digital cameras. Apparently not a lot of cash will get you some nice older digital cameras — some of them quite high-end for their day and, as he says, maybe even preferable to some of the more recent offerings.
- upofadown 4y agoMake sure you can actually get batteries for it...
- roland35 4y agoIt wiped out my DSLR camera too. I'm no professional photographer but I bought a refurb Canon t5i rebel when my son was born back in 2016. Phone cameras were still pretty poor at that time, but have gotten much better to the point where I rarely take out the DSLR. It does take amazing portrait pictures! And better pictures using indirect flash in low-light conditions. But video is pretty bad unfortunately - mirrorless cameras fix the focusing issue but they were not as easily available back when I bought my camera.
- iLoveOncall 4y agoFor me it's the contrary. When I didn't have a DSLR I was taking a lot of pictures on my phone. Since I got one a few years ago, I almost never take phone pictures anymore (even if I don't have the DSLR with me), because I know the quality will be subpar. Why even bother taking a picture that will look awful when looked at on anything bigger than a smartphone screen?
- Sakos 4y ago"The best camera is the one you have with you" and the usual trope. I struggle to remember the last time I felt a need to take my mirrorless camera with me and I think it'd be a bit weird to take it with me on my daily commutes or when I'm meeting a friend for coffee or whatever.
- mjburgess 4y agoAfter selling my A7S I was at a loss for a F2C recording... thought about a Brio, in the end used the front-facing iPad Pro camera. With lots of natural light (etc.) quality at non-Fullscreen, typical viewing resolution&size, was 'unnoticeably good' I was very very surprised. I think a lot of people don't realise just how far tech has come (+the right photo/video-ography skills).
- OJFord 4y agoI was looking for one recently, and yeah, it's slim pickings (and even slimmer in terms of reviews etc. on sites like The Verge compared to when I was last looking at cameras) - not helped by chip shortages limiting availability (and raising prices) of the models that do 'exist'. I wanted one because I don't want my nice-photo-taking tied to my phone, I don't want that to be a consideration every time I buy a phone, and I don't otherwise need an expensive phone (my last few have cost <£200 and been kept years each, I don't play games or do anything intensive with it). I'd rather have a ~£200 compact camera and a ~£200 phone, with independent replacement cycles, than a ~£400 phone (that would be a much less capable camera, though admittedly the software editing/ML stuff for amateur stuff (which I definitely am, I just want holiday/walk snaps etc.) is quite nice these days). I settled on a used but pretty mint condition Panasonic TZ100, and can keep using my Nokia 3.4 a while longer. (Though it does reboot itself multiple times a day, so its days are still numbered.)
- thatBilly 4y agoI struggle to understand how mid range digital compact cameras are so bad. I have to use them for work (for reasons below) and usually at night with the flash. So the camera flash is obviously far superior to a phone flash but apart from that, my phone (Note 20 Ultra) dominates all the Olympus and Ricoh cameras I've had in recent years. When it's raining or foggy and I have to take a photo, I am forced to use my phone instead of the company supplied camera. If I need to do a video clip, again the phone is my go to. Looking towards the sun, same again. If I could use my phone for all the photographic records I take at work then I would but I still rely on the form factor of the camera which is more resilient amongst tools and dirt and on-screen display which shows a sequential photo/filename reference that I can quickly note down. How does a £1000 phone have such an incredible set of cameras which destroy the dedicated camera on a £300-400 digital compact?
- WithinReason 4y agoProbably the effort spent on computational photography by phone companies is greater than that spent by camera manufacturers, even expensive DSLRs only have hand crafted debayer/denoise, while phones use all kinds of neural network magic. Even an RGBW sensor with a simple bilateral filter could do amazing things, but I don't think any digital camera has even that. Remember when Kodak thought that digital cameras are a fad so they didn't invest? Same thing happening with computational photography right now.
- actionfromafar 4y agoKodak didn't think that, but they didn't anticipate the incredibly sharp drop in film sales. Kodak was the #1 seller of digital cameras in the US in 2005. Film sales only fell off a cliff in 2006. [0] The Kodak story as commonly told is something like "don't be stupid like Kodak". This is easily followed by the thought "I'm not that stupid, I'll be fine". But the reality is much more nuanced and with a more important lesson. - We have a product making big money - In the (far?) future, this will probably change - How fast? - How much should we invest in capturing the next thing? - Given the next thing is fundamentally far removed from what we did (chemicals -> electronics) should we even go there or divest and invest in something else entirely? Kodak chose to go the digital camera way, but got eaten by electronic giant incumbents like Sony (with their sensors), Nikon and Canon. Yes, Canon and Nikon were already giants in electronics, since their cameras were electronic processor controlled since the 1980s. Kodak eventually lost money on every Kodak digital camera sold. But even if that gamble had worked, they might have gotten eaten by smartphones just a few years later! Business is just hard sometimes. 0: https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/fufifilm-film-demand-market.jpg https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/fufifilm-film-d...
- bitL 4y agoThis is bad for privacy. Now every single photo a person takes will be stored on someone's cloud forever and potentially used by someone against folks threatening their mafia.
- gruez 4y agoOkay but surely not everyone's picture? Not everyone has cloud photos enabled.
- andai 4y agoApple is already scanning photos on-device for illegal content. Huawei is apparently deleting footage of protests from people's phones too.
- bitL 4y agoMy iPhone "magically" turns on Cloud Photos from time to time and then complains about running out of space. The same approach as with Windows 10/11 "magically" turning on anti-privacy options after upgrades etc. Not to mention some apps pushing all pictures to Cloud by default.
- Markoff 4y agoNobody force you to use cloud features. None of photos my wife or me take are stored in the cloud.
- bitL 4y agoAre you really sure about it? Can you be really sure about it being always true?
- cainxinth 4y agoIn my mind and in my car We can't rewind, we've gone too far Pictures came and broke your heart Put the blame on VCR
- unclenoriega 4y agoSmartphones killed the camera star?
- nradov 4y agoAs a casual underwater photographer, it's sad to see the compact camera market dying. I like having compact cameras that I can put into (relatively) inexpensive housings and bring along on scuba dives. My current Olympus TG-6 works really well, but we might never see a new model in that product line. A few companies have tried to build underwater housings for smartphones but they don't work very well. Too hard to control the touch screen, and they don't work with external strobes. Larger mirrorless cameras seem to still be going strong (for now). But the underwater housings are much more bulky and expensive.
- brezelnbitte 4y agoI hate iOS color rendering though and I tried RAW. I ran the TMB (100mi in Alps) with phone and compact film camera and only 1 iPhone photo made the cut. The colors are too saturated esp the sky with the fake polarizer effect and the color transitions more abrupt. Everything looks way too cool in tone and muddy when I try to warm. And this is on a 13pro. My damaged film (noisy from X-rays at airport) was still far better with softer color gradations and better overall rendering. Fuji XE4 is also far better than phone. I hardly use my phone camera.
- formerly_proven 4y agoTo be honest I've always found the auto white balance of every iPhone (SE, SE2, 12) I've had to be quite terrible and inconsistent for modern standards under artificial light. Roughly equivalent to 1st generation Nikon DSLRs (>20 year old tech). Pictures with the built-in flash are also really amazingly bad, worse than any compact I've ever had. The SE and SE2/3 have terribly tinting with the built-in flash as well. The 12 is much better here but still pretty bad. Close focus is no good - worse than old DSLR kit lenses. And ultra-wide on the 12 is so noisy and bereft of details that it's really just a gimmick. On the other hand, night mode works quite well and it's a camera you almost always have with you.
- pzo 4y agoSmartphones wiped out probably even more markets: -alarm clocks -calendars -calculators -compass -mobile gps -flashlights -mp3s -voice recorders -camera recorders -pocket cameras -pagers
- DonHopkins 4y ago-hotdog detectors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIci3C4JkL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIci3C4JkL0 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/not-hotdog/id1212457521 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/not-hotdog/id1212457521
- novaRom 4y agoMost people even stopped making landscape mode fotos an videos. Portrait mode is the king today. No rotation needed, shareable, full screen area utilization.
- pornel 4y agoCamera manufacturers are institutionally incapable of writing good software. I have experience with Sony, and their firmware barely changed in the last decade. Their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth mostly doesn't work. Touch screens are from a bygone era: laggy, imprecise, and without multi-touch. They don't have resolution good enough to check if the photos came out sharp. Their phone apps are a clunky afterthought. Smartphones are running circles around them with computational photography. "HDR" mode on Sony cameras is slow and primitive. I'm not a pro photographer, so I can't justify spending time manually tweaking every RAW file when smartphones do it well 99% of the time.
- FpUser 4y ago>"I can't justify spending time manually tweaking every RAW file when smartphones do it well 99% of the time." As soon as one looks at photo on larger 4K monitor the difference is striking. And you do not even have to dick with raw files to see the difference. Plain JPEG coming out of my relatively ancient D800 puts best smartphone cam to shame. Size matters and full frame sensor vs one in smartphone are incomparable. That is not to say that smartphone can not take decent photos and in many cases what is being photographed matters way more than the picture quality as long as it is not atrocious.
- ymolodtsov 4y agoWell, I have some photos of Amsterdam I took on iPhone 5S and they look just fine on my display. And we've had a ton of progress since then. In general case, you're right, but modern smartphones have come a long way.
- pornel 4y agoI'd be nice to have normal-sized lens, but it's hard to justify lugging them when the rest of the camera is so primitive. Cameras usually take longer to start and get ready to take a shot (or run out of battery sooner if you keep them on all the time) and have slower autofocus. May screw up exposure. It's harder to check the photos. Extra steps are needed to get the photos out of the camera. And it annoys me to no end that my dumb camera can't automatically adjust its clock and the timezone.
- medo-bear 4y agoalso in news today, automobiles wiped out 99.99% of horse carriage market
- ballenf 4y agoInteresting how it's an accelerated version of the horse/mule population decline after introduction of the cars/tractors/etc. At its peak in 1920 the total horse+mule population was ~25M when the US population was 102M. Or 1 horse for every 4 people. Although counts vary, there are 9M horses in the US today which has 330M people. Or 1 horse for every 36 people. (population counts from US census) Horse numbers from: http://www.cowboyway.com/What/HorsePopulation.htm http://www.cowboyway.com/What/HorsePopulation.htm
- codedokode 4y ago9M is a lot. I wonder what do all those horses do?
- stevenwoo 4y agoI would bet largely recreational use. See a lot of horses in Portola Valley and Woodside, and a few scattered in rural areas between San Jose and San Francisco, though it tends to larger numbers on a few plots and a couple of ranches specializing in either equestrian training or long time horse housing, and one never sees a single horse on smaller plots, most people who have enough land for one horse will have multiple for companionship to each other. This was also true when I lived outside of Houston a few decades ago. Working horses are pretty rare except for carriages meant for tourists and law enforcement anywhere close to urban or suburban areas.
- duckmysick 4y agoThe source of the linked graph goes into more details on page 19 (PDF, 2003 http://www.americanequestrian.com/pdf/US-Equine-Demographics.pdf http://www.americanequestrian.com/pdf/US-Equine-Demographics...). Recreation 42%, Showing/Competition 29%, Other 19%, Racing 9%. The recreation category itself is broad: > One woman’s recreational horse is in the trailer and on the go to a trail ride here, an overnight camping adventure there, and a special training clinic way out there, week in and week out. Another woman’s recreational horse is one of a half dozen at her home, and she might get a saddle on and ride over to the neighbor’s place a couple of times a month, if she is lucky enough to squeeze in some time for it. > With horses, recreation can be just about anything you please, from primping and pampering to roughing it in the outback; from a zen-like search for the perfect circle or half pass (a lateral movement in dressage) to the discovery of inner peace as a volunteer in a therapeutic-riding program. The joiners have plenty of equestrian organizations, local to national, to add some socializing to the picture. The reclusive types can ride off into the sunset on solitary trails. > That is a major appeal of horse involvement—something for everyone. And for a surprising number, the something is tending to their horses at least twice daily, forking manure and heaving hay bales; worrying over ailments, injuries, and feeds bills 365 days of the year; and having little time left over to actually use the animals. They do this year after year, and, when asked what they do with their horses, the answer is “just for pleasure.”
- DonHopkins 4y agoThey certainly did a number on the PDA marker.
- probably_wrong 4y agoI have a mirrorless camera that I still use regularly. Three events in the last year have called my attention: * While I was taking pictures at night, two teenagers came to me and asked me to take a picture of them. Apparently one of them wanted to know what it would look like, since the fact that I had a camera clearly indicated that I knew what I was doing (it didn't). I didn't have the heart to tell him that it would look pretty much the same as the phone he definitely had in his pocket, but luckily he gave me a wrong Instagram address so that problem solved itself. * On that same night, one guy started yelling at me (pushing his head against mine) because he thought I had taken a picture of his car. * I was interviewed in a popular tourist destination, and the interviewer explicitly asked me about why I had a camera instead of a phone.
- e40 4y agoJust curious what country you're in. That's some crazy stuff.
- tobyhinloopen 4y agoI have had similar issues. People get really uncomfortable around cameras but don’t care about a phone. Weird. This, combined with the lack of geo tags, often wrong timestamps, slow startup time, and useless tiny batteries, I use my camera rarely.
- arrrg 4y agoSlow startup times really shouldn’t be an issue in this decade. This is something that was an issue maybe in the early 2000s. You will generally be able to turn on the camera more quickly than you can navigate to the camera app. (Physical switch plus sub one second time to turn on).
- onychomys 4y agoOn Android phones (maybe iphones too? no clue on that) you can set a double-press of the power button to launch any app you want, so if you turn it to open the camera then you can launch directly into the camera without even needing to unlock the phone.
- happytiger 4y agoIn other news, software continues to eat the world. Join us for our panel discussion later where we will cover software eating everything.
- Damogran6 4y agoWill nobody think of the Flashlight industry? No science fiction story I ever read said anything like "It was dark, but it was okay, because I had my personal cellular internet communications device"
- vsareto 4y agoThey moved on to putting bright LEDs on trucks
- mik1998 4y agoPhone flashlights are horrible and incomparable to actual flashlights.
- agloeregrets 4y agoYes, though I would note that the flashlight industry got way brighter in the last 20 years. The good old trusty plastic incandescent flashlight with D cell batteries is what most households had sitting around for years prior and a modern smartphone actually compares favorably to those in brightness (though not focused) Modern flashlights are insane, they can even be dangerous haha. of note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I_fW0dhZn8&ab_channel=Insider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I_fW0dhZn8&ab_channel=Insid...
- rightbyte 4y ago> I would note that the flashlight industry got way brighter in the last 20 years. Tell me about it. I tried to find a flashlight for my 2yo son that he could stare into without hurting his eyes. There are none. I need to find a old light bulb one somewhere in some basement.
- Damogran6 4y agoBut handily beat absolute darkness
- visarga 4y ago"Horrible" but always with you.
- post_break 4y agoFujifilm on the other hand is exploding in popularity. Sony took the full frame market and has incredible autofocus. Canon has shot themselves in the foot locking down their RF mount, Nikon is doing ok. I think we're going to see a slow gradual rise in small compact cameras making a comeback, just like vinyl. Phone cameras can only do so much, it's physics, and photography popularity has grown since kids now are born in a world where a phone has a great camera.
- greenie_beans 4y agoi'm looking for one if anybody has a good rec? i ditched my smartphone and now i'm loading up with all these devices that everybody in this thread say are obsolete (they have a point but i don't need an iphone in my life, i'd rather walk around with five devices than one ...)
- post_break 4y agoX100V (if you can find one) X100F, Xpro3, X-E4. The problem is they are popular, chip shortage, etc.
- amerkhalid 4y agoI am so conflicted about my Fuji x100f. I love the thing, but I rarely use it. I'm usually very quick to get rid of things. With the recent popularity of Fuji cameras, I think I should sell it. But then I pick it up and it's pure joy to hold and use. A real camera has better ergonomics, great for vacations as you don't have to worry about your phone's battery life. Very good low light performance.
- chobytes 4y agoFuji XEs are nice, small, relatively cheap bodies with interchangeable lenses. If youre looking for something small and know how to (or are willing to learn to) use a camera, thats what I recommend. If portability is not a concern, you can pick up used high end Nikon DSLRs and F mount lenses very cheaply right now. Nikon is going all in on mirrorless now so this stuff is "last gen" hence cheap. Otherwise, just avoid Canon. Theyre becoming increaingly scummy and you probably dont wanna get caught locked into their system.
- mstaoru 4y agoOne word - bokeh. You can get a Fuji X-E4 + XC 35mm f/2 for ~US$1000 new, and I'm yet to see a phone camera that can shoot something like this https://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/fujifilm_xc_35mm_f2/bokeh_05.jpg https://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/fujifilm_xc_35mm_f2/... - it's an enjoyable setup that will continue being ahead of any flagship phones for years to come. Not to mention that it's a hell of a rabbit hole and a great hobby.
- nolok 4y agoIt's not there yet, but progress is being made fast on that front
- dbrgn 4y agoI have the Fuji X-S10 and the fantastic XF 56mm f/1.2. I love the sharpness and bokeh that this combo delivers. Definitely no match for a smartphone. On the other hand, my old Pixel 3a delivers much better dynamic range in low-light situations with its HDR mode. (Of course, it only looks good on the phone, not on the computer screen, but I sometimes wish the Fuji hat better HDR.)
- dsego 4y agoFuji has dynamic range settings DR100, DR200 and DR400 which can help for sooc jpegs. I only wish my xt-30 did auto-bracketing, instead of having to combine the bracketed exposures manually on a computer. https://fujixweekly.com/2017/10/18/fujifilm-x100f-dynamic-range-settings/ https://fujixweekly.com/2017/10/18/fujifilm-x100f-dynamic-ra... https://www.jmpeltier.com/fujifilm-dynamic-range-settings/ https://www.jmpeltier.com/fujifilm-dynamic-range-settings/
- dbrgn 4y agoYep, I'm aware of that and usually have my camera set at DR200. But of course it's still not close to the dynamic range that HDR+ creates on a smartphone. Here's an early-morning photo taken with the Fuji: https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/DSCF7064.JPG https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/DSCF7064.JPG (Either DR200 or DR400, not sure anymore). And here with the Pixel 3a: https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/PXL_20220709_033446459.jpg https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/PXL_20220709_033446459.jpg Of course, the photo taken with the smartphone has lots of artifacts, looks mushy when zoomed in, and the optical quality is far from the Fuji. In other words, it looks good on the phone, but not on a computer screen. But considering the differences in sensor size, it's still very impressive. (Fuji also has a built-in HDR mode, but so far I wasn't fond of the results.)
- afavour 4y agoI miss my old DSLR but yeah, it's too much to carry around. I wonder if there's a market for some kind of "clip-on" DSLR that sits on top of your phone, uses the touchscreen etc for interface, Wi-Fi direct for communication (perhaps?) I have to assume there's a good reason to not have done this.
- sandis 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSC-QX100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSC-QX100 (though technically not DSLR)
- afavour 4y agoHuh! Who knew. I kind of want one, though looking at some reviews it seems software is the big downside and I can't imagine a nearly ten year old iOS app is going to look much better today.
- pier25 4y agoI'm surprised Apple hasn't decided to kill the dslr and mirrorless market with something like that.
- victorvosk 4y agoI just got a Pixel 7 Pro. My photos look obscenely good. The new macro lens let me take a picture of a fly up close and you could see the individual hairs on its abdomen. It looks like it came out of a national geographic. I can't believe "normal" cameras even still exist for most photography.
- dbrgn 4y agoWould you mind sharing such a photo? I'm interested in how good it looks on a large computer screen.
- victorvosk 4y agohttps://imgur.com/a/GPShi1r https://imgur.com/a/GPShi1r First try and the lighting wasn't great.
- bachmeier 4y agoThe title is inaccurate. "Compact camera" just takes a different shape. Most everyone has a compact camera these days. On a less nitpicky note, I think the failure to deliver a compact camera at a reasonable price in the 2004-2008 time period did a lot of damage too. The low-end models were junk, and the good ones cost, I believe, at least $250.
- ant6n 4y agoAnd I thought smart phones are the compact camera market.
- chobytes 4y agoIm surprised by all the folks who always pop into these threads saying theyve replaced their XXXX-expensive-dedicated-camera with their phone. Outside of wide DoF, wide FoV, well lit shots I find my camera and iphone to be pretty incomparable. If apple starts letting us swap the glass out one day we might be have a fight but currently I just dont see it being one at all.
- jamesliudotcc 4y agoThe astonishing thing is, compact cameras have 3% market share remaining.
- jmyeet 4y agoI remember seeing a chart of this a few years ago. Digital camera shipments peaked at >100M in ~2010 then fell off a cliff and 8-9 years later were <10M. The sad part is consumer digital cameras funded DSLR development so DSLRs have kind of plateaued as a result. It's a shame because digital cameras can serve some specialist purposes that phones simply can't. I have a camera that can shoot Full HD @ 960fps. I have another with a 200x optical zoom (this is not compact). And another that's waterproof to like 30 meters. I also have another compact camera with a 20x optical zoom. But I really feel like manufacturers have failed to innovate in the smartphone era. It should be trivial (ideally, seamless) to save photos to your phone. Various implementations for this are just bad like one camera I have is a Wifi AP and you have to connect to it. They usually require running custom software, which is typically just bad. I'd also like to be able to put a camera on a mount where I can remotely turn and tilt it, focus and zoom. For years photographers have said the best camera is the one you have and it's true. That's why smartphones destroyed this market. But manufacturers didn't really do that much to close the usability gap.
- ben7799 4y agoI have a Canon 5D Mk III, 5-6 lenses, maybe 4 flashes, umbrellas, stands, a background, etc.. I gotta sell it but keep procrastinating.. 99% of the time these days I just want to not carry stuff and use my iPhone 13 Pro, because 99% of the time nobody cares if I use the fancy camera stuff and the hassle and workflow is a PITA compared to just using the phone. My previous phone was an iPhone 8+ and it kind of started this and then the 13 Pro really really kicked it into gear with having the 3 lenses. It got hard for me to justify not shooting RAW if I was using all that expensive gear, and then I'd have to sit there wasting time "processing" files to justify using all the fancy gear. I came to really hate that time in front of the computer. (This is after about 15 years of doing it.) Actual compact cameras forget about it.. the last few generations I had weren't even as good as the phones, because they almost always had crappy zoom lenses. 3 Prime lenses on a good smartphone beats almost all the zoom compact cameras until the zoom compact cameras get annoying to carry. The phone cameras also have a massive advantage that people are not threatened by them and act more naturally. If you mostly value your pictures of people in your life this is a big advantage. For me some of this is the ebb and flow of hobbies, but I really don't care about the snob value of the image attributes only possible with a DSLR/MILC anymore. Sony/Minolta one this game by getting their camera tech/products into most of the smartphones on the market. Kudos to Sony.
- bombcar 4y agoOne advantage I've noticed to the stereotypical "photographer loaded with cameras" gets people to pose/realize there's a photo being taken. They don't react to a phone in the same way. That and actual lighting from real flashes (I'm talking multiple flash sources, etc) seem to be the main thing that "real" cameras have left.
- elif 4y agoI bought one recently because when I'm snorkeling etc. I don't want to risk losing something with access to my accounts, auth etc. I really think we need to start separating our crucial digital identity/value from the thing we use to translate a menu or call 911 in an emergency or hand to a stranger to take a photo. Right now I use 2 phones to keep I kinda separated.
- brookst 4y agoIt’s a good point but probably a temporary one. The Apple ecosystem already treats all devices as equal; if I lose my phone I can do 2FA or call 911 from Watch or iPad at least, typically laptop as well. There’s nothing special about the phone device. Google, Samsung, and others are catching up there and it won’t be long before the same is true, though they will probably have a greater proportion of devices without cell modems.
- college_physics 4y agofrom the comments it feels already the case that carrying a camera is nowadays a signal that you are not a "casual" photographer but a prosumer (or worse :-) stands to reason, though, that for any given form factor if the device is dedicated to one task it will do it better than a similarly sized multi-purpose device (and one that, nota-bene, is primarily designed for and busy with collecting and sending user data back home). both optics, ergonomics, battery life and compute / software could be far superior in a compact compared to a phone. so the 3% niche market remaining might evolve into some really cool cameras.
- ubermonkey 4y agoYeah, and the market / use case for "serious" cameras is dwindling, too. I can see a time in the near future where only the most serious hobbyists and pros use a "real" camera.
- softwaredoug 4y agoThere is a similar thing happening with car stereos. People just want Apple CarPlay. Not your manufacturers crappy radio UX. Quality software is a discipline not every company gets right. And TBH, you see the difference between those that focus on software and UX as a craft, and those that don't.
- Xeoncross 4y agoI'm still waiting for the ability to use my off camera flashes from my smart phone. That is the missing piece for those amazing camera portraits sculpted from light when you don't have the right natural environment.
- dawnerd 4y agoI do know a number of people that went out and bought one specifically to use as a webcam. And they work amazingly well for that. Expensive, but you can’t beat the quality.
- yetihehe 4y agoCanon recently even started marketing some cameras as "for streamers" with integrated direct-to-youtube streaming.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoSomeone said to me a long time ago that the best camera in the world is the one you have with you. It turns out they were right.
- MarkusWandel 4y agoIn all this talk about why even bother with a dedicated camera any more - especially a small point & shoot that doesn't actually take any better pictures than a smartphone - one item is usually missed: The dedicated camera is made to be comfortably used one-handed. To me this matters a lot. Also, with dedicated cameras being garage sale fodder now, you can inexpensively get another feature that the smart phones just don't have: Zoom! My current "daily driver" is a Canon SX210 with pretty good picture quality at 14x zoom and image stabilization to make it practical. And still pocketable. That said, 50% of my photos are still with the phone these days, just for instant sharing or geotagging.
- almog 4y agoI don't expect futures phones, in their current form factor to ever match any dedicate (future) camera that can accommodate a better sensor and optics. What I would have liked to see smartphones makers match is option for removable battery in a flagship like phone. Some vendors (Samsung included) have their line of rugged phones with removable batteries, these phones tend have a not so great screen, camera and often processor as well.
- tqi 4y agoI remember thinking the Sony Ericsson w810i was the perfect phone + camera form factor. Of course I also invested heavily in MiniDisc so clearly my sense for these things was not good...
- visarga 4y agoI see a parallel, the smartphone ate the other devices, the language model is eating human tasks by the thousands.
- 0xakhil 4y agoAfter I used a dslr camera for few months, I notice small ugly artefacts in my iPhone 12 mini’s pics. Along with that, smartphone pics has a weird distortion which is very noticeable with the wide angle lens, but it is noticeable now to me with even the regular lens. Sort of like background compression, which i find pretty ugly. I think this is a physical limitation of a small sensor and lens. Not sure why nobody has fixed that with computational photography. All I want is to have my pics look like a shot with standard 50mm lens. I don’t care about bokeh actually. You won’t notice these things until you are familiar with pics from a dslr camera.
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoIn my experience I recover low level storages (think dd or lower) in consumer and professional cameras, and cell phones. I still find errors in FAT32 implementation when it comes to cameras, while phones have moved on to get specialized formats depending on the storage chips' design. Cameras' firmware are decades behind.
- torginus 4y ago>I still find errors in FAT32 implementation I wonder if this results in issues when you plug a card into Windows, which then 'fix' the incorrect FAT32 data structures on the disk, which again will be corrupted by the camera in new and interesting ways.
- jve 4y agoDoes it make your life easier or harder? (How easier is it to recover from FAT32 than from "specialized format")? Does specialized format means you don't ever need to recover from them or noticeably less?
- WaitWaitWha 4y ago> Does it make your life easier or harder? It makes my life harder because recovery has to be manually adjusted to work with the incorrect implementation. It also makes the owners' life harder too. older file systems are not geared for chips and thrash the storage, making them fail significantly faster, be it removable or built-in. > Does specialized format means you don't ever need to recover from them or noticeably less? For my context, I recover them for forensics purposes. When I wrote "specialized format" (e.g., JFFS2, YaFFs, Target, F2F2, UBIFS) I was referring storage formats geared towards chip vs disk. mobile phones tend to be very easy to recover; almost plug-and-play. They are often are hardware modules where the entire storage can be removed, and connected through common, physical connectors to recovery device.
- jollyllama 4y agoFor most of the last several years, I carried a flip phone, and I'd keep a compact camera in my bag. I just don't like smartphone interfaces in general. I really like camera interfaces; once you get good with it, it's very quick to set exposure, ISO, etc for exactly the kind of look you want. I also like being able to access files on my computer for editing, processing, and backup just via an SD card rather than having to send them through some 3rd party service. Generally, I agree though, that software for cameras is pretty poor compared to what it could be.
- avazhi 4y agoThere is or was a compact camera market? What is it, 10 people? 5?
- psychomugs 4y agoThe Ricoh GR and the sprinkled offerings from Fujifilm have been the only worthwhile point-and-shoots for a long time. I still take my Fuji XF10 with me everywhere because it's unobtrusive and will archive better than anything a small-sensor phone could.
- chobytes 4y agoI got a tiny Fuji mirrorless for my "best camera is the one with you" checkbox too. Next time I catch gear acquisition fever though, I might have to get one of those little Ricohs.
- psychomugs 4y agoThe list of Fujis I've owned/sold/kept: - 5 X100s (2x T, 2x F, currently own a V) - 2 X-Pro2s (one went to my younger cousin) - 1 X-T2 (upgraded to an X-T3) - 2 X70s (sold them - too heavy for a point-and-shoot, fantastic otherwise) - 1 XF10 I don't think I will ever not have an X100. The XF10 on the other hand is always with me. In a second I can go from single-point auto-focus and -exposure to zone-focused slow-sync flash; the only other camera that's this usable, from my experience, is the Ricoh GR II. The immediacy of physical buttons and controls is something phones have yet to replicate.
- FalconSensei 4y agoI love my Ricoh grIIIx, it's so compact and the snap distance priority is wonderful!
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoIt seems like the big camera manufacturers have accepted that they will not be going after consumers anymore. They concede. I wonder if there is still room on the edges of the prosumer market though to push more people into the big dedicated cameras. Could a better camera OS, more digital photography, and quicker, sexier results, along the lines of what we see on iOS, combined with amazing sensors and glass, convert some people over? Or are those numbers too small to be worth a try?
- N19PEDL2 4y agoI never understood why almost no modern compact camera has built-in geotagging capability. In my opinion it's a very useful feature, but what I usually find in modern cameras is only the possibility to connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone, where I need to install an app to provide the coordinates to the camera for geotagging. Then I see cheap low-end smartphones that have built-in support for GPS+Galileo+GLONASS+Beidou and I wonder how much would it cost to insert such electronics into a camera.
- jeffbee 4y agoGNSS receivers suck a massive amount of power, and nobody wants their camera to need charging daily. You accept this on your phone because you were going to charge it every day anyway. Personally, I think it makes a lot more sense for everything to access location information from my phone instead of every device having an expensive, power-gobbling radio.
- jws 4y agoThere is a timing problem with geotagging. If I am going to turn on my camera, snap a photo, and expect a geotag, then the GPS had to be already running. It takes a while, seconds to minutes, to get a location from power off. That leaves a few compromised choices… - leave the gps on all the time. This gets you a geotag but you have to charge your camera every day, like your phone. - update the geotag when turned on, but use the previous location for any shots until there is a lock. This is ok for rough location but users aren’t going to like that the first picture of a trip has the wrong location if they don’t warm up the camera first. - stay on after a picture is taken long enough to get a lock then rewrite the picture with the location. This works, unless you take the card out and hand it to someone before the rewrite. Nabbing the location from the cell phone gets you a live location for free.
- barbariangrunge 4y agoIs this the future of the art and writing markets once ai gets better?
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoIts a strange thing. You need a stable society with a social safety net to unleash such creative destruction, but a stable society has a tendency to develop structures like guilds that prevent just this creative destruction. The guild of map makers allows to ship in materials that allow for the creation of a machine that provides maps for free, but would try to prevent the construction of said machine by legislation influence at all cost. Which is begging the question, how does one ensure that the "protective" legislation always remains ineffective or gets devoured? Should protective laws always have a "lifetime"?
- Kaibeezy 4y agoYou want bad software/UI? Flash triggers. OMFG. I have one flash. M on the screen means two opposite things in two different places. Etc.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- standardly 4y agoCamera manufacturers should've built a compact camera that fits in the pocket, has a digital screen, and can make phone calls / send messages. They would've hit it big.
- fabiensanglard 4y agoAmusingly, Android project started as a camera OS.
- codingdave 4y agoI love how powerful my phone's camera is. I use it, I love it, I love the apps to identify birds, plants, etc with it. It takes great snapshots, and is so quick to whip out and get a decent photo. Yet at the same time, I hate holding it out to look at the screen to see what the photo will be as I take a photo. A camera with an eyepiece lets you hold it tight to your face, locking your arms at your side, and decrease any wobbling of the camera due to body position. That makes it easier to focus (and I actually can use a manual focus), zoom, and track moving targets, and gives you a bit more flexibility on settings for the shot. Not that compact cameras solved any of that particularly well, either. But I'm keeping my dedicated cameras until phones figure out better ergonomics for those of us who grew up being used to that level of control.
- cat_plus_plus 4y agoJust like Tinder wiped out getting to know someone and taking them on a romantic date. Smartphones are perfect for taking a selfie against a landmark and sharing it on Facebook for likes. Just don't expect your grandchildren to hang it above a mantelpiece. For that you need at least a viewfinder/rangefinder to compose a good shot and a physical shutter button to take a bunch quickly and choose the best one later. Computational logic will also only get you so far without ability to gather and control sufficient light. At this rate, I see actual silver prints making a comeback for the same reason as vinyl. At least we know they will last a century while your selfie will be forgotten as soon as your "friend" starts a political argument on your Facebook feed.
- dnadler 4y ago> for that you need at least a viewfinder/rangefinder to compose a good shot and a physical shutter button to take a bunch quickly and choose the best one later. I don't know if I agree with this. I've taken some great pictures on vacations, and with friends and family using my phone. I have some of these framed around the house. I don't think the average person is capable (or really cares that much) about getting the perfect composition. For these people, a phone is a great substitue to a compact camera that would have been used 10+ years ago. Oh, also most phones have a burst mode that works great.
- pmontra 4y agoI own a Sony DSC WX500. I bring with me when I go on vacation with a 30x zoom I can get great pictures of animals and with my phone I can't. I transfer pictures from the camera to the phone over its own wifi and a Sony app (not very good) to have a backup and to send some of them to my friends with whatsapp or telegram. A camera with an open API is be great. Sony would only have to provide a basic app and somebody would create a great one for profit or for the fun of it. Sony would keep the money from the hardware sales. No idea if they have some cloud offering for cameras and if they profit from it.
- ExMachina73 4y agoThis is the right move by camera manufacturers. The low end, compact camera has been replaced by people's smart phones and computational photography. All the innovation in the small compact market is on phone cameras. It's just not compelling or fiscally responsible to continue to spend money on R&D and manufacturing in the low-end compact market if you're one of the large camera companies. The money to be made is in the professional market. Higher margins, more expensive camera bodies and glass. Feels similar to what Ford did when they stopped making sedans/compacts and went full on trucks, crossovers and SUVs. The only real money maker that I've read about on the low end is the Instax line by Fujifilm, which fills that nostalgic, film based approach.
- gernb 4y agoI'd be curious to know what other markets have diminished because of smartphones * Flashlights? Sure a smart phone is not a good flash light but it's often enough * paper notebooks? I'm just guessing the majority of people keep notes on their phone, probably cloud backed so they can access them on their tablets/notebooks/phones * video cameras? The article was about compact cameras but I have to imagine no one buys a video camera anymore * mp3 players * calculators what else?
- sneak 4y agoLaptops. Most people who had a personal computer ten years ago now no longer do. Yellow cabs.
- rexreed 4y agoGPS devices, definitely
- vlad 4y agoNewspapers, magazines, newsletters, televisions, audio recorders, photo albums, pens and pencils, paperclips, staplers, stationary, scissors, stickers, ink stamps, software and video game manuals. Maybe less need for mirrors, lint rollers, and large make-up kits with similar colors (maybe it's easier to adjust the tint in the photo?).
- cooperadymas 4y agoThe "compact" camera market is a lie. I have wanted to get rid of my smartphone and downgrade to something smaller and simpler. The one thing tying me to it is the camera. I use it on a regular basis to take quick photos of family or events around me. If there were a compact camera on the market, I would happily carry around a phone and a separate camera in my pocket. No such thing exists. Every so called "compact" camera is significantly larger, bulkier, and heavier than any phone on the market. I get it, they have optical zoom lenses and that takes up space. Most of the time I don't want that but there are no options for it. But even the body of the camera without the zoom lens is significantly thicker than a phone. Near as I can tell, the dimensions of the compact camera have not changed since the last time I bought one, which would have been around 2006. The one thing I can say is that camera still works just as well as it did 16 years ago. Maybe new ones take better photos, but in the meantime, I've gone through probably a dozen different cell phones. Sure would be nice to have a truly compact option though.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoGive me the product I want, at a reasonable price, and I will buy it. I am specifically annoyed at how cameras have been sold in tiers, the same tech with upgrades as a different model. Sell me instead a modular camera, upgradeable like a PC. Barebones camera, no WiFi, no Bluetooth, basic screen, basic memory. Expansions: Better case, wireless connectivity, memory upgrayyedd, better screen, optics module, bayonet adapter for lenses of your brand choice. That sort of thing. If you do it right, it will result in longevity of the brand, if you do it like Sony has done with all their cool products, then it will be limited and expensive, and nobody will really use it.
- herf 4y agoFor sure, HDR and AI noise removal are pretty good. But there's one more thing that's less visible, which is that smartphones are not very friendly to standalone cameras. Cameras have always depended on PCs to do capture. And since smartphones did not provide ways to do fast wireless transfer, it made a separate device even harder to use. My Sony mirrorless takes about 30 seconds to connect to iPhone using ad-hoc WiFi, and it's a bunch of work on both sides. So while I can sort of get from the camera to Instagram, it's way harder than it should be if the mobile device makers wanted it to work.
- Someone 4y agoOnly 97%? That would mean one in every 30 compact camera owners still uses one regularly. I realize the market for “small cameras that you can always have with you” grew tremendously, so “3% of the number people who used to own a compact camera” is a lot less than “3% of the people who know have a smartphone or a compact camera”, but still, 3% seems high to me. I wouldn’t know anybody who still uses a compact camera (but then, did I know 30 people who did in the time before smartphones?)
- jesusthatsgreat 4y agoThe only thing they beat smartphones at is optical zoom. And that's pretty important and one of the few areas where smartphones still lag and can't crack due to their size. Add 10x optical zoom to a new iPhone and watch it crush all former sales records.
- JayStavis 4y agoIntroducing Stable Diffusion Zoom! Jokes aside, I wonder how much of the computational photography in smartphones today is "hallucinating" and showing something perceptually nice versus photos that are physically accurate. Something tells me that most users don't care about accuracy of the content as much as it looking nice, so I wouldn't be surprised to see faked optical zoom based on hallucination techniques soon. https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/stable-diffusion-coreml-apple-silicon https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/stable-diffusion-...
- paulmd 4y agofor context though this is a market that mostly collapsed like 15 years ago, and smartphones were actually the second death of the market. When you hear "compact camera" think about like the Canon A40 and such - early 2000s. By the late 2000s they were already completely commodified with no margin left and the profit had moved to DSLRs (and later MILCs etc). There was and is still a niche for "premium" compact cameras (Nikon coolpix, Ricoh GR, Fuji X100, etc) but the commodity market didn't get anything out of a standalone camera that couldn't be done better by something else, and if you're already carrying a smartphone anyway...
- unethical_ban 4y agoI suggested a few weeks ago on this forum that DSLRs should strive to be like smartphones with better lenses. Make real computational photography accessible on-device like a phone would, with its power and its UI, but with programmable hardware buttons and DSLR performance. I have an Olympus E-M10 Mark III (terrible naming) and while the photos are obviously of a higher quality than a camera phone, camera phones can do wonders with photo stacking and HDR/night shots that would be even more amazing with a proper camera. "But that's what photoshop is for", the naysayers say. I say, bollocks to that. If a budget smartphone can make these filters/optimizations accessible to the masses, then a DSLR can as well. Besides, they already try. My Olympus has an art filter menu, a "scenes" menu and so on, but they are opaque in what they are actually doing, not very flexible in adjustment, and overall can't achieve the customization of a smartphone. If Sony et al bolted a detachable lens to an android device with a few programmable knobs and buttons, with wifi (not hotspot based) for instant uploading, I daresay it would be a hit.
- irrational 4y agoI honestly thought that the price for mirrorless cameras would drop as demand dropped, but that didn't happen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 4y agoFYI: Story from August
- ChrisArchitect 4y agoRelated conversation a month ago: The changing fortunes of Japanese camera manufacturers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33328693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33328693
- obmelvin 4y agoDon't worry, gen z will bring them back with their quest for "vintage" photos https://petapixel.com/2022/12/01/tiktokers-are-obsessing-over-the-iphone-3gs-camera-from-2009/ https://petapixel.com/2022/12/01/tiktokers-are-obsessing-ove...
- codeulike 4y agoWhat about torch market?
- somat 4y agoWould it not be fair to say that compact cameras gained network connectivity and are now more popular than ever? I mean we call them phones but transferring sound is pretty much the least of their duties anymore.
- NaOH 4y agoI’ve always appreciated the numerous salient points in this 2012 Economist blog post comparing how Kodak and Fuji Filmfilm responded to the ascendency of digital cameras: https://www.economist.com/business/2012/01/14/the-last-kodak-moment https://www.economist.com/business/2012/01/14/the-last-kodak... or https://archive.ph/W9MMG https://archive.ph/W9MMG The article succinctly captures the responses of the companies, consumers, and the stock market. The lessons demonstrated by the relevant actors are ones I’ve carried with me in my own business work and shared with others when appropriate.
- fleddr 4y agoNeedless to say, people are pretty happy with smartphone photography. Which is optically pure shit, but clever software fixes that quite well. And not just that, it's idiot-proof. Those are two monumental achievements. But only the beginning. We're going to be debating the question of "reality" a lot in the coming years. Surely, the next step in computational photography will be AI to fix your questionable shots. You photograph the Eiffel tower, but there's a lot of people obfuscating it, the horizon isn't straight and the light ugly. One tap and it's fixed, if it even requires a tap. You zoom in digitally to produce some blob of what is supposed to be a bird. Tap to fix it. And there you have it, a pro level shot without the 5kg 600mm lens. Just like AI art generation, photography will be going through some deep questions. Did you actually photograph that? And if anybody can photograph anything with zero skill, what is the point?
- simplotek 4y ago> Needless to say, people are pretty happy with smartphone photography. Which is optically pure shit, but clever software fixes that quite well. And not just that, it's idiot-proof. Those are two monumental achievements. In the past photography was optically pure shit, and we could only take 36 photos at a time before cranking out a new roll of film, and we had to drive to a photo store to pay to get those 36 photos developed and only them we could see if the photos were any good.
- psychomugs 4y agoThe discussion on photography and its relationship to capital-R Reality dates back to the medium’s inception. There is no lens-sensor system that can capture what we see with our eyes, but is what we see even “reality?” Is the reality of a visually divergent person a lesser Reality than that of typically sighted people? Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” and Roland Barthe’s “Camera Obscura” are nice meditations on such questions.