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Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days

by vr46 3y ago

Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days ago and I’ve not seen a better market for photography since the 1980s. Camera phones are simply the new point and shoot, taking their place at the bottom end or convenience end of the market, and many of those people enjoying using those cameras have a great route into photography.

foldr 3y ago
It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu... I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the same total cost as an iPhone 15 Pro. Many people are still willing to pay a premium for a good camera. It’s just that for most people, high end smartphone cameras are now the best all round cameras. It’s consistently been the case in the history of photography that Photographers with a capital P are the last people to transition to new, more compact and more convenient tools. People used to be very snobbish about roll film vs sheet film, for example.
- vr46 3y ago
  I see the point, but a) Canon make much more than cameras or photo-related, unlike say Nikon, and a bigger market means more players overall. There’s as many manufacturers making pro-level kit now as I recall from the 1980s, and somebody’s buying the stuff to drive the investment - I think. I also hear you on the point about transitioning to newer tools, but would suggest that photography has always required significant personal investment in money and time, and one must sweat the assets as they say, to make them pay off. Some technologies seem more convenient, like digital, but can end up by funnelling all the effort onto fewer people, instead of throwing the film over the fence to other professionals who could do a much better and faster job of developing and printing. Sometimes of course, the sweat and toil is all part of the product - as no doubt my mate who built his own camera made from the timber of the woods near his home would tell you - but in the modern world, most people just want to see the image as soon as they can…

by vr46 3y ago

foldr 3y ago

It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu... I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the same total cost as an iPhone 15 Pro. Many people are still willing to pay a premium for a good camera. It’s just that for most people, high end smartphone cameras are now the best all round cameras. It’s consistently been the case in the history of photography that Photographers with a capital P are the last people to transition to new, more compact and more convenient tools. People used to be very snobbish about roll film vs sheet film, for example.

vr46 3y ago
I see the point, but a) Canon make much more than cameras or photo-related, unlike say Nikon, and a bigger market means more players overall. There’s as many manufacturers making pro-level kit now as I recall from the 1980s, and somebody’s buying the stuff to drive the investment - I think. I also hear you on the point about transitioning to newer tools, but would suggest that photography has always required significant personal investment in money and time, and one must sweat the assets as they say, to make them pay off. Some technologies seem more convenient, like digital, but can end up by funnelling all the effort onto fewer people, instead of throwing the film over the fence to other professionals who could do a much better and faster job of developing and printing. Sometimes of course, the sweat and toil is all part of the product - as no doubt my mate who built his own camera made from the timber of the woods near his home would tell you - but in the modern world, most people just want to see the image as soon as they can…