8 ms·

Stating the obvious, the market decided that the opposite would happen, i.e. that the smartphones would take away the market share of camera manufacturers inste

by thih9 2y ago

Stating the obvious, the market decided that the opposite would happen, i.e. that the smartphones would take away the market share of camera manufacturers instead. Smartphone camera experience is good enough for most people and smartphones offer other features as well.

samcat116 2y ago
I don't know if there was ever really a shot at the form factor I'm describing in the market, but you are likely right.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
It's not dissimilar to back in the pre-digital camera era... most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, and then we all had that nerdy uncle or friend who was really into cameras and willing to spend the money on a real 35mm SLR or rangefinder or whatever. Phones have taken the place of the old point and shoots. That doesn't mean that manufacturers of pro-sumer interchangeable lens cameras couldn't do a better job with software, though...
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  > most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, No they weren't. There just weren't any other options that were as affordable or convenient. A kilo of SLR does not compete in the same space as a Kodak Instamatic.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    You just repeated my point. It's a different market segment and always was. Phones are now sitting in that segment of casual photography. And are "affordable" and convenient. Those of us who are nerdy about pictures, go and buy a mirrorless. But that's always going to be a small and different segment. This may not last forever. Phones are becoming less "cool" to people. They might come around again to carrying multiple specialized devices.
    - schrijver 2y ago
      I’d say there are three groups: A) casual photography for capturing memories B) casual but with a desire to take better quality pictures C) enthusiastic amateurs and pros. Now only C will buy a dedicated camera. But in the late 0’s and the 2010’s, segment B did too—lots of people bought DSLRs to get better quality pictures — often sticking to the kit lens and not getting all geeky about photography… just putting everything on automatic would still offer much better quality than a compact camera or a phone camera. As phone cameras got better, people in this market segment switched to phones — they might just care more about the type of camera on the phone than the most casual of users do. Consequently camera sales have plummeted: https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digital-singe-lens-reflex-cameras-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digi...
      - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        I think B is going to slowly come back. It's already happening among some youths with the retro-digicam phase. The ergonomics of photos-by-phone suck, and the novelty of phones as a status symbol has worn off. The first company to really "get" the integration of point and shoot cameras into the mobile ecosystem properly will win big. Fuji is already selling boatloads of X100Vs, and there's the Ricoh GR3, etc as well. There's a trend for ergonomic nice high end fixed lens cameras. And for kicks go on eBay and look up the prices of used old Canon PowerShots. Have a nice condition pink one in a drawer you can make some coin. From worthless e-waste to $300 status symbol...
    - kwhitefoot 2y ago
      I was making a different point. That is, that you can't truly say that people are happy with something when there is no practical alternative.
- hef19898 2y ago
  What software exactly are modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras missing? I know, picking at software is a favorite past time on HN, but most of the time it is missing the point. Examples for this include: ERP systems, embeded and or safety relevant software, software in highly regulated markets or sectors. And, it seems, cameras. Computational photography is all fine, on an iPhone.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    The most glaring is just good integration with phones and cloud services. From what I've seen, none of the systems that offer WiFi/Bluetooth integration are actually any good. In terms of computational photography... I think they're fine... a lot of things can be done in post-processing, which is fine, and there's been amazing advances in autofocus and stabilization.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      Eh. Shuffling pictures from my G9x MkII to my Android phone is pretty simple enough. I do wish the data transfer speeds were faster, but it is still stupid simple to pair to the phone. From there I can see the photos and choose which to download. Or I can select them on my camera and send them to my phone or laptop. I've often taken the camera with me on a trip with some friends and shuffled the photos into group chats the next time I had a few minutes of downtime. The camera which is several years old at this point already has some good video stabilization. The AF is backed with good hardware, its pretty good and can even do face detection. Its far faster and more accurate than my much newer Pixel. I wouldn't really care to do much post processing on the camera itself other than the basic filters and affects it can already do, as the interface is pretty small so it is hard to get details. If I'm really going to do some post-processing I'll be pushing it to my desktop with a large monitor so I can really see what I'm doing. But honestly if I'm going to work at it on my desktop I'll more likely just pull out the SD card and stick it in the computer and get far faster transfer speeds. About the only feature I'd personally like would just be some kind of direct camera integration with Google Photos/OneDrive/iCloud/OwnCloud/whatever, have it just start syncing photos the moment it detects its online. That and good built-in GPS support. Apart from that I don't really know what else I'd do with more "smart" connectivity. I bought a camera like this because I wanted to manually adjust things instead of having some AI model twist and warp the photo into whatever the training data suggests looks good.
account42 2y ago
Did the market decide that or were there simply never any good options from the big camera makers?
- tracker1 2y ago
  The market definitely decided this... Even before internet access was common on phones, or phone cameras were decent, the requests were for better cameras on phones. Because the camera you're more likely to use is the one you have with you. You're more likely to have your phone than a separate camera, and photos are often a matter of opportunity.
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    This makes sense because “the market” rather than a handful of cellular companies decided that people want LTE connectivity to be expensive and relegated to phones
    - awad 2y ago
      Cell companies will sell connectivity to whoever will buy it though. Cars, watches, and anything IoT they can get their signal to.
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        For ~$30/mo in the US per device, hence why most people cannot justify owning multiple LTE-connected devices.
        londons_explore 2y ago
        I think they would happily negotiate that price down to nil per month, if they could be absolutely sure a 'device' on your account wasn't actually your cousin 'sharing' your cellular account to save a bit of money.
        awad 2y ago
Suppafly 2y ago
What the market wants and what manufacturers provide isn't 100% aligned though. You make a good point about people wanting better cameras on their phones, but that doesn't totally eliminate the market for better portable cameras. Even if manufacturers would rather put their r&d money in areas that would be more profitable, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is no profit in other areas.
- afavour 2y ago
  I think it’s a scale thing. The market for those devices exists but it’s not big enough to justify the investment.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Its really a physics thing at a certain point. Smartphones are always worse than their contemporary purpose built camera counterparts because smartphone cameras have to be so small. Meanwhile a pro camera could weigh 10 pounds with a lens the size of your thigh. We simply don't know enough about optics to take that package and put it into a smartphone without compromising quality in some way.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      The optics and sensors might be a physics thing, but everything else about standalone cameras really could've done much better at staying competitive. As others have mentioned, lack of geotagging, wireless connectivity, and other convenience features made them poor competitors to smartphones. And it wasn't just wireless connectivity being behind the times, Canon's T7i (aka 800D) launched in 2017 still made you find a mini USB cable. They were good at optics, but dropped the ball on the rest of the product. Even though the phone had worse quality pictures, it brought many other things to the table.
      - solardev 2y ago
        I don't think any of the camera manufacturers have good UX people. They sell engineering, not usability. Even Sony, who makes a bunch of laptops and phones and such, sucks at this compared to the West. Maybe it's just not a strong part of Japanese corporate culture?
blagie 2y ago
"The market" didn't decide. There are maybe five major camera companies (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic), and a few minor ones (Fuji, Pentax, Casio, Sigma). No one tried. Everyone wants proprietary lock-in. No one wants to open up. It's very much like the pre-iPhone phone market. It's not that no one wanted an iPhone, but that before Apple, no one was willing to try making one. As a result, the camera market is all but dead: https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-camera-industry-in-the-last-two-years/ https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-came... My phone works better for most purposes (holistically) than my full-frame camera. At this point, no one has money to make the kind of investment needed to revive it, and an open model is unlikely to see the light of day. 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. My main camera is from 2012, and not worth upgrading. Curiously, lenses keep progressing at a slow but steady clip. Sigma just announced an f/1.8 full frame 28-45mm zoom lens.
- thih9 2y ago
  > No one tried. There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. > 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. Depending on the type of photography that you do, there were significant improvements[3]. Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 [3]: https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-versus-cameras-10-years-ago-649909 https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-vers...
  - cyberax 2y ago
    No, there really were not. NX was the only one, Yongnuo is not available globally and Sony made only one half-assed attempt. Even the basic GPS tagging is not available on most cameras. You have to run some crapp on your phone and hope that Bluetooth works.
    - thih9 2y ago
      I also recall Zeiss ZX1. There was a Nikon Coolpix S800c. Another comment mentioned RED cameras. With what you listed, that’s already a handful of products that flopped - I’m not surprised manufacturers aren’t eager to continue this way. Interestingly, Android was originally meant to be a camera OS, until they pivoted because mobile phones were a larger market[1]. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cameras-1111795/ https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cam...

by thih9 2y ago

samcat116 2y ago

I don't know if there was ever really a shot at the form factor I'm describing in the market, but you are likely right.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

It's not dissimilar to back in the pre-digital camera era... most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, and then we all had that nerdy uncle or friend who was really into cameras and willing to spend the money on a real 35mm SLR or rangefinder or whatever. Phones have taken the place of the old point and shoots. That doesn't mean that manufacturers of pro-sumer interchangeable lens cameras couldn't do a better job with software, though...

kwhitefoot 2y ago
> most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, No they weren't. There just weren't any other options that were as affordable or convenient. A kilo of SLR does not compete in the same space as a Kodak Instamatic.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  You just repeated my point. It's a different market segment and always was. Phones are now sitting in that segment of casual photography. And are "affordable" and convenient. Those of us who are nerdy about pictures, go and buy a mirrorless. But that's always going to be a small and different segment. This may not last forever. Phones are becoming less "cool" to people. They might come around again to carrying multiple specialized devices.
  - schrijver 2y ago
    I’d say there are three groups: A) casual photography for capturing memories B) casual but with a desire to take better quality pictures C) enthusiastic amateurs and pros. Now only C will buy a dedicated camera. But in the late 0’s and the 2010’s, segment B did too—lots of people bought DSLRs to get better quality pictures — often sticking to the kit lens and not getting all geeky about photography… just putting everything on automatic would still offer much better quality than a compact camera or a phone camera. As phone cameras got better, people in this market segment switched to phones — they might just care more about the type of camera on the phone than the most casual of users do. Consequently camera sales have plummeted: https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digital-singe-lens-reflex-cameras-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digi...
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      I think B is going to slowly come back. It's already happening among some youths with the retro-digicam phase. The ergonomics of photos-by-phone suck, and the novelty of phones as a status symbol has worn off. The first company to really "get" the integration of point and shoot cameras into the mobile ecosystem properly will win big. Fuji is already selling boatloads of X100Vs, and there's the Ricoh GR3, etc as well. There's a trend for ergonomic nice high end fixed lens cameras. And for kicks go on eBay and look up the prices of used old Canon PowerShots. Have a nice condition pink one in a drawer you can make some coin. From worthless e-waste to $300 status symbol...
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    I was making a different point. That is, that you can't truly say that people are happy with something when there is no practical alternative.
hef19898 2y ago
What software exactly are modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras missing? I know, picking at software is a favorite past time on HN, but most of the time it is missing the point. Examples for this include: ERP systems, embeded and or safety relevant software, software in highly regulated markets or sectors. And, it seems, cameras. Computational photography is all fine, on an iPhone.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  The most glaring is just good integration with phones and cloud services. From what I've seen, none of the systems that offer WiFi/Bluetooth integration are actually any good. In terms of computational photography... I think they're fine... a lot of things can be done in post-processing, which is fine, and there's been amazing advances in autofocus and stabilization.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Eh. Shuffling pictures from my G9x MkII to my Android phone is pretty simple enough. I do wish the data transfer speeds were faster, but it is still stupid simple to pair to the phone. From there I can see the photos and choose which to download. Or I can select them on my camera and send them to my phone or laptop. I've often taken the camera with me on a trip with some friends and shuffled the photos into group chats the next time I had a few minutes of downtime. The camera which is several years old at this point already has some good video stabilization. The AF is backed with good hardware, its pretty good and can even do face detection. Its far faster and more accurate than my much newer Pixel. I wouldn't really care to do much post processing on the camera itself other than the basic filters and affects it can already do, as the interface is pretty small so it is hard to get details. If I'm really going to do some post-processing I'll be pushing it to my desktop with a large monitor so I can really see what I'm doing. But honestly if I'm going to work at it on my desktop I'll more likely just pull out the SD card and stick it in the computer and get far faster transfer speeds. About the only feature I'd personally like would just be some kind of direct camera integration with Google Photos/OneDrive/iCloud/OwnCloud/whatever, have it just start syncing photos the moment it detects its online. That and good built-in GPS support. Apart from that I don't really know what else I'd do with more "smart" connectivity. I bought a camera like this because I wanted to manually adjust things instead of having some AI model twist and warp the photo into whatever the training data suggests looks good.

account42 2y ago

Did the market decide that or were there simply never any good options from the big camera makers?

tracker1 2y ago
The market definitely decided this... Even before internet access was common on phones, or phone cameras were decent, the requests were for better cameras on phones. Because the camera you're more likely to use is the one you have with you. You're more likely to have your phone than a separate camera, and photos are often a matter of opportunity.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  This makes sense because “the market” rather than a handful of cellular companies decided that people want LTE connectivity to be expensive and relegated to phones
  - awad 2y ago
    Cell companies will sell connectivity to whoever will buy it though. Cars, watches, and anything IoT they can get their signal to.
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      For ~$30/mo in the US per device, hence why most people cannot justify owning multiple LTE-connected devices.
      - londons_explore 2y ago
        I think they would happily negotiate that price down to nil per month, if they could be absolutely sure a 'device' on your account wasn't actually your cousin 'sharing' your cellular account to save a bit of money.
      - awad 2y ago

Suppafly 2y ago

What the market wants and what manufacturers provide isn't 100% aligned though. You make a good point about people wanting better cameras on their phones, but that doesn't totally eliminate the market for better portable cameras. Even if manufacturers would rather put their r&d money in areas that would be more profitable, that doesn't necessarily mean that there is no profit in other areas.

afavour 2y ago
I think it’s a scale thing. The market for those devices exists but it’s not big enough to justify the investment.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Its really a physics thing at a certain point. Smartphones are always worse than their contemporary purpose built camera counterparts because smartphone cameras have to be so small. Meanwhile a pro camera could weigh 10 pounds with a lens the size of your thigh. We simply don't know enough about optics to take that package and put it into a smartphone without compromising quality in some way.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    The optics and sensors might be a physics thing, but everything else about standalone cameras really could've done much better at staying competitive. As others have mentioned, lack of geotagging, wireless connectivity, and other convenience features made them poor competitors to smartphones. And it wasn't just wireless connectivity being behind the times, Canon's T7i (aka 800D) launched in 2017 still made you find a mini USB cable. They were good at optics, but dropped the ball on the rest of the product. Even though the phone had worse quality pictures, it brought many other things to the table.
    - solardev 2y ago
      I don't think any of the camera manufacturers have good UX people. They sell engineering, not usability. Even Sony, who makes a bunch of laptops and phones and such, sucks at this compared to the West. Maybe it's just not a strong part of Japanese corporate culture?

blagie 2y ago

"The market" didn't decide. There are maybe five major camera companies (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic), and a few minor ones (Fuji, Pentax, Casio, Sigma). No one tried. Everyone wants proprietary lock-in. No one wants to open up. It's very much like the pre-iPhone phone market. It's not that no one wanted an iPhone, but that before Apple, no one was willing to try making one. As a result, the camera market is all but dead: https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-camera-industry-in-the-last-two-years/ https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-came... My phone works better for most purposes (holistically) than my full-frame camera. At this point, no one has money to make the kind of investment needed to revive it, and an open model is unlikely to see the light of day. 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. My main camera is from 2012, and not worth upgrading. Curiously, lenses keep progressing at a slow but steady clip. Sigma just announced an f/1.8 full frame 28-45mm zoom lens.

thih9 2y ago
> No one tried. There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. > 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. Depending on the type of photography that you do, there were significant improvements[3]. Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 [3]: https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-versus-cameras-10-years-ago-649909 https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-vers...
- cyberax 2y ago
  No, there really were not. NX was the only one, Yongnuo is not available globally and Sony made only one half-assed attempt. Even the basic GPS tagging is not available on most cameras. You have to run some crapp on your phone and hope that Bluetooth works.
  - thih9 2y ago
    I also recall Zeiss ZX1. There was a Nikon Coolpix S800c. Another comment mentioned RED cameras. With what you listed, that’s already a handful of products that flopped - I’m not surprised manufacturers aren’t eager to continue this way. Interestingly, Android was originally meant to be a camera OS, until they pivoted because mobile phones were a larger market[1]. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cameras-1111795/ https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cam...