Consumer DSLRs "dead in 5 years"

[tony wilson]

income stream

kodak needed the 100s of millions of snappy snap kodak gold film folks to buy the crap stuff so the pros could have the good stuff so the movie pros could have the motion picture stuff just like fuji.

bad photography holiday fotos propped up the good stuff.

same with cameras the plastic junk supports the good stuff.

these are mass market corporations when the market goes like kodak all they can do is slash and burn.

sell land blow buildings.

listen to the americans clap at the destruction and asset stripping of an icon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKGz52xmtx8

[Don Whitmore]

We see the corporation system doesn't work. Let's try something else. Clearly this isn't free market.

[yohh770]

Great article.

that's honestly what i feel we don't see  a real change only a few small innovations  sooner or later someone will catch up . and the fun part  of it is that it wont be a big company  It might be  a new start up company with a great idea.

[aaronmc]

Canon don’t even recognise software innovation in their own back yard with Magic Lantern.

 

This doesn't even fully capture it. They have in fact been directly antagonistic to Magic Lantern vis-a-vis the 1DX and the potential for a software conversion to a 1DC.

 

To me, that reveals far deeper rot than mere stupidity. It also represents entitled arrogance.

[Franka Mech T. Lieu]

 

Sony had their chance with the Cybershot phones. I used to have one. They were the best all round feature phones in the era before smartphones. Then the software overtook the hardware side and the rest is history, written by Apple.

 

If you look at Android (and Samsung) they have basically copied Apple. That isn't really innovation.

 

Samsung seem determined to throw features and new stuff out there, the complete opposite of Canon, but without the brains of Canon!

 

Actually Android come before iOS. What Apple did is the total integration of service, hardware and software. Peope usually see only the iPhone, but its the adoption of the Apple Store that come inbuild into the iOS and integration with the hardware that give the smartphone the de facto route. Of course these are nothing new. As most enduser level Open Source project had been done that way long before Apple did that. What Apple did and should get credit for is to provide that solution, that one way we can made thing work.

 

And that's what Canon, Nikon, and almost all Videography and Photography Mfr had been lacking. the vision to see that we do not just need a product, a piece of hardware, or something. We need a SOLUTION.

 

And yes indeed I can see the demise of the consumer DSLR. It's only the slow introduction of system depth into the mirrorless that keep this bracket of product alive. But upon that I must say I am less optimistic about the Mfr actually going out and exploit this considering the economy. No less these Mfr are also way too conservative, and mostly they do not have the mass to absorb the damage if they do thing wrong. I was looking at the material Nikon puts out about their new D5300. And except for the rather ingenious use of composite material for that one piece shell and the articulating LCD. I fail to see any bright spot in there. DSLR will have to evolve and they have. It will be sort of like the old day when we photographer talking about a Hassy vs the Nikon. But I guess the real problem with Canon, Nikon, and many alike ( even Panny and Oly ) is that they are too afraid to introduce true innovation that advance the product enough to made an impact. We do not see 4K output from Nikon 1 despite the hardware is perfectly capable to do it. We do not see RAW output ( for external recording say ) from the EOS-70D despite the fact that its again doable.

 

All these Mfr's are still lock into their traditional thinking of only providing what used to be " asked for " and only step by step improvement instead of gicing us true new capability. And they won;t do it unless being pressed to ( say , the EOS-70D's PDAF on chip )

 

In short I think they have put themselves in this predicament, they have made their own product irrelevant.  

[tehgeek]

5 years? What a joke.

[TJB]

The camera industry and it's consumers have had a digital honeymoon for many years now,
and of course it wasn't ever going to last forever.
The consumer of digital cameras has finally realised that-
For a given sensor size, the camera can always be made smaller and lighter but the lens can't thanks to the laws of physics.
Using a DSLR or a FF camera of any sort (mirror or not) does not make one a better photographer.
A larger feature list is not the upgrade consumers need or want.
Image quality across sensor size and brand is more than good enough for almost everyone.

A digital camera should simply have two things -(now that image quality across sensors is largely an upgrade of the past.)

It must be easy to use and easy to carry.

[Axel]

Everyone from our little community in this forum has a distorted perspective. The profile of the quality-aware, lowest budget "indie-filmmaker" doesn't concern Son, Can, Nik or Pan very much. This profile is taken care of by BlackMagic almost exclusively.

 

It's primarily that profile that needs an update. The world is changing, and we are mentally blocked and don't see it. Both cinema (our holy grail) and TV are becoming niches in the eyes of the young. They couldn't care less about the niceties of aesthetic distinctions we try to nail down comparing (see thread) GH3 with BMPCC, for an instance. They also don't care about resolution.

 

The big business, the world of Hollywood and it's 3D- CGI-heavy- 24-channel-videos doesn't even notice our existence, and, let's face it, we'll never be able to reach their technical standards, let alone their implied 'production value'. By no tricks we will convincingly become Goliath.

 

The situation is daft. There is an ever growing (literally) audience, profoundly missed by the ones best equipped (technically: already, in spirit: no) to get their attention. These kids from the smartphone generation are held hostages by an industry that sells them entertaining bits and pieces, leftovers from once independant popular arts. Doesn't anybody share my impression that there are only 'cover versions' everywhere? In music as well as cinema?

 

The distrubution chains are changing radically. The 20-year-olds starve for drama, they want to get some sense, but they are denied it. The whole internet, the biggest platform imaginable, is filled with rehashed content. And we long to produce more rehashed content. What is that good for?

[simonfilm]

Why the Phantom cameras are so exclusive? Why Canon or Nikon cant make a 1080p at 1000 fps? I think they have or can have the technology needed.

[ScreensPro]

If you look at Android (and Samsung) they have basically copied Apple. That isn't really innovation.

 

What rubbish.

 

Android is the Linux of the mobile world. You are not hampered and locked out of features, unlike iOS. Android is far, far more innovative now.

[Atlasman]

I think Canon will finally begin to shed their protectionist ways. I've said all along that until Canon sees an erosion of their market, they won't innovate in the right places.

 

The industry is in decline because the market leaders (the ones carrying most of the weight) insisted on playing it safe.

 

Maybe 2014 will be different.

[Andrew Reid]

What rubbish.

 

Android is the Linux of the mobile world. You are not hampered and locked out of features, unlike iOS. Android is far, far more innovative now.

 

It may be the Linux of the mobile world but it's still a blatant rip off.

 

[dsavage]

That's exactly where GoPro should step in. Hope they are working on something. CineForm due an update too.

 

Ever since GoPro bought Cineform, it seems like development completely stopped.  They haven't even made a blog post in nearly a year, and even then it was just to hype the new GoPro.

 

I used to think Cineform was the one codec to rule them all.  You could encode it with a PC or a Mac.  It was better compression than ProRes.  The encoding tools were easy to use and packed to the gills with cool features (pulldown removal, etc).  I even bought into the whole Active Metadata thing, which I still think is brilliant.

 

Selling the company to GoPro was the worst thing Cineform could have done.  Would have been much better to simply license the codec and build GoPro a custom interface.  Imagine all of the great in-camera implementations we might be seeing today if they went the licensing route!    Cineform could be the de-facto standard in capture codecs, and they'd be making millions off of camera manufacturers.  Too bad we'll probably never see this happen with GoPro keeping it all for themselves.

[ScreensPro]

I'm talking about Android.... Not Samsung using rounded corners in their design (who cares?).

 

Android is very, very innovative.

[Andrew Reid]

I'm talking about Android.... Not Samsung using rounded corners in their design (who cares?).

 

Android is very, very innovative.

 

Android is a copy of iOS. Before iOS, Android did not exist. That isn't to say Android doesn't have any merit, and all software stands on the 'shoulders of giants' to some extent. But it was iOS which set the template for the others to follow. Let's not deny it. And I am not an Apple fanboy, just stating a fact!!

 

Android is not as good as iOS anyway. I can't think of one thing it does better that I really need on my smartphone.

[Andrew Reid]

income stream

kodak needed the 100s of millions of snappy snap kodak gold film folks to buy the crap stuff so the pros could have the good stuff so the movie pros could have the motion picture stuff just like fuji.

bad photography holiday fotos propped up the good stuff.

same with cameras the plastic junk supports the good stuff.

these are mass market corporations when the market goes like kodak all they can do is slash and burn.

sell land blow buildings.

listen to the americans clap at the destruction and asset stripping of an icon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKGz52xmtx8

 

The point about the consumer snappy snap crap holding up the good stuff for movie pros is a good point.

 

There would be no 4K Super35mm Canon CMOS sensor or Cinema EOS if it wasn't for consumer DSLRs.

 

If the consumer DSLR market does collapse, the pro stuff may suffer too. Perhaps I should have touched on that in my article.

 

You can't sell the enthusiast photography stuff in the same quantities as you can a 600D.

 

Maybe Canon and Nikon will in the future end up like Kodak.

 

But it doesn't matter. We have Blackmagic :)

[Stevej2001]

It seems to me that the camera business is going back and to where it was before the digital revolution. In the film days nobody needed a new camera every year. You kept your camera for decades.

I've bought a zillion digital bodies chasing the next best thing. But do I need to anymore? The camera's capabilities exceed mine by a long shot.
I don't think I'm alone in this.

So it's back to the business model of the film days. New bodies for new photographers and replacements for broken ones.

Nikon did fine in those days and I doubt it's point and shoot business carried it then. It and canon will need to adjust to a smaller size. Sony, Panasonic and Olympus have other much more renumerative business models. If you doubt the last company check out who made the equipment at your next colonoscopy.

Camera stores are already mostly gone. B&H and adorama will survive since local stores are dead.

The biggest change will be for us. With fewer new cameras to debate we'll have to go out and take pictures instead.

[dahlfors]

For my own needs, biggest limitations on most cameras is aliasing/moire and 8-bit color. Shooting raw is amazing quality - but I'd already be a lot happier with a slightly compressed format, better resampling down to 1080p as well as 10-bit 4:2:2 & 4:4:4. Had the Blackmagic cameras been as useful for stills as a DSLR - a BM camera would have been the perfect allround camera for me.

 

I hope Nikon can make it through the times, and I hope that they will try to make some effort into some mirrorless video camera.

 

One thing that has struck me many times over: why are the camera manufacturers so anxious about not releasing specs about camera processors & proper firmware SDK:s?

 

I'm pretty certain the open source world could get the most out of the hardware, given the chance. I really doubt the companies would risk anything by doing so. They could let their own software teams pick up features and integrate into their official firmware - without having to put down much own development effort into it. Their hardware could get unofficially support through open source firmwares for a long time after their own official firmware development has stopped (If you look into the world of Linux - Linux just dropped support for old Intel 386 machines last year ;)).

 

I mean, if you look at a smartphone today - the hardware is just half of it. Without their operating systems they are nothing. If you look at the state of cameras these days - they're basically a portable lightweight computer with a sensor, a few instruments and an interface. The more the cameras evolve, the more it makes sense to open up the firmware - just like with smart phones or as with wifi accesspoints / routers, NAS:es (which almost all run some form of Linux these days).

 

I'm certain that the day will come when we have open firmware cameras - but I doubt that the ones taking the first step in that direction will be a Japanese company - they seem too protective about their IP and traditional business model.

[odie]

I just started shooting with Kodak about a year ago...for commercials and stills...I THINK IT WILL SURVIVE...GREAT GREAT IMAGE AND IF YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING FOR BROADCAST CHEAPER!   (almost no post required)

[Germy1979]

income stream
kodak needed the 100s of millions of snappy snap kodak gold film folks to buy the crap stuff so the pros could have the good stuff so the movie pros could have the motion picture stuff just like fuji.
bad photography holiday fotos propped up the good stuff.
same with cameras the plastic junk supports the good stuff.
these are mass market corporations when the market goes like kodak all they can do is slash and burn.
sell land blow buildings.
listen to the americans clap at the destruction and asset stripping of an icon

Lol. How i feel when I read one of your posts Tony.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j9qAhXfNAU