EOSHD opinion: smartphones are not killing DSLRs, apps and online services are

[Andrew Reid]

Read the full article:

http://www.eoshd.com/2015/02/eoshd-opinion-smartphones-are-not-killing-dslrs-apps-services-are/

[Mozim]

That was an interesting article and you do bring up some valid points. 

The way I see it is photography has gotten very accessible to a huge amount of people thanks to affordable smartphones. This isn't exactly beneficial for enthusiast point & shoot cameras or even entry-level DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. Why buy a complicated camera with interchangable lenses when you can achieve the same results with an iPhone when viewed on a smartphone screen? 

But then again, I also think the more accessible photography is to the masses, the more the masses will also appreciate high-quality content... stuff that you simply can't shoot with a smartphone. That's one of the main reasons why people love the full-frame look (which may or may not be a myth, haha). It's impossible to shoot super shallow DOF-stuff with a smartphone. I also don't care about super-sharp, detailed 4K video shot on a tiny sensor... might as well use a GoPro or a Samsung smartphone for that kind of stuff. 

In my opinion, it would be lovely to have a Facebook or Instagram app on your camera. Take a high-quality picture and upload it almost instantly. Now that'd be a huge selling point and appeal to both enthusiasts and pros. There's no logic reason why this should be impossible and Samsung and Sony would be WAY ahead of Canon and Nikon if their cameras actually had a software that allows you to shoot pictures and share them. 

[Jimmy]

It is smartphones AND apps... The two are symbiotic.

The cameras on modern smart phones are great, the apps are great... I can shoot and edit raw images on my Nexus.

As Mozim says though, this will help separate the two industries... Which I think is a good thing. Canon, Nikon etc can cater to people who care about lasting imagery, rather than shoot and share.

You say "no wifi on high end",,,, it doesn't need it, it doesn't need grading apps, facebook sharing apps.... Just a very low battery consumption bluetooth, like the NX1 has. Send the raw to your phone.... Grade and share (while the raw file is uploaded to dropbox, for backup). Let the phone do what it does best. Simple.

 

 

[Nick Hughes]

Yes, I think a healthier relationship with the smartphones we already have would be a better option. No point in making the camera replace the smartphone, because that's not going to happen. I can't help but imagine what it would be like if Apple made a camera. It would probably be painfully simple, with very limited manual control, but it would synchronize beautifully with all of our other Apple products. 

[Jimmy]

The paradox of your article is that you want them (Canon/Nikon) to be more like Apple/Google....

Yet who made instagram, who made facebook, who made pinterest? It is a bit rich to blame the Japanese companies for lacking foresight, while Apple and Google were also left scrambling, as startups stole their thunder (with image processing/sharing).

There will be some cross over though, i'm sure Samsung will lead the way here. If I get an NX1, I will sure as hell be getting my dev to take a look at the API and see what we can do.

[horshack]

Making cameras as seamless for online operation as Smartphones will make existing camera enthusiasts happy but it wont do anything to bring the P&S and DSLR market back. That ship has sailed. Most have no reason to buy a separate camera.

[The Chris]

The paradox of your article is that you want them (Canon/Nikon) to be more like Apple/Google....

Yet who made instagram, who made facebook, who made pinterest? It is a bit rich to blame the Japanese companies for lacking foresight, while Apple and Google were also left scrambling, as startups stole their thunder (with image processing/sharing).

​This.

Canon's biggest blunder in the last few years is not pursuing ML developers to help make its cameras better or creating the app capability and selling useful add-ons instead of the garbage Sony sells.  No matter how many smart people you have in a room, they can't think of everything.  There will always be startups that ask "what if" and then set out to find an answer.

Large manufacturers have a long history of keeping all development in-house, but many of them can't keep up with technological advancements.  Think about car info-tainment systems - they're awful compared to a $300 ipad.  What I'd like to see is my factory nav system with the option of running iOS or Android with apps to control car functions.  Instead I get a slow system with numerous bugs that can't stay paired with my phone.  Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus are all doing the same thing.  They control everything.  Google, Apple, Facebook and even Adobe are smart enough to recognize that they can't do everything - so they buy other companies that can do certain things better and integrate it into the mothership's ecosystem.  Of course the motivation is to simply make more money, or to keep someone else from taking a larger slice of their pie.  Instagram is a great example of not being able to build a better mousetrap, so they just bought the best one.

I like where Samsung is going by supposedly connecting with the ML crew.  There's a lot of untapped potential in the NX1, hopefully it can be unlocked with its own version of Magic Lantern.  And maybe this will spurn others to follow.

[mtheory]

Canon needs an easier solution for wifi transfer. I want to snap RAWs to the CF card but have JPEGs streamed real-time to my iPhone/iPad's camera roll, from where they could instantly be published. I also wish Canon ran some kind of image/video hosting community, like Flickr. There's so much they could be doing in this space.

[leeys]

Uh, yea, apps are the reason why smartphones are killing cameras. It's so much easier and quicker to shoot, share, and even edit right from one device.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

All cameras should have a SIM card to be connected to the internet all the time, with a few social media apps to upload instantly. Wifi is the next best solution, and Canon is taling that route but the FB app implementation and the need for a phone to tinker 15 minutues before uploading makes it unusable. Why don't we have great firmware on out thousands of dollars cameras like on 100$ smartphones? Samsung android cameras were a great inventions, just not great cameras! why shouldn't the nx1 have a separate andriod firmware and SIM/wifi to upload and share instantly. 

 

it's correct, all camera companies must work on apps and sim/wifi connectivity or else will lose a substantial market share.

[tugela]

Smartphones are not killing DSLR sales, they don't compete in the same market. The problem for DSLRs is that they are so good now that people don't really get significant gain from upgrading. Why bother buying a new camera when realistically you can't tell the difference from the old one by looking at the pictures?

To motivate the average buyer to upgrade the next iteration in the product line has to be able to do something that the previous model could not. That is the dilemma for manufacturers because it is becoming harder and harder to do that.

[Nindy]

I went to a local electronics superstore yesterday and they had in their display a d5100 and d3100, 600d, they also had the sony nex 3 and 5 and they wanted full $$$ for it! This is typical of many big electronic retail chains, it's obvious that volume for cameras are declining with so much obsolete inventory still selling, it's depressing and ominous, but does Canon or Nikon want to get ahead of the game? No they want to drip feed BS and try and drive the same volumes out, well it ain't happening and now we have an over saturated under selling mess of shit 

[Nindy]

You know here in Melbourne, records are coming back in fashion because youth now want something tangible, they want to hold their music, they want to see the art work.

if Canon and Nikon could market the Art back into photography, cameras could maybe take off again.. Just like music has come easy, photos have come easy and it's all just junk food, bringing meaning back, the art back just like making records cool again, a new market exists

[Jimmy]

All cameras should have a SIM card to be connected to the internet all the time, with a few social media apps to upload instantly. Wifi is the next best solution, and Canon is taling that route but the FB app implementation and the need for a phone to tinker 15 minutues before uploading makes it unusable.

​Wifi is a massive battery hog, switch it off your phone and you will get 20%-30% more battery time. We don't need it in cameras, not even consumer DSLRs.... Just bluetooth or something similarly low power. Tap over the occasional JPG, Raw or compressed video to phone. Let the phone do the grunt work with an OS perfectly suited for PROPER grading and sharing apps.

The very last thing Canon or Nikon should be doing is trying to shoehorn mobile tech into a DSLR. 

[leeys]

Bluetooth is horrendously slow - several hundred kilobytes per second at most. The highspeed implementations of Bluetooth use... WiFi. So yes WiFi is absolutely needed if you want wireless transfer of data that doesn't take forever.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

What are the limitations of just putting a SIM card 4G implementation and using the camera as a whole unit to upload separate from any phones/tablets 

[Jimmy]

Bluetooth is about 2Mbitsps, fine for sharing small jpgs... But yea, depending on the image, wifi would be better, but brings about a HUGE battery drain.

[Jimmy]

What are the limitations of just putting a SIM card 4G implementation and using the camera as a whole unit to upload separate from any phones/tablets 

​Battery use, cpu/ram use .... Would require a capable OS... Would require devs to create apps for yet another platform.

They could reskin android, but very few get it right.

Samsung are way ahead, in this respect, so they will be the most likely to bridge the gap.

[ND64]

All your solutions "may" help them stay in business a bit longer than estimated, but thats not enough, they need Growth 

[Andrew Reid]

My solutions all have growth potential, especially the apps.

By the way 5G will be 65,000x faster than 4G when in launches in 2020 according to latest science lab news. This means both WiFi, bluetooth and all land based DSL lines will be going away.

It helps to look forward...