What's the end game for camera manufacturers outside of targeting pros?

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dejadeadnz

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#274481 24-Aug-2020 23:50

My wife and my journey of moving on from our Sony full frame and APS-C cameras into the Fuji universe got us into looking at lots of cameras at the prosumer/enthusiast's end. Without writing an essay, our thoughts are increasingly that -- if the camera makers' claims around there being no money to be made beyond targeting the pros and enthusiasts/prosumers are to be believed -- it's difficult to see these brands managing to pull in many not already into photography. We have also had two friends who are seriously about getting into "real" photography but were all of the view that they'd go to prosumer gear or just carry on with their phones. That profile is admittedly unusual but the view was that if they were going to go to all the effort to really learn to use a camera, post-processing, and everything else, they don't want to be gear limited within reason. So things like traditional kit lenses (except for the relatively higher quality Fuji) were unlikely for them.

In the end, we narrowed down a few choices for them (note that we were open to people about our general unwillingness to recommend DSLRs plus lack of knowledge of the Canon/Nikon mirrorless world) in terms of potential minimum starter gear:

1. Sony A6400 plus Sony 18-105 F4 power zoom. Total price - $2,354.

2. Fuji XT-3 plus 18-55 f2.8 - f4. $2,676. They also considered but rejected the 16-55 f2.8.

3. Sony A7III plus Tamron 28-75 f2.8. $4,700.

Yes, I know people can look at buying second hand but these are your high income DINKs with very limited time, so they aren't going to be interested in trawling Facebook Marketplace. They are still deciding and are adamant that they would either get gear at the lower end of their desired price range or go full frame. But the feedback they are getting from family and friends generally is that they are just going down a rabbit hole. Our own experience (we both got XT-4s and am sharing a series of primes plus doubling up on the 18-55 and the cheapo 50-230 for occasional day zoo and birding shoots) suggest that anyone buying even into the lower priced kits here will often add a prime or two and, before you know it, you're down $4K+ if buying new. Anecdotally we just haven't seen anyone in our circles and our friends' circles beyond those two expressing any kind of interest in getting into "real" photography. With cell phones getting ever better and always so convenient for the still shots that people like, and with the AI post-processing being so good and pleasing, I just don't see too many people bothering at these prices.

Am I being pessimistic or is targeting a non-growing crowd only the future? If you bought gear recently, are you using it as much as you thought you would? Keen to hear some thoughts.

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#2549143 25-Aug-2020 02:18

As you know we bought an XT-30 last year. It's great camera but we haven't used it anywhere near as much as we expected. For us it's a combination of us not traveling as normal (for obvious reasons) and my wife Huawei P30 Pro is just so damn good, even if the photos are a bit "over processed".

For 95% of people they are better off putting the money into a mid-high end camera phone.

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#2549150 25-Aug-2020 07:13

Moved from Canon 5d Mk 3 with 8 lenses to Iphone 11 Pro Max + Samsung Galaxy S10 plus. Does 90% of what the Canon can do + 90% what it can't do.

Mind you it didn't stop me upgrading to a 5d Mk 4 albeit second hand, and 3 new lenses (also second hand).

But the pack just sits there - it's very good at trapping dust.

mudguard

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#2549224 25-Aug-2020 08:56

I think it will revert back to a niche/luxury product. I grew up in the eighties and nineties, my mother's family were quite well off before this and they had lots of slides, photos, film etc of them growing up in the fifties and sixties. Whereas for us, there are very few photos in comparison, due mainly to the cost I suspect. Four kids, Dad a teacher etc so understandable. I think digital probably democratized it a bit. Cameras got cheaper and cheaper and no longer required a trip and a cost to have them developed, so perhaps that middle ground will die out. Maybe APSC/Full frame only and then alignments with phone companies to keep the product visible?

I've always been interested in photography, but it's really only the last two years that I've taken steps toward it. I guess I'm lucky that I travel a lot (domestically for work) so there are opportunities constantly. But even then, I always take a camera with me to golf, and GoPros and occasionally my compact camera with me mountain-biking.

We are doing the Old Ghost Road ride early next year, I'm trying to figure out what I will take with me for that, there are some amazing photo opportunities, but day one is 20km but 1000m of climbing so I'm conscious of weight!

surfisup1000

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#2549238 25-Aug-2020 09:32

I think there will be 2 main market segments, both high end.

Expensive pocket cameras with massive sensors and brilliant image quality (eg, sony's rx100 series), and enthusiast/pro DSLR's/mirrorless with interchangeable lenses. My rx100 is great, took it to an event pre-lockdown and the image quality smashes the phone camera.

Bound to be a number of manufacturer's give up along the way. Probably end up with Nikon/Sony/Canon fighting it out at the top end.

mudguard

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#2549239 25-Aug-2020 09:36

surfisup1000:

Expensive pocket cameras with massive sensors and brilliant image quality (eg, sony's rx100 series), and enthusiast/pro DSLR's/mirrorless with interchangeable lenses. My rx100 is great, took it to an event pre-lockdown and the image quality smashes the phone camera.

The RX100 line is great, particularly as they've increased the reach of it. But it's a hard sell to your average punter at the cost.

I gave my mother a G7xII instead of an RX100 (which I have) as it's much more user friendly, she's taken thousands of photos with it since. And she still has a Nokia 1020 which takes great pics.

alasta

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#2549277 25-Aug-2020 10:42

My iPhone camera is reserved for emergency use for three reasons:

The ergonomics are terrible.
The auto focus is hopeless at tracking a moving subject.
I generally dislike using computers, and hence I don't trust my iPhone not to throw a hissy fit right when I need it.

I used to have a Nikon SLR but the sensor got some sort of fungus on it and rather than repair it I decided to go mirrorless to lose some size and weight. I ended up with a Canon M50 with standard zoom, telephoto zoom and fast prime for well under $2k. Do I use it a lot? No, but when I do it's important to me.

It saddens me that most people I know don't take photos and when they do they clearly have no idea how to do it properly. I think they will regret it when they get older.

Handsomedan

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#2549304 25-Aug-2020 11:16

surfisup1000:

I think there will be 2 main market segments, both high end.

Expensive pocket cameras with massive sensors and brilliant image quality (eg, sony's rx100 series), and enthusiast/pro DSLR's/mirrorless with interchangeable lenses. My rx100 is great, took it to an event pre-lockdown and the image quality smashes the phone camera.

Bound to be a number of manufacturer's give up along the way. Probably end up with Nikon/Sony/Canon fighting it out at the top end.

I tend to agree, but I think you need to add a third option there - the "superzoom compact" travel camera.

I think a high quality sensor, super zoom and optical or digital viewfinder has a niche.

I'm thinking the equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix (Leica-lensed) line, but with bigger sensors, to provide the breath-taking photo quality of a DSLR with none of the drawbacks - a la travel-ready.

If you go on a cruise ship or a resort holiday, you see a LOT of these types of cameras, but many of them have smaller and less high quality sensors, which is where they fall down.

Admittedly, if my iPhone could integrate a 10x high-quality optical zoom, i'd likely never need a compact camera ever again.

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#2549335 25-Aug-2020 11:55

Handsomedan:

surfisup1000:

I think there will be 2 main market segments, both high end.

Expensive pocket cameras with massive sensors and brilliant image quality (eg, sony's rx100 series), and enthusiast/pro DSLR's/mirrorless with interchangeable lenses. My rx100 is great, took it to an event pre-lockdown and the image quality smashes the phone camera.

Bound to be a number of manufacturer's give up along the way. Probably end up with Nikon/Sony/Canon fighting it out at the top end.

I tend to agree, but I think you need to add a third option there - the "superzoom compact" travel camera.

I think a high quality sensor, super zoom and optical or digital viewfinder has a niche.

I'm thinking the equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix (Leica-lensed) line, but with bigger sensors, to provide the breath-taking photo quality of a DSLR with none of the drawbacks - a la travel-ready.

If you go on a cruise ship or a resort holiday, you see a LOT of these types of cameras, but many of them have smaller and less high quality sensors, which is where they fall down.

Admittedly, if my iPhone could integrate a 10x high-quality optical zoom, i'd likely never need a compact camera ever again.

I believe Huawei and Samsung have phones with 10x optical zoom - not sure about the high quality part

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#2549336 25-Aug-2020 11:56

https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-p40-pro-plus-phone-10x-optical-zoom-camera-puts-iphone-samsung-to-shame/

shk292

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#2549403 25-Aug-2020 12:31

Handsomedan:

I tend to agree, but I think you need to add a third option there - the "superzoom compact" travel camera.

I think a high quality sensor, super zoom and optical or digital viewfinder has a niche.

I'm thinking the equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix (Leica-lensed) line, but with bigger sensors, to provide the breath-taking photo quality of a DSLR with none of the drawbacks - a la travel-ready.

If you go on a cruise ship or a resort holiday, you see a LOT of these types of cameras, but many of them have smaller and less high quality sensors, which is where they fall down.

Agree with the above - I have my eye on the Panasonic TZ-110 as a replacement for the TZ40 we've had for years. Viewfinder is great for those of us in middle age who struggle to focus on a screen. I also like a decent optical zoom, which is rare on a phone.

My other camera is a Lumix G6 which I love for its image quality and flexibility of operation, fast auto-focus and viewfinder. Interestingly, the most frequent use it gets these days is by my teenage kids who are into making moves and have found there is nothing to touch a "proper" camera for this purpose

dejadeadnz

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#2549623 25-Aug-2020 18:18

Handsomedan:

I tend to agree, but I think you need to add a third option there - the "superzoom compact" travel camera.

I think a high quality sensor, super zoom and optical or digital viewfinder has a niche.

I'm thinking the equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix (Leica-lensed) line, but with bigger sensors, to provide the breath-taking photo quality of a DSLR with none of the drawbacks - a la travel-ready.

If you go on a cruise ship or a resort holiday, you see a LOT of these types of cameras, but many of them have smaller and less high quality sensors, which is where they fall down.

I suspect the likes of the X100V, Sony RXxxx, and the high quality superzooms you are talking about are at the kinds of prices that people who aren't already predisposed towards photography will avoid, which tends to suggest that, at most, the makers are trying to expand the existing market by convincing prosumers and up to buy one more body. Interchangeable lens cameras' sales have dropped over the last ten years but the drop is nowhere near as catastrophic as digital cameras with built-in lenses. See here.

The 4 top selling camera brands are Canon (by a mile), Sony, Nikon, and Fuji. Fuji is a distant last at around 5% IIRC. I've read some surveys that show Nikon ahead of Fuji and vice versa. Another thing that I would think about if I were a wannabe-prosumer camera gear purchaser is that Canon, Sony and Nikon have clearly caught the full frame bug (financially it makes sense from their perspective). I am not familiar enough with Canikon to comment on those brands but the obvious and deliberate crippling of their APS-C line by Sony is both annoying and blatant (e.g. no focusing joystick and basically useless IBIS for video due to the jello effect for their APS-C lines). This was our main reason for getting away from Sony. We aren't obsessed with full frame and don't wish to be treated like third class citizens for not having full frame. If you have a similar line of thinking as us, a prosumer starter set is easily 4K if you go for the A7III.

We like our Fujis (obviously) but blimey their range also has some real weaknesses. I get what @Handle9 says about Fuji lenses being expensive now that we have bought a few/looked more deeply. The lack of the bargain basement cheap yet very high quality Sigma 1.4s really sting. We went and picked up second hand lenses for our Fujis because even the photography nerd in her especially started baulking at the 16 f1.4's price.

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#2549625 25-Aug-2020 18:25

alasta:

My iPhone camera is reserved for emergency use for three reasons:

The ergonomics are terrible.
The auto focus is hopeless at tracking a moving subject.
I generally dislike using computers, and hence I don't trust my iPhone not to throw a hissy fit right when I need it.
I used to have a Nikon SLR but the sensor got some sort of fungus on it and rather than repair it I decided to go mirrorless to lose some size and weight. I ended up with a Canon M50 with standard zoom, telephoto zoom and fast prime for well under $2k. Do I use it a lot? No, but when I do it's important to me.

It saddens me that most people I know don't take photos and when they do they clearly have no idea how to do it properly. I think they will regret it when they get older.

When I compare my childhood to my children there are orders of magnitudes more photos of my kids than there were of me. Most people I know take huge numbers of photos but they take them on a phone.

The ones of my kids are of almost infinitely better quality than the ones of me as a child. They are mostly taken on a phone, the photos taken when I was a child were taken on cheap kodak or equivalent mass market cameras.

We have the ability to take more photos today than ever before, we just do it in a different way.

dejadeadnz

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#2549630 25-Aug-2020 19:02

alasta:

My iPhone camera is reserved for emergency use for three reasons:

The ergonomics are terrible.
The auto focus is hopeless at tracking a moving subject.

I don't necessarily disagree with the 2nd point; if you need to take a lot of shots, the first point is valid. However, you gotta remember that for the posed and still shots that lots of people like, the phones work quite well. Most importantly, the processing engines are so good that many phone photos look extremely pleasing to the ear without any retouching.

IMO, the camera makers are really missing a step with their failure to introduce more AI into their devices. Sony and Canon has done quite a bit in the auto-focusing area and that is great. But there's more that can/should be done, if they are interested in expanding the market.

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#2549820 26-Aug-2020 09:15

dejadeadnz:

Handsomedan:

I tend to agree, but I think you need to add a third option there - the "superzoom compact" travel camera.

I think a high quality sensor, super zoom and optical or digital viewfinder has a niche.

I'm thinking the equivalent of the Panasonic Lumix (Leica-lensed) line, but with bigger sensors, to provide the breath-taking photo quality of a DSLR with none of the drawbacks - a la travel-ready.

If you go on a cruise ship or a resort holiday, you see a LOT of these types of cameras, but many of them have smaller and less high quality sensors, which is where they fall down.

I suspect the likes of the X100V, Sony RXxxx, and the high quality superzooms you are talking about are at the kinds of prices that people who aren't already predisposed towards photography will avoid, which tends to suggest that, at most, the makers are trying to expand the existing market by convincing prosumers and up to buy one more body. Interchangeable lens cameras' sales have dropped over the last ten years but the drop is nowhere near as catastrophic as digital cameras with built-in lenses.

I think what they are missing with the likes of those mentioned above is that for the non-enthusiast who is willing to pay a fair whack for a good travel camera, a small optical zoom of up to 3x is no better than a phone.

Offering a minimum 8x and probably up to 30x are really what travel cameras are all about - but the quality of those cameras mentioned above, with decent glass and good processors, large sensors and optical/digital viewfinders still have a (admittedly niche) market in my opinion.

The likes of these are a good example:

Panasonic Lumix TZ200

Canon Powershot G5X MkII

Sony HX99

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MikeAqua

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#2549832 26-Aug-2020 09:56

I have a Lumix compact digital camera that I use mainly for fishing/kayaking. It takes much better photos than my iPhone or Samsung phones, especially in low light conditions. The Lumix much easier than a phone to use with cold/wet/gloved hands because it has physical buttons.

Also, I don't rely upon the waterproof rating of phones. I've had my Lumix to down to >20 feet regularly when snorkelling - no issues.

Edit: added some info

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