The iPhone has wiped out the digital camera market (news)

[plugsnpixels]

Just saw this today, though it's been posted in various places over the last few days. I suppose this would apply mainly to non-professional photographers, though there might be some creep into the pro market:

"Whenever people want to make fun of a stodgy old corporation that couldn’t see the future, they love referencing the camera maker Kodak. But Kodak wasn’t the only old dog taken out by the digital camera revolution: All camera companies have now fallen to the iPhone. Last year, only 9m cameras were sold, down from 122m in 2010, per tech journalist (and Gigamon founder) Om Malik.

Meanwhile, Apple moved 200m+ iPhones in 2020
While there are countless other camera-enabled smartphones, the iPhone -- which has sold 1B+ units since launching in 2007 -- clearly leads the pack.

Here’s how Malik thinks digital cameras will shake out moving forward:

·Big players: At <10m units per year, the 4 big digital camera makers (Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Sony) will be fighting over scraps. Sony is best positioned to thrive, but not as a camera maker: It supplies camera sensors to everyone, including Apple.

·Niche players: Super high-end cameras (Leica, Hasselblad, Phase One) will maintain share with pros and super-hobbyists.
As for Kodak, the company was last in the news for potential insider trading when the Trump administration awarded it $765m to make COVID-related pharmaceuticals."

[Manfred M]

I'm sorry, but there are some really major gaps in the argument here.

Lets separate unit sales from profit margins. Back in 2010, all of the major camera manufacturers were cranking out all kinds of point & shoot cameras. These were high volume, low margin devices, which is a nice way of saying the manufacturers had to move a lot of product to make money on them. The cameras that are being sold now, especially the pro and prosumer models, with interchangeable lenses are high margin items and the manufacturers make a lot more money from a unit sale.

Yes, the smart phone now owns that market (as well as the music player, personal digital assistant (PDA), web browser (look at desktop and computer sales prior to the COVID-19 hit) and "dumb phone" market, All that has been rolled into a single product; right now Samsung and Apple own the lion's share of that market, with the Chinese brands in hot pursuit.

I remember reading a report some years ago that entry level cameras (DSLR / mirrorless) users generally stuck with the kit lens that came with the camera and never actually bought additional lenses.. Another easy transition to the smart phone camera.

What we are seeing now is pretty typical of mature products; they tend to be replaced less often as innovation brings only marginal improvement over previous generations. That means people hold onto their products a lot longer before upgrading. We saw similar spikes in business with personal computers, laptops, flat screen tvs and to a large extent smart phones (people are replacing them a lot less often these days).

There are not too many portrait and wedding photographers shooting these events with iPhones. Not a lot of work done for nature and event photographers either. Who needs a 50MP camera when all one is doing is downsampling the image to around 2MP for posting on social media? Print makers need that level of resolution, but others certainly do not.

If all one is doing is posting a 2MP image on the internet, image quality almost doesn't matter. The processing power in these devices can often give better results than all but fairly expert users can pry out of a more traditional camera. Who needs to spend hours in Photoshop, when built-in software can do much of this work?

So what is really being said is that we are back at that state that the camera market was in before digital cameras burst onto the market. The new product cycle for SLRs and lenses was much longer than the two or three years we saw a decade ago. Lenses had an even longer replacement cycle where the life of higher end specialty lenses could be measured in decades.

Yes, the higher end camera market will continue to shake out, just like it did in the film days; gone are brands like Topcon, Bronica, Chinon, Konica-Minolta, Rollei. and the list goes on. Four significant mainstream players and a few high end players is really all that the market will support.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks for your feedback Manfred!

[xpatUSA]

... If all one is doing is posting a 2MP image on the internet, image quality almost doesn't matter. ...

Curiously, iPhones and the like have an official Standard for "image quality" namely CPIQ:

https://www.imatest.com/solutions/cpiq/

Pixel count (MP) is not one of the seven measured properties for that Standard.

Is there a standard for "real" cameras that has MP as a specific measurement of "quality", anyone?

[Manfred M]

Curiously, iPhones and the like have an official Standard for "image quality" namely CPIQ:

https://www.imatest.com/solutions/cpiq/

Pixel count (MP) is not one of the seven measured properties for that Standard.

Is there a standard for "real" cameras that has MP as a specific measurement of "quality", anyone?

Standards have some uses but it really depends on what they are designed to measure. Perhaps if one compared a phone from one company with that of another, the results could be meaningful. Compare the results from a top-of-the-line phone against a high end traditional digital camera, perhaps not so much...

If you had ever been asked by someone to print an image from a phone camera and the result was quite unsatisfactory, you might feel differently about it. I knew someone whose dog had died and he wanted a large print made from an image that came from a small sensor and while the small image looked good on a phone screen, once upsized, there was both a focus and camera movement problem. Trying to enlarge from a small sensor, regardless of the number of pixels to make a large print is generally not going to give an outstanding outcome.

I've been approached a number other times with requests to print images from a phone and anything larger than a postcard looked marginal.

[plugsnpixels]

Manfred, do you have Topaz Gigapixel? I do and can send you sample upsizes for print tests from your phone-sourced images if you're interested.

I'm presently using Gigapixel along with Topaz Studio>AI Clear option to prep my older digital and film-sourced images for Fine Art America and Redbubble. Somebody ordered a blanket and pillow set of one of my (IIRC) 4-MP digital classic car images taken over a decade ago!

[Manfred M]

Manfred, do you have Topaz Gigapixel? I do and can send you sample upsizes for print tests from your phone-sourced images if you're interested.

I'm presently using Gigapixel along with Topaz Studio>AI Clear option to prep my older digital and film-sourced images for Fine Art America and Redbubble. Somebody ordered a blanket and pillow set of one of my (IIRC) 4-MP digital classic car images taken over a decade ago!

Yes I do own it and I use it on occasion. Sometimes it surprises me and does a fantastic job and at other times the results are quite disappointing. It's a bit buggy and locks up from time to time.

[plugsnpixels]

It goes require a hefty computer, though it will run even on older ones, given enough time...

I've had good luck overall doing batch processing on both a MacBook Air and SSD iMac. I need to try it again on my decade-old i7 Hackintosh.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by xpatUSA Curiously, iPhones and the like have an official Standard for "image quality" namely CPIQ:

https://www.imatest.com/solutions/cpiq/

Pixel count (MP) is not one of the seven measured properties for that Standard.

Is there a standard for "real" cameras that has MP as a specific measurement of "quality", anyone?

Standards have some uses but it really depends on what they are designed to measure.

The quoted standard is designed to measure image quality of cellphone cameras. I know of no Standard designed to measure the same number of properties or more on "real" cameras. My points are a) MP is not a measure of quality and b) sensor size may or may not be a measure of image quality. In spite of your general experience below, I am more than satisfied with the images from my 1.7 crop Sigmas and indeed from my old Samsung Galaxy II.

Perhaps if one compared a phone from one company with that of another, the results could be meaningful. Compare the results from a top-of-the-line phone against a high end traditional digital camera, perhaps not so much...

If you had ever been asked by someone to print an image from a phone camera and the result was quite unsatisfactory, you might feel differently about it. I knew someone whose dog had died and he wanted a large print made from an image that came from a small sensor and while the small image looked good on a phone screen, once upsized, there was both a focus and camera movement problem. Trying to enlarge from a small sensor, regardless of the number of pixels to make a large print is generally not going to give an outstanding outcome.

I've been approached a number other times with requests to print images from a phone and anything larger than a postcard looked marginal.

I am not convinced either that how a print looks is a measure of the captured image quality.



Looks good enough but how would I measure it's image quality so as to compare with another?

[rpcrowe]

Today's cameras are so darned good that they don't need (and probably will not) to be replaced at frequent intervals...

What will the new Sony A1 give me that I am not getting from my A7iii? Nothing that I really need and cannot do without

Now if they brought out a camera with a built-in espresso maker for those times on a shoot when my energy level is failing, I might consider the new camera

[escape]

Now if they brought out a camera with a built-in espresso maker for those times on a shoot when my energy level is failing, I might consider the new camera

When I drink expresso it's like putting High Octane in an old car.

[BackyardBirdies]

Totally new here but I think if you're serious about your work, you won't use an iPhone to take the photos that matter. If your career is on IG, then yes, have at it. Let's see an iPhone take swirly bokeh photos like the Ukranian lens masters make...not happening- ever, unless added as a digital effect.

[plugsnpixels]

Thanks BackyardBirdies, of course it depends on what type of work you do. And like you said, the good news is you can add effects later to mobile photos to carry them a long way forward. Really one would be working with a better camera, but we don't always have one on us – unlike a phone.

Here's a quickie shot out the window one recent night with an iPhone ;-)

[majharul]

Thanks for the information.

[Manfred M]

Totally new here but I think if you're serious about your work, you won't use an iPhone to take the photos that matter. If your career is on IG, then yes, have at it. Let's see an iPhone take swirly bokeh photos like the Ukranian lens masters make...not happening- ever, unless added as a digital effect.

The phone cameras have replaced the point & shoot camera. Yes, they are much more talented as the Apple and Samsungs of the world have far larger R&D software budgets than any of the mainstream camera companies. They have built some amazing capabilities into these phones.

That being said, they are still limited by physics - a small sensor and a relatively thin lens, both of which ultimately impact image quality. Post things on the web, you are downsampling to a 2MP display. That hides a lot of flaws, but is definitely more than good enough for most people. Just don't try to make a traditional large fine art print.

[selig1656]

great thread and insight into how photography is on the move.

[xpatUSA]

Just saw this today, though it's been posted in various places over the last few days. I suppose this would apply mainly to non-professional photographers, though there might be some creep into the pro market:

"Whenever people want to make fun of a stodgy old corporation that couldn’t see the future, they love referencing the camera maker Kodak. But Kodak wasn’t the only old dog taken out by the digital camera revolution: All camera companies have now fallen to the iPhone. Last year, only 9m cameras were sold, down from 122m in 2010, per tech journalist (and Gigamon founder) Om Malik."

Interesting statement.

Reminds me of years ago when all machines that cleaned carpets by means of vacuum were called "Hoovers" no matter who made them.

[davidedric]

And when I worked in the labs all vacuum flasks were "Dewars" even if they were made by Thermos, while in the home they were all "Thermos" even if they were made by Dewar