I had a conversation with a friend lately that happens to be a dealer and I have a long term relation with, who specializes in equipment for pros or passionate photographers who are on the demand for high end equipment and the conversation ended up relating more on the view camera market and the recent developments on it...
He ended up that pros either stick up with their (sometimes very) old equipment, that there is a continuous drop in demand for the later 10 years, that the market has come in a position where there is hardly any demand and that this year there is a boost in demand from both the enthusiast and the professional market towards the mini view cameras that appeared lately (mainly the Cambo Actus) which customers order in combination with FF mirrorless (almost entirely with Sony A7 series camera) as to either replace their older (but much more expensive) equipment, or enter the view camera world.
The customers seem to claim that the system helps them to be more creative, while there is very little (if any) they miss from using a view camera + mfdb combination in IQ... They seem to praise the LV ability more than anything and even abandon tethered captures for the rear screen flexibility, but also praise the maneuverability and the time consumption to perform a task...
It also seems that the demand for the same camera + MFDB combination is only a very small fraction of the demand as the customers find the cost difference not to be justified and that the ones that insist of using their older equipment, are mainly the ones that own multishot backs for their work (although they are also attracted to the "mini view camera" solution) and want to retain the multishot ability but can't overcome the poor LV that their MFDBs offer...
The lenses that the customers seem to use are mainly Mamyia RZ & Hasselblad V, but also old enlarger lenses able to project wide image circles as well as Canon or Nikon as to use the respective "perspective correction" (some call them "architectural") lenses on the mini view camera, which offer wider image circle and some of them are able to cover the wider AOV that MF lenses can't.... There is also demand from people that own (from the past) MF lenses that use motors for their aperture control (such as Rollei or Contax 645 or Blad H) who are trying to find a solution as to use them on a mini view camera...
We ended with a conversation concluding the following in agreement:
1. That the view camera market as we know it should completely change during the following years with more makers (Sinar, Linhoff ...etc) entering the "mini" view camera market,
2. That there should be more major makers (Canon, Nikon) moving into the FF mirrorless camera market,
3. That there should be interfaces developed as to control the aperture of the MF lenses that have electronic control, as well as to control the MF lenses that have electronic leaf shutters (Rollei, Bronica, Fuji GX680 etc), but focal plane shutters for the rear standard of these "mini" cameras too, as to attract users that would insist to retain their older MFDBs (and will allow multishot operation of the MS backs),
4. That the MFDB market should shrink further as another (major) application that was dominated by MFDB use is now under serious attack from cameras with smaller image area sensors, but without the technical disadvantage that the mirror box introduces,
5. That the view camera dedicated lens market should shrink considerably as MF lenses seem to be perfect of the job (and with good quality) at a fraction of the cost, especially if one considers the availability on the S/H market of (now) abandoned systems,
6. That there should be FF mirrorless cameras with multishot ability soon in the market as to provide an alternative to "true color" MFDB users.
Interesting subject.... What are your thoughts?