I can see that iPhones will become the generally accepted face of photography.
Back in the 50s when I was starting to burn up with photo lust, the way to learn, if you didn't have a rich friend with a darkroom, was via the magazines that ran series of how-to articles; that kept them selling and you learning. The same publications ran camera and lens reviews, and so you were exposed to both sides of the game in a single publication, and the camera ads were all there in great numbers.
As the mags died, and I suppose they died because the readers drifted away into other things, or had reached the top level of what the mags could teach via reading, camera and lens manufacturers became less willing to buy advertising space at the very same time as other forms of amusement came along, the net interest in photography falling to a level that could not sustain the camera people as before. New blood is essential for sustaining readership or camera sales, and as competition increases for available time and people, numbers fall and critical mass with them. Digital did throw in a golden period of growth, but it is now facing the same problems as film: interest is shifting elsewhere: to cellphones with lenses.
When you realise that that's where many people's image aspirations rest, it's not surprising traditional camera styles are in decline. A part of the problem is that the places where people want to view their snaps have changed, too, and an iPad is a great way of looking at them. Advertising seems to agree with that too, and print may end up as a rarity, which if that comes to pass, will reduce the quality that cameras need to provide. I have abandoned printing completely simply because it costs more than it's worth to me. Is that position so rare? I don't think so. Once you have a few boxes of wonderful prints, why will you keep building up more to no clear purpose? When you know you can do it, there seems little point in proving that to yourself all the time.
Do younger folks really want to look at their pix on tv sets? Do they look at a tv in the first place?
Long ago, I metioned here on LuLa that had I been born into the digital age, I might never have become a photographer at all. The visceral kick of making one's first wet print is not matched in digital printing, partly, at least, because that damned image is already seen, and looking better on the monitor, than when it churns out of a machine. It is a cold process with little heart. Where its hook?
I suspect we will end up with Leica doing rangefinders, and Nikon with reflex or mirrorless cameras, both brands at the highest level for a tiny, rich market. Just like watches, then. The top brands survive very well, thank you, selling at a helluva lot more money than most top cameras dream of touching. Think about that.
;-)
Rob
