Camera industry in the dumpster - article

[OldRoy]

The thread seems to have shifted focus to an analysis of Apple's products. I was a very early adopter; by 1987 I owned 2 Macs. I shudder to recall how much I spent on these plus an early laserwriter. I recall a magazine article at the time calculating that the manufacturing cost of a Mac SE was about $300. In the UK I paid about £2K for mine - in 1987...

My attitude at the time resembled that of today's iFanatics, amongst whom I do not include myself. What they are really good at is creating a public perception which validates the purchasers' self-image. The absurd pricing of these products only seems to reinforce the effect. Now I don't follow the progress of the individual devices' development but it strikes me as daft that people who own a current version of the iPhone/Pod are queueing up to buy the latest release which differs only microscopically from its predecessor. Maybe camera brand fanatics are no different?

Apple have been through a success/decline cycle before. In the late 80s the "killer application" was DTP, initially in combination with Pagemaker which was rapidly overhauled by Quark. By the mid 90s a combination of pre-OSX instability and the introduction of Windows NT had Apple staggering. I was pretty surprised when the first iMacs started appearing. Same old cr@p OS in a nasty two-tone plastic box. But people bought them.

It still amazes me how much people are prepared to pay for these terrible value products. A greedy, rapacious business. The sooner the second decline begins the better.

Roy

[michael]

Just an observation....

of the 1.1 Million people who visited LuLa from around the world last month 49% were using Mac OS or IOS devices.

Guess not everyone (especially photographers) agrees with your assessment.

Michael

[ErikKaffehr]

Me too!

Went from Linux to Windows XP to be able to use RawShooters Premium, than from Windows XP to Mac OSX to be able to use Lightroom early betas.

Best regards
Erik

Just an observation....

of the 1.1 Million people who visited LuLa from around the world last month 49% were using Mac OS or IOS devices.

Guess not everyone (especially photographers) agrees with your assessment.

Michael

[JV]

Apple have been through a success/decline cycle before. In the late 80s the "killer application" was DTP, initially in combination with Pagemaker which was rapidly overhauled by Quark. By the mid 90s a combination of pre-OSX instability and the introduction of Windows NT had Apple staggering. I was pretty surprised when the first iMacs started appearing. Same old cr@p OS in a nasty two-tone plastic box. But people bought them.

It still amazes me how much people are prepared to pay for these terrible value products. A greedy, rapacious business. The sooner the second decline begins the better.

Roy

It never ceases to amaze me how much negativity people have in them...

If you do not like it (anymore) I would assume you are not (no longer) using it and if so, why do you even care whether Apple goes through another decline or not?

[Telecaster]

My attitude at the time resembled that of today's iFanatics, amongst whom I do not include myself.

Clearly you've just traded one object of devotion for another. Not being of the fanboy persuasion I just use whatever best meets my needs at a particular time. UNIX, Linux, Windows, OS X, iOS, Android...I'm comfortable with all of 'em, emotionally hung up on none of 'em.

I do have a soft spot, though, for AmigaOS. That was a fine OS that deserved a far better fate than it got.

-Dave-

[Isaac]

… but to repeat myself …

I can see what you wrote the first time. Whatever.

[Isaac]

On my current expedition it seems virtually everyone has a smartphone and is using it as a camera. Me too!

Is there a danger that you'll lose the camera carrying habit?

[jjj]

I can see what you wrote the first time. Whatever.

And yet you chose to ignore the relevant facts.

[John Camp]

Just an observation....

of the 1.1 Million people who visited LuLa from around the world last month 49% were using Mac OS or IOS devices.

Guess not everyone (especially photographers) agrees with your assessment.

Michael

Another observation -- people who like cameras, IMHO, tend to like design, as witness the many discussions here about camera design aesthetics, which is why so many LL members use Macs. I'm actually somewhat surprised that the percentage is not larger. If you surveyed only North American users, I suspect the percentage would be more like 80%. I'm about 90% Mac (I have a Windows Surface Pro 2, everything else is Mac, and I do have a bunch of them) and have to say, Apple does design better than anybody, and that extends not only to the cases, but also to the OS. It's as though the Mac front-end is designed by designers, and the Windows front-end is designed by engineers. Mechanically, they are quite similar (Intel machines, at least for now) and in terms of OS function, Windows is quite a bit more flexible, if also quite a bit uglier. That's why more than 90% of business machines are still Windows, although Apple has made some small inroads in the business world, according to the WSJ. I doubt Apple will quickly get further into the business world, outside of "creatives," because Apple insists on dictating to its customers how the machines are to be used, while businesses, of course, have to use the machines in the way that works for their businesses. (Which is why the iMacs are now sleeker than ever, but have dropped such useful things as internal DVD players. I will hang on to my current iMac as long as I can, because sometimes when I'm working I like to kick back and watch a few minutes of a favorite movie.)

[Hans Kruse]

Apple have been through a success/decline cycle before. In the late 80s the "killer application" was DTP, initially in combination with Pagemaker which was rapidly overhauled by Quark. By the mid 90s a combination of pre-OSX instability and the introduction of Windows NT had Apple staggering. I was pretty surprised when the first iMacs started appearing. Same old cr@p OS in a nasty two-tone plastic box. But people bought them.

It still amazes me how much people are prepared to pay for these terrible value products. A greedy, rapacious business. The sooner the second decline begins the better.

I have used Macs back in the 90'ties and in the early 90'ties Mac OS was so much better than Windows, but after Microsoft got their act together with Windows NT4 I switched from the unstable Mac OS to Win NT4. When I started my photo workshops in 2008 I saw an occasional Mac blinking at me in the workshop groups. Now it is the opposite ... a lonely Windows laptop. Strangely enough whenever somebody comes with a Windows laptop then the fan is always making a lot of noise where the Macs for most part are quiet. Maybe an example of good design.

I changed to Mac OSX (again) in 2009 and I was able to replace both a desktop and a laptop with a single laptop that could also drive my 30" screen. I have not looked back since although the Windows laptops have gotten better and certainly can drive a big screen today. Now I have a MacBook Pro 15" retina with 1TB SSD. I'm not sure where I would find an equivalent laptop ... although I have not searched either. Last time a looked a couple of years back there were no other choices for an equivalent machine for less money and I would have to put up with ugly Intel Inside stickers and generally unelegant design. I'm happily paying extra, if at all, for the elegance of the MacBook's of today. However Apple is not in the low end market for either MacBooks, phones, tablets or desktop Mac's.

However if Apple falls back to deliver bad products as in the mid 90'ies and forward when they were almost bankrupt then they will fall again. For now I'm a happy iUser but will change anytime if the products are no longer competitive. They same goes for cameras. The only alternative for me to Canon is Nikon which I also shoot but don't like much except for the sensor (D800E). The Sony A7R looks perhaps interesting but for me it is a half baked product at the moment. The arrogance that Sony shows to the many reports on shutter shake on the A7R also makes me wonder what they are smoking. The way Sony changes strategy constantly is not good either. I'm not here to defend Canon or Nikon, but honestly I don't find the fuss over a mirrorbox really worth discussing that much as long as there are no other real advantages. As long as lenses have the size and weight for a given aperture there is not that much to gain. A break through in lens design that would lower the weight and size without changing the max aperture would make me really interested going with a leigther camera body. Yes, the lenses that Sony has released are lighter but they are also for the zoom lenses f/4 so don't compare them with the heavy f/2.8 lenses in the bag at the moment.

Canon and Nikon will no doubt come with a new camera one day that does not have a mirrorbox when they have made an autofocus system that is consistently better than the phase detection system used today. It's not a matter of innovation or protecting their base, it is as simple as delivering a product that is better than what they produce today.

To a large degree I'm with Michael about what he said in the article. I have in my past IT career similar experience from being close to product management and marketing functions in a large IT company. What I fail to understand (maybe!) is why the camera companies don't utilizes the fact that there is a relatively powerful computer in each camera to automate more functions that we now do manually. There are lots of them. But as long as professionals love to distinguish themselves from amateurs by doing everything fully manually I don't think the camera companies who listen to them will make more things automated. For me composing and shooting pictures and not being distracted by unneeded technical matters when shooting is an absolute nirvana which I don't think will happen any day soon. Sigh!

[Telecaster]

Is there a danger that you'll lose the camera carrying habit?

No way! How else would I be able to take selfie gems like this one (see attachment) if not for a camera I can place on a flat rock without it tipping over?     I'm not aware of smartphone IR filters either, though maybe they exist. More seriously, the phone cam is great for some impromptu stuff—I particularly enjoy the pano feature—but I like having a rangefinder/SLR/electronic viewfinder to look through. And I like having more image data than I really need when it comes to editing & printing. And I love interchangeable lenses far too much to give 'em up. For me smartphones and dedicated cameras co-exist happily.

-Dave-

[Telecaster]

What I fail to understand (maybe!) is why the camera companies don't utilizes the fact that there is a relatively powerful computer in each camera to automate more functions that we now do manually. There are lots of them. But as long as professionals love to distinguish themselves from amateurs by doing everything fully manually I don't think the camera companies who listen to them will make more things automated. For me composing and shooting pictures and not being distracted by unneeded technical matters when shooting is an absolute nirvana which I don't think will happen any day soon. Sigh!

Yep. Consider me amazed that in 2014 you can still overexpose when using the full Auto mode on any camera. The thing should realize when you've blown highlights—and should be smart enough to recognize the difference between unimportant blown specular info and blown image-relevant info—and either let you know to take another photo (auto-compensated to prevent blowout) or just go ahead and take one automagically. But camera makers mostly don't think like pic-takers, which gets back to the arrogance thing.

-Dave-

[michael]

Consider this.

Cameras are accessing sensor data many times a second  so that the rear LCD or EVF can display an image. Therefore the camera can know the value of the level of each pixel at any and every moment. That's how he have live histograms, blinkers and zebras.

So in an new automatic mode, the camera could set the exposure properly (ETTR) for raw, and then "normalize it for display and in-camera JPGS. There is already a field in the raw files and Lightroom and Camera raw for the normalization value.

I've been proposing this to camera makers for several years. Enthusiasm is shown, but nothing is ever done.

I should have patented it. One of these days, soon, I'd guess, someone will offer this.

Michael

[Telecaster]

So in an new automatic mode, the camera could set the exposure properly (ETTR) for raw, and then "normalize it for display and in-camera JPGS. There is already a field in the raw files and Lightroom and Camera raw for the normalization value.

I've been proposing this to camera makers for several years. Enthusiasm is shown, but nothing is ever done.

There ya go. Make that an option in Av & Tv mode too and for RAW + JPEG shooters (like me) it would be a big win-win.

-Dave-

[Hans Kruse]

Certainly automatic exposure optimization would be one thing that I would love to have. It could be done in several ways, but the light metering in matrix mode or by an extra shot before the real one with RAW data analysis to optimize the exposure (for landscape shooters). Bracketing on top could further optimize quality since Lightroom has the automatic highlight recovery to further push the boundary for HDR blending for landscape shooters. For bird and sports shooters the less accurate lightmeter optimization could be used. In essence no more chimping and bracketing could be minimized and blown out white birds could be avoided. Of course some intelligence had to be built into the algorithms to work in the real world.

Focus stacking could be another one. Simply focus at the near foreground that should be in sharp focus and the camera would automatically shoot enough shots with moving focus distance until infinity to have the entire scene in focus with proper focus stacking software and the camera could make one too and save it as RAW or TIFF in desired bit depth.

What about optimizing DOF by having the camera automatically refocus at the hyperfocal distance and calculated with a COC for set parameters. This could e.g. be an option when shooting in live view. The way this could work is to stop down the lens and check sharpness at infinity given thresholds set by the COC conditions. There could be a warning if the aperture would go below a certain limit if the entire scene should be within DOF. Basically what we do already manually today using live view, right (except for the accuracy)? In such cases the focus stacking could be invoked by the photographer.

Sorry, I must wake up 

[LKaven]

Consider this.

Cameras are accessing sensor data many times a second  so that the rear LCD or EVF can display an image. Therefore the camera can know the value of the level of each pixel at any and every moment. That's how he have live histograms, blinkers and zebras.

So in an new automatic mode, the camera could set the exposure properly (ETTR) for raw, and then "normalize it for display and in-camera JPGS. There is already a field in the raw files and Lightroom and Camera raw for the normalization value.

I've been proposing this to camera makers for several years. Enthusiasm is shown, but nothing is ever done.

I should have patented it. One of these days, soon, I'd guess, someone will offer this.

There is this: http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/03/15/olympus-patent-hints-at-selective-exposure-in-live-time-mode?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_22

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

In Sony/Minolta nomenclature a seven means intermediate level. So they left room for a more serious camera.

To me it seems that a A7r is a rush product, while the A7 is a bit more mature. The problem with the A7r is that the sensor lacks electronic first curtain, in combination with a less than optimal shutter mechanism.

I don't think a firmware solution is possible as it seems that most of the shake is coming from the fist shutter curtain, so my guess is that it is just to design a new camera with a new sensor and a new shutter that causes less vibrations.

As a side note, the A7 has on sensor phase detection which helps with AF.

Best regards
Erik

The Sony A7R looks perhaps interesting but for me it is a half baked product at the moment. The arrogance that Sony shows to the many reports on shutter shake on the A7R also makes me wonder what they are smoking.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would suggest we have a pretty saturated market, with two dominant players using traditional DSLR technology. Personally, I am pretty sure there is a development potential, but the technology is essentially good enough to make perfect pictures for most uses.

It is very hard to foresee a new idea revitalising the market. What I would expect:

- Internet enabled cameras, a GSM chips belongs to any advanced camera!
- On sensor phase detection AF
- My guess is that DSLRs will yield to mirrorless (but it may take a few years)
- High quality medium aperture lenses, improving quality and reducing weight
- Better user interfaces, although I am a bit skeptical about that going to happen

Nothing of the above is a revolutionary change

Best regards
Erik

Michael, thanks for another very interesting article. I think it raises very valid points, and perhaps it helps explaining some recent trends, such as :

1. Going retro: people are indeed fatigued with an overflow of gadgetry and features and so on, so they perceive retro designs as going back to the old days, where things were simple. However, with a very few exceptions, camera makers that undertook that path are not doing things right.

2. Have camera makers been the victims of their own success? By achieving such amazing technological feats in such a short time, they are now at a dead end, just spewing out iteration after iteration of the same camera.

3. Some of the big names, especially Canon, have pursued the cinema market, where things are still volatile. I am by no means specialist, but in my mind, a lot of progress is still possible?

4. As for lenses, indeed there is room to keep improving, and third party makers are capturing that market. Even, again, in the cinema business. You mention Zeiss lenses for DSLRs, these have been around for Canon and Nikon for quite a few years now, not only in the last year or so. Sigma are producing amazing Art lenses as well. One thing though, is that technology has evolved a lot in lens making also, but this too will eventually plateau. I mean, the Zeiss Otus for sure is not intended as a large number sales product?

5. Pressure in the companies must be terribly high, hence the mad release of cameras every six months or so, to feed the (already) saturated market. Until this cycle is broken, and decision makers just pause and really think about it, no new breakthrough will happen.

[hjulenissen]

Consider this.

Cameras are accessing sensor data many times a second  so that the rear LCD or EVF can display an image. Therefore the camera can know the value of the level of each pixel at any and every moment. That's how he have live histograms, blinkers and zebras.

So in an new automatic mode, the camera could set the exposure properly (ETTR) for raw, and then "normalize it for display and in-camera JPGS. There is already a field in the raw files and Lightroom and Camera raw for the normalization value.

I've been proposing this to camera makers for several years. Enthusiasm is shown, but nothing is ever done.

<wears corporate suit>
And to what degree does this make for more happy customers, more willing to shell out cash? Our users seems perfectly happy with the DR that we offer at low ISO. We get 10x more requests for the ability to superimpose dinosaur hoods on peoples faces than we get for this feature.

Even among the narrow group of "enthusiasts" (that make a lot of buzz on the net but are actually a fraction of our customers in all segments), performance at high ISO is more relevant than low ISO. Most of our 6D/D610 users are using JPEG, and they want some highlight headroom. If they have particulary high DR scenes, most prefer our excellent in-camera HDR feature.
</wears corporate suit>

_I_ would love the feature that you describe. Let the user input how many clipped sensels are allowed (0%, 3%, whatever), let the camera figure out how hot an exposure is possible, let the user trade exposure time vs aperture (vs ISO for cameras where this makes sense).

-h

[Paulo Bizarro]

Just an observation....

of the 1.1 Million people who visited LuLa from around the world last month 49% were using Mac OS or IOS devices.

Guess not everyone (especially photographers) agrees with your assessment.

Michael

I can only speak from personal experience. Within my family, I have had the grand total of 3 iPods in the last 6-7 years: one Classic, and two Nanos. All of them have broken down in less than one year of not heavy use. I still have one Sony mp3 music player from 2005 that works flawlessly. The sound quality of Sony mp3 music players is superior to the iPods. Apple's products are "cooler", but they are overpriced, and not even the best at what they do.

When recently researching to get a new "smartphone" I opted for a Windows Phone device, it does what is supposed to do very well, better than iPhones. And it has some cool factor too:)

So indeed Apple have managed to get a hold on a large percentage of the market, introducing some revolutionary products, but they are far from producing the best quality/price ratio.