"The consumer camera is dead" very interesting Youtube video

[wlaidlaw]

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I have just watched a video on Youtube 

by Tony Northrup. It is a well thought out view on where the camera industry is today, how it got there and possible directions for the future. Now not a lot of this applies to Leica and other serious enthusiast /professional camera makers (which he admits) but there are lessons Leica could learn from this. I don't know what the average age of an M purchaser is but I bet it's well over 50. Sadly we are a dying market. 

 

The SL is a good first step and it actually incorporates quite a few of the features that he talks about being essential for the future. However he is correct on one thing; I cannot imagine any of my children getting their heads round the menu and customisation system. Even one of my son-in-laws, whose father is a very successful professional photographer, only uses an iPhone. My children fall about laughing when they see me putting film into a camera and ask where is the door to shovel in the coal and how long does it take to get steam up before I can take a photo. 

 

Wilson

 

 

 

 

[k-hawinkler]

Hi Wilson.  

 

Thanks for posting.  Pretty boring video.  I couldn't stomach watching it for long.

The smart phone is the consumer camera now.  So what.  That's progress, I guess.

 

Lately I have been having tremendous fun shooting old manual only Leica and other lenses with the autofocus TechArt Pro adapter.

They just released firmware version 4 that improves its AF algorithm considerably.

I now can nail focus on f/1.2 or f/1.4 lenses every time.

Focusing speed now matches or exceeds the one I get on my Nikon D800E with pre-AF-S Nikkor AF lenses.

If you have not already done so, maybe it would be worth trying.

 

Here are some shots, also with an M lens, by an 11-year old.   http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1445543/40#13716827

Here is one I took at f/1.2 with Noct-NIKKOR.   http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/57320-auto-focus-anything-14.html#post702924

 

Regards, Karl-Heinz.

Edited September 11, 2016 by k-hawinkler

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[pico]

Wilson, aren't you thinking of getting a Steampunk Camera to wow the kids?  I am.

Something like this.

 

Funny thing: I gave my '58 VW Sedan to my niece last week. Her eldest child is 14 years-old and was told she might want to learn stick-shift. She laughed, "They will be obsolete when I drive." Now she has exactly that in her garage. Her mother kids her that it will be her first car. (Over her dead body.)

[ramarren]

I don't have as dire a view of the future. I see Photography continuing on with equipment changing, methodologies and tools changing, as it has for the past 177 years. 

 

When I bought my current car, I bought one with a manual transmission because I like the low maintenance and longevity it affords, since I know how to operate a clutch properly. However, from the perspective of today's driving experience with traffic jams everywhere, an automatic transmission would have been a more sensible purchase. Luckily, I don't have to be in traffic all that often. Some of my younger friends don't know how to use a manual transmission at all. Others have never owned a car with an automatic transmission. The world is quite heterogeneous still... 

 

Pico, love the Steam Punk Camera. Does it take Digital Film?   

[earleygallery]

Thanks for posting this Wilson.

 

I saw the latest CIPA charts and sales of all types of digital cameras continue to decline by a large amount year on year.

 

Many people say "mirrorless is the future". Well that's clearly not due to demand, but it is a cheaper easier method of production for the camera manufacturers. If the market keeps shrinking like this more companies will drop out of photography and investment in innovation will be much less.

 

I had one of the first phones that had a camera. The camera was actually a snap on accessory and the images were only good if viewed on the 1 inch screen!

 

As the video says it was the smartphone that changed the game but he didn't seem to pick up on the fact that the consumer didn't buy a smartphone for the camera.

 

Yes the apps have definitely increased the use of photography but most importantly it's all within one pocketable device - convenience.

 

If we think about it, the first Leica cameras offered some of the same benefits as a smartphone camera, small, convenient, easy to carry at all times and good enough image quality.

 

I don't agree that high end cameras need to work like smartphones though. But I can see memory cards becoming obsolete with more built in memory and devices storing data directly to the cloud.

 

The next big change will be when we see the press photographers using something that isn't a DSLR.

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[wlaidlaw]

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Wilson, aren't you thinking of getting a Steampunk Camera to wow the kids?  I am.

Something like this.

 

Funny thing: I gave my '58 VW Sedan to my niece last week. Her eldest child is 14 years-old and was told she might want to learn stick-shift. She laughed, "They will be obsolete when I drive." Now she has exactly that in her garage. Her mother kids her that it will be her first car. (Over her dead body.)

 

My niece had a steam punk themed wedding in Wales 18 months ago. It was great to see the effort all the guests had gone to, with a lot making their own steam powered clothes and headgear. As well as my M240, since the bride had asked me to take lots of informal photos of everybody (she is a professional photographer herself), I took my Crown Century Graflex complete with Graflite flash and a whole lot of bulbs, as the nearest I had to a steam punk camera. It is an unusual Graflex with an 80mm f2.8 Zeiss Tessar lens, I suspect originally off a Super Ikonta but the Graflex expert in London, managed to find me an 80mm cam for the Kalart coupled rangefinder. I have three Singer roll film backs for it, all 120 but 6cm x 4.5cm, 6cm x 7cm, and 6cm x 9cm, so it is very usable. 

 

Wilson

[k-hawinkler]

How timely.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/5689446804/dont-care-about-the-iphone-7-ten-reasons-why-you-should?ref_=pe_1674010_132618830

[pico]

Wilson, you are the man!

[pico]

How timely.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/5689446804/dont-care-about-the-iphone-7-ten-reasons-why-you-should?ref_=pe_1674010_132618830

 

Someday I hope there is a critical review of phone camera ergonomic. I simply cannot use the camera.

[k-hawinkler]

Someday I hope there is a critical review of phone camera ergonomic. I simply cannot use the camera.

Yup, pico, a smart phone handles quite differently.

I have seen a friend use hers with a selfie-stick, and not just for selfies.

Btw, I saw recently a video clip of a guy running around with a bolt cutter and cutting off selfie-sticks.

Their owners weren't amused.

[pico]

Self Censored

Edited September 11, 2016 by pico

[Herr Barnack]

How timely.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/5689446804/dont-care-about-the-iphone-7-ten-reasons-why-you-should?ref_=pe_1674010_132618830

 

From the link:

 

"...Ok, most DSLRs and high-end compacts offer 20MP+ but if we're being honest, 2MP is good enough for Facebook, 3MP is good enough for a magazine cover, 6-8MP is good enough for a large-ish wall print and anything more than that is a bonus, most of the time. In short, the chances are that 12MP is good enough for you..."

 

:rolleyes:

Edited September 11, 2016 by Carlos Danger

[pico]

I recall an Apple engineer from the nineties claiming that 3MP is all we needed. Then.

 

How will you all feel when wall sized displays at 110ppi become ordinary? Dead, I suspect.

Edited September 11, 2016 by pico

[ramarren]

I recall an Apple engineer from the nineties claiming that 3MP is all we needed. Then.

How will you all feel when wall sized displays at 110ppi become ordinary? Dead, I suspect.

 

 

I don't know who that engineer might have been. I knew all the folks in Engineering working on imaging and printing, and all of them wanted 24 Mpixel as the baseline. 

 

"Dead" is likely the correct answer. I don't even like 4K displays that much. 

[pico]

I don't know who that engineer might have been. I knew all the folks in Engineering working on imaging and printing, and all of them wanted 24 Mpixel as the baseline.

 

It was you, Godfrey.

Perhaps you can supply the context & the date.

1994 strikes me as about right.

Edited September 12, 2016 by pico

[duckrider]

What did "real" photographers feel, when Oskar Barnack invented that micro film gadget?

Times are changing and future belongs to a everywhere and anytime with us camera, called Smartphone.

That's all and we can't and don't to stop it....

Thomas

[David Dennis]

I have just watched a video on Youtube 

by Tony Northrup. It is a well thought out view on where the camera industry is today, how it got there and possible directions for the future. Now not a lot of this applies to Leica and other serious enthusiast /professional camera makers (which he admits) but there are lessons Leica could learn from this. I don't know what the average age of an M purchaser is but I bet it's well over 50. Sadly we are a dying market. 

 

The SL is a good first step and it actually incorporates quite a few of the features that he talks about being essential for the future. However he is correct on one thing; I cannot imagine any of my children getting their heads round the menu and customisation system. Even one of my son-in-laws, whose father is a very successful professional photographer, only uses an iPhone. My children fall about laughing when they see me putting film into a camera and ask where is the door to shovel in the coal and how long does it take to get steam up before I can take a photo. 

 

Wilson

 

 

The biggest problem raised with this video is that Nikon and Canon need volume in order to survive.  It seems to me that there will always be professional cameras, for sports and wildlife if nothing else, and so there would always be demand for something like a D5 (high-speed professional full-frame), D500 (high-speed professional crop sensor) or D810 (medium speed professional high resolution).  (I am most familiar with Nikon so forgive the exclusion of our Canon-using friends).  

 

However, the iPhone 7 is aimed straight at the heart of people who have, say, a D3400 or D5400.  These are inexpensive DSLRs that are very confusing to use in ways that deepen your creativity and artistic understanding of photography, because there are tons of electronic fail-safes that try to save you from setting exposure manually or taking pictures that aren't at least adequate in focus or exposure.  Ironically enough, the Leica Q, while nearly 10 times the price of a D3400, is a much better camera with which to learn photography.  For shame.

 

So if the D3400 user is discouraged from playing with manual settings so he can understand how bokeh works, he's going to look very favorably at an iPhone 7, which just does it automatically for you at the press of a button.  Thus, Nikon is really killing the main bridge from beginning DSLR user to the type of person who will get full advantage of professional-style cameras.

 

It almost goes without saying, but Apple has at least 10x, probably more like 100x, the research and development budget of companies like Nikon.  Even the portion of the R&D budget dedicated to photography is probably close to those order of magnitude differences.  There is no question that the quality of software engineering in Apple products simply overwhelms that of camera makers.  

 

I think Leica could become the last surviving camera maker, because they have essentially no dependence on volume and the low end of the market.  People who aspire to be professional are always going to want to have pro cameras, and if that can be a successful business exclusively, Leica is positioned well to thrive.

[Exodies]

Someday I hope there is a critical review of phone camera ergonomic. I simply cannot use the camera.

Hold the phone in your left hand with your thumb on the minus volume control. Point at scene. Press and release volume control then hold phone still. There is a short delay after pressing the button to allow you to steady the phone.

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Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[wlaidlaw]

Hold the phone in your left hand with your thumb on the minus volume control. Point at scene. Press and release volume control then hold phone still. There is a short delay after pressing the button to allow you to steady the phone.

 

I dislike any camera that I cannot hold to my eye and have to hold at arms length like any phone camera. I originally got a C112 for my wife to replace her V-Lux 20, as it was having the usual Panaleica problem of the lens not extending properly. However I actually managed to cure that by vacuuming out the dust from the lens area and putting a smear of teflon lubricant on it. My wife actually preferred the V-Lux due its smaller size and longer zoom, so I kept the C112. I found that the tiny EVF was close to unusable with spectacles which I wore at the time, so used it very little. Now that I have had laser eye surgery, when I had my cataracts removed and only wear spectacles for reading, I have found that I can use the EVF if I need to, so it has become my pocket camera of choice, even though its EVF is far from wonderful. It will fit in a shirt pocket, whereas my alternative of an Olympus EP-5, with the VF-4 mounted on it, will not. 

 

I hate selfie sticks. I lost count of the number of times I was hit on the head in Taiwan in 2014 by hordes of Chinese tourists all waving the damn things round with zero spacial awareness. When a large phone on the end of a stick, actually cut my face, when being used in a crowded train, I lost my temper and snapped the stick in half. I got a round of applause from the locals, who are becoming increasingly irritated by the millions (around 9 million+ last year) of what they perceive to be ill mannered, pushy, loud and inconsiderate mainland tourists. 

 

Wilson