No wonder camera manufacturers loved digital photography

[OlyMan]

When two film cameras at opposite ends of a maker's price-spectrum gave by-and-large the same results providing you could fit them with the same lenses, it must have been a struggle for manufacturers and retailers trying to convince customers to upgrade or buy a camera higher up the range to start with. Matrix-metering and autofocus were of course two big incentives to re-invest, but as they gradually became the norm, new cameras were all about incremental refinements to existing technologies rather than hitting us with pioneering new features. By the late 1990s, really the manufacturers had run out of things to tempt us.

So they must have rubbed their hands together with glee when digital photography properly took off. Suddenly there were extra variables they could control at will. Never again could some skinflint buy the cheapest body they could find that was compatible with the maker's best lenses, and laugh all the way to the bank. Now there was opportunity to intentionally engineer varying degrees of mediocrity and built-in obsolescence, so that not only would buyers be tempted to initially spend more on higher-spec'd models to obtain better results, every couple of years they would be enticed to trade-up to new kit, teased by drip-fed improvements which by deliberate design could not be retrofitted to customers' existing cameras, such as better sensors and improved firmware.

It was an amazing business model intended to save their bacon. And they’d have gotten away with it too, had it not been for those pesky kids. Aka smartphones. I almost felt sorry for them when smartphones sapped away a huge swathe of customers who decided they didn't need to buy a real camera ever again. They just never saw that punch coming. Still, it hasn't stopped them from continuing to deliberately ‘prestige’ certain features which wouldn't be difficult to standardise across the board comparatively cheaply, such as full-frame sensors, though models such as the Nikon D750 do start to address it.

 

[iakustov]

It is their business, as long as people keep buying ther cameras. I dont see anyone pushing anything though. As film product sales declined and most of the pro's went to digital world, there was no reason to produce more film cameras. Most consumers fell in love with new, digital cameras as they appeared to be more easy to get pictures with. So, it was rather people's choice that we do not have (many) film cameras produced anymore.

 

[Dali]

Yeah, the camera manufacturers conspiracy now...

 

[pdeeh]

Bilderberg

 

[guangong]

Not so much a conspiracy as a way to offer an optical product for sale. What many younger members of APUG may be unaware of is that a high end camera such as Nikon or Leica was, for many purchasers in the 60s and 70s, an expensive piece of costume jewelry that was seldom used to take pictures. Also, affluent individuals who wanted "the best" (I.e. the most expensive) but never used them because f stops and shutter speeds seemed too complicated. There are still a great many very good cameras in near mint condition on the used market that for even more decades to come there will be no need to manufacture a new 35mm camera. Also, makers of the better cameras prided themselves on their cameras robust longevity instead of planned obsolescence and one way manufacture.

 

[removed account4]

it started in about 1888

 

[Dali]

Guangong, I think you missed the irony of my comment. Of course, there is no conspiracy, just the adaptation of manufacturers to the market customers want. In that sense, I agree with iakustov's comment.

 

[nmp]

Unfortunately for Kodak, they were not in on this conspiracy even though they provided the first ammunition by inventing the first digital technology itself.

 

[Wallendo]

Manufacturers didn't force digital upon us. Most people (consumers) switched to digital because it was easier and more convenient. Many, in fact, switched in an era when digital images were markedly inferior to even drug store prints.

Manufacturers had been pushing incremental upgrades well before the digital era, especially among their consumer-oriented lines. As a primarily Minolta/Sony user, I am familiar with their history more than other brands. In the auto-focus era, they frequently released new models with slightly improve features such as more metering options, better autofocus, higher shutter speeds, and, in some cases, actually created crippled cameras. My Minolta QTsi does not support aperture priority or shutter priority, and even more frustrating, does not support any time of manual mode.

Sony has continued this pattern, and I haven't upgraded my DSLR in 5-6 years since, for my purposes, digital advances are well past the point of diminishing returns.

 

[OlyMan]

I don't particularly see it as a conspiracy, and didn't intend to suggest it. More that they seized the opportunity to closely micromanage the implementation of technology so that those who wanted the best images had to buy the best bodies as well as the best lenses (wasn't the case with film, no doubt much to their annoyance and frustration). For example digital cameras have always been made with deliberately no upgrade path, to improve it you have to scrap it (trade it in/sell it/at some point there is waste), and buy another. Theyalso have continued to keep certain technologies - such as full frame - expensive and elite, even now when digital imaging is well into a state of maturity and they could if they wished deliver it much cheaper.

 

[Chan Tran]

Manufacturers didn't force digital upon us. Most people (consumers) switched to digital because it was easier and more convenient. Many, in fact, switched in an era when digital images were markedly inferior to even drug store prints.

Manufacturers had been pushing incremental upgrades well before the digital era, especially among their consumer-oriented lines. As a primarily Minolta/Sony user, I am familiar with their history more than other brands. In the auto-focus era, they frequently released new models with slightly improve features such as more metering options, better autofocus, higher shutter speeds, and, in some cases, actually created crippled cameras. My Minolta QTsi does not support aperture priority or shutter priority, and even more frustrating, does not support any time of manual mode.

Sony has continued this pattern, and I haven't upgraded my DSLR in 5-6 years since, for my purposes, digital advances are well past the point of diminishing returns.

They made what the customers will buy. We film users are forced into digital by others consumers who abandon film and not manufacturers.

 

[OlyMan]

Have changed the thread title...to be honest I was stuck for a thread title and didn't mean to imply there was any 'conspiracy' to push digital imaging onto consumers, more that they exploited the freedom it suddenly gave them to drip feed technology to us and keep some of it artificially elevated to elite status.

 

[GGardner]

It was an amazing business model intended to save their bacon. And they’d have gotten away with it too, had it not been for those pesky kids. Aka smartphones. I almost felt sorry for them when smartphones sapped away a huge swathe of customers who decided they didn't need to buy a real camera ever again. They just never saw that punch coming.

I always figured the film camera days were a razor and blade kind of deal, with the bodies just a hook to lock you into lens purchases.

The real problem with smartphones, from the camera vendors perspective, isn't that they have useful camera in them. The real problem is that smartphone cameras don't come with a Nikon or Canon lens mount...

 

[Bob Carnie]

This is interesting .... I started my film processing business in 1991- just before the digital onslaught.. I was doing very well for about 8 years processing film and making small custom prints for the whole photographic industry.

I remember the pain / anxiety and the feeling of anger I had around 1999 era when I concluded that indeed my whole business model was going to be decimated. I do remember my clients (pro) photographers gleefully jumping on the digital
bandwagon and some even telling me how glad they did not have to go through the process and contact, clip test model of business.
The suppliers like Kodak , Fuji and others I depended upon were either folding, giving up ship, or selling to both sides of the equation.
I saw my small business go from a nice comfortable level to nothing. Many other printers got sucked into this void and did not recover.

Canon and Nikon IMHO were the big initial winners... then came Epson... and now the smart phone dudes....

Lucky for me I was young enough and also had and incredible good friend who basically Paid Me for two years to completely revamp my business and I too joined the digital revolution with Printing (Durst Lambda 76)
Now 24 odd years later I see some of the same pro photographers in their mid to late 60's trying to reinvent themselves as social median , smart phones, easy digital cameras has made everyone a photographer and they are now feeling the pain.

This cycle was quite fast, but I am still amazed that there actually is a high end in camera gear, its not Nikon or Canon, but Phase and I am seeing many young and mid career professionals doing anything they can to buy into this technology and with it
set themselves from the pack.
This is relatively new IMO where across the board we finally have a distinct lineup of quality products... I am making 60 inch x 80 inch murals off the Phase that IMO rival any work I did years ago from 8 x10 negative film.. It is the first time I have
been able to say this...

Whats next... I think you will find Leica with its big sensors and monochrome system become a very cherished camera. I think you will see Phase take a big chunk of the market.. and I do think you will see Canon and Nikon battle it out
with Sony and Samsung.

Each manufacturer will decide where they are best suited , and now I feel since the digital revolution exploded in 2000 there is a very distinct pecking order.

 

[OlyMan]

I always figured the film camera days were a razor and blade kind of deal, with the bodies just a hook to lock you into lens purchases.

True enough, and for the reasons I stated; not enough photographers were interested in upgrading to a camera further up the range when the image quality would be more or less the same. But digital imaging gave them much more flexibility. Their cheap bodies deliberately did not/do not give the same picture quality as the premium bodies, be that because of better hardware (sensors) or better firmware. neither of which are user-upgradable.

It's unlikely this approach will ever change, because if they can't keep enticing people to buy new hardware, they will fold as a business.

 

[nmp]

Full frame is not an elite technology for the sake of it. Area-wise Full Frame sensors are about 2.4 times bigger than the APS-C sensors. The cost of producing sensors is directly proportional to the area (actually more if you consider failure rate being higher.) So the cost of each Full Frame sensor is higher by 2.4x+ than the APS-C counterpart. That is passed on to the cost of the camera. When digital was just starting out, it would have been prohibitively expensive to make full frames, if not impossible with high defect rates (although it would have been easier to match with the existing lens systems.) They chose the smaller format instead so the early adopters didn't get shell shocked with the price. Of course, the fact that they were able to up-sell them small format "optimized" lenses were an added bonus. In that regard, every industry has its range of the cheap for the masses and the more expensive for the few who like the status with slight benefit in quality. The latter actually subsidizes the former. Airlines have First Class that have huge profit margins so they can offer economy at bare minimum.

 

[markbarendt]

OlyMan before digital the big money to be made was in consumables, film, paper, processing...., that's why Kodak was so big. Improvements in image capture were essentially relegated to improvements to film and better lenses. Reducing grain and improving speed and better skin tone rendition used to be almost exclusively a film issue; today many of those improvements can be made in camera, that's why camera builders and software companies are in control today.

Film cameras were tools, as you rightly point out good work can be done with any film camera body. As technology improved for metering, focus, film handling, flash control, and more, people who needed those features could buy up, but the an F5 body didn't directly make a snap better than an FM snap.

Doesn't mean a new D850 can make a better print than my D200 though. The D850 would allow me to be sloppier on framing than the D200 because there are so many more pixels cropping instead of switching lenses becomes a real possibility and more of what I can do with PS and faster lenses has been added into the cameras directly.

Just like in ancient times though (the '70s) the camera is just a tool; for those that need or want the new bells and whistles, the D850 for example is the bees knees.

For the uses I have right now the D200 is fine, heck I still do fun stuff with a D70 that is fully capable of meeting most commercial finish product needs. To get a commercial client to take me seriously though having a D5 or D850 might be required.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Since very few digital enthusiasts make prints the only consumables are the cameras themselves. Camera companies, in order to stay in business, must constantly offer cameras with more bells and whistles.

 

[nmp]

Since very few digital enthusiasts make prints the only consumables are the cameras themselves. Camera companies, in order to stay in business, must constantly offer cameras with more bells and whistles.

Yes. Kodak, Fuji et al constantly came up with faster ISOs, finer grain, more vivid color, etc. Now the camera manufacturer do the same with advancements in the sensor technology and software. Kodak in the 90's was a 35B market cap with 150K employed. If it was allowed to go in the same trajectory, it would have been worth multiples of that. You can assume all that wealth was distributed to the digital world including the camera makers, Adobe, Epson, HP, and rest. And then some.

Change is good as long as you can roll with it.

 

[MattKing]

The camera companies and retailers never made much money on SLRs. The money has always been made on what gets attached to them or, in the film days, put into them.
When I was working retail, most stores essentially broke even on every Canon AE-1 they sold.

 

[michr]

OP remembers things differently than the way I remember the history of photography. Skinflints were buying cameras which had one or two shutter speeds, one or two very slow apertures (like f11/f16), no focus capability, no metering, and putting roll film in them. There was no capability to add a lens.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

lousy

acceptable

good

better

best

I like the best but must settle for 'good' and sometimes can afford 'better'. I need to win the lottery.

 

[CMoore]

The camera companies and retailers never made much money on SLRs. The money has always been made on what gets attached to them or, in the film days, put into them.
When I was working retail, most stores essentially broke even on every Canon AE-1 they sold.

Holy Christ.....is this true.? (after all, you ARE Canadian)

I would have thought the camera store did OK on something like the AE-1...but i guess not.?
So it was the lens, lens cap, haze filter, bag, film ,etc etc.....are you saying that is where the "real" mark-up was for your average camera store.?
Thank You

 

[MattKing]

Holy Christ.....is this true.? (after all, you ARE Canadian)

I would have thought the camera store did OK on something like the AE-1...but i guess not.?
So it was the lens, lens cap, haze filter, bag, film ,etc etc.....are you saying that is where the "real" mark-up was for your average camera store.?
Thank You

Exactly right.
The real profit though was made on film and photo-finishing.
Which is why there aren't many camera stores left.

 

[CMoore]

This is interesting .... I started my film processing business in 1991- just before the digital onslaught.. I was doing very well for about 8 years processing film and making small custom prints for the whole photographic industry.

I remember the pain / anxiety and the feeling of anger I had around 1999 era when I concluded that indeed my whole business model was going to be decimated. I do remember my clients (pro) photographers gleefully jumping on the digital
bandwagon and some even telling me how glad they did not have to go through the process and contact, clip test model of business.
The suppliers like Kodak , Fuji and others I depended upon were either folding, giving up ship, or selling to both sides of the equation.
I saw my small business go from a nice comfortable level to nothing. Many other printers got sucked into this void and did not recover.

Canon and Nikon IMHO were the big initial winners... then came Epson... and now the smart phone dudes....

Lucky for me I was young enough and also had and incredible good friend who basically Paid Me for two years to completely revamp my business and I too joined the digital revolution with Printing (Durst Lambda 76)
Now 24 odd years later I see some of the same pro photographers in their mid to late 60's trying to reinvent themselves as social median , smart phones, easy digital cameras has made everyone a photographer and they are now feeling the pain.

This cycle was quite fast, but I am still amazed that there actually is a high end in camera gear, its not Nikon or Canon, but Phase and I am seeing many young and mid career professionals doing anything they can to buy into this technology and with it
set themselves from the pack.
This is relatively new IMO where across the board we finally have a distinct lineup of quality products... I am making 60 inch x 80 inch murals off the Phase that IMO rival any work I did years ago from 8 x10 negative film.. It is the first time I have
been able to say this...

Whats next... I think you will find Leica with its big sensors and monochrome system become a very cherished camera. I think you will see Phase take a big chunk of the market.. and I do think you will see Canon and Nikon battle it out
with Sony and Samsung.

Each manufacturer will decide where they are best suited , and now I feel since the digital revolution exploded in 2000 there is a very distinct pecking order.

Good Grief Bob.....i did not know you even made Ink/Digital Prints, or whatever it is called.
So the traditional Wet/Darkroom printing would not make a living for you anymore.?
Sorry if i sound like an idiot, but i have absolutely no Knowledge/Grasp of the Modern/Digital world of photography.
If i can ask you one more question.....What is this "Phase" you were discussing.?
Thank You
chip