"Smartphones Destroying High-End Camera Sales"

[ic-racer]

Don't worry... smartphones will be as archaic and useless as flash powder in a decade or so. The consumer electronics industry survives by
making everything you want today obsolete tomorrow...

Instead of wearing some apparatus on the ear, the future 'social media consumer' will wear a 'trend setting' contraption on the eyes (like glasses) that will allow 'image capture' at the blink of an eye and also offer full-time internet browsing.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

The introduction of digital cameras meant the start of new technology, and the engineers and marketing people at the time could probably not envision what the technology would eventually bring.

If I take my iPhone and put it on a tripod, use an app that avoids high ISO, maybe even takes multiple exposures and merges them together into a high resolution file, and saves as TIFF as opposed to JPEG, I get better picture quality in a print than my father gets from his two year old Pentax DSLR. It will not compare to a newer DSLR, but it's an interesting comparison.

Who knows what the future will hold? Everything new we introduce almost always has some kind of consequence nobody could figure out. Those who say smart phones are stupid are probably old and with a generational gap, and simply don't see the possibilities that the devices offer. While I think it's healthy to be skeptical and think critically, and not just take things at face value, it's even more important to try to see things from many different aspects and viewpoints, and not just your own.
Used with moderation, a smart phone can add tremendous value. You may not like or need those things, in which case it's not for you. But that's not going to be true for others.

If the engineers in the old days of digital technology didn't see what was coming with camera phones, then who's to say what's to come? Maybe smart phone manufacturers are digging their own graves now, without even realizing it.

 

[batwister]

Instead of wearing some apparatus on the ear, the future 'social media consumer' will wear a 'trend setting' contraption on the eyes (like glasses) that will allow 'image capture' at the blink of an eye and also offer full-time internet browsing.

Geek chic (lensless glasses) is only really an accepted style in metropolitan areas. Google Glass probably won't take off universally for that reason - it's a technology for a very specific moment in fashion.

But the 'blink to snap' idea seems plausible, just maybe not with something as big and clumsy as glasses. I can imagine some kind of small, stick-on wireless transmitter though, in the shape of a tear... It would be called Teari™.

But christ, we're surely not that far off having our vision recorded with such a device - a tiny sensor that records the reflected light of the cornea?

 

[ntenny]

Human nature includes a certain change-averse instinct, I think; confronted with something new, we all have *some* vestige of that gut-level reaction that says "make it go away". For that instinct's purposes, smartphones are not supposed to be cameras because THAT IS NOT THE WAY IT WAS YESTERDAY!!1! (mutatis mutandis for film vs digital, dry plates vs wet, photography vs painting). And obviously we all have a countervailing tendency to get excited about the new shiny thing, and the way we adapt to changes involves those two instincts kind of fighting it out.

I actually think that works pretty well, in the big picture; individuals settle at different personal feelings about different kinds of change at different times, and we seem usually to end up on a reasonable middle path between chaos and stasis. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about new tools displacing old ones (or less-new ones, as in this thread), and the frenzied rush of users to the Next Big Thing, are healthy parts of this process, IMHO. Y'all are part of the cultural immune system of human creativity!

OK, maybe I got a little carried away. But I think the general idea is sound---we adapt to new things, like pocket-sized Cray-killers[1] that can take pictures of reasonable quality, by freaking out about them in two directions at once and eventually stabilizing.

Disclaimer: I'm not one of the smartphone manufacturers digging their own graves, but I am in the business of selling them the shovels with which to do it.

-NT

[1] Back in about 1988, a friend of mine predicted "in 20 years you'll have a Cray killer in your pocket". Turns out he missed by a couple of years: The iPhone 4S, which came out in 2011, had just about the same floating-point performance as a Cray-1.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

The introduction of digital cameras meant the start of new technology, and the engineers and marketing people at the time could probably not envision what the technology would eventually bring.

As one of the engineers working on the first digital projects at Kodak we understood that photographers wanted immediacy - we saw the growth in minilabs with 1 hour service. That was a major driving force in our work.

We also knew that photographers like convenient, easy to carry cameras they could take with them anywhere - we saw the popularity of the 110 and Disc cameras. The initial technology didn't make such cameras possible at that time.

 

[Chris Lange]

My iPhone saves me from having to use film to take all the stupid pictures I post on my Instabookfaceblr. I love making Vine videos of concerts I see (which are good because they are limited to 8-9 seconds, meaning you can snap a quick video and get back to actually participating in the music, after you share it with your friend who is across the country and couldn't make the show...)

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

As one of the engineers working on the first digital projects at Kodak we understood that photographers wanted immediacy - we saw the growth in minilabs with 1 hour service. That was a major driving force in our work.

We also knew that photographers like convenient, easy to carry cameras they could take with them anywhere - we saw the popularity of the 110 and Disc cameras. The initial technology didn't make such cameras possible at that time.

I didn't mean in terms of what the technology would be capable of. 'Smaller' is usually just a matter of time. I meant more what it would do to the camera market as a whole. First a virtual explosion, and now a bit of an implosion where we see news about camera phones eating into the traditional share of dedicated cameras, bit by bit, kind of like digital cameras did to film.

 

[analoguey]

The last line is so ironic

How so?

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

 

[Prof_Pixel]

I didn't mean in terms of what the technology would be capable of. 'Smaller' is usually just a matter of time. I meant more what it would do to the camera market as a whole. First a virtual explosion, and now a bit of an implosion where we see news about camera phones eating into the traditional share of dedicated cameras, bit by bit, kind of like digital cameras did to film.

I don't think any of us have been surprised how things developed. Small cameras were in play from the start. See the 1996 Nikon Coolpix 100 info at http://www.nikonweb.com/coolpix100/ Nikon had a camera like that that even had an LCD back that could be written on with a stylus.

It the old "the best camera is the one you have with you when a photo opportunity develops" thing. I used to always carry an Olympus Stylus XA with me; now I carry an Apple iPod touch. (The touch camera isn't as good as an iPhone, but it's plenty good for casual shooting.)

If there is any surprise (at least for me), it is the speed that internet sharing took off.

 

[pbromaghin]

If there is any surprise (at least for me), it is the speed that internet sharing took off.

Funny, but back in 1984-88, when I was helping Al Gore invent the internet, I saw none of this coming. Too busy writing code, I guess. Or too dumb.

 

[Tom1956]

Funny, but back in 1984-88, when I was helping Al Gore invent the internet, I saw none of this coming. Too busy writing code, I guess. Or too dumb.

You're pulling our leg. Algore invented it all by himself.
And without him, this world would not have nearly as much hot air.

 

[Tom1956]

I've got a buddy who calls me up and talks my ear off for an hour about how his digital camera actually records the atoms that make up the molecules in a picture. Like I care. Thinking of changing my number. Wonder if it annoys him when I tell him a cell phone can do that too. And I don't even have a cell phone and don't want one. My Dad offered to sign me up and pay for the service on one. No thanks. People with cellphones come off like they have the world by the tail. I don't even want to talk to you if you are on one, and don't want to see any picture you took with one. Digital schmgiital.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

You're pulling our leg. Algore invented it all by himself.

Yep. And that's why the whole dang thing is made up of software Al-Gore-ithms.

(Oh gawd. It's way past time for me to go to bed...)



George

 

[pbromaghin]

And that's why the whole dang thing is made up of software Al-Gore-ithms.
Ken

Oh.
My.
God.
Did you really type that?

 

[Tom1956]

Edited post 61

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Oh.
My.
God.
Did you really type that?

Not any more...

 

[Tom1956]

Me either.

 

[hoffy]

I've got a buddy who calls me up and talks my ear off for an hour about how his digital camera actually records the atoms that make up the molecules in a picture. Like I care. Thinking of changing my number. Wonder if it annoys him when I tell him a cell phone can do that too. And I don't even have a cell phone and don't want one. My Dad offered to sign me up and pay for the service on one. No thanks. People with cellphones come off like they have the world by the tail. I don't even want to talk to you if you are on one, and don't want to see any picture you took with one. Digital schmgiital.

How ironic to see this posted on the intardwebs. Are you sure your name is not Jebediah? Do you know how to cultivate a field with a horse and wooden plow?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Do you know how to cultivate a field with a horse and wooden plow?

Don't need to. I'll bet there's an app for that.



Ken

 

[analoguey]

Don't need to. I'll bet there's an app for that.



Ken

Please! Farmville's so 2009!

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

If companies were aware of the market trends, why do we see traditional camera manufacturers in trouble, and no preemptive action to capitalize on the current situation?

I don't think any of us have been surprised how things developed. Small cameras were in play from the start. See the 1996 Nikon Coolpix 100 info at http://www.nikonweb.com/coolpix100/ Nikon had a camera like that that even had an LCD back that could be written on with a stylus.

It the old "the best camera is the one you have with you when a photo opportunity develops" thing. I used to always carry an Olympus Stylus XA with me; now I carry an Apple iPod touch. (The touch camera isn't as good as an iPhone, but it's plenty good for casual shooting.)

If there is any surprise (at least for me), it is the speed that internet sharing took off.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ice-Racer - those eye-controlled eyeglass digi cameras, replete with full computer interface, already exist! They were developed for combat pilots, are now being tested for use by the severely handicapped, and will inevitably filter their way into the consumer market. ... But with
staggering sums of money being deployed to market and advertise the latest gotta-have consumer toys, this will be the factor in what is
popular today, obsolete tomorrow. The whole industry is financial dependent upon rapid turnover - making people think they just gotta gotta
have it to be happy. The underpinnings of any modern idiocracy.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

May be cell phones being sold from Europe and US brands more everyday because japan is living a hard times since early 90s. I read an report last night , japan was the owner of %75 of electronics market at 1994 and they dropped to around % 6.

Report tells these ,

Japan is the master of production processes
And their products rely on hardware more.
They have no software writing crowds
And their products dont rely on third party softwares.

About usa ,

US has invented a process that their hardware open to third parties codes.
Far away more code writers than Japan.

And report tells that japan started to send low technology factories to China and China factory people was more active than us based japanese factories and finally all these factories felt to the hands of china.

This opens a question , there are hundreds of us based factories in china , will they take them from americans ?

 

[Prof_Pixel]

If companies were aware of the market trends, why do we see traditional camera manufacturers in trouble, and no preemptive action to capitalize on the current situation?

Because they are "caught between a rock and a hard place". What choices do they have? Try to enter the smartphone marketplace? Good luck to that.


Luckily, both Nikon and Canon have strong non-photographic businesses.

 

[Rudeofus]

Because they are "caught between a rock and a hard place". What choices do they have? Try to enter the smartphone marketplace? Good luck to that.

A phone is an UHF chip, a signal processor and an LCD, whereas a digital camera is a sensor chip, a signal processor and an LCD ... And we all know a photographic film company that suddenly made printers (and not even bad ones from what I read), and a web search and advertising company that suddenly made a smart phone OS (>80% market share).

Given that one of the most popular smart phones today is not made by a traditional phone maker, but by a desktop computer and software company, I don't see a reason why a camera had to be added to a phone instead of the other way round.