Camera Industry In Crisis

Besides people losing their jobs, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

IMO, in the worst case scenario (so-to-speak in terms of the context above) if every Japanese company exited the market then we'd have no new cameras and we'd use what we have, which isn't the end of the world. (Or turn to other country's options.)

But realistically someone will be around to make something. Other companies will jump on opportunities like JJ/RED did when America had no representation in the world's cinema market, and/or new companies will emerge and enter.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon...they can make a photography or cinema camera overnight.

Nevertheless the Japanese need each other. IMO, their system doesn't work if only two of them are selling cameras, so I don't see much changing.

And if anything we'll actually see much better products being offered which we have been seeing in 2020 (maybe just a coincidence from an original roadmap).
 
CaSoNikon cameras feel about as relevant as Debenhams they dont swipe and go to instagram dont have '3d photo mode' have slower slomo than Fail Army - hell they dont even know what time it is and they struggle to hook up to Zoom.

There is bound to be some crashes.
 
NorBro said:
But realistically someone will be around to make something. Other companies will jump on opportunities like JJ/RED did when America had no representation in the world's cinema market, and/or new companies will emerge and enter.
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I think Panavision would argue that they should be considered representation on the world cinema market. If anything, it’s the Japanese that really that aren’t represented in the world cinema market to this day.

The whole notion of nationalism in equipment is pretty old fashioned isn’t it ?

The mass market that made these consumer items has changed.

We advanced professionals and enthusiasts are the only ones buying gear and there’s not enough of us to sustain the companies that could once count on every household having at least one dedicated camera.

As you say, there’s going to be other companies that can take up the slack.

JB
 
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Yeah, Panavision could definitely argue that if they let people buy their cameras because you have to sell your cameras if you want to be in the aforementioned market I'm referring to.

Otherwise you're just an oddball company that no one really knows about yet still has a huge history in the industry.
 
"Camera Industry In Crisis"? Does anyone remember in high school English, where you were taught to start with a topic sentence and follow it with supporting sentences?

The pressure to make clickbait headlines is real, and most news sites have given in. It is all the more obvious when you see that the full headline includes the phrase, "what happens next".

So, after reading the actual article, can anyone come up with a headline that better summarizes it? It is more like, "The downward trend that began a decade ago is still going on, only a bit more so because of the lockdown. But hey, a lot of these companies are figuring out ways around it."

--

Even if the future were as apocalyptic as the headline suggests, and all of these major camera companies go under, I'm with the rest of you that say, who cares? For me, after witnessing tiny companies like Ikonoskop or Digital Bolex make cameras that are closer to what I want than anything in a long time, I say, I welcome it.

I mean, they all have been dependent on there still being a company or two that makes good image sensors (Kodak, Fairchild, Sony, etc.). I don't know an indie way to make a good image sensor. Phones ensure there will always be a healthy supply of tiny image sensors, but let's hope the supply of large ones (S16 and above) don't cease :D Then we just need a small- to medium-size business to build a camera body around it (which is not easy at all, don't get me wrong).
 
So we're half way though a decade long "crisis" lol

I'm ambivalent towards these companies. On the one hand I love video/photo/tech on the other hand I've never felt like they have the user best interest in mind. So when their downfall is in part from them being out of touch...

I don't have any grandiose predictions. The best anyone can do is to adapt to what ever the way things evolve to. I'm old enough to remember the "crisis" when film was replaced by digital.
 
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I'm not ambivalent because I'm invested in canon/Panasonic/sony gear. I want my lenses to be compatible with new cameras. I want my gear go maintain resale value (such as it is). I want service and firmware updates etc.

I took into consideration likelihood of manufacturer survival when I made my last camera purchase. I think that Canon and Sony are likeliest to survive
 
A couple of years ago, a Canon executive opined that the global market will sustain about five million units annually. Which it might, had the cripple hammer not been so liberally applied. But even at two-three million, a few manufacturers might exit and be replaced by the smaller, more agile entrants. It could also go the Class-D amplifier route, where top performing modules are made by a couple of companies (in the audio world, Hypex, Netherlands and ICE, Denmark are considered "audiophile" quality) and then marketed under different brand names.
 
The photography companies all blew up with the move the digital, but that momentum and demand was never going to be sustained indefinitely. The interesting question is which ones will successfully handle the downsize (back to sustainable levels) without going under.

Personally, I don't think longer product cycles will hurt anyone (companies or consumers).
 
The market changed drastically with Kodak's exit in 2012. And then with Samsung's in 2016-17.
 
You bring up a good point about the product cycles. We always think, I wish they'd come out with a new camera. But its a dual edge sword the shorter the product cycle the more often you have to spend money to upgrade your equipment. Case in point, I do legal work where they are decades behind the standard is still SD. That means I've gotten so much return on my investment of an 6 year old camera. In the wedding field would have had to upgrade my equipment a few times to keep up.

I used think the amount of time it took to release a new model was dictated by the engineering limitations, while I think this is partly true, I also think they hold back releasing new models based on how well the current model is doing and their internal strategy. I'm guessing the A7III could have been replaced earlier, with an new cpu, evf, and flipout touch screen. These aren't ground breaking technologies, but why replace a camera that's still selling and the competition hasn't caught up yet.
 
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combatentropy said:
Could there be a tapering?
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No the technological possibilities of the camera hasn't plateaued but since the market for them has decreased, lower R&D should yield slower developments. Could also mean lower end cameras won't get new tech because it won't be worth return on investment. It's hard to predict because Canon and Sony could use it to their advantage to continue the pace of improvement in the short term to completely eliminate the competition that can't keep up.
 
Two notes on the general market. Plus one on A-10's. Kind of.

1) Canon is selling its sensors to third parties now. They are not photo-video camera sensors per se - more like the industrial use - but they can probably be repurposed. Canon would not want the third parties to compete with its ecosystem but the significance here is that this is a direct move against Sony, albeit not in the smartphone/photo/video spheres. But it is a sign of a discord in an alliance that seems to have gone abruptly haywire with the release of R5 and its subsequent firmware upgrades.

2) The LiDAR based auto focus systems are coming on the market fast and furiously, bringing manual lenses back from ill repute. The latest contrast/phase/AI/DP detect is still superior but the LiDAR enables a pretty decent AF on cameras made by smaller manufacturers like BMD, ZCam, Kinefinity, etc. And now inexpensive manual Chinese lenses - mostly likely the reverse engineered classic Zeiss and Contax - can become quite fashionable. And that drives the profit margins of the cartel way, way down.

3) As to the tapering, not yet. And the A-10's have been replaced by the attack drones.
 
combatentropy said:
"Camera Industry In Crisis"? Does anyone remember in high school English, where you were taught to start with a topic sentence and follow it with supporting sentences?

The pressure to make clickbait headlines is real, and most news sites have given in. It is all the more obvious when you see that the full headline includes the phrase, "what happens next".
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Clickbait is everywhere, but I don’t especially see it here. Crisis is a time of great difficulty but doesn’t have to lead to extinction – although the crisis in the camera industry has already claimed the proud old Olympus brand, so for that camera maker it was a legitimate existential crisis.

Peter C. said:
I'm old enough to remember the "crisis" when film was replaced by digital.
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And yet film still hangs on. I watched Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks the other day. Shot on film:

https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/blog-post/on-the-rocks
 
Off the top of my head, some more brands that have departed since the arrival of digital: Mamiya, Bronica, Contax, all making great cameras and lenses. And probably in existential trouble - Hasselbald (again) and Rollei (again). I owned several examples of each of these and formed an (irrational) emotional attachment to each of them. Just can't feel the same about any of the many digital still and video cameras I have owned.
 
stewhem said:
... Hasselbald (again) and Rollei (again). I owned several examples of each of these and formed an (irrational) emotional attachment to each of them. Just can't feel the same about any of the many digital still and video cameras I have owned.
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I get it. There's something about holding a mechanical device in your hands compared to an electronic device. It's a work of art. It has distinction, craftsmanship. You can see every mechanical bit and how it works; the feel and sound of the film advance and the shutter, and all the other little bits. You really feel like you have something substantial in your hands. Electronics ... meh. Some soft buttons with 1's and 0's wandering about inside a bit of plastic. There's nothing interesting about it.
 
Paul F said:
I get it. There's something about holding a mechanical device in your hands compared to an electronic device. It's a work of art. It has distinction, craftsmanship. You can see every mechanical bit and how it works; the feel and sound of the film advance and the shutter, and all the other little bits. You really feel like you have something substantial in your hands. Electronics ... meh. Some soft buttons with 1's and 0's wandering about inside a bit of plastic. There's nothing interesting about it.
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Using a nice Hasselblad or Mamiya, yes, a tactile delight. Or my Arri SR2 was too. The soft whirring on the magazine in your right ear, the subtle flicker of the shutter. The sounds of cash register dinging in your head every time you did a long take as your mind calculated how much the stock, lab and transfer would cost for that. ;-)

Film cameras were just a whole other league of craftsmanship compared to the electronic shoeboxes we use today. I think that's why a lot of people own the Fuji X-T3. For a digital camera, it has a very nice tactile/mechanical quality to it, the knobs, body, the aesthetics where it looks like a rangefinder film camera from 10'.
 
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