Camera rumors for 2016?

No way. Develop a smart phone camera and then spit out hundreds of thousands if not millions of units. Or develop a high end camera sensor and if you're lucky push out 50,000 over several models of cameras. Guess which business model Sony will stick to.
 
DLD said:
Canon has just reported their latest financials. Their office product division profits are down 38% Y-t-Y, with the imaging division down 33%. They're blaming the slowdown in the P&S cameras for the declining performance in imaging.
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Dang.
I knew it was gonna get rough for them, but I didn't think it would get that rough.
IMO, if they haven't already initiated a change in direction 2 to 3 years ago, and aren't deciding until this most recent report to do something, then they're going to continue hemorrhaging into 2020.
 
Mitch Gross said:
No way. Develop a smart phone camera and then spit out hundreds of thousands if not millions of units. Or develop a high end camera sensor and if you're lucky push out 50,000 over several models of cameras. Guess which business model Sony will stick to.
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Well, it turns out, in 2015 Sony had negative operating income in the Devices Segment, basically because of the camera module business (sounds like lots of write-offs and increased depreciation and development costs), with similarly awful prospects for 2016. And at the same time it had an increase in the operating income from Digital Cameras, thanks to a shift to high-value-added models that was powerful enough to offset the fall in unit sales (with prospects for 2016 not so shiny either, to be fair).

link, link, found here

My guess is that they will keep on selling sensors, but will let somebody else make the modules with them.
 
Sony has ~ 40% of the smartphone sensor business. There are ~ 1.5 billion smartphones sold globally every year, making their share about 600,000,000 units shipped. Sony has lost some money with their phones but not phone photo/video sensors. Even at $6-10 per camera module, moving 600,000,000 pieces can add up to some serious money.

As to the enthusiast/pro DSLR style cams - when GH4 because such a hit, Panasonic had to open another line to catch up with the demand, which was double of what they had expected. The double was 5,000 units per month. And that was the number one mirrorless model on many a chart for over a year. One could infer from GH4's price point and its sales volumes, that the higher end APS-C and FF stills oriented cameras that retail for $1,500-$3,500 sell far fewer units than GH4.

APS-C sized sensor is about ten times greater in area than a smartphone's 1/2.3". Even adding up 50% for the lower yields, one gets to about $100/piece. Using common markups from manufacturing to retail, I figure that the lower end APS-C sensors probably wholesale for ~ $60-$80 in volume. Sell 1,000,000 of those and you're still under $100,000,000 in revenues, so it makes sense for Sony to just settle the outstanding contracts and keep the rest for itself.
 
DLD said:
Sony has ~ 40% of the smartphone sensor business. There are ~ 1.5 billion smartphones sold globally every year, making their share about 600,000,000 units shipped. Sony has lost some money with their phones but not phone photo/video sensors. Even at $6-10 per camera module, moving 600,000,000 pieces can add up to some serious money.
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Good point. It's probably more than they'll ever make selling medium format sensors... unfortunately -- it doesn't seem like Sony has much by way of competition on that arena to take over if they end up bailing from that market.
 
What's going on with tech? I remember shortly after GoPro went public and skyrocketed to an $8B market cap, I chimed in on a stock message forum to offer some sense to frenzied buyers... I made the comparison that Sony was, at that time, a $20B company, did they really think GoPro with their niche hobbyist market is worth 40% of a global conglomerate beast like Sony. They jumped on me like a pack of wolves. And now GoPro is sitting at $1B and change. Tech is so frothy, so comically overhyped with unsustainable, farcical P/B ratios. The app bubble is going to go the way of the dotcom bubble, these ridiculously over priced unicorn startups are nothing but snake oil. Now AAPL is warning of a saturated iPhone market, this is the company that speculators dared to project as the first trillion dollar company. I don't get why people think consumer electronics has some magical, never-ending growth.

Real growth only comes from innovation, and that's a needle in a haystack. I think the companies that are best equipped for that kind of innovation are the giants like Sony and Apple. But unfortunately Sony, themselves, are part of the group who think consumer electronics is the future. Too bad. That's like having some high-tech NASA alloy being reduced to use in kitchen knives sold on midnight infomercials, and not because it performs better, only because they get to use the NASA logo. So real innovation becomes a small business initiative... and then the conglomerates just acquire the heck out of the real visionaries. As for smartphones, a critical part of that business which limits growth is spectrum, and I can't even conceive how anyone is going to get around the physical bandwidth cliff. I think all companies with a stake in mobile know and fear the coming "peak bandwidth." Sonyalpharumors regularly posts some amazing patents for Sony sensors, and I can't wait to see them materialize in professional products. But could Sony justify the costs for bringing advanced sensors to consumer products, too? I don't see consumers ponying up an extra paycheck for tech that's really beyond their needs, like log profiles. Seems like a diminishing return. I think the real problem is that Sony is all grown up and hitting a ceiling, and markets are just as mature, and without any real innovation, there aren't any new markets to explore. Now is a good time for Sony et al to diversify. If there are any real growth opportunities right now, I think it's in the B2B and professional markets.

And the camera competition keeps getting sharper. When the Varicam came out, I really thought they were late to the game, maybe too late, and I thought the Sony F series was at the end of their product life. But I get the sense that the F55 is now getting some recognition, as are the Varicams. The dual native ISO is such a brilliant innovation. And the new Sony R7 adds more utility, if only a little. But if AJA's and BMD's cameras had been a hit, I think it would have seriously undermined Sony, Red, and Panasonic... maybe even devastatingly. Maybe Arri would have been spared since docu isn't their mainstay. But with this kind of cutthroat budget competition, they all have to sell volume to make a margin worth all their time and expense. With that in mind, I'm now thinking there could be a pull-back from the new camera oven. If the next new battlefront is medium format, I think they're going to end up selling less, b/c the current cameras are just so competent. Whatever the next gen camera is, if it doesn't have new features that create a seismic shift, then they're going to have trouble drawing buyers away from what they've already got. Even the nuisance of having to deal with sensor coverage on the Dragon is a deal breaker for me. I can't imagine replacing everything I've got. It's not just expensive, but what a punishing hassle. Who's going to spend lavishly on a new medium format camera, and then splurge on a new set of lenses? It's going to be so niche, even for rentals. I think S35 is the right balance for price, resolution, focus depth, performance. I'd rather have a next gen S35, with faster read and more DR.
 
poormanwally said:
What's going on with tech? I remember shortly after GoPro went public and skyrocketed to an $8B market cap, I chimed in on a stock message forum to offer some sense to frenzied buyers... I made the comparison that Sony was, at that time, a $20B company, did they really think GoPro with their niche hobbyist market is worth 40% of a global conglomerate beast like Sony. They jumped on me like a pack of wolves. And now GoPro is sitting at $1B and change. Tech is so frothy, so comically overhyped with unsustainable, farcical P/B ratios. The app bubble is going to go the way of the dotcom bubble, these ridiculously over priced unicorn startups are nothing but snake oil. Now AAPL is warning of a saturated iPhone market, this is the company that speculators dared to project as the first trillion dollar company. I don't get why people think consumer electronics has some magical, never-ending growth.

Real growth only comes from innovation, and that's a needle in a haystack. I think the companies that are best equipped for that kind of innovation are the giants like Sony and Apple. But unfortunately Sony, themselves, are part of the group who think consumer electronics is the future. Too bad. That's like having some high-tech NASA alloy being reduced to use in kitchen knives sold on midnight infomercials, and not because it performs better, only because they get to use the NASA logo. So real innovation becomes a small business initiative... and then the conglomerates just acquire the heck out of the real visionaries. As for smartphones, a critical part of that business which limits growth is spectrum, and I can't even conceive how anyone is going to get around the physical bandwidth cliff. I think all companies with a stake in mobile know and fear the coming "peak bandwidth." Sonyalpharumors regularly posts some amazing patents for Sony sensors, and I can't wait to see them materialize in professional products. But could Sony justify the costs for bringing advanced sensors to consumer products, too? I don't see consumers ponying up an extra paycheck for tech that's really beyond their needs, like log profiles. Seems like a diminishing return. I think the real problem is that Sony is all grown up and hitting a ceiling, and markets are just as mature, and without any real innovation, there aren't any new markets to explore. Now is a good time for Sony et al to diversify. If there are any real growth opportunities right now, I think it's in the B2B and professional markets.

And the camera competition keeps getting sharper. When the Varicam came out, I really thought they were late to the game, maybe too late, and I thought the Sony F series was at the end of their product life. But I get the sense that the F55 is now getting some recognition, as are the Varicams. The dual native ISO is such a brilliant innovation. And the new Sony R7 adds more utility, if only a little. But if AJA's and BMD's cameras had been a hit, I think it would have seriously undermined Sony, Red, and Panasonic... maybe even devastatingly. Maybe Arri would have been spared since docu isn't their mainstay. But with this kind of cutthroat budget competition, they all have to sell volume to make a margin worth all their time and expense. With that in mind, I'm now thinking there could be a pull-back from the new camera oven. If the next new battlefront is medium format, I think they're going to end up selling less, b/c the current cameras are just so competent. Whatever the next gen camera is, if it doesn't have new features that create a seismic shift, then they're going to have trouble drawing buyers away from what they've already got. Even the nuisance of having to deal with sensor coverage on the Dragon is a deal breaker for me. I can't imagine replacing everything I've got. It's not just expensive, but what a punishing hassle. Who's going to spend lavishly on a new medium format camera, and then splurge on a new set of lenses? It's going to be so niche, even for rentals. I think S35 is the right balance for price, resolution, focus depth, performance. I'd rather have a next gen S35, with faster read and more DR.
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+1

Damn, poormanwally, word to the wise - spot on. But I do think there is room for added value in new cameras, more to do with usability than strictly IQ tech specs - think of how dumb the cameras still are, and what you can accomplish if they were running superior software, faster processors, more memory, more battery life efficiency etc., etc., etc. So I don't think the new camera market is dead, just getting oriented toward other aspects. I think of it as an analogy to cars. At the start of the car industry, speed and distance were the big factors, but eventually you topped out - nobody is buying a car these days because it's "faster" than last year's model. We've long since topped out at top speed, but we continue buying new cars, and not just because we've used up the old ones. Notice it's the same game with electric cars - since electric cars are just starting out, they are still competing on the basics of "how far can you go on one charge" and "how fast can you go" - but soon they'll top out - already topped out on speed, and once they top out on distance, it won't be "the last car you ever buy", it'll continue to evolve along different axis. Same for cameras - they're close to topping out in IQ, but that doesn't mean they stop evolving along different axis, and we'll continue to buy new cameras. Even if the next model of camera has exactly the same IQ, there is a million things I would like that would make me buy it - and I suspect that will be true for years and years to come.
 
I totally agree with you that new cameras are still going to come out, and there’s a need for them for all the reasons you said. I was just commenting on what these companies would do specifically for growth. Between Sony, Canon, Panasonic, Red, Arri, and others, they’re all spending money to develop these premium camera platforms, but how are they ALL going to make that money back if all they’re doing is redistributing the market share? As more worthy cameras mature and hit the market, they’re each going to get a smaller share of the pie. I can’t see how that’s sustainable. Can you imagine if AJA or BMD made a camera that was a surprise success on the scale of the C300 or FS700? Or even FS7? The cascade that would have on Sony’s bottom line, like the F5 sensor being extended to the FS7? That could be big trouble for those product tiers at the larger companies. What if AJA or BMD made a second gen that was even more successful? Then the larger companies might have to make an all-or-nothing decision.


And every time these companies release new cameras, it doesn’t mean everyone’s going to abandon the penultimate model for the new one. So uptake might be gradual, the used market will be a buffer, and there will probably be some brand-switching staggered between generations of cameras, meaning their market share is thrown up in the air every 2 or 3 years. As far as I can see, none of these manu’s really have a killer edge, they all have pros and cons playing to specific market segments; but that difference is narrowing.


I think they have to take a cost-reductive model, like using more expensive boards they can reprogram, rather than the application-specific ones, ie, what if Sony released new boards for the F series instead of developing a whole new camera platform, and interchangeable sensors like Red and BMD is doing. Maybe not realistic for the F series, but it’d be great for the next gen. How about well-designed, future-conscious camera bodies that last more than 5 yrs?


On paper, most of what I want from a camera already exists technically, but no single camera has it all. If I didn’t have to compromise what I wanted, I’d like S35, PL, 10 bit with a codec library, with variable-compressed raw, at least 14 usable stops DR( 16 real stops would forever-proof it and be such a JOY to use), global (or mechanical if it means extending DR), HFR to 200 for HD/ 100 for 4k(anything above that is icing on the cake), usable low light on par with Sony’s better sensors or dual native ISO (I put a premium on low light performance not to use in “low light,” but for “less light”), ND, multiple connectivity options WITHOUT PROPRIETARY NONSENSE, LUTs without the gotchyas, proxy recording. Just a straightforward work-horse of a camera, without caveats. And I’d pay a premium for it. If that’s too much camera for some, or too pricey, maybe Arri’s a la carte model works best.


Centralizing all these capabilities in the camera means simplifying with less add-ons, less light, less cables, breakout boxes should be a thing of the past, faster set up time.


Back to the growth part, I guess the advent of drones ushered in a fresh need for specialized cameras, that certainly is a growth opportunity. I guess that’s the wild card. Who knows where the next innovation will come from. One thing’s for sure, it’s pretty exciting seeing what’s next.
 
Yeah, I saw that story. It's pretty cool that they can fit half a terabyte in a postage stamp these days. And those data rates leave little to be desired (600 MB/sec. sustained write speed).

I still would prefer my camera to have only interchangeable media, like SD cards. I have shot for many years. If my camera has internal recording as an option, I will be tempted to laziness and just keep using it. The problem is that you have to offload it to reuse it. Offloading a removable card is instantaneous: you pull it out. Offloading internal media isn't, and takes more gear (a cable, laptop, etc.). "But you could use both," someone might say. Yes, and then my complicated shooting day is further complicated by some of the footage being on the camera's internal drive and some of the footage being on cards. Is it okay to erase the internal drive? Did I copy it somewhere else? I can't remember. I had better go check.

Shooting with a camera with the right constraints simplifies your life. I would rather use a camera that doesn't even give me the option to mess with colors, for instance. I need to focus on the focus, mainly. Likewise with cards. You make sure you have plenty of cards before your shoot. You put the cards in. At the end of the day, you take them all and put them on your editing desk or in a special sleeve or wherever you file your media. Then you take your camera out the next day, demonstrably free of any lingering footage.
 
So, would you rather have dual drives, both to external media, or internal + external?

In any case, I see the lower tier GH4-A7S type cameras moving to 128-256 GB internal dual drives while the higher end will move toward 1-2 TB internal + "full size" SSD's external. That 8K Canon camera is 11 TB/hr Raw. Should something like that have these small internal SSD's, they're likely to be used solely as backup.
 
As I said in the previous discussion, I don't see the point of internal storage either. I would like them all to use cheap removable SSDs instead of expensive cards, but that's it. And for something like XAVC-S cards are not even expensive anyway.
 
A decent (ProRes 422 Standard quality) 4K can take up as little as 35 GB/hr using H265. A 512 GB chip can then store ~ 15 hours of 4K video. A larger size - FS5/7, URSA Mini - model can easily contain 2-4 of these chip SSD's.

As to cards, you need to connect them to a reader anyway. In my scenario, you run a non-proprietary cable from the camera directly to a computer rather than from a(n occasionally proprietary) reader to a computer.

Anyway ...
 
Since news are slow anyway...

I like the fact that I can take the card out of my camera. I usually shoot 2 or 3 big projects a year, plus lots of small ones. The last big one, I shot it in February. When I got home, I copied everything to the PC and to an external drive, but also locked the SD card and stored it to be unused until I finish the VFX work. During that time, I'm shooting on my other card. I know I have several other copies of my footage and it's very unlikely that they fail all at the same time, but still: I like my peace of mind :)
 
On the no-news front, one may as well follow the Computex a little --Intel's Xeon 10-core processor, new nVidia and AMD graphics cards, the aforementioned memory advances, etc.
 
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