Smartphones Are Killing the Camera Industry

Megalith

Megalith

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It’s no surprise the popularity of smartphones has affected camera sales, but the latest figures from Statistica are pretty eye opening, nonetheless: shipments of cameras have actually fallen from 121M in 2010 to just 25M in 2017. That’s a nearly 80-percent drop.

As cell phones are showing signs of improvement at catching pictures a seemingly endless amount of time, companies like Apple, Samsung. Huawei have taken the game up. Here we see cell phones openly rivaling the other cameras. And so digital cameras have totally disappeared from the scene.
 
Doesn't surprise me... in the past we'd put up with the bulk/hassle of bringing a separate camera as phone cameras were crap.

These days for 99% of people/occasions the camera on a halfway decent phone is absolutely sufficient... and you always have it with you...
 
Smartphones are convenient.

I like my real camera & camcorder though for those times when I plan on going places.

Also, point & shoot cameras are too expensive for a decent one.

Plus, those retro kodak cameras are all the rage.
 
THRESHIN said:
Cell phones have completely killed the point and shoot digital cameras for sure. They're irrelevant now.

But in the dSLR arena, they're doing just fine thanks. No cell can compete with a large sensor and a good lens.
Click to expand...
DSLR sales are down. This is absolutely affecting DSLR sales. If you're mostly taking pictures during the day or in well lit rooms, a good phoen camera is more than enough, especially since most people are at most posting pictures to FB or Instagram, but even if you print, a phone is good enough for a well lite shot.

Now if you use interchangeable lenses and are an enthusiast, then yeah, a phone isn't enough, but honestly, I've got a great camera and for walking around, I'm more likely to use my phone. Carrying lenses and a relatively heavy camera is a PITA in that case.
 
THRESHIN said:
Cell phones have completely killed the point and shoot digital cameras for sure. They're irrelevant now.

But in the dSLR arena, they're doing just fine thanks. No cell can compete with a large sensor and a good lens.
Click to expand...
This isn't about what's better though, this is about what's good enough for someone. point and shoots are dead, except maybe underwater/action kinds because no one wants to take their $800 smart phone into the ocean regardless of the water resistant claims, but then how many were buying dSLRs because they wanted a good picture... but they were pros by any stretch, and sure enough cell phones are often "good enough" for those people as well, plus you don't have to lug around a large camera around with you everywhere you go. Don't get me wrong, pro photographers, or very hard core amateurs will still go the dSLR route, but at the end of the day the customer base that aren't those people but still bought dSLR cameras are making the manufacturers feel the heat.
 
My iPhone is mostly just an arm-length away compared to my big Canon with its even heavier primes. My day2day shots are by far good enough with the iPhone. Not sure if the need fast focus, depth-of-field and full exposure control it would beat the canon. Both coexists and taken for the needs of the job
 
I agree that Cellphones have murdered the P&S Camera industry.... BUT, I don't agree at all that they have rendered them irrelevant! The only way you get a quality photo from a Cellphone is on the higher end models. If you want to see proof of what I'm talking about, just go to eBay and look at all the listings that they've used a Cellphone to take the photos... They don't capture the needed details 9 times out of 10. Typically the images are grainy, slightly blurry, generally because people aren't knowledgeable enough to know that you can increase the quality of the pictures, but also because Cellphones lack the quality lens(es) that get the job done!

This past spring my friend went on tour of Europe and I asked what her plans were for pictures. She just planned on using her phone, which is an iPhone X and so it does have the capability of taking a good photo. Problem is now you're exposing yourself two a couple things...
First is the risk of theft as it's a high end device, she's a very petite person (even if she was with her fiance) and a tourist in this instance.
Second, going in and out of your pocket is just asking to be dropped and broken.
Third, she was really excited to see the stuff from ancient Greek and Roman periods, and as my mom had gone over there recently, there are going to be times when you won't have the opportunity to get close, but also where you won't want to be in order to get everything into the picture.

That last one is the most important part because you aren't going to have the zoom that you can with even a standard P&S. I have a Canon PowerShot from 2006 that I still use to this day, and at only 8MP (3264 × 2448), it still takes better quality pictures than Cellphones! What has endeared me to it though? It's Macro ability. Not the plane old Macro option, but the custom focal distance mode you can access in the more advanced picture modes which lets you take some crazy close up shots with no additional lens attachment and no zoom! I've checked out the Macro mode on my Galaxy S8 and I'm not even remotely impressed by it.

At any rate, I stated my case to her and did some quick research, and she ended up getting the Canon PowerShot SX730 HS I had suggested. It's not that thick, but had an impressive (to me) 40x zoom! 20MP sensor as well, which is far greater than the iPhone X's 12MP. As a bonus, it can record vid at 1080p 60FPS. However, what actually sold her on it was that she didn't need a computer since it has Bluetooth, WiFi and NFC built in, which was a big reason she wanted to use her phone for ease of uploading.


So yea, I think it's partially the camera industry's fault for letting the Cellphone gain the popularity it has, or for not properly embracing it and creating accessories based on the experience they've had making cameras. Motorola has sorta done what I've have liked to see, which is a snap-on attachment to provide a much better camera. Honestly though, I'd be tempted if more accessories like this were offered (but with a more robust, full-body housing), instead of idiotic looking ones like this or these. Have it be a stand-alone image sensor and lens adapter, effectively a "Mirrorless Shell" since it lacks the electronics, and uses your Cellphone for all the processing and data storage. I think having it connect via USB (using USB3 protocol for speed) and having a battery (upgradable) would of course be ideal, for flash, image sensor, and possibly even assisting in the Cellphone's power needs.

That's my opinion...
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Only pics i take with my phone are of small text so i can zoom in on the screen to read it, my eyes are old and tired.
If i want to take pictures, or there is a chance of that being needed, then i bring my Nikon Dslr.
 
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CONVENIENCE. And it is. Love not carrying my DSLR/case/lenses anymore. Fuck that.
 
Polaroids and those "disposable" kodaks were good enough for most people before the smartphone surge. There are only a handful of life events where you would want to hire a photographer - everything else is just capturing those moments at the bar, beach, concerts, barbecues, whatever. Yeah there will always be the camera nerds who carry those things around to everyday events, but I don't think you have as much fun babysitting an expensive camera.
 
Aren't the lenses, sensors, and technology of phone cameras made by the same companies making regular cameras?
 
THRESHIN said:
Cell phones have completely killed the point and shoot digital cameras for sure. They're irrelevant now.
Click to expand...

Not really.
The cheaper point & shoots maybe, but point & shoots with large zooms (20-30x) will provide much better travel pictures, unless you idea of the vacation photo is a selfie.

I've taken some amazing photos at zoos and on various vacation trips that would have been impossible without a large optical zoom with optical stabilization.
On my last trip to Alaska, if I would have used my phone, I would have had pictures with small dots I could say where Orcas. With my travel zoom, you could count how many fins where showing and even identify the juveniles traveling with the pod

Of course a dSLR would have taken better pictures, but I no longer want to lug around a camera that doesn't fit in my pocket.

I used to bring along a 2nd camera when I traveled (my pervious point & shoot), just in case something happened to my good camera. Now, my phone is my backup camera, as I can make with it if needed.
 
THRESHIN said:
But in the dSLR arena, they're doing just fine thanks. No cell can compete with a large sensor and a good lens.
Click to expand...

Highly disagree. No phone can compete with dSLR quality, absolutely true, but dSLRs are certainly not "doing just fine". The APSC market has gone to hell, and only ~$1K and up categories are seeing actual development and upgrade paths (lately, either prosumer APSC or FF models). The low and midrange are so not just fine, that they've pretty much ceased to exist. A 24mp Nikon D3400 gives you worlds better picture quality than any 2018 iPhone XsMaxProFakeBlurEffect, and yet barely anyone is buying them anymore, because the dang phones are too convenient to carry around and, most importantly, good enough.

Good enough has been the silent killer of so many things. Contrast and framerate is garbage in virtually all LCD displays in comparison to CRTs? Too bad, they're thin, light and you can fit them anywhere, even hang them on walls. Same with dSLRs and phones. Look at the Sony a6000, released four years ago and there is still no new midrange successor - all the numerical successors have kicked it up into prosumer.

Good enough always wins the race when convenience comes into play. It sucks, it majorly sucks, but it is what it is. I hope oversized tablets with bluetooth keyboard/mouse don't ever become good enough, because that's when the market with a myriad of options for PC hardware goes down the drain.
 
euskalzabe said:
Highly disagree. No phone can compete with dSLR quality, absolutely true, but dSLRs are certainly not "doing just fine". The APSC market has gone to hell, and only ~$1K and up categories are seeing actual development and upgrade paths (lately, either prosumer APSC or FF models). The low and midrange are so not just fine, that they've pretty much ceased to exist. A 24mp Nikon D3400 gives you worlds better picture quality than any 2018 iPhone XsMaxProFakeBlurEffect, and yet barely anyone is buying them anymore, because the dang phones are too convenient to carry around and, most importantly, good enough.
Click to expand...

Ya that's the thing: I'd argue they CAN compete with DSLR cameras in that they can produce pictures that are pleasing, in a large variety of situations easily and the result is good for use in the ways that people want. No, the absolute quality isn't as good, but that doesn't matter. End users don't care, they aren't interested if you start pointing out that sure, the picture with the cell looks fine on their computer monitor but if you zoom way in you can see all the noise and pixelization way before you would on a DSLR and there's a bit of chromatic aberration you wouldn't have and there's some colors that are out of gamut that if you had a monitor that could display them, which you don't, would look a bit more vibrant. Nope, that's irrelevant. They want to take a picture that makes them happy and they can share.

Individuals taking picture for non-commercial purposes are basically only doing it to preserve the memory and to share it with others. So long as the quality is good for that, they are happy. Extra quality just for its own sake isn't relevant. Cellphones are good at that today as well. It is impressive just how good a picture they can get with those tiny lenses and sensors. These days it isn't "good enough" as in "Well, you can tell what I was taking a picture of and the results are tolerable." It is "This picture looks really good and I'm happy with it."
 
25 million cameras were still sold that's disturbing.
 
I bet most of the remaining DSLR sales are people buying for video reasons, not photography. I'm in the market for a new DSLR myself right now, and it's purely for video solutions.
 
Master_shake_ said:
Well duh. Unless you're a pro a camera phone is good enough.
Click to expand...

I'm hardly a pro, a skilled amateur perhaps, but cell phones suck for serious pictures. you want 4x6 prints of something? use your phone with it's tiny noisy sensor. want to take a picture that you might want enlarged past 8x10, you better have a dedicated camera with an APS sized sensor. even a cheap DSLR can make amazing 11x14 enlargements, and once you hit a modern DSLR with a 24 mpix sensor 16x20 is not unreasonable. and I am not talking the $3000 full frame pro bodies with $2000 lenses either. I've taken some pictures traveling that are hanging on my walls, that look amazing.

That being said, the camera you have with you is better than not having a camera at all.
 
A phone doesn't cut it for the important stuff like dog birthday parties where the action is fast and retakes would take a whole 'nother cake, gotta have my Canon to get the actions shots.

For everything else the phone is fine, except selfies -- no f###ing selfies at my house. ;)
 
risc said:
Aren't the lenses, sensors, and technology of phone cameras made by the same companies making regular cameras?
Click to expand...

to a certain extent, yes. but that's like saying Intel is the company that makes server products and consumer cpu's at the same time, their isn't really any overlap
 
Thank M for the cached link.

I think the amateur tier is dead. The pro level will always exist. Hopefully the companies making the pro lines have competent financial strategies so an expensive tier doesn't become fully unreachable.
 
If you can blow up the picture you made to the size of a print for a wall, it's "good enough" in my book. More importantly, the VOLUME of pictures you can take with the convenience of just reaching into your pocket for a device you are already carrying is impossible to compete with.

Does a DSLR have a place? Sure. In the same sense that an F-1 car has a place. For most people, though, a Corvette does just fine.
 
The phone cameras have taken the place of the old 126 and 110 film formats and Polaroid instant cameras that most folks had around for the family birthday and vacation pictures. The 2107 sales figures aren't much different from the 1990 figures which probably reflect the last years of solid film sales before the digital point and shoot started taking over. A lot of the 2017 digital cameras are every bit as good if not better then the old consumer 35mm were in the 1990s. Some of the 2017 sales are likely to folks that for whatever reason haven't bought into the personalized tracking device thing and therefore need a basic camera.
 
THRESHIN said:
Cell phones have completely killed the point and shoot digital cameras for sure. They're irrelevant now.

But in the dSLR arena, they're doing just fine thanks. No cell can compete with a large sensor and a good lens.
Click to expand...


I just sold my unused Panasonic GX85 that was basically brand new. Had it a year, never used it. Never used it because my Pixel 2 XL kicks ass.

Hoping the new Pixel 4 XL in 2019 has the new Sony 48 MP Camera Sensor.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-imx586-camera-phone-sensor,news-27666.html

https://mashable.com/article/sony-48-megapixel-image-sensor/#3PYCoD7N_qqJ

This new sensor will be released this Dec.
 
(and this is for consumer grade cameras)

i'll still use my camera when travelling. Pic quality, lighting sensitivity, analog zoom and video quality is all much better still. And audio capture is better for the vids too.

and having a flip-able back screen means i can hang my camera by the strap and take some really down-to-the-ground shots, without crouching down myself.

and vids at night ! Very important.

if only the camera comes with a 500 gb of storage, and 12 hours of battery ...

but as it stands, i can only shoot for something like 2 hours, and memory is expensive . sucks when i always need to charge a few batteries before hand, and the horror when you realize you forgot to charge extra the day before.
 
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THRESHIN said:
Cell phones have completely killed the point and shoot digital cameras for sure. They're irrelevant now.

But in the dSLR arena, they're doing just fine thanks. No cell can compete with a large sensor and a good lens.
Click to expand...
So true, the only thing thats different now is that our Cell phones take pictures that are great, whereas a DSLR will take amazing pictures, can change the exposures, f-stops etc. Most people are happy with their cells phones. DSLR are for those dedicated few. :)
 
But look at the graph. It's nearly as bad as the cryptocurrency charts, lol. There was a massive spike during the introduction of the bridge camera market followed by a lush and unsustainable flow of "I'm a camera person" cash, and then a correction.
 
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