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| FZ300 |
1. Most people who wish to make a visual record of their life, family and special events don’t need a camera. The module in their smart phone does the job just fine and is getting better with each smartphone iteration.
2. Adedicated camera with a built in lens can have a much greater focal length range than a smartphone. This gives that camera type great versatility to photograph a much greater range of subjects than a smartphone.
3. A fixed zoom camera using the smart phone size sensor (about 7.67mm diagonal) can make pictures good enough for the great majority of most users requirements. This includes enthusiasts who want to print up their photos to A2+ size or even larger.
4. Professional photographers and dedicated amateurs who want to win prizes will opt for the very best equipment available even if that is expensive. They will also tolerate the drudgery of having to change lenses in the anticipation of superior results. Whether they actually get superior results is another matter altogether and depends on many factors other than equipment.
Consequential observations for the future of cameras
It seems to me the top end of the market will be OK. There will always be people who want the best gear and are prepared to pay for it.
I think or at least I hope that when camera buyers come to realise the capability of the better superzoom cameras with the small 7.67mm sensor that this will become the preferred camera type for the majority of enthusiast photographers.
Some of these cameras are very capable and versatile. They provide tremendous value for money, are compact, easy to carry and use and you never have to change lenses.
At the present time there is a strong tendency among those who sell, review and buy these camera to damn them with faint praise.
But if the camera makers pay more attention to this camera type and endow more models with high performance capability then buyers will likely pay more attention to these models and thus buy more of them.
If this does happen there could be a crisis in the middle range of the market.
It seems to me that lots of people are buying sophisticated DSLRs and MILCs with APS-C and M43 sensors but using them as point-and-shoots. They buy the camera with a kit zoom which stays on the body forever. They do not need or use the very high image quality of which these cameras are capable.
I suspect that most of this group have bought their ILC because they believe or were told by the vendor that it will make “better” (whatever that means) pictures than a less expensive model using the 7.67mm sensor.
I also suspect that the makers and vendors of cameras have a vested interest in upselling these buyers to models they don’t really need because there is more profit margin in the more expensive products.
Why do APS-C and M43 ILCs exist ?
Before the advent of digital sensors, 35mm perforated film had been the dominant image recording medium for still and motion picture for about ninety years. Entire ecosystems of equipment and knowledge had built up around this film type.
So when cameras went digital the obvious course of action would have been to replace the film with a digital sensor of the same frame size and carry over all the lenses and other accessories.
But at the time 24x36mm sensors were so expensive that it was not possible to put together a camera at a price point that any amateur/enthusiast photographer would buy.
Canon’s answer to this problem was the EOS D30 of 2000. This camera had a sensor similar in size to the ill fated APS-C which briefly appeared towards the end of the film era. Apparently this size chip was cheaper to make which allowed Canon to market the 3 Mpx (!) D30 for just $3000.
In due course Canon settled on the 22.5x15mm imager size while Sony and all the rest went for the slightly larger 23.5x15.6 size.
I am just guessing here but I imagine Canon, Nikon and the rest maybe thought they would soon get the cost of producing 24x36mm (now called “full frame”) sensors down enough to graduate all the smaller sensor users up to full frame bodies.
It appears to me that they are still trying to do that as evidenced by the relative paucity of high grade lenses on offer by all manufacturers for the crop sensor size.
Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds
Olympus, with the E1 in 2003 and Panasonic with the L1 in 2006 introduced a line of DSLR cameras based on the new “Four Thirds” sensor and associated protocols.
The name ‘Four Thirds” is based on the entirely confusing convention for Vidicon tubes from the 1950s and has no rational meaning at all. The sensor measures 13x17.3mm giving a diagonal of 21.6mm and an area one quarter of “full frame” (24x36mm).
Just precisely why Panasonic and Olympus thought this was a good idea I do not know, but the market was not interested and the Four Thirds DSLR soon died, to be replaced in 2008 with the mirrorless interchangeable lens “Micro Four Thirds” system beginning with the Panasonic G1 and soon followed by the Olympus Pen E-P1. This system uses the same sensor size but a mirrorless design.
This system has the tangible advantage over existing DSLRs of a smaller total kit with smaller bodies and smaller lenses.
Improved smaller sensors
Most of the interest by makers, reviewers and consumers over the last few years has been in the interchangeable lens category.
But while the DSLRs and MILCs have been battling for dominance and in the process grabbing most of the headlines, small sensor models have been quietly improving.
There are now several models of fixed lens camera using the so-called “One Inch” sensor (actual size 8.8x13.2mm) that name being also derived from the daft and confusing Vidicon tube convention.
Some of these can make very high quality pictures which are difficult to distinguish from those made by any kind of camera with a larger sensor.
Some cameras use an even smaller sensor, about the same size as those used in smartphone cameras.
This is referred to by the camera companies using the obscurantist Vidicon system as “1/2.3 Inch” and is actually 4.55x7.67mm with a diagonal of 7.67mm and an area about one quarter of the 15.9mm type.
Some of these cameras can make much better pictures than you might think.
I have recently been comparing the Panasonic FZ300 with the GH5 and Pana-Leica 12-60mm lens, my copy of which is one of the best zooms I have ever tested.
Of course the GH5 has better resolution and less luminance noise (grain) at any matched ISO sensitivity setting.
BUT this is only evident on close inspection of files side by side at 100% on a high resolution monitor screen.
When I print up the matched pictures of the same subject taken at the same time to a size of 550x420mm I find that it very difficult to say if I would prefer one print to the other.
When I ask family members to choose one over the other they do so on the basis of preferred color rendition or slight differences in apparent contrast or some other factor unrelated to image quality.
They do not notice that one print has slightly but visibly more fine detail and less grain than the other.
I think the reason for this is that
1. At normal viewing distance the very fine details which the GH5 and the Epson 4880 printer can render are invisible to most viewers and
2. The grain which can be so apparent at 100% on screen is barely detectable in print.
In low light requiring high ISO sensitivity settings the GH5 has a more apparent advantage but if I use careful technique at the time of capture and in Adobe Camera Raw the difference is nowhere near as great as you might imagine given the price differential between the two cameras.
So what ? What bearing has all this on anything ?
This is how I see it:
* The price of selected full frame kit is coming down.
For instance I can buy a new Sony A7(2) with FE 28-70mm lens for AUD1894.
A new Canon EOS 6D with 24-70mm lens goes for AUD2698.
Not bad for new full frame kit and considerably less than the Canon EOS D30 of year 2000 and that was a crop sensor model.
* The quality of results obtainable from small sensor superzooms is going up and they already have much greater versatility than any ILC with any single lens.
This puts a squeeze on the entire middle section of the market. All those APS-C and M43 interchangeable lens cameras which have been the backbone of the enthusiast amateur market for years.
It seems to me that most amateur photographers do not need and I suspect are often unable to make use of the image quality available from these mid range ILCs.
Comment
If camera makers, vendors and buyers were all working together to put the most versatile gear into the hands of the greatest number of buyers then we would be seeing an upsurge in the number and capability of small sensor bridge camera models right about now.
But the opposite is happening.
Fujifilm was just a few years ago very active in this sector of the market but appears to have abandoned small sensor fixed zoom cameras in favour of its APS-C MILC range and a new medium format model.
Olympus has exited the fixed zoom market apart from a well reviewed waterproof model.
Canon has many fixed lens models in the 15.9mm and 7.67mm sensor classes but most of them are underspecified, half baked things, lacking many of the features, capabilities and performance that I want in my cameras.
Nikon has abandoned the much anticipated 15.9mm DL series. Its offerings in the 7.67mm class are underperformers, desperately in need of a more powerful processor and upgraded user interface.
Sony has some interesting models with the 15.9mm sensor although as yet the only one of these (the RX100Mk5) to have effective follow focus capability is the one which probably does not need it. I find Sony’s ergonomics wanting also.
Curiously none of Sony’s offerings in the 7.67mm category allow RAW output.
In addition models like the HX400V are in desperate need of an effective follow focus capability on moving subjects and other performance and user interface upgrades.
The only manufacturer which appears to me to be making an effort to bring to this market sector capable, high performing models of interest to enthusiast users is Panasonic, which explains why most of my cameras right now are from this maker.
Why are camera makers turning their backs on the small sensor, fixed zoom market sector ?
Of course I have no idea what goes on in the corridors of power at the camera makers. I am just an ordinary amateur consumer with no inside knowledge at all.
But I guess there might be five things.
1. Fear. The precipitous fall in sales of compact cameras may have frightened camera makers off the entire fixed zoom sector.
2. Profit. There is more profit per unit to be made on higher priced models. Hence, for instance Fujifilm’s decision to move up to medium format.
3. Threatened loss. If lots of camera buyers enjoy a gust of common sense to their thinking works and elect to give up their ILCs in favour of fixed lens small sensor models, the market for mid range ILCs and lenses might collapse.
So those who make, market, sell and review those mid range models will never tell consumers they might be better advised to buy a more versatile but less expensive type of camera.
4. Prejudice. Real photographers use real cameras ! Big hunky DSLRs with big chunky lenses. All else is for dilettantes and snapshooters. No further discussion is required or permitted.
5. Pride. Maybe sometime soon the only people who use cameras will be those seeking a prestige product.
In other words the camera market will not be about making pictures but about selling expensive stuff to those who can afford to acquire status symbols and perhaps sometimes use them or at least show them off.
If you think this is a silly idea consider that Leica has not only survived the digital revolution but is now thriving by making absurdly overpriced prestige products which make almost no sense at all as photographic devices.
As I review these five guesses, possibilities or hypotheses whatever they may be, I realise that none of them have to do with making pictures or with the quality of those pictures.
What will win ?
Pride and prejudice or practicality ?
We shall see. I hope it is the latter but hopes are notoriously bad predictors of future events.
I think that’s enough for this post. I went for a walk along the shores of Sydney’s beautiful harbour today and made a few pictures with my decidedly non prestige but eminently practical and useful Panasonic FZ300.