 |
| Panasonic Lumix LX100 using 16:9 aspect ration in portrait orientation. I find that for indoor use one of the better advanced compacts is less obtrusive and provides a better user experience than any ILC. Results are indistinguishable. |
There have been some recent model releases by Sony and Panasonic which I think signal a significant shift in thepower balance between camera makers.
The bottom has dropped out of the camera business.
This started with the smartphone revolution but has not stopped there.
It seems to me there are three groups of people who want to make photos:
Group 1. Snapshooters. These are the opportunistic photographers who once used small compacts but nowadays use a smart phone. The key word for this group is convenience.
Group 2. Enthusiast amateur photographers who are trying to get decent photos of their holidays and grandchildren but are not trying to win a National Geographic photo award.
The best device for these people is one of the higher performing fixed lens cameras.
Indoors one of the advanced compacts with a wide aperture zoom will serve very well. These cameras are smaller than any ILC and arguably do a better job.
Outdoors one of the better long zoom bridge cameras can do a fine job at a sensible price point without anyone ever having to change lenses.
This group does not need an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) and in fact will mostly be better off without one.
The key word for this group is versatility.
Group 3. Those-who-must-have-the-best-gear-no-matter-the-price-and-can-afford-it.
This includes professional photographers who actually need the best gear plus a quite substantial cohort of wealthy-enough amateurs and semi-professionals who have visions of winning the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award or something like that and will just not be happy with gear they might think is second best.
If there is something “better” (as defined anyway you like) on the horizon, these people want it and they will buy it.
The key words for the professionals in this group is capability.
For the others, I think some are after reassurance that they have the best. The logic is If-I-get-a-better-camera-maybe-my-pictures-will-be-better. They won’t but the camera companies are never going to say so.
Others might want status symbols.
Implications
So if I am more or less on the right track about all this, what follows ?
1. Small point-and-shoot compacts will disappear. This is already happening, no need to guess about that.
2. (a) People will stop buying entry level ILCs (DSLRs and MILCs) or sales will fall to a level which makes continued production uneconomical.
There are signs this is already happening. For instance Nikon has abandoned the 1 Series and Panasonic stopped the GM series. I think we will see more of this.
2. (b) There will be a small but probably sustainable market for high end compacts and high performance long zoom bridge cameras.
These will sell at a price point which seems high by 2017 standards but which will be necessary to sustain low volume production.
Already the Sony RX100 series, RX10 series and Canon G1X Mk3 are examples of this trend.
3. AllILCs will be high end products aimed at Group 3 of my hypothesised user groups.
There will be no place for entry level, low spec, budget ILCs.
This will be driven by two forces:
First, consumers will buy fewer of them because their needs will be better suited by fixed lens type cameras.
Second, the manufacturers will stop making them anyway because there is no profit in them without very large volume. The per unit margin is negligible.
Therefore it is essentialfor any organisation wanting to make and sell interchangeable lens cameras to move up market and do so pretty darn quick.
This trend is already under way.
Sony is apparently doing well with the A7R3 and A9 models right at the top of their price hierarchy.
Fujifilm has reported good sales of their GFX-50S medium format model despite several reports that cameras using the smaller 24x36mm sensor can actually make better photos in many situations and of course most of them cost less.
This is not about the logic of cameras or photography.
It is about the logic of the market and the way gear acquisition syndrome plays out at the high end of that market.
All of which I think explains why Panasonic has brought on the G9. This is a high speed, high end sport/action model for stills photographers intended to compete with the Sony A9 on performance but at a lower price point.
The G9 has all the very latest bells and whistles for a top of the range high speed model including 20 fps continuous autofocus and no EVF blackout.
Some users such as professional or even amateur sport/action photographers might actually be able to make use of these amazing performance capabilities.
For most I suspect those capabilities will just be part of the buzz which Panasonic’s marketing people hope will convince the customer that he (it will mostly be a he) is getting the very best gear that lots of money can buy.
Key technologies and marketing logic
The list of specifications, features and capabilities of a modern camera assails the reader with a blizzard of information. It is very difficult for even the informed spec reader to figure out what might be most important for their personal needs.
I think it very likely that many, perhaps most amateur camera buyers, who by the way greatly outnumber professionals, simplify their decision making process by getting a camera of the same brand and type as the ones professionals use.
That at the moment is mostly Canon and Nikon and mostly DSLRs.
So the way for other brands to gain greater market share is to get professionals using their products.
What would persuade them to do this ?
This might involve many things including timely professional support services however I think the key issue when actually using the camera is the viewfinder experience when shooting still photos using continuous autofocus and burst drive at high frame rates.
All DSLRs and most MILCs have viewfinder blackout after every frame.
This makes the viewing experience like that of a very early 20th Century silent movie, jerky and flickering, particularly when the user is trying to follow a subject moving across the frame.
Much better and impossible for any DSLR to provide (although SLT types could potentially) is a viewfinder which provides a continuous, real time view (not a delayed view) of the subject while capturing high frame rate still photo sequences.
If all else is at least equal, in particular the AF is accurate and reliable and the camera itself is reliable and has good ergonomics, professional photographers will go for this and might even be persuaded to give up their existing (and very expensive) kit in the process.
Do any cameras offer continuous, real time view in the viewfinder with high frame rate stills ?
There are now some which do offer continuous view. The ones I am aware of are the Sony A9 and A7R3 and now the Panasonic G9.
It is not so clear to me however whether they also have real time view or whether what the user sees in the viewfinder is a playback of the last frame captured.
Do or die
An oft quoted aphorism is that a rising tide floats all boats. The flip side of this is of course that a falling tide leaves some or maybe all of them stranded.
From about the beginning of the 21stCentury camera sales rose strongly following introduction of digital capture technologies. This encouraged many players into the game.
But from about 2010 sales slowed then fell precipitously.
The fall out from this is under way with Samsung pulling out of camera making altogether to concentrate on more profitable business ventures, particularly smart phones.
I have little doubt others will follow as shrinking volumes make production uneconomic.
All the camera makers are trimming off underperforming model lines and all of them are looking to move upmarket where profit margins are higher.
Battle for the high ground
We the consumers are witnessing a battle for possession of the high ground of the professional photography market. Those who can establish tenure in this market will survive.
Those who don’t will have to appeal to a niche market, maybe you might call it a boutique market.
Buyers in this market want something “different” however defined.
Something “special” which is not the same as all the regular, boring run-of-the-mill cameras which will be dismissed as “consumer” products which are “ugly”, lacking “soul” and “character”.
Fujifilm is right onto this market and is apparently doing quite well in the process.
Olympus might find a sustainable niche here too.
My predictions ?
Predictions are always wrong but can be fun anyway so here goes. The reader should take what follows with a pinch of salt.
Canon wants to win the battle on all fronts and will do everything it can to achieve this.
But Canon is vulnerable to attack by Sony and Panasonic because Canon’s mirrorless technology is lagging far behind that of the two big technology giants.
Specifically Canon is nowhere near to making a camera with no EVF blackout.
To date the EOS M5 is their only mirrorless ILC to even have an EVF and that is reported to have a very long blackout time compared to models from other makers.
Fujifilm As suggested above, Fuji appears to be carving out a little niche for itself in the market with mid to high end products which appeal to a group of photographers looking for something “different”.
Hasselblad Has always been a niche player and might survive as such.
Leica Has faced failure several times but has come back like Lazarus each time with eccentric products which are wildly overpriced and pay no attention to the rest of the market at all. Maybe they can survive with this, who knows ?
Nikon Right now looks disturbingly like a dying tree shedding branches in a last ditch bid for survival.
Opting out of the entire Brazilian market seems very strange to me given that is a populous and economically advancing country.
Nikon had a fast mirrorless system in the 1 Series but appears to have abandoned this leaving it with just the DSLR lineup and a few ageing Coolpix models which should have been upgraded years ago.
Nikon needs to get out a very convincing mirrorless ILC tout suite.
Olympus Has also been dropping off product lines in the form of compacts and bridge models., leaving just the Micro Four Thirds lineup and a couple of waterproof models.
With M43 Olympus is trying to move upmarket with some big, fast lenses. But only one current model (EM1 Mk2) has a proper handle built in and a level of capability which might appeal to some professionals.
Olympus tried this “big lens” strategy with their Four Thirds DSLRs ten years ago with notable lack of success. We shall see how things go.
My guess is that Olympus will likely survive as a niche player like Fujifilm, with a small but dedicated cohort of enthusiast supporters.
Panasonic I have to wonder why Panasonic bothers with cameras at all.
Surely they will do much better financially by making millions of lithium ion batteries for Elon Musk and equipping self drive cars with sensors and control systems.
But for whatever reason they are still in the camera business.
What’s more the GH5 and G9 show they are making a serious attempt to grab a share of the pro market off Canon, Nikon and Sony.
Panasonic’s weakness in the pro domain is their poor support and backup services which often attract adverse comment on user forums. Not a good look for pros.
Panasonic does have a very nice lineup of compacts and bridge cameras which apparently sell well.
I suspect that if they can’t break into the pro market over the next five years or so Panasonic might pull the plug on cameras altogether.
Which would be a pity as they have some excellent technologies. Maybe some other maker could buy these. Canon Lumix anyone ?
Pentax Behold the walking dead. There are limits to the extent to which sentiment can keep a camera maker going.
It must be nearly the end of the road for this once proud market leading brand which was my favourite for many years.
Pentax failed to convert enough pro photographers to its LX system in the 1980s and has been in decline ever since.
Sony Has supplanted Canon as technology leader and is charging hard for dominance at the top of the pro market.
Sony wants to knock Canon off its perch and become number 1 in all categories.
I think it may very well do just that.
Sony makes most of the sensors in cameras of most brands and has developed their camera technology faster than all the other brands.
Sony’s weaknesses are reliability and ergonomics which often attract adverse comment from professional users. And me.
Right now Sony has the most advanced technology but Canon understands cameras better. If they worked together instead of competing us consumers might have better cameras.
Anyway that’s enough for now.