As the digital camera market contracts due to the popularity of smartphones, camera companies are finding that higher profits can still be reached by selling fewer cameras that cost, on average, twice as much as they used to.
A YouTuber has created "the worst digital camera of all time ever" consisting of just 48 photocells soldered to a circuit board.
James Eagle created a fascinating data visualization that lays bare the dominance of the smartphone market over the camera.
When I received my Nikon Z9 in late December 2021, I was a bit anxious. Would it live up to the hype? Was it going to be the camera that Nikon had promised (and many Nikon users had been waiting for)?
Many of us who have been around since the transition from film to digital have been the beneficiaries of innovations in camera technology. It's been around two decades of growth in the right direction. While some companies have seen setbacks in the megapixel race, others have contributed more than their fair share of new advancements.
Digital cameras are great -- the technology they are built upon is remarkable, underpinned by remarkably sophisticated designs. Not only that, but the pictures they acquire are of such astonishing quality that they make anything that went before pale in comparison. So why then do digital cameras have such (relatively) short lifespans compared to film cameras?
Manufacturing silicon is patently not required in order to make cameras -- anyone can put together a pinhole model -- however, the wider point is more pertinent. To be a competitive, global, manufacturer, do you need to make the sensors that actually go into camera bodies?
Doom-and-gloom stories of the state of the camera market have been pretty common over the past year due to COVID-19. But what if the data used to determine the health of the industry was flawed?
In late December, PetaPixel published an article asking if it was a good idea to buy used. There were mixed responses, but if KEH's data is to be believed, far more people support buying used than you might think. For KEH, 2020 was a "banner year."
Right on cue, CIPA has released its latest report, showing how camera shipments in March were affected by the rapid spread of the coronavirus, and the economic shutdown that followed. No surprises here: the numbers are grim.
The worldwide sales of standalone digital cameras have been plummeting since they peaked in around 2010, but Canon thinks its industry is still in for some serious pain in the coming years. The company believes the market will plummet another 50% over just the next two years.
Debating which camera brand is best is a sure way to create a lively discussion among photographers. It’s easy to endlessly discuss specs and online reviews and to think that the latest model will give us some missing edge. But what about when you really put images to the test with prints?
Minolta has quietly released a trio of digital cameras. This is apparently the first camera product releases under the brand name since it went out of business in 2003.
There have been some legal rumblings in the camera industry over the past couple of months. It's an ongoing patent dispute between Nikon and two other companies involved in camera technologies: Carl Zeiss and ASML. The latest news is that the United States has opened an official patent infringement investigation into Nikon's products.
As camera makers struggle to innovate, consumers are finding little need to upgrade. The market is slowing to the point of inertia—manufacturers need to take a left field approach to stay competitive.
The digital revolution—and a revolution it was—enabled photographers to immediately start saving money after new equipment purchases. Sure, the quality sucked initially (and convenience was overstated) but after a few years, the whole thing really started to work properly, for the most part.
Things definitely aren't looking too hot for you if you're a fan of Samsung's digital cameras. The South Korean company has been showing off many of its latest and greatest products in Las Vegas at CES 2016, but there hasn't been a single mention or appearance of a Samsung camera.
Want to see how far digital cameras have come over just the past 20 years? Check out this 4-minute clip that CNET released back in 1995, when digital cameras were only just starting to find their way into the hands of serious photographers.
I'm a big fan of the UK car show TopGear, but I never thought I'd see the day when the worlds of TopGear and photography would intersect. Fortunately, I have been proven wrong. So sit back and enjoy as TopGear's Captain Slow James May goes into detail about how digital cameras actually work.
Hello photographer, the report of my death was an exaggeration.
Yours,
Camera
The latest ad from Apple about the usefulness of their iPads got me thinking, for whatever reason, about cameras, photography, and articles that pop up from time to time to declare ambitious statements about photography.
A week ago, we reported that Kodak had entered into a multi-year agreement with American camera supplier …
Did you know that LCD screens and live view didn’t arrive until a number of years after digital cameras …
If you’re in the market for a new digital camera this year, buying it in January or February might …
Here’s a fun blast from the not-so-distant past: the video above is a short clip from the TV show …
Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
CNBC ran this short segment a couple days ago in which they invited CNET's Dan Ackerman to explain the changing landscape in the digital camera industry. He thinks point-and-shoot cameras may soon become extinct due to the rise of camera-equipped phones, but also that DSLRs are the cameras here to stay.
Market research firm IDC released its findings about the worldwide digital camera market recently, with interesting details about the current market shares of camera manufacturers. From 2009 to 2010, Canon's share remained perfectly constant at 19%, while #2 player Sony increased its share from 16.9% to 17.9%. Nikon also grew from 11.1% to 12.6%. The worldwide market for digital cameras is also growing -- last year it increased 10% to 141 million cameras sold.
Here's a fun blast from the past: in the early 2000s The Daily Show ran this short segment in which Ed Helms (now known for playing Andy Bernard on The Office) introduces viewers to digital cameras. It's an interesting glimpse at how some people felt about the emergence of digital photography as it was starting to become popular.