Canon’s attention grabber at this year’s CES 2013 is a new compact camera designed to fight against the encroachment of smartphones: the PowerShot N.
The little guy is unlike most point-and-shoots you’ll find on the market. It’s extremely small, square, and simple. The design may seem gimmicky at first, but pick it up in your hands and your opinion might change.
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Hiroshi Hiyama over at Phys.Org reports that smartphones are crushing the point-and-shoot industry, putting compact cameras in the same group as video game consoles and portable music players — devices that are having a hard time competing against all-in-one phones. The numbers are crazy:
Just as digital cameras all but destroyed the market for photographic film, the rapid shift to picture-taking smartphones has torn into a camera sector dominated by Japanese firms including Canon, Olympus, Sony and Nikon. “We may be seeing the beginning of the collapse of the compact camera market,” said [analyst] Nobuo Kurahashi. Figures from Japan’s Camera and Imaging Products Association echo the analyst’s grim prediction. Global shipments of digital cameras among Japanese firms tumbled about 42 percent in September from a year ago to 7.58 million units, with compact offerings falling 48 percent, according to the Association. Higher-end cameras with detachable lenses fell a more modest 7.4 percent in that time, it said.
As the compact camera market shrinks, the war over mirrorless camera dominance is growing. All the major camera makers now have a horse in that race, which will only be heating up as consumers discover that they no longer have a need for small-sensor cameras.
Smartphones crushing point-and-shoot camera market [Phys.Org]
Image credit: Photo illustration based on still from Inception by Warner Bros. Pictures
We’ve seen ring flash units that redirect light from a DSLR’s pop-up camera and a hot shoe-mounted flash, but never from a compact camera’s built-in flash. Based on a patent filing published earlier this month and uncovered by Egami, that’s what Nikon appears to be in the process of building.
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One major trend in the camera industry this year is the introduction of mobile operating systems such as Android into digital cameras. By opening the door to things like Wi-Fi, data plans, and apps, camera makers are going in the same direction that phone makers went some years ago, turning their devices into what can best be described as portable computers with specialized functions (e.g. voice-calling, photography).
While covering the trend, we’ve been at a loss for what to call the new cameras. After calling the Samsung Galaxy Camera a “voiceless phonecamera” in our hands-on first-look yesterday, commenters suggested that we call the device a “smartcamera”. Bingo… that’s the term we were looking for.
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Sony shook up the digital camera world today by announcing the RX1, a game-changing camera that was somehow kept under wraps until news about it leaked a few days ago. Regardless of whether or not ordinary consumers will readily adopt it, it’s a bold camera that sets the bar for what the world can expect in a point-and-shoot. Why is it so revolutionary? It’s the first time a full frame sensor has been put inside a compact camera body.
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As far as camera naming conventions go, Sigma’s is pretty wacky. First off, we’ll start with the news: the company announced today that its new DP1 Merrill compact camera will be available starting mid-September for a street price of $999.
Good, now that that’s out of the way, lets talk about the name and the camera. Basically, it’s a clone baby of the DP2 Merrill announced back in July, except the DP1 Merrill features a 19mm (28mm in 35mm terms) lens instead of a 30mm (45mm in 35mm terms) one. That’s it.
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There’s a fascinating rumor floating around in the gadget world today. Apparently Samsung is planning to introduce a point-and-shoot camera that’s powered by Android OS and based on the popular Galaxy S smartphone. GSMArena, which first published the rumor and created the mockup seen above, reports that the camera will be named the “Samsung Galaxy S camera” (creative, I know). It’s said to feature a giant 4.8-inch screen and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
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After weeks of rumors and leaked photos, Nikon has finally officially announced its new Coolpix S800c compact camera — the company’s first camera to be powered by Android OS. It’s designed to be a powerful point-and-shoot that offers the versatility of app-based mobile phones.
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Remember the days when portable electronic devices were mostly all powered by AA and AAA batteries? Consumers had to regularly purchase new batteries to keep their gadgets juiced — a big sink for your hard earned money. When rechargeable batteries started becoming ubiquitous, they were touted as a feature for saving both time and money. All you had to do was plug your camera into the wall (or your battery into a charger) and a few hours later you were recharged.
Now things are moving back in the other direction. It’s more difficult to find a quality AA-powered camera on the market, and it can be difficult for travelers to find a suitable power outlet while overseas. That’s why Nikon’s new CoolPix L610, freshly announced today, boasts about the fact that it supports AA batteries.
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It may not have been the best day to release a new compact camera, given that Panasonic announced five of them (if you count superzooms), but Samsung powered through anyway, unveiling its new addition to the compact world: the stylish looking MV900F. Unlike most of the compacts we’ve seen coming our way in the past month, this isn’t a technical powerhouse with a superfast lens or a huge sensor. What the MV900F offers is a bunch of cool, if not a little bit random, features that try to entice the everyday user away from their smartphone. Read more…
