The death of digital photography
Apr 4, 2017
Temoor Iqbal
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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 leftfield approach to stay competitive
In February, Nikon – the world’s second-biggest camera manufacturer by market share – published a notice of ‘recognition of extraordinary loss’. The statement admitted that, over the last nine months of 2016, the company had lost $260m. Following this announcement, Nikon’s share price plummeted 15 percent and loyal customers were sent into a panic.
Photographers tend to invest a lot of money in a camera system, purchasing multiple lenses and camera bodies designed to work together. For the millions invested in the Nikon system, the announcement exacerbated existing fears about the decline of the digital camera industry and it’s key players.
Promuser’s Global Digital Camera Report for January 2017 confirmed that total digital camera production is dropping steadily, and is currently less than half the most recent high-point – the 45 million units produced in October 2014. The number of units shipped is also falling – it was down 1.6 percent year-on-year in January, with no signs of improvement for the rest of the year.
Innovation stagnation
This decline is curious, at least in the way that it has played out. Aside from Nikon, few if any leading manufacturers have acknowledged that there is any problem. The former cancelled its planned DL series of mirrorless (high-end compact) cameras in the wake of the loss announcement, but market leader Canon released its newest professional model – the EOS 5D Mk IV – in September last year. The camera was universally recognised as an excellent, capable piece of technology, but a unifying feature of reviews was the suggestion that Canon had not changed enough from the previous model – the Mk III – to justify the upgrade. Camera reviewer Ken Rockwell said of the new release: “I’m so impressed that Canon chose to introduce this 5D Mk IV. Canon didn’t need to; it already has [most features] covered in the 5D Mk III. The 5D series sells very few cameras compared to Canon’s [consumer level] DSLRs, so we ought to be glad that Canon actively develops new models that don’t do much for profits (and eat into sales of other Canon cameras), but give us all more camera choices.”
The response perfectly encapsulates one of the market’s main problems: a lack of innovation. Unlike in other stagnating areas of technology – such as laptops and televisions – no complete alternative has yet superseded digital cameras. They are still widely used and appreciated, especially at a professional level where tiny smartphone cameras cannot compete, but the incentive to regularly upgrade is being eroded. Metrics that once drove camera upgrades, such as megapixel counts and sensor sizes, are being widely called into question. Canon users, for example, spent many years clamouring for greater megapixel counts, culminating in 2015’s EOS 5DS and 5DSR models with staggering 50.6 megapixel sensors. Around the same time, Fujifilm set about releasing a range of attractive, functional cameras with much more humble 16 megapixel sensors (now increased to 24 megapixels), but still marketed at professionals. The range was a critical and financial success, proving that ergonomics and build quality matter more than abstruse technical specifications. “I think people looking for billboard-size prints may be attracted by larger sizes”, said professional documentary and wedding photographer Kevin Mullins. “I find the Fujifilm size to be fine though – I’ve had images from these cameras printed at three metres wide, and I find the size of the cameras liberating.”
The rise of Fujifilm as a serious competitor to Canon and Nikon, alongside other mirrorless manufacturers such as Sony and Olympus, has spread customers much more thinly than before. Manufacturers need significant innovation in order to stand out, and yet innovation is exactly what the industry is currently lacking. Canon makes its own digital sensors, but the majority of other major manufacturers (including Nikon and Fujifilm) actually use Sony sensors, making the market surprisingly uniform. “I’m not a camera engineer, but I think there may be some head-scratching going on in the labs regarding which direction to take technology”, noted Mullins.
It’s often obscured by superficial features, but the fact is most high-end digital cameras are exactly the same as one another, and the same as older models from the last five years. What’s more, there’s little prospect of them changing much in the near future. As a result, there’s little incentive to upgrade as often as manufacturers would like, which is behind sluggish sales and rapidly stagnating production levels. “If you’re in the market to buy a new camera and don’t have one already…you’ll struggle to make a bad decision”, wrote tech journalist Vlad Savov for The Verge last year. “But if you already own a camera from the past half decade, you probably won’t feel any urge or need to upgrade. Digital imaging technology has matured [and] maturity brings with it a sort of developmental stagnation.”
Tangible and true
The problem manufacturers face now is how to move on from direct innovation. Launching new models with obscure specification tweaks is barely keeping leading brands afloat – a radical rethink is required. Fujifilm, continuing the imaginative streak that saw the company rival the dominance of Canon and Nikon, may have found the answer.
From vinyl records to Hollywood films on celluloid, analogue media has made an astonishing comeback. Photography, not so long ago, was also an entirely analogue process, and film photography is now being embraced in a big way by consumers looking for something new. Indeed, it may sound strange to describe film as ‘new’, but a 2015 survey by UK manufacturer Ilford Photo found that 30 percent of film users were under 35 years old, and 60 percent had only started using the medium in the last five years. This burgeoning trend has not been lost on Fujifilm, and the company has started to put significant weight behind its Instax range of instant film cameras. Though launched in 1998, sales have only recently taken off: in 2004 only 100,000 Instax units were sold, whereas 2015/16 saw the figure skyrocket to five million.
“In an age where we are caught in a maelstrom of digital images, with hundreds of slightly different takes and edited shots across social media, the simple joy of a physical, printed photo is really appealing”, said Chris Chater, Fujifilm’s Instax Business Manager for the UK and Europe. “There’s an increasing appetite for analogue media – people will always yearn to have something physical.” Instax cameras are firmly marketed at a young demographic, with bright plastic bodies and fashionable limited editions in collaboration with the likes of Michael Kors. This strategy, a world away from the fusty, specification-focused world of digital cameras, has proved incredibly successful – in the 2015/16 financial year, Instax cameras outsold Fujifilm’s own digital cameras almost four times over. Professionals are taking note too: “I will often take an Instax Share on a job and print some images to give to a client there and then. They don’t replace full resolution prints, but it can be nice to get a print direct from the camera and hand it straight to the client”, said Mullins.
Slowly, this astonishing success is being recognised by competitors. German luxury camera maker Leica, whose flagship products easily clear the £5,000 mark, recently launched the Sofort – an instant camera only slightly more expensive than the Instax range, and squarely aimed at marketing the concept to a more serious, adult crowd.
As digital camera sales continue to slow and manufacturers struggle to excite consumers, the key players would do well to stop ignoring the rebirth of analogue media. The potential for growth is clear, and the opportunity to take film camera sales away from the second-hand market is staring camera makers in the face. It will take courage to invest in what many still see as a ‘dead’ medium, but the rewards are clear to see – an exciting, largely untapped market awaits.
About the Author
Temoor Iqbal is a London based street photographer and writer. You can follow his work on Instagram. This piece originally appeared on The New Economy, and was shared with permission.
We love it when our readers get in touch with us to share their stories. This article was contributed to DIYP by a member of our community. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us here.
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23 responses to “The death of digital photography”
yes Fuji
Well yeah I agree with most of the facts the author mentioned. But it’s also true that the dedicated camera manufacturers are also less eager to change with the flow. For example it’s strange that no nikon or canon midrange cameras have 4k recording. The 5d m4 has it but that’s plagued with codec problem and other avoidable issues. Nikon’s snapbridge was a great initiation but that software is absolute garbage.
Is this more sensational headline shitposting like that article about 4/3 last week? Of course there’s still innovation, it’s just not coming from Nikon and Canon.
Seriously? Nikon’s “extraordiny losses” were a financial term for taking lots of costs in one financial year, and most of those losses were not even in Nikon’s camera business but in medical. Get your facts straight. Speaking of facts, are you seriously quoting Rockwell? That guy was claiming that the Nikon 18-200mm was the only lens anyone would ever need to shoot anything, anywhere and that it was sharp edge to edge at all focal lengths. He also said that P mode on the camera dial was professional mode, which is what all professionals shoot with. The fact that he thinks Canon didn’t have to upgrade the 5D mk III is almost an equally stupid claim. Thousands and thousands of wedding photogs laughed him in the face and ordered two bodies each. I didn’t read to the end because this article was clearly not in touch with reality so any conclusion drawn would be based on false assumptions.
LoL. Yeah, lets all go back to film. :D Photography is evolving… You can either go with it and embrace the future, or you can be a stick in the mud and hold on to the past. I know I won’t. I grew up with film, and I am thankful every day that I don’t have to deal with it. This retro/hipster philosophy does no one any favors. People will play with it for a while and give up.
Film can be useful as a teaching tool and a side hobby. But for serious use? Nope.
Was the clickbait title really needed?
Ok, let’s discuss this. The Digital Camera market has certainly been declining over the years, but it’s always good to point out that it’s still a multi billion market that’s far from being dead.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270014/global-sales-of-digital-cameras-by-selected-region/
It went from a 33 billion Euro market globally in 2011 to a 17 billion Euro market in 2016. Huge crash in 5 years time, but still far from dead.
If we take then the fact that digital photography is not limited to cameras/dSLRs alone, it only takes a look at Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and some other social networks to see that digital photography is actually growing year by year.
This is almost 3 years late already, but you know, these kinda charts take time to update…. but you can see how the evolution of digital photos on social media goes here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/were-now-posting-a-staggering-18-billion-photos-to-social-media-every-day-2014-5
And here’s my personal opinion back on cameras – you can disagree: The bubble has bursted. Compounded with the fact that most smartphones have a decent enough camera these days for all sorts of casual shooting.
Back not too long ago – between 5 to 10 years I guess – smartphone cameras were crappy, Canon and Nikon pretty much exploded in popularity, dSLRs were being sold to people who didn’t even know what the basic concepts of photography were. They didn’t know how to use a camera other than leaving the dial on auto. Tons of people were buying dSLRs with the sole justification of “taking better photos”. Taking a photography course wasn’t even on their list of things to do, it’s just that the price was relatively cheap enough that buying a dSLR to take better photos even with the camera on auto only was justifiable.
Not only prossumer and professional grade cameras got cheaper, they became popular, and strong features like shooting videos were added and adopted across the board. It ended up in a perfect storm of professional and amateurs that wanted better quality going for the same lineup. It’s a sort of unnatural growth if you think about it… the majority of the people buying cameras didn’t actually know how to use them properly. Kinda like a stop-gap solution that was bound to change overtime.
I don’t think Canon or Nikon were really prepared for all that, and we can see signs of it to this day. I’m not a Nikon user so I can’t criticize, but Canon in particular changed it’s release schedule, created multiple confusing lines of cameras that not only generated consumer paralysis, they also cannibalized their own products, it became a bloated company trying to release as little stuff as possible with each model in order to keep churning off new models to keep demand going.
It’s a completely different philosophy that drove the company. The market effectively became non-photographers or aspirers, despite trying to keep the image that it wasn’t.
Several big brands actively stopped listening to professionals and started trying to predict vapid hype trends that the casual/amateur market, which was bigger in numbers, would want, all the while remaining inflexible on certain areas.
Probably the worst possible mixture. Improvements from model to model were incremental, but due to tight schedules they never had the time or bothered investing on technologies that were encroaching fast on the other spectrum that eventually did take over that very same casual market: smartphone photography.
It took (and in some cases still is taking) too long for big brand cameras to adopt stuff like: wireless standards (Wi-fi and Bluetooth), touchscreens, more intuitive/simplified interfaces, a workflow that allows people to share content fast or even live, smaller form factors, alternative non-proprietary methods of charging up cameras, transfering and backuping data, etc etc.
Smartphones took that role, while improving quality of results, and now we’re on the tipping point. Compare the technology and improvements made on smartphone cameras to the incremental improvements made on dSLRs and you’ll know the difference. So now, we not only have casuals, amateurs, non-photographers and aspirers (again, the majority of the market) going towards smartphones, we even have some professional photographers that advocates on the qualities of some smartphone cameras, sometimes using them as backup. It’s role reversal to a point. Apple, Samsung and Sony for it’s sensors took over part of the previous dSLR market.
There are two major things that all this movement has caused though, one of which is in the article but in a kind of misguided way. This whole renewed interested in photography that was generated – not only for pros, but for amateurs too – became oversaturated in culture. This oversaturation enables niche interests like the return to film, interest in old lenses, cheap cameras of the past, old photography techniques, DIY experimentation, among several other things. It’s not all that different from music listening with all the fancy audiophile grade stuff, valve amplifiers, vynil record and mixtape fans and whatnot.
But we are not returning to film. These are niche markets that are only there because photography is a huge cultural thing.
The second is that we are probably walking towards brands like Nikon and Canon returning to pros only… or mostly pros and aspirers. I think Nikon and Canon, along with other big brands, will face huge cuts in the coming years, and if they are smart enough they’ll have to trim down the line, cut back to a more intelligible lineup, stop releasing so many models, and start listening to professional needs once again. If they can’t do that, other brands will take over… but they are big enough to last for quite a while before drastic measures are needed.
M43 is seeing a huge growth and the technology and innovation is ahead of other manufacturers. Its a shame you omitted Panasonic from your article as the growth in this brands sales say the opposite of your article
Digital photography is far from dead; it is, in fact, ubiquitous. Few of the big camera makers are making the kind of cameras that can draw consumers away from the high quality cameras in their phones. Most are just now recognizing the P&S market is dead. Or the need for reasonably priced enthusiast/pro cameras with attractive feature sets. Their business models are failing, but that doesn’t mean everyone — or, really, anyone in any numbers — are ready to go backward.
Crikey. The thing makes pictures. The market for digital cameras has matured somewhat as well so the whiz bang features we used to see as new are mostly incrementally upgraded now, if they do what they do well, left alone. My cameras – Nikon D4 for one – are still terrific for what I want/need/am paid to do so some camera that cleans my ears while I use it isn’t going to induce me to spend more money. FUJI (I have one of those too) is a GREAT example of doing this with right, with periodic firmware updates that add new features. Maybe Nikon and Canon should start doing that to stay competitive.
…if you’re not going to start your article off with actual facts ( i.e. Nikon’s extraordinary loses had nothing to do with their camera division ) then you have little credibility left with the rest of your statements.
I spent quite a lot buying my Canon 600D at the time and the auto focus went not long after ,,,,,Canon were never able to fix it … Reading the forums it seems tis is quite a usual problem …I would never buy Canon again ..what a waste of hard earned money ….I don’t have a clue what to buy next, but it has to be better than Canon
Same here Saz..I’ve had two canon cameras that have been great, same models S3’s, then bought a better one S5, not as good as my original, then another upgrade to near top of range bridge camera SX50, only had it two month and sold it, blurred in the corners?not as good as my original, even though it was twice the mega pixels ?so now want another bridge camera, but reluctant to get a Canon as I think quality is not there now, want a better camera but think all makes have their different problems that are known about, but they don’t fix, they just produce another updated model, that will have its own problems?
Get a Ricoh gr instead
My panasonic gx8 is a real treat to use. Unlike my cannon m1 mirrorless which was useless for night shooting, poor contrast, auto focus never locked so 90% of the time had to shoot manual, ate battery’s, couldn’t see the screen in daylight, no viewfinder…Completely agree that cannon cameras suck. I’ve had the GX8 for 5 months and only two complaint. My nose hits the touch screen which moves the focus peaking box around and when the shutter speed is set to /160 it gets shutter shock but otherwise everything just works.
Huh? What’s the purpose of the title “is digital dead?” in relation to the article? More click bait?
Since when is the viability of an artistic medium related to the profitability of companies selling new gear? Chalk drawing hasn’t changed radically since Lascoux, but it would be stupid to call it dead.
My wish is to have a camera for photography only without the video feature so you can pack more innovation. My dream innovation technology is to be able to view the final image before capturing it exactly as in digital onto the FILM in the camera too!
Fujifilm fan here, and even I found this biased and inaccurate. Also, it would have been useful to know Sony’s camera sales vs. the others.
Idiomatic, but from my perspective the digital camera has only just matured and enjoyed a boom in a product which is historically, including pre-digital, something consumers typically bought once or twice in their lives and kept using until they were dead, and even passed on to their children and grandchildren. Before digital, you bought an SLR with a kit lens and from that point forward all your camera equipment purchases were accessories–tripods, cases, straps, other lenses, filters, and so on. Historically, a camera was no different than that of a musical instrument; unless you were a professional you bought one quality instrument and that was it, for life. The same is true of other specialty items such as telescopes, televisions, even cars.
You know what would really sell me on a new high end camera? One that takes both digital and film. I already have a camera with all the features I’m interested in, and it’s not worth the cost to buy a better one that does pretty much the same thing. Sure, digital is easy, I can develop and edit images on my iPad, but for the real art shots nothing beats film. It would be wonderful if I could shoot both in a single camera.
I’m a professional actor and sometimes model–and sometimes photographer. It’s good to diversify. I’ve been on plenty of sets, from New York City to Tokyo where they used film. Steven Spielberg uses film; I did a magazine shoot in Tokyo about pizza for Popeye where they shot entirely on film; Tom Selleck on the set of Blue Bloods talked about his preference for film between takes; and in Japan which has the worlds foremost camera culture, you can still buy film even at the grocery store.
So is digital in the midsts of its demise? No, but the craze is over, because cameras have never been about megapixels; it’s always about getting a nice piece of glass.
I think you meant analog photography is dead. A mirror belongs into an analog camera.
Digital Photography is booming!
Digital photography is absolutely alive and well. The current hiatus in sales may have something to do with the fact that current offerings are either using the Ford Ka as a design role model, or are using the price point of the Ford Ka as a marketing strategy. Even Ford eventually gave up on the Ka.
My point is that camera manufactures have lost sight of what people want from a camera. Mirrorless systems have pointed the way. The trouble is, we are seeing every chancer on the street building cameras at the moment because the pricing is so excessive. Once cameras such as the Fujifilm X-T2 come down to the price point that they should be at – around US$700/£600 the market will return to buoyancy.
Not dead, just more players in the market. In the past it was really just Canon or Nikon if you were serious. Now there are more choices. Just like the automobile industry went through a transition over the last 20 years, so too this industry.
There are just many customers (probably more) as before, they are just spread out over more brands.
That’s a bit dramatic, but we need to step back and compare. Years/decades ago you bought a film camera body and held onto it for, well, years/decades. In that span of time, you bought lenses and accessories. Digital came along, and you upgraded camera bodies more often because sensors evolved quickly.
Then it all plateaued. We reached a “good enough” stage. The same thing happened (somewhat) with film cameras. Once you were vested in a system, that was it. You might add an automatic body, maybe a motor-drive body. Film didn’t change much. Some films were in production for decades.
The point that there are more digital camera brands misses the mark. In film days there were many, many more. We’ve lost so many brands over the decades.
Then smartphones and their cameras came along and neatly wiped out the “snappy camera” market. And, rightfully so. Smartphones brought back “simple”, “convenient”, and “fun”. The cost was invisible since it was built into the price of the smartphone. Digital camera manufacturers responded either with funky colors, or a ridiculous amount of “features” and buttons/menus. They weren’t/aren’t simple or convenient, like a smartphone.
I think what hurt the market a great deal is that camera stores have disappeared. They’ve become little islands in malls, staffed by people who can recite the specs without excitement or depth. These little islands tend to rep few brands (I can’t remember the last time I saw a Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax or Fuji on display on one these “islands”). Cameras are treated like any other bit of electronics. Come to think of it, many web sites show cameras as a subcategory of electronics.
When you went into your local town’s cameras store, whether it was big or small, there was an air of excitement. It was like going into a tobacconist. You could smell “photography” (possibly because they processed film and made prints in the back room). I remember weekend trips to the local camera stores. You were immersed in new and used equipment and gadgets, and surrounded by photo people.
The “good enough” factor is also hitting the computer and car markets. People don’t upgrade computers anywhere near are often as they used to. That upgrade path was about 3-5 years. I recently taught a class on computers that were easily 8-10 years old. Cars? People hold onto them until they disintegrate, become too costly to maintain, or they simply need/want a different car.