With Canon and Nikon announcing their full frame mirrorless camera, 2018 was an exciting year when it comes to camera industry. But how has this affected the overall results in gear manufacturing and sales? All this and more was explored in this video by LensVid. While the previous year brought us some long-awaited novelties: it seems that the market is still declining.
DxO Labs goes into receivership, reports say
In January current year, DxoMark split from DxO Labs and according to recent rumors, another big change is about to come inside DxO Labs. As some sources state, the company is about to go into receivership, although the reasons are still unfamiliar.
The death of digital photography
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.
Introducing Seawolf – The new remote-operated GoPro submarine from TTRobotix
The GoPro camera is virtually synonymous with action sports, and those with both legitimate and nefarious purposes have adapted it for a whole variety of uses. Now that functionality is expanding thanks to the Seawolf, a new underwater remote operated vehicle that’s designed with GoPro integration in mind. In other words: a friggin’ GoPro submarine!
New 58mm Petzval lens touts bokeh control, classic shininess
Lomography made a big splash when they released a 21st-century version of the famed Petzval lens last year. Now, 175 years after it was first invented by Joseph Petzval, Lomography is planning to launch a 58mm version of the lens with a built-in bokeh control ring. This ring, according to Lomography, will allow you to “determine the strength of the swirly bokeh in your photos” with its seven different levels of swirliness. The new lens goes for $450. For those too cheap to spring for the new lens, we assume an ample amount of peyote will achieve the same result.
Photographer Pens Persuasive Open Letter To Garbage After Asked By Band To Use Photos For Free
Photographers and musicians have at least one thing in common, for both types of artists, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get paid for the work they create regardless of how “good” it is. Given that fact, it’s always a little disappointing to see things play out the way they have between rock band, Garbage, and pro photographer, Pat Pope.
Pope has just posted an open letter to the band, kindly declining Garbage’s request to use some of Pope’s photos in an upcoming book without paying for them. He explains he was contacted by the group’s management company, Big Picture Music Co., via email that was full of praise and adoration of the photographer’s past work with the band. Pope says Big Picture described the book as “financially limited” (read: “We’re not going to pay you”), but Pope would get “proper credit” if he allowed his images to be used in the book. [Read More…]
I Wish this was an April Fool’s joke; Photoflex Closes Shop After 30 Years
If you’ve been around the photography industry you must know Photoflex. They make lighting equipment.
Yesterday a photo appeared on their website telling the world that they are closing shop. We were all hoping that it was some kind of an April’s fool joke, but sadly, despite the date coincidence, it is true.
Photoflex has been in business for about 30 years and are known for making good quality products.
Yongnuo’s YN600EX-RT Now Selling, Looks Remarkably Similar To Canon’s 600EX-RT Flagship
Earlier in august this year Hong-Kong based company YongNuo announced that they are releasing the YN600EX-RT – A Canon compatible strobe.
Some Canonistas, especially off camera flashers (AKA strobists) were pretty excited about this announcement. Mostly because the strobe was said to be compatible with Canon’s new 2.4GHz RT radio system that their 600EX-RT strobe features. The RT is a pretty awesome TTL triggering and strobe control system working on radio rather then on IR. But, Canon’s strobe sells for about $499 while the new Yongnuo which appeared on eBay today only sells for about $185. Roughly a 1:3 ratio.
DIYP are the last to be blamed with lack of frugality, but looking at the images that popped up on YongNuo’s sites got me thinking. Look at the two photos on the top. See any resemblance (aside the obviousness of the names). The strobe on the left is Canon’s 600EX-RT flagship, and the right one is the new YN600EX-RT.
Fuji Does It Again, Applies For Varying Pixel Size Sensors
We really love Fuji as a company, aside from taking a really good care of their customers, they are always on the edge of technology, doing things that are ground breaking and innovating.
Fuji’s new patent application for a sensor with varying pixel size may provide better noise handling that what we get with current technology. (And while we value pixel count, it is interesting to see other – non pixel cramming – places that imaging technology is going).[Read More…]
The Graying Of Traditional Photography And Why Everything Is Getting Re-Invented In A Form We Don’t Understand By Kirk Tuck
On the last day of the PhotoPlus Expo I finally got why the camera industry has hit the wall and may never come back again in the same way. The folks who love cameras for the sake of cameras, and all the nostalgic feelings they evoke of Life Magazine, National Geographic, 1980’s fashion and 1990’s celebrity portraiture, and other iconic showcases that made us sit up and really look at photography, are graying, getting old and steadily shrinking in numbers.
I can profile the average camera buyer in the U.S. right now without looking at the numbers. The people driving the market are predominately over 50 years old and at least 90% of them are men. We’re the ones who are driving the romantic re-entanglement with faux rangefinder styles. We’re the ones at whom the retro design of the OMD series camera are aimed. We’re the ones who remember when battleship Nikons and Canons were actually needed to get great shots and we’re the ones who believe in the primacy of the still image as a wonderful means of communication and even art. But we’re a small part of the consumer economy now and we’re walking one path while the generations that are coming behind us are walking another path. And it’s one we’re willfully trying not to understand because we never want to admit that what we thought of as the “golden age of photography” is coming to an end as surely as the kingdom of Middle Earth fades away in the last book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.[Read More…]
