Canon reports weak outlook for cameras

Looks like digital cameras have hit maturity judging from Canon's earnings outlook last night. Highlights from Bloomberg:

* cut full year sales target for compact cameras by 15% to 14.5M units

* global shipments of digital cameras almost halved to 4.26M units in Feb. y/y, 10th consecutive decline

* shipments of compact models from Jan to Feb -40% from year earlier, while shipment for cameras with interchangeable lenses -17%

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...es-on-net-outlook-as-camera-demand-wanes.html

Not surprising. Cell phones have taken a big bite out of the point and shoots and small cameras, there are fewer paying gigs (newspapers, magazines, stock photography) for those needing pro gear, the international economy continues to be mediocre at best, plus Canon's prices for bodies, lenses, speedlights, accessories has skyrocketed in recent years.

Just my theory.

Prices are still too high in the industry (2011-2012 yen levels) even though the yen has now dropped around 100 (2008 levels). Since early last year it's dropped about 25% in value, yet you are not seeing the price cuts reflecting that.

Why doesn't it supprise me at alll; Canon figures are stagnating.

A few years ago the mirrorless compact cameras taken a large bite out of the entry level dslr market. Canon waited too long with a response to the Sony Nex line.

On the otherhand Canon raised the price for the 5D III compared to earlier versions. In otherwords they are working themself out of the amature market.

It looks like tiny compacts are living on borrowed time. I live in a place where there are lots of tourists all year round. Up until about 18 months ago, I'd see tourists taking photographs with tiny compacts, and the occasional iPhone. Now I see about 50-50 phone vs tiny cam shooters. That's a massive shift in a short period of time.

I agree, and many of the cell phones offer decent quality images under good light and within their limitations. And they have video capabilities--plus everyone wants to post their experiences to Facebook instantly. I remember standing at the top of a bluff in Zion during sunrise, then posting an image to Facebook (great reception in Zion). Tough to do with a point and shoot or DSLR.

hotdog321 said:

hotdog321 wrote:

I agree, and many of the cell phones offer decent quality images under good light and within their limitations. And they have video capabilities--plus everyone wants to post their experiences to Facebook instantly. I remember standing at the top of a bluff in Zion during sunrise, then posting an image to Facebook (great reception in Zion). Tough to do with a point and shoot or DSLR.

Click to expand...

That's a lovely panorama.

My son got back from Japan last week with 1500 images on his iPhone, and I was quite surprised by how good they are.

Thanks! There seems to be a whole cottage industry creating iPhone apps and photo attachments.

Each new generation of DSLRs has been a leap forward in MP, ISO, and dynamic range. However, the next generation will only be an incremental improvement in quality. In fact, for 11x14 prints, I see very little difference between my D7000 and D800 (but I do have a lot more cropping capability with the D800). My next body will be a 10 FPS 16MP+ DX body (sports) to replace my aging D300 but Nikon doesn't make this body yet, especially for around $2,000. Nikon may choose not to build such a body which means I won't be purchasing any additional Nikon bodies, cropped frame or not.

First, I realize many are switching to phone cameras and the overall quality is really limited to good light, though most will shoot anywhere at any time at anything. In fact, I keep insisting we have entered a new golden age of crappy photos, beyound anything I've seen before, which is really saying something. Seems no matter how bad the photo, it will be put on facebook, sent to friends and enemies, and other methods of public display.

But logically there should be a slow down, as most of us (almost all of us) who were active in film SLR's have acquired one or more DSLR's, in my case three. I am holding pat now. Its kind of like where computers where at in the 80's and 90's, once bought they were almost instantly obsolete. DSLR's I think have hit a developmental plateau for a while. So the only thing that would motivate me to purchase would be some super new feature, or an already existing feature gone wild - like ISO. At some point us converted film people are bound to slow down our purchases and I think its beginning to happen.

I think over time, some of those shooting with inferior technology but discover they like shooting photos will begin the progression into DSLR's and there might be another surge in three or four years.

The life of the lowly cheap P&S is going to go down, down, down. They won't disappear but there will be much fewer models available with limited selection.

And there is nothing new about consumers choosing for leightweight and crappy photo quality over better gear...

There is only a handfull photographers that use nowadays a 4x5"sheet camera while on holliday....

The Kodak Browny box succes was the compact size and ease of use, so was the Afga Clack...

And at the end of the seventies there were compact film cassette cameras, horrible quality, but ultra compact.

Those cameras were sort of exception of my rule that low tech cameras rules over larger and better (from mass consumption marketshare point of view). Those rits click compact cameras were too difficult to frame correctly, and film material was another issue. They died a silent dead in favor of Olympus muii style of compact super tele zoom 24x32 rollfilm cameras. (who were overruled by digital cameras..)

I think the old time cameras were more handy!

Canon and Nikon will stay in the camera business, but I suspect that some of the smaller players will be forced to shut down their camera divisions in the next few years.

Those "crappy" point and shoots were "full frame" and the photos that came out of them were much better than the photos (not the images taken in decent light) being shot with a phone camera. You were limited to lower ISO's with 400 being about the limit in the film days, there were higher ISO's but few dabbled in them.

Here's a bit about my film P&S which I still have and I'd cheerfully have a "shoot out" against camera phones. Propoganda in the link below about the Olympus Epic film P&S:

http://www.thelostcompass.net/index.php?x=olympus-epic

You might say there is a sort of race to the bottom, where many of the companies presently are sacrifing marin to keep makrt share in a shrinking market. Basically they are hoping one or more of the other players will fold.

Actually many of the bad point and shoot cameras used 110 film, a horribly undersized format that came in cassettes. There was also Kodak disc film that was even worse. 126 film was smaller than 35mm but not by much - the poor quality associated with it was down to bad lenses on most of the cameras that used it and not the film format itself.

Cell phone cameras will improve so much over the next decade that only enthusiasts and professionals will go for anything better. The latest high end smart phone models produce pictures that are better than from a point and shoot from not too many years ago.

Originally photography was largely on large format. Then medium format became the normal. Then "miniature" format (35mm). Then 126 caught on, and 110. The advance in technology has meant a steady progression to smaller and smaller film / sensor sizes that will only continue.

Yes I remember other sizes, but 35mm was the dominant force. But hey, I still take the bet with 110 film, do you realize how small the sensor is in a phone camera. Just to up the anti to guarantee the win, both myself and the person challenging me with phone camera have to blow the image up to at least 8 by 10.

People have been saying that for years. it has yet to come true.

Eddaweaver said:

Eddaweaver wrote:

126 film was smaller than 35mm but not by much - the poor quality associated with it was down to bad lenses on most of the cameras that used it and not the film format itself.

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126 film is 35mm film, but with only one perf per frame, and loaded into a cartridge. It's exposed 28mm square and cropped in printing to effectively 26.5mm square, as compared with the standard 35mm exposure of 24mm high by 36mm wide.

While the poor optics certainly had a big role in the image quality, there were other factors at work. Most 126 film was C-22 process Kodacolor-X at ISO 64, which was — by today's standards — pretty awful. It was quite grainy and its color accuracy was abysmal.

Beyond that were the fixed exposure parameters on most 126 cameras. There was considerable variation among the many different camera models, but a typical lens might have a 43mm focal length with a fixed aperture of f/11. Shutter speed might typically be fixed at 1/50. 1/50 and f/11 at ISO 64 is about one stop overexposed in "Sunny 16" conditions, and it's underexposed in shade. A lot of brightness adjustment had to occur during printing.

I'll go purchase a disposable $10 film camera to compete against the phone cameras. I'm not really ranting against the phone camera, I use mine, but I also know the quality isn't that great often and I've had to delete the great majority of images because of blur or not holding up once it hits the big screen.

I'm just tired of people who don't really understand photography talking about phone cameras or "I" what have you as though they can replace today's DSLR or whatever. When I bought my HTC One S the sales gal said I could replace my DSLR camera with the phone camera, she turned out to be into photography and admitted she was trained to say that, and didn't believe it herself.

The good news, absolutely no one is going to listen to me.