yardcoyote
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Which is why i want slow high quality lenses. I do need one fast prime in my kit, but i hardly need one in every position.
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There is going to be a backlash against giant lenses
- Thread starter DiffractionLtd
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Is there a change in physics on the horizon?
Howard V
Veteran Member
Certainly not - but maybe a change in consumer preferences, which is the point the OP makes.
Don't believe so.
Im waiting for the "chip on brain" camera, where you have an implant that stream the info. off your brain; need more reach pull out binoculars or telescope, wide angle is your peripheral made in focus.
I don't see that many hobbyists or non pro consumers with large fast zooms or large fast primes. If anything it's the cost.
I'm a hobbyist and I would buy a fast 600mm prime or zoom if it weren't for the cost no matter how big and heavy.
john Clinch
Senior Member
I think that's micro four thirds ( within a millimetre?)
Howard V
Veteran Member
It’s all niche, and becoming more so. The cost will continue going up. Only pros and a small percentage of well-heeled will afford it. I’m a bridge camera user. For my needs it’s been a good compromise.
Holger Bargen
Veteran Member
Why would you buy a camera equipment if you have a smartphone that does a pretty good job shooting photos?
My answer would be: if I get a sginificant better quality of my photos.
Thus, companies have to find ways to build lenses that give you better IQ than lenses from the 80ties and the smartphones people have in their pocket - and these lenses have to be giant size to deliver best possible IQ from edge to edge of the photo.
Times of being able to sell mediocre lenses seems to be gone.
My answer would be: if I get a sginificant better quality of my photos.
Thus, companies have to find ways to build lenses that give you better IQ than lenses from the 80ties and the smartphones people have in their pocket - and these lenses have to be giant size to deliver best possible IQ from edge to edge of the photo.
Times of being able to sell mediocre lenses seems to be gone.
Knitting makes one a sissy? Nice.
Facing this challenge everyday, but we engineers are trying to go around it and advance our society.
Do you know Google Nightsight camera apps? It takes a bunch of pictures, then the CPU process the data and re-create the image. It cannot change Physics, just go around it.
john Clinch
Senior Member
I see the logic but I think it's incorrect in most cases. People might need a bit better quality but I think mainly people want zoom range or style and handling etc. If your phone can say make a 12 by 18 print then it doesn't follow that you'll benefit from a camera that can make 60 by 40 inch pints, unless you really are printingt hat big. But most of use aren't....
I think that the RX10 series makes total sense. All the IQ that most of us need with a zoom big enough to be useful on say a Safari. But smaller enough not to be a problem to take on a flight
Or the X100 series. Cool and different and with enough low light ability to work on a night out and about
If it wasn't for silly desire to do long exposures and ultra wide one of each would see most of right most of the time
I agree about the size and cost of this new generation of lenses. Ironically, the driving force is putting larger sensors into smaller bodies.
The benefits ... 1-2 stops of additional light gathering and going from 20+MP to 100MP ... is marginal. Those marginal improvements mean something to a few. But the great unwashed have already moved in a different direction to smaller, faster, cheaper.
And that's the traditional technological imperative. Once you've met need, the preferences become smaller, faster, cheaper. Which companies are best positioned to deliver on that?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't anticipate any future backlash from me.
I'm a tiny, tiny gal. Five feet / 105 pounds soaking wet. And big lenses-big cameras don't bother me at all. Not. One. Bit.
Old school medium format? No prob. I'll happily shoot a Contax 645 all the livelong day.
How do I make it work?
(1) The Right Bag
A bag that you can wear comfortably and securely, that can distribute weight in a variety of ways, that you can slip gear into and out of without fuss. Not so tight that cameras and lenses catch or hook on the way in-and-out, but tight enough that everything's protected. Big enough to let you keep your lens hoods on and deployed, so that you don't have to f__ around with caps in the field.
I find that the bag I'm using really defines my working relationship with the camera system. The bag is what you carry out there, the bag is what you're wearing all day, the bag is what determines how you actually bear the weight, determines the speed and ease of your lens changes. The bag is what makes getting to your location and getting your camera out quick-and-easy or hard-and-fussy. I've found that it's possible to bear lots of weight comfortably, easily, with high mobility. And I've also found it can go the other way: stick a lightweight, ergonomic kit like an Olympus OM-D outfit in a crappy bag, and it'll make your photography an ordeal. Not the camera's fault; it's all about the bag.
(2) Not Every Lens; the Right Lenses.
I don't bring every lens I own to every shoot. I plan ahead. I talk with the person I'm photographing--what perspective, what look will most interest her?
Three or four lenses sounds like a lot to me. I try to keep it to two. Maybe a third? I'd try to skip it if I could.
Less can be more. Usually, one or two prime lenses will do the look I want, or maybe a prime and a zoom. A full-frame DSLR + two big, modern fast primes = still not a very cumbersome kit. I fit a D750 + Sigma 24/1.4 ART + Tamron 85/1.8 SP, hoods deployed, with room to spare in a Crumpler 5 Million-Dollar-Home. The whole package is about half the size and weight of my boyfriend's daily laptop-work-bag.
And even when I'm shooting a lightweight kit (I also own an Olympus OM-D outfit), I still don't bring every lens, I still plan some limits, first.
(3) My Way of Working Matters More to Me that "What Most Photographers Do"
Everyone conceives of photography differently. Some photographers don't feel in-the-moment unless they've covered all focal lengths from ultra-wide to exotic super tele. Some photographers feel impossibly constrained without a lighting bag. Some photographers can't work north of f/1.4; others live at f/8. Who is anyone to say what'll work for anyone else?
Big lenses seem to be selling. If we read Sigma as one data point: they continue to expand the ART line. And the ART optics continue to prioritize performance over size--if anything, they're getting bigger and heavier as they evolve.
Hey, even m4/3 gear is going (relatively) big, if you're judging by recently released camera bodies like the E-M1x, E-M1.2, G9, GH5. Or by lenses like Olympus's f/1.2 PRO primes or Panasonic's upcoming 10-25/1.7.
I would find it difficult to believe so many manufacturers are placing a blind bet when planning these products that they'll find a market.
But that's for others to debate. For me, much of the real joy of photography has been the exploration and discovery what works best and just for me, not the attempt to guess or overdetermine what "should" work for "most" people. My photography is about pleasing me and the people I photograph, not about conformity to some arbitrary, arm-chair quarterback standard of what "most" people "should" want.
The companies that make cameras and lenses employ qualified, experienced professional business analysts and marketers to figure the "most photographers" business. I'll leave it to them: I've always been more interested in photography than in being a photographic product development consultant.
Some people want small lenses? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ OK, if you say so. More power to them, but I don't care at all. I want manufacturers to maximize performance. Whatever they produce, I'll find a bag that makes it comfortable to carry.
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hesbehindyou
Senior Member
Canon says 50% shrink in interchangeable lens market share by 2020.
Canon camera sales have decreased approximately 10% year over year since ILC sales hit their peak in 2010.
Canon plans to shift its focus to corporate sales rather than consumer sales over the coming years. As a result, Canon will be putting more emphasis — read: R&D — on industrial, surveillance, and medical imaging going forward.
What this means is fewer resources going into developing new products for photographers.
Why the decline?
In part it's because the products aren't improving at the rate they used to - digital is now mature - so everyone that will has moved to digital and fewer digital shooters feel the need to upgrade.
Mostly it's because most consumers see just don't see a DSLR as being the route to good photographs and just unnecessarily bulky contraptions that take mediocre files that need processing to make them look good.
I look around at the other parents in my school and *none* of them are toting a dedicated camera - it's all on their phones. The parents I know that own DSLRs were never satisfied with the images they took and they're getting great images on their phones.
I'd suggest to the Canon exec that predicted a 50% fall that it'll be steeper than that. This comes at a time when the camera companies are heavily investing in new mounts. Canon will be okay - it's seen it coming and has already cut costs in anticipation. I'm worried about many of the others.
What troubles me is the seeming refusal of them to get into computational photography. Combine an APS-C sensor and large lenses with the smarts that are imbedded in a premium smartphone and you'd get something the masses would love. Wouldn't stop the slide but it would keep you in business when your competitors go bust.
EE-TV
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Hear here!I go birding 2-3 times a week and meet many "older" people, 60-70+ and I have never seen one with a mirrorless camera. I see many D850 and 200-500mm
I think the weight thing is overblown. If one can't carry 3kg they have more serious issues. And that's ok - I respect that
And off course if you hike for many hours a D850 + 200-500 isn't the most comfortable
I want I want. In today's me-me self-own I this and I that society why of course, whatever makes you happy, right?
So where does this affirmed "backlash" fit in to these wants?
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Bringing to light, Exposing what is
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EE-TV
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If ever I were to start over and not choose Nikon, Pentax would be my choice. Always admired their features such as Pixel-Shift, Astro-Tracer/Star-Tracking offerings.“Who buys Pentax? They have the worse sensor.”
You might want to check your facts first . While Pentax aren’t perfect their sensors are as good as any others.
And from what I have seen here and there they [Pentax] have a certain look to the photos taken with their cameras that I find pleasing.
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Bringing to light, Exposing what is
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Mackiesback
Forum Pro
I think if you have a wad of cash in your hand and a camera manufacturer doesn’t make what you want, it is entirely fair to share with them what it will take to get that money. That’s not selfish or me me me, it’s a basic purchase decision we have all made countless of times over the course of our lives.Hear here!I go birding 2-3 times a week and meet many "older" people, 60-70+ and I have never seen one with a mirrorless camera. I see many D850 and 200-500mm
I think the weight thing is overblown. If one can't carry 3kg they have more serious issues. And that's ok - I respect that
And off course if you hike for many hours a D850 + 200-500 isn't the most comfortable
I want I want. In today's me-me self-own I this and I that society why of course, whatever makes you happy, right?
You are taking offense when none was meant. The OP isn't talking about your cherished superteles (which can't be reasonably made smaller), but rather about the humongous wide and normal primes we're now seeing from every company. Such lenses used to be common and beloved because of their great performance in a compact package, but the current designs go so far in the quest for "perfect IQ" that they've become bloated, unwieldy things.
I personally have no interest in Sigma ARTs, Zeiss Otus or Nikon S primes, or anything like those.
--
"Chase the light around the world
I want to look at life
In the available light" - Rush, 'Available Light'
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Canon's official 2019 forecast for the market as a whole:
"For interchangeable-lens cameras...In 2019, we expect the market to continue to decline, shrinking 7% to 9.6 million units."
"Next, compact cameras. ... And in 2019, we expect the market to decline at a continuing rate of around 20%, reaching 8.5 million units"
Toshizo Tanaka, Canon Executive Vice President & CFO, January 30, 2019
(An official Canon financial document, that the company wrote in English.)
I'm skeptical of the "50% quote". The original article is written in Japanese, and is behind a paywall, so the exact words that the Canon exec said can't be confirmed. That said, "worse than forecast" seems to be the new norm in the camera industry.
"For interchangeable-lens cameras...In 2019, we expect the market to continue to decline, shrinking 7% to 9.6 million units."
"Next, compact cameras. ... And in 2019, we expect the market to decline at a continuing rate of around 20%, reaching 8.5 million units"
Toshizo Tanaka, Canon Executive Vice President & CFO, January 30, 2019
(An official Canon financial document, that the company wrote in English.)
I'm skeptical of the "50% quote". The original article is written in Japanese, and is behind a paywall, so the exact words that the Canon exec said can't be confirmed. That said, "worse than forecast" seems to be the new norm in the camera industry.
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