Lack of good EOS R deals for Black Friday

ThoreauAZ wrote:

MikeJ9116 wrote:

Son of Thunder wrote:

MikeJ9116 wrote:

Son of Thunder wrote:

MikeJ9116 wrote:

thunder storm wrote:

It's a bad time to buy gear. It's a great time to save up for truly good stuff. GAS is completely irrational these days.

Very true. Inflation is kicking in hard across the board on everything from camera gear, to food, to vehicle parts, energy etc. IMO, much of this is a manufactured crisis. When people stop buying products that are not essentials like camera gear, the prices will drop. Until then, either step up and pay the price or wait it out. The only way Canon gets any of my money any time soon is to offer an APS-C RF mount camera.

People have stopped buying camera gear the market is shrinking every year.

I am referring to people who still have an interest in buying camera gear. I agree that it is a rapidly shrinking market but there still are people interested in camera gear.

Photography is at a very exciting time with a large portion of photographers moving to mirrorless. It is not as exciting as going from film to digital,but exciting. Everyone wants to build their kits.

Current MILCs are giving ILCs, in general, a temporary reprieve from the steep decline they have been seeing the past decade. This won't last forever and once MILCs have saturated the market we will see the decline continue. The user base for traditional photography is heavily skewed toward an older demographic and this also does not bode well for the long term viability of this market segment. Smartphones are continually chipping away the ILC user base. Now we are seeing smartphone tech centric cameras coming to market with ever more capable devices. Traditional photography gear is quickly becoming a a tool for upper end professionals and those with a lot of disposable income. As time passes, the vast majority of people who will want more capable imaging gear will want that gear to be a seamless transition from the tech they grew up using (i.e. smartphone based tech). We are already well into the the next evolution of photography technology and it isn't MILCs. MILCs are just the last dying gasp of traditional digital ILCs.

id argue that ILC always has been truly more for the pros and well heeled. My history is nowhere near as long as many around here, but going back to my first dslr, a Rebel XT, I believe most buyers of that era were neither pros nor wealthy hobbyists... they were often just looking for "better" pictures, and wether or not they moved from P&S models to entry DSLRs was likely more of a perception thing than anything. Most people I knew, techies no less, that had jumped on the dslr bandwagon never left green box mode and would've been fine with a decent point and shoot.

keeping in mind as well that cell phone camera quality has only really started competing with a good P&S in the last maybe 5-7 years?

all of that is a long way of saying that a lot of the market at the lower end was only there because it was the cheapest way to get "good enough" imagery for the average schmoe. Now phones can fill that gap, but before everyone decided digital was the way, people were even content with disposable film cameras and polaroid.

professionals and spendy hobbyists are still sticking to "real" camera systems, nothing new there.

Anywho, this thread in general makes me smile having kept my R after adding the R5 to the arsenal. Can't say I miss the 80D which I *did* sell off promptly though. The R5 is admittedly absurd overkill for me. Hell, so is the R. But I'm very much the tech nerd hobbyist with money (well, okay, credit....) and love the R series

When I look back at the history of photography it always adopts newer technology where, and when, it is applicable.  This has happened quite often.  Sometimes it is incremental and sometimes it is monumental.  The trend though is the changes are brought about by applying emerging technology to photography gear.  Two things made digital photography the dominate successor to film.  The image sensor was one but just as important was the emergence of personal computers.  Without the ability to manipulate digital files via computer digital photography may not have overtaken film nearly as fast.  Then the rise of the internet was another major influence on the fast rise of digital photography.

Looking at today and I see smartphone tech being the new technology that photography is gravitating toward.  The main reason I see for this is lower cost, ease of use, the convenience of smaller size/weight, the benefits of photography gear having a wider range of uses, quality of images are improving fast and seamless connectivity to the internet to share content.  Then add to this an ever increasing  demographic that has grown up only knowing smartphone imaging tech.  These people will set the path of where photography tech moves to in the future, IMO.  The new flagship phones' imaging systems are becoming more and more sophisticated.  Adapting optical zoom lenses, multiple cameras, incredibly powerful image processing, insane video specs, high resolution sensors etc.  All this while doing a multitude of other functions.  There is even a smartphone out now with a 1" sensor.

I have also noticed the emergence of smartphone tech heavy cameras using the MFT system lately.  These cameras are becoming more refined and capable over time.  It reminds me of the early days of smartphones taking over the low end P&S segment.  It remains to be seen how the growth of these cameras will affect traditional ILCs.  Personally, I don't mind it when photography evolves from the influences of new technology.  History shows that every time this happens photography is better off for it occurring in the long run.