When it comes to discovering and utilizing the benefits of new technology, has the stills photography market currently stalled? Recent industry data from Japan-based expert CIPA confirms, in terms of overall shipments, it’s certainly slowed.
September is often the month in which a handful of new cameras get announced – to go on sale during the all-important lead-up to Christmas – but until now we’ve witnessed the fewest new models released in a year for, oh, at least three decades (though there are plentiful rumors).
Rather than panic, however, I’ve decided to focus on the positive.
Covering my ears to news of a paucity of increasingly expensive memory components, reduced demand and changing consumer habits, I believe we should, to re-hash the famous quote from UK PM Harold Macmillan, be grateful we’ve never had it so good.
That may sound like a bonkers assumption when even the once all-conquering mirrorless camera market has matured, and sales have dipped for the first time. We’re not seeing the great strides in adoption we used to, because photographers wanting to switch from DSLR to a smaller format have already done so. Mirrorless cameras have been around for almost two decades, after all.
On top of this, we have the oft-reported news of a younger ‘Gen Z’ crowd wanting retro-styled fixed-lens compacts that give acceptable results, rather than a traditional interchangeable lens camera that gives great ones.
What else? Ah, yes, the high cost of the most fully featured full-frame sensor camera is also off-putting to all but the most dedicated photographer. And many feel that the race to offer the most megapixels possible to prompt a purchase is over too.
Like a police officer sizing up a suburban speed limit, I too have concurred that ‘twenty (megapixels) is plenty.’
But with AI-enhanced subject recognition and autofocus, in-camera data to reassure us that captured images are authentic rather than AI slop, plus stacked sensors eliminating rolling shutter, all being things we have quickly come to take for granted, I reckon the time’s come to finally pose the question: ‘what more do we want/ need?’
If a slowdown in manufacturers’ release schedules gives us time to not only ponder but also answer that question, then it’s no bad thing.
And rather than any longer rushing to look for, or embrace, the latest supposed must-have, I’m just grateful that the time we’re living through now is, via successive iterations of tech, indeed the best photographers have ever had.
