Retro cameras and DSLRs… is the camera industry going backwards?

(Image credit: Ricoh • Nikon)

November has been a wild month for new cameras. What's really wild, though, is that arguably the two most noteworthy ones are throwback cameras – and it makes me wonder if going forwards actually means going backwards.

This month saw the introduction of a frankly silly number of new cameras: the Canon EOS R6 Mark II, Sony A7R V, Fujifilm X-T5 and OM System OM-5 – not to mention the GoPro Hero11 Black Mini and DJI Mavic 3 Classic.

All mirrorless, all modern, all cutting edge… all well and good.

Then along came two highly surprising – and arguably far more interesting –camera announcements: the Pentax KF and Nikon Z fc Black Edition. The former is a DSLR, which is inescapably yesterday's technology, and the latter is a retro-styled camera, which is inescapably modeled on yesterday's technology.

So on the one hand, we've got a slew of really modern cameras that are really advanced, but by proxy also really quite predictable. There is, after all, only so much excitement in more megapixels, more AF points, more frames per second and so on.

And then we've got a couple of bodies so brazenly backwards-gazing that their throwback-ness becomes more exciting than the latest tech of the other cameras.

Now, I'm obviously not saying that 24MP DSLRs and mirrorless cameras designed to look like film SLRs are the future of photography. If they were, Canon and Nikon would still be cranking out new DSLRs and Olympus wouldn't have had to sell off its imaging division.

I do, however, think that we've become numb to the arms race that the modern camera industry has become. So numb, in fact, that most people I've spoken to are far more intrigued by the quirky color options of the Pentax KF than the fact that the R6 Mark II shoots 10fps faster than the original R6.

I guess what I'm saying is, we need something more from new cameras than just more bullet points with more specs. We need a little more heart, a little more soul, a little more character. It really wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Sony released a garish blue camera, or Canon put out a retro-styled body once in a while.

A Canon EOS RP inside a throwback body inspired by the Canon AE-1? Now that would get my motor running!

James has 22 years experience as a journalist, serving as editor of Digital Camera World for 6 of them. He started working in the photography industry in 2014, product testing and shooting ad campaigns for Olympus, as well as clients like Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L'Oréal. An Olympus / OM System, Canon and Hasselblad shooter, he has a wealth of knowledge on cameras of all makes – and he loves instant cameras, too.

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