Ten years ago, the Canon 5D Mark III DSLR was released this month; A month earlier, the Nikon D800 arrived. Their arrival heralded the collapse of the camera industry. Are they, in some small way, partly to blame?
The Canon EOS 5D III features a 22.3-megapixel CMOS sensor and boasts six frames per second shooting and 63 metering zones. Considered the bee’s knee at the time, it became one of the few vintage digital cameras. Although it is a bit limited in shutter speed by today’s standards, there are still photographers, especially wedding and portrait photographers, that use it. Why? Because it’s still good enough to do a good job.
It has its fault. The light from the LCD panel will affect exposure in dark environments, but at least its mirror doesn’t have the habit of falling out, like its two predecessors. Nor is it an overheating issue like its mirrorless successor, the R5. The Mark III has an impressive 11.74 EV dynamic range. While it’s much more affordable than the steady-state cameras of its time, the 18-megapixel 1D X, with a launch price of $3,499, it’s still not a cheap camera.
Just beat Canon out of the gate, Nikon D800 has also been released. That boasts a 36.6-megapixel sensor and has a dynamic range of 14.4 EV. It should have been the clear winner; at $2,999, that’s $500 less than Canon, and DxOMark also rates its performance higher than the 5D III. Its focusing isn’t as fast as later models, but it’s also a super camera well enough to satisfy the needs of professional photographers.
Despite their flaws, both cameras are considered the pinnacle of achievement in the field of more affordable professional full-frame DSLRs. However, at the time of launch, sales of interchangeable-lens (ILC) cameras began to plummet. This is attributed to the provision of point-and-shoot cameras in smartphones. That factor has impacted the compact market. But is there more to it than that when it comes to ILCs? Was the release of those two cameras a contributing factor to the market decline? The reason I ask those rhetorical questions is because of what I said earlier: they are good enough.
Good enough: Why photographers stop buying new cameras
In 2012, 100 million digital cameras were produced, down from a peak of 121.77 million units two years earlier. The following year, sales were at the peak of half. By far the biggest loss was from fixed-lens compacts, which accounted for most of camera sales at the time. Smartphones stole that part of the market.
Meanwhile, ILC sales grew to around 17 million in 2012. Why aren’t smartphones having a negative impact on that part of the market? There is a big difference between taking pictures with an ILC and a phone. But by 2019, that number had only halved to 8.66 million. Perhaps smartphones are not to blame?
Experts, Enthusiasts and Beginners No More Upgrades Needed
The reason why Pros are upgraded less often
Skilled photographers know that there’s no need to upgrade when their cameras take great pictures. However, most of the available upgrades make much smaller changes than those that preceded it in the millennium. Historically, improvements between releases have been significant. By the age of twenty, the differences between models had narrowed.
Furthermore, photographers have become wise with the lie about the amazing pixel count. Most people no longer print images. Even if they did, they rarely printed as large as The S11R (11” x 17”) or A3, only requires about 8 megapixels to reproduce photo quality. A higher pixel count means nothing more than a larger file size. For most of us, all that is achieved is both slower processing and larger storage requirements.
Enthusiasts have also stopped upgrading
Then there are interested enthusiasts who have previously been tricked into updating their cameras but have found that it makes no difference to their photography. Even those who have upgraded from relatively poorly specified crop frame DSLRs to these 35mm models have not suddenly become great photographers.
Newcomer taking pictures
Before 2012, DSLR novices bought millions, expecting them to deliver perfect images. Inevitably, they feel frustrated because they do not know how to operate them to be able to get good photos on their smartphones. They buy into lies about pixel counts and buy new low-end cameras. As a result, there are millions of low-quality, outdated DSLRs that are abandoned in cupboards, drawers, and landfills with their mode dials still going into automatic mode.
The realization that new cameras don’t make better photographers must have hit hardest on those who expect fame and fortune to be bestowed upon them on a billboard. Talent comes from hard work. They are not willing to work hard for years to achieve success. Maybe I should be more generous and say that they don’t realize that long training and hard work is needed to become talented.
On the other end of the scale, it must also be disappointing for those who have the desire and want to do something big with their photography but discover that they are tiny fish in a great ocean. giant ocean. So their ambitions were snuffed out, and they didn’t want to upgrade either.
Add to this, people’s incomes are falling in real terms, and the wealth gap between the richest and the rest of us widens. Ordinary people who used to be able to afford a new camera can no longer afford to do so.
What lessons can be learned from the past?
Do things continue since 2012? The industry has bottomed out. Still, more people are taking pictures than playing soccer or fishing, and even more people are taking art more seriously than ever before. This is not with the desire to get rich from selling their work, but just to enjoy the act of being creative. But does that require a new camera? Are 5D Mark III and D800 still not good enough?
For photography to exist as a popular art form, it needs camera companies to exist. To put it bluntly, those companies need to find a way to make money. That means selling more devices.
All is not lost. As I reported in my previous postthe new one OM-System OM-1 recently launched, and it has been a huge success with a wide global reception. Why? First, it’s more affordable. It costs $1,500 less than the Canon 5D Mark III when it launched 10 years ago, more than in real terms. Furthermore, the diminutive OM-1 outperforms most other much larger cameras on the market in many areas of its functionality. Its Micro Four Thirds system also ticks all the ergonomic boxes; it doesn’t break like other systems. Most importantly, though, it’s a camera that packs a lot of new and useful innovative features not found in other cameras, namely computational photography functions.
Even the OM-1’s dynamic range at its original ISO 200 isn’t too far from full-frame Canon EOS R5 costs more than $1700. (Comparatively, the R5 is still a good value compared to the 5D Mark III. The latter’s initial sale price equates to $4284.68 for today’s money.) It should be noted. that the OM-1 has a slightly lower pixel count than the 5D Mark III from ten years ago; The OM system has stayed away from the pixel wars, as Olympus did before them.
Of course, there will always be a minority that wants a higher resolution. But, resolution is not everything. Matching more pixels on the sensor means they have to be smaller. Therefore, they have less capacity to store electrons. In turn, this results in lower dynamic range. Conversely, less, larger sites on the sensor will always produce better dynamic range. The new sensors have improved a lot in this respect and I believe we have reached the point where modern crop sensors are good enough.
There is another area where camera manufacturers should pay attention, and that is the environmental and ethical impact of their products. Furthermore, consumers are expecting the things they buy to be made from recycled materials, not produced in oppressed countries, and to be carbon-free. If you look at the huge success of Urth Filter (formerly Gobe), thanks to them helping to restore the rainforest. To date, they have funded the planting of more than five million trees. This is definitely an example that other photography businesses must follow. I am definitely swayed to buy quality products where the manufacturers go as far as they can to do good in the world, as opposed to paying cheap lip service for accepted values. widely accepted.
If manufacturers want to continue selling cameras, they will have to invest in research and development. They had to start producing affordable, eco-friendly cameras with new and useful features that photographers of all levels wanted.
