Hacker News Reader

Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

The audience of content creators like this is the ever-dwindling number of people buying expensive dedicated photographic gear. The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough.

View on HN

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the market. $300 point and shoots are indeed dead, but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever, especially since the pandemic, during which every white collar worker seems to have decided to get a hobby of some kind.

Analog film photography, famously, had a huge resurgence the last 5 or so years, and is quite popular.

>but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever,

I don't think you can really mean 'ever' here. Compared to the 1990s? The prosumer market might finally be starting to bottom out, but a lot depends on how much further smartphones improve.

Analog photography is popular, but it is not making large amounts of money for camera manufacturers, as most people are using second hand gear.

To not be too pedantic about "ever", the current prosumer camera market is not shrinking, is growing, and the main manufacturers are increasing the pace of production, as models like the Fujifilm X100v have become highly sought after, but new, cameras that Fuji can't make enough of. Sales of the main full frame shooters Sony, Canon, Nikon, etc. are selling well, and we're getting active R&D on them. And the x100v is a "point and shoot", of course, but far more expensive (the real price for one is >$2k), far better image quality, and far better build quality.

Past the ~2000s these weren't really ever the cameras that laypeople bought anyway. Back when they were DLSRs, the cost and size were always prohibitive once cheap point and shoots were around. Cheap point and shoots are dead (but again, cameras like the x100v or ricoh gr are selling so well they can't make enough of them), but the interchangeable lens camera market is by no means in decline relative to the near past.

There is a certain segment of the market which is booming more than ever, simply because this segment didn't quite exist before. It's partially fueled by a community of social media influencers.

While the camera sales are dwindling down, the really dying categories are old compact cameras, which already have similar image quality to phones.

APS-C and Full Frame systems cater to specific audiences, and they go strong. Sony has VLogging specific APS-C systems for example, and they are way better than phones.

Also, you don't have to be a "Photo Gear Head(TM)" to buy a nice kit for yourself. A couple of good primes is more than enough for most photography.

While I take a lot of photos with my phone, you can't beat a proper camera with a good sensor and good optics.

Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days ago and I’ve not seen a better market for photography since the 1980s. Camera phones are simply the new point and shoot, taking their place at the bottom end or convenience end of the market, and many of those people enjoying using those cameras have a great route into photography.

It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu...

I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the same total cost as an iPhone 15 Pro. Many people are still willing to pay a premium for a good camera. It’s just that for most people, high end smartphone cameras are now the best all round cameras.

It’s consistently been the case in the history of photography that Photographers with a capital P are the last people to transition to new, more compact and more convenient tools. People used to be very snobbish about roll film vs sheet film, for example.

I see the point, but a) Canon make much more than cameras or photo-related, unlike say Nikon, and a bigger market means more players overall. There’s as many manufacturers making pro-level kit now as I recall from the 1980s, and somebody’s buying the stuff to drive the investment - I think.

I also hear you on the point about transitioning to newer tools, but would suggest that photography has always required significant personal investment in money and time, and one must sweat the assets as they say, to make them pay off. Some technologies seem more convenient, like digital, but can end up by funnelling all the effort onto fewer people, instead of throwing the film over the fence to other professionals who could do a much better and faster job of developing and printing.

Sometimes of course, the sweat and toil is all part of the product - as no doubt my mate who built his own camera made from the timber of the woods near his home would tell you - but in the modern world, most people just want to see the image as soon as they can…

> The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough.

And Chelsea said in that video that for around town her phone makes more than adequate shots, and it's an easy way for to simply capture a memory.

But given that they often frame pictures of their trips to help remember them, they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone.

>they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone.

Meanwhile, literally hundreds of millions of other people are printing out and framing photos taken on their smartphones.

I thought printing had also gone out of style, as illustrated by Costco shutting down its minilabs even though they’ve been able to print digital photos since at least 2002 (the reason why I became a member in the first place).

Well, yes, I imagine it's true that people don't print photos as often as they used to, for obvious reasons. My point is that most people seem to find smartphone photos perfectly adequate for printing in the scenarios where they do still want to print photos.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com