Cameras and Photography Explained

I think this dream was triggered by the 60th birthday photo I took of Galen that I posted in the Africa blog. I used an Olympus XA for that image.

What if we resurrected the Olympus XA design for the digital era, but with some really modern twists? 

For those that don't remember, the XA was a shirt pocket compact film camera with an excellent lens and some basic controls. You could also attach a dedicated flash to its one side. It was probably the simplest of the most sophisticated film compacts ever made. And that's the thing I miss: something that's always in my shirt pocket that I can pull out, not fiddle with settings, and take high quality level photos instantly. 

Yes, I know some of you are saying "but that's your iPhone 15 Pro Max, Thom." 

Nope. To use the phone I have to fiddle quite a bit, particularly since it doesn't always like to remember settings between sessions. Moreover, then there's the issue of which sensor and lens is used, whether I want that binned, downsized, or whatnot, and have all these controls overlaying the view. 

Here are the key points from my dream about a byThom XAD (the D is for digital):

• Same size body as original XA, same slide open to reveal lens and viewfinder as it turns on, close slide and it turns off.  
• 24mp APS-C image sensor and some SoC processor, perhaps a SnapDragon.
• 16mm, 23mm, or 33mm f/2 lens. Maybe three models with different lenses.
• Autofocus via PD on sensor.
• Sensor IS if possible. (I could live with overscan sensor and electronic IS; e.g. 26mp sensor cropped to 24mp)
• Only five controls: aperture, shutter speed, shutter release, focus, and a user-defined button on front.
• Front selfie mirror (maybe small LCD).
• EVF on back, no Rear LCD.
• No cards, all internal storage (preferably 512GB).
• No video, only stills.
• USB-C connectivity only. 

This camera is about dirt-simple UX that can be taught in three minutes. Everything about this product is convenience with high image quality. Best possible image sensor, best possible lens, best possible data handling. 

Wait a second, you're saying, what about exposure? And other things? 

Okay, the XAD determines exposure using a (tunable via app) ETTR analysis. If the aperture and shutter speed you set won't render the final image properly, it uses a virtual Auto ISO schema to produce the JPEG but saves base ISO data for the DNG. Wait, what? Yes, the camera always takes a JPEG and a DNG image. Might have to get creative about how the DNG data is placed in low light, but we're going to rely on post processing to put the final image data where we want it. 

Meanwhile, focus is Human/Cat/Dog subject detect, with closest subject priority otherwise. How do you get AF-S and AF-C? There's an AF button on the back. Press it once and it does AF-S; hold it for more than a quarter second and it's performing AF-C while held. 

If the images are in the camera's storage, how do we get them out? You connect the camera via USB-C to your mobile device or computer. Our apps then do the rest (manually or automatically, as you prefer). 

You may have noticed that button and the "user" defined shutter speed mark. Those controls are "loaded" with what you want them to do via the app (automatically updated on connection). In other words, you can define a slower shutter speed (only one), and you can define a mode the camera goes into by pressing the button on the front (it lights to tell you its in that mode). Modes might be things like bracketing, focus shift, interval, and so on. We'll tackle which to do first by user survey. Oh, and you can create your own mode by combining the base modes ;~). Yeah, programming.

The EVF is simple but tells you everything you need to know. For instance, it shows aperture and shutter speed, and whether focus has been achieved and where. The button that controls mode is shown to be on or off in the EVF. Also, since I know you're worried about that auto exposure system, there's a warning that the JPEG (and DNG in post) needs to be lifted more than three stops (or a different warning level if you made one in the app). If you see that warning, change your aperture or shutter speed if you're concerned about noise. 

Oh dear, there are other things that need to be done, too, right? How about single frame versus continuous release? Same as the AF button: press the shutter release once and it you get a single frame. Hold it for more than a half second and you get a continuous burst (the camera continues recording starting on the initial press, just in case ;~). 

That's right, I'm not adding menus and controls willy nilly. It's not that kind of camera. It's Quality with Convenience. If you want some "menu like" things, check out what the app can do. It's where any added camera features would appear. 

Given the simplicity, this shouldn't be an expensive camera. Call it US$1000, and you can have it in any color you'd like as long as that's black.

We recently had a rumor site state that all F-mount products are out of production at Nikon. No source that could be affirmed was given for that claim. 

"Production" has a meaning in the US. Dating back to some of the earlier more consumer protection laws (e.g. 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act), there's been an ongoing dance between regulators and businesses. At present, the primary law where "production" has relevance is California's. Because California is in essence the fifth largest economy in the world, companies would have to make a decision to produce two different outcomes in the US: one for California, one for the other 49 states. 

This happened for awhile, for instance, with the auto makers, where California's early emissions regulations produced one form of internal combustion engine for California, and different ones for the rest of the nation. Until, of course, other states started to have the same issues that California did with smog, and opted to endorse the California regulations themselves.

The operative California law that comes into play for cameras has been undergoing some change with the recent Right to Repair initiatives that have passed, but the basic tenant is that for any product over US$100, an electronics maker must provide repair parts for a period of seven years after the product's last manufacturing date. What we don't have is a law or regulation that requires companies to disclose when that date actually occurs, which makes it difficult to enforce the law.

Nikon is never going to announce that they've stopped producing a product, therefore. However, over the years of observing them, I've noticed a few patterns. An open database that was maintained by US Customs for awhile (now closed), allowed me to substantiate some of my observations until a few years ago. 

Here's what I'd say about "ceasing production":

First, that doesn't appear to work the way I've seen it hinted at or reported elsewhere: Nikon doesn't appear to build a "final inventory" and then sell from that until they have no more, then claim the product is discontinued. Back in the earlier days of DSLRs when volume growth was ratcheting quite rapidly, Nikon did make large "batches" of a particular camera or lens. But pretty much since they had to reconfigure all their manufacturing after the quake and tsunami in Japan plus the flood in Thailand, they've moved to a different strategy. Low demand products get moved off the main assembly lines and into something that is more "hand assembled" in low volume as needed. That appears to be absolutely true for cameras at the Thailand plant, and has been since Nikon started the shift away from DSLRs with the D500. I don't believe the last D500's were made in quantity on the main line, but rather in a low-volume queue as needed. Exactly when the last D500 was made is unclear, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2019 or 2020. 

You have to also remember that NikonUSA attempts to get all the units coming into their warehouse sold to individual dealers, too. If there's just enough demand from dealers for a camera and Nikon has the parts, producing it occasionally in response to direct demand in low volume is the most efficient and profitable way to do that. 

One visible clue that no new units are being produced is price. I've noticed that Nikon discounts many (if not most) products right into end-of-life, but the minute the product returns to full price and you're seeing some dealers list "backordered" as the status, it's highly likely that the product is no longer produced. Or, at least, that Nikon stopped production for the time being. Sometimes it seems that a last production run has been made—the Coolpix P1000 for instance—but then months later suddenly a small batch shows up again, only to repeat the process. As far as I can tell, these periodic deliveries are coming from the low-volume section on a "need to make" basis. 

Why does the price go back up to full retail? Because some large volume purchasers—think NASA, government, agencies, etc.—standardize on a product for as long as they can—think training and support—and don't want the newest upgrade when they need to replace a unit for some reason. Dealers, particular a big one such as B&H, also use price to discourage the casual buyer from eating up the last of the product that's in their inventories.

The other aspect of end-of-life has to do with Gray Market. You can actually see what's happening with pricing in B&H's current Nikon DSLR offerings:

• Still discounted product: D7500, D780, D850
• Gray market product: D500, D610, D750, D810
• Full price product: D6
• No longer available: D3400, D5600

From this I'd say the D3400, D5600, D500, D610, D750, and D810 are no longer manufactured, and any gray market version that's still available new is coming from the SE Asia arbitragers. The D6 is probably on its last legs and kept at full price to encourage most people to go to the Z9 instead while keeping it available for government and agencies. Given the continued discounting, the D7500, D780, and D850 are likely still being manufactured. 

I don't believe there are piles of finished D7500, D780, and D850 models sitting around Nikon corporate. There are likely piles of parts for those cameras that are sitting in inventory somewhere, otherwise those cameras would no longer be discounted. And more specifically, there are two parts that you just can't order up some new ones whenever needed: EXPEED6 and the image sensors. The D780, specifically, uses the same parts as the Z6 II, so is probably the camera least in danger of leaving production at the moment. 

While I've used Nikon in my discussion so far, it's interesting to note that Sony is clearly using an older Nikon DSLR tactic: you can buy brand new A7 Mark II, Mark III, and Mark IV models, for instance, which seems to suggest that Sony Imaging has parts on hand to continue making three generations of cameras. How long that stays true is a different story, but it seems to me that Sony is about where Nikon was in 2012 when peak camera was reached. Given how many models Sony now makes, and given how many generations they are keeping in the market, I'd say that Sony is going to have to make some tough decisions soon, otherwise they are giving up profit margin for what benefit? Clearly Canon has stopped the Sony overall market share gain (and at a lower level than Nikon achieved). 

Lenses are a trickier story, and I don't have any insight as to how the shift in production has gone there for Nikon, as I have no sources left in the plants where they are made. Whereas most DSLR lens production was performed at three different plants in Japan, the majority of the Z-mount production is now done in China and Thailand, with only a small number of lenses made at the remaining factory in Tochigi Japan. 

Overall, do I believe Nikon has stopped all F-mount production as the rumor said? No. 

Of course, F-mount production is clearly way down now. As far as I can tell it's been moved off the main production floor in Thailand to the low-volume area. Also clearly, the F-mount DX lens production does seem to have mostly ceased. Nikon Japan, for instance, is down to listing only four such lenses in their current lineup. 

Which brings me to a final point: for Nikon specifically, the Japanese market is the canary in the coal mine. If a product gets discontinued there, it is either out of production or has been shifted to low-volume manufacturing and sent only to markets that still have lingering sales. The reasons why the US market often is the last to see things like F-mount discontinuations are: (1) it's a large market with a lot of dealers that's also not split into sub-markets (as is Europe); (2) many of Nikon's costs are delineated by Thai/US currency shifts, not Japan/US ones, which have historically had more dramatic shifts; and (3) the US market was slower to shift to mirrorless than Japan itself was. 

There's little doubt that the F-mount is on its final legs. As I noted last year, the upcoming European regulations that come into effect at the end of 2024 are going to play a part in that, too. But has production stopped? I don't see the signs that it has, at least for a handful of remaining products. Nikon themselves have refuted the rumor both publicly and privately, though their language, as usual with Nikon, is a bit on the non-specific side other than to say that production is ongoing. 

Which gets us back to that California law: by not being specific about when production actually ends for a product, consumers can't hold Nikon's feet to the fire about when repairs and support ends. For example, does the D500 repair and support end in 2025, 2026, or 2027? I don't know. I just know that it will. 

This is the way the F-mount ends. This is the way the F-mount ends. This is the way the F-mount ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

CP+ is the largest consumer camera show in Japan, held early each year in Yokohama.

This week we officially start the CP+ launch window. This is an elaborate and exciting dance whereby each of the Japanese companies attempt to not step on each others' toes with same day launches, but also attempt to make the most impressive introduction that holds up no matter what the others do. The closer to the show opening you can your splash, the better. 

I've never quite figured out how the date jockeying gets done. It has to be similar to what happens with Hollywood studios trying to launch blockbuster films. However, in the case of Hollywood, all the studios jockeying for position know what films are coming. I don't know how the Japanese camera companies know exactly what the others are planning, so how can they assess who should get the "best intro dates"? Do they draw for the short chopstick? 

To some degree, the CP+ launches have already started. The Korean and Chinese lens makers have already started their new product launches—which is slowing my ability to get everything realigned in the sansmirror lens database—and I'm sure more are imminent. I've got a list now that's about a dozen lenses deep that all should be launched in the next month.

Because no one really introduced anything significant at CES in early January, I'm actually expecting every company to make an introduction of some sort for CP+. The timing and home court advantage is just too good to ignore. 

I was originally going to quote a Japanese source to identify what some of those upcoming products likely are, but I'm not really interested in being part of the specific pre-hype hype. The real purpose of this article is different than identifying individual products and pumping the rumor mill. The purpose of this article is to alert you to the fact that the next month will be one of three significant launch windows this year. If you're trying to make purchase decisions, you should know that here in 2024 we're back on a more predictable path with announcements again, something that we haven't had since the pandemic began. 

Those three traditional windows are CES/CP+, the usual fiscal Q1 spring launches (typically April/May/NAB), and the early fall period. Two of the companies I follow appear to be gearing up for significant introductions in each of those time frames. However, because of the Paris Olympics, Canon, Nikon, and Sony are going to be organizational tied up with the games from June through August, so their spring launches may be a little earlier this year. 

I'm not sure if my Japanese source was accurate or not as to the individual models he told me about, but he was predicting that all six of the major camera players will announce something reasonably significant in the next month, and I believe him: this year should see all the Japanese makers being active at CP+. 

It's too bad that we don't have variable pricing in photography gear. That would end a lot of gear debates really, really quickly.

What do I mean? Well, consider the following options for an image sensor:

1. 11-stop dynamic range (SNR 20:1 to saturation): US$2000
2. 11.5-stop dynamic range: US$3000
3. 12-stop dynamic range: US$4000

Which would you buy? 

Or maybe a lens (all other attributes the same):

1. 80 LPPM (line pairs per millimeter): US$1000
2. 100 LPPM: US$2000
3. 120 LPPM: US$4000

Most of you would be buying #1 in each case. Particularly once you recognized that your field discipline and post processing aren't able to show the differences that #2 or #3 might allow. 

True, a few would buy #3 in each case because "they just have to have the best." That massages their ego and deflates their wallet, but generally those folk have huge egos that need constant feeding and either don't mind declaring bankruptcy every few years or have way more money than they need. Unfortunately, there probably aren't enough of those folk around for the camera companies to make the #3 options universally, and because demand would be so low, the prices might be even higher.

I'm reminded of this because I just had another person take me to task about not getting completely excited about the Sony A9 Mark III's 120 fps capability. I'm perfectly happy with my Nikons' 20 fps and more limiting 30/60 fps options. Would I really pay a huge amount of money to switch systems get get 120 fps? No. If I were already fully vested in Sony gear might I add an A9 Mark III? Maybe. As I've previously noted, the primary benefit I'd see with the global shutter has to do with LED displays at field level, not frame rate. 

The marketing departments of the camera companies long ago lost the thread on all this. Japanese continuous iteration engineering will always extract a little more with each generation of product. They've been doing that most of my life now in tech, and I don't see them stopping. However, the first few generation gains are the most dramatic, and once we're in the tenth or later iteration, the gains are so minimal that the marketing teams can't even see them, let alone describe them. 

That problem in marketing has existed for some time now. Back when the iPhone first appeared and started getting "camera attention," Fujifilm tried showing how their compact cameras were better at noise, pixels, and other parameters in their ads. Unfortunately, they forgot the "and just as convenient" bit ;~). At least Fujifilm's marketing team made a valiant attempt.

Much of the gear discussion and debate I see these days is trying to argue that small differences are worth paying big money for. This argument has, unfortunately, become permanent in forums and emails. And it's driving a lot of camera marketing as if that is the most meaningful thing about a new camera.

Large, meaningful technical breakthroughs happen rarely, and tend to be dramatic enough to easily demonstrate. That's not where the market is today. This is making the camera makers' problem of re-growing the market a risky game. If they throw too much hyperbole and exaggeration into their marketing, that might sell a camera today to the unsuspecting, but the larger crowd is getting too wise for that, and sales can actually go down if you over-market a product's abilities. The camera everyone has today is going to take a perfectly fine photo when used well, after all. 

As I've pointed out before, the High Fidelity market went through this same sequence after hitting its peak. Eventually, convenience won out over small, contested-about improvements. As the high-end market dwindled, the few customers left also made the prices go up.

So, be careful of what you wish for. Another small gain may come at a huge price (literally). 

Personally, I'm for fixing the UX and the integration of cameras with 21st century communications. Those things would be far more useful to me and others, and if done right, I'd argue that they'd grow the market.

It’s time to play a game. A game that might help you become a better photographer.

I’ll even give you a choice of which team to play for: home or auto. 

If you want to play the short version of the game—warning, it’s not all that short ;~)—find a television ad for a home improvement show or for an automobile. Break down all the clips within the ad: what lens was used for each and where was it positioned? The first tells you something about how the videographers are composing, the latter tells you about how they are using perspective—position of camera relative to subject—in their framing.

Wait, how do you figure out what lens and perspective was used? 

Simple: I picked the categories because you have probably have at least one of each (i.e. home and auto). If you picked auto and we have car interior and exterior images used in the ad you picked, put a versatile zoom on your camera and go out to the driveway and try to figure out what they were using and where it was positioned. Likewise, if you picked home, do the same task around your home. Warning, you’ll probably need willing subjects to pose, because a lot of what is happening also involves the position of the subject in/around the home/auto, and that subject is usually human (but keep reading ;~). 

If you can guess the lens/perspective reliably and quickly confirm it, congratulations, you’re ready for a job in the photo (or video) industry. If you are bad at your first guesses and it takes you quite a while to work everything out, congratulations, you just got a valuable lesson: perspective informs composition.

No cheating. Your re-creations have to have the same subject/environment relationships as the ad you were trying to decipher.

Oh, you wanted to play the longer version?

Simple, instead of a short ad or two, pick a half hour or hour television show. For homes, you have plenty of choices over on the HGTV network. For autos, you have your pick of Motor Trend shows, or for advanced work, early BBC Top Gear programs. 

The difference between the short version and long version of this task is that with a 30-second ad, you probably only have 10-15 images you need to figure out, and they’ll tend to all be somewhat different (at least in perspective). With a 30-minute program, you’ll start to figure out that they do the same thing a lot, which is one reason why those programs start to feel formulaic and boring visually. 

For those of you trying to figure all the above out and where you’d find a likely target, check out this Toyota ad. You might not have any cows or sheep available, by try to figure out those same lenses, angles, and perspectives using your dog, you might be surprised. Bonus credit: how many of those clips could you have taken with your tripod fully extended? ;~)

Yes, I’m going to challenge you this year. I hope you’re up for it.

This year I've decided to make a few predictions about what will happen in the photography market in 2024. However, these are not predictions about specific cameras or lenses, but rather some more general observations turned into a "maybe this will happen" sort of thought. 

I've always used predictions not so much as a guide to future products, but rather a way of provoking dialog about that future. This is the time of year most do reflection on what has happened and what we want to happen, so it's also the time to have that dialog. Since I'm being provocative, I'll use some language that's designed to illicit response ;~)

In no particular order:

1. We'll see one or more photography software companies struggling, perhaps failing. While the constant move to subscription-based software (SaaS, or software as a service) is intensifying, it's indicative of something else, too: software developers are not seeing the money they need to continue with the resources they're currently paying. Subscriptions are seen as "reliable cash flow." The problem with subscriptions is that if you aren't constantly delivering new and useful performance and features, the customer doesn't see the value proposition any more and cancels. There are only two directions that revenue from subscriptions go: up, or down. They go up if you deliver a constant stream of better and higher quality product, they go down if you don't. NCAC (new customer acquisition cost) is a killer if you have to spend more for it and constantly rely upon gaining new users, and you can see just how much some of the photography software companies are struggling with this by the near constant offers you see (mostly on rumor sites). Besides the discount those offers have in them, there's also a commission to the site that triggered the subscription, and that percentage is pretty significant. I've seen regular offers in the 10-15% commission range, and some that are higher. For the time being, the customer acquisition costs apparently are still absorbable by the various developers, but they look awful high to me (~50% of list). Like all costs to a business, over time you want to see customer acquisition get cheaper, not more expensive. Moreover, since you're now in the subscription business, you don't want people cancelling their subscription before you've paid back the discount and acquisition costs you made in getting that customer. I'm hearing from more software companies (not just photography ones) that subscriptions haven't turned the corner for them in terms of cash flow. Thing is, the photography software business is not huge in terms of customer base any more. Plus growth in people buying cameras is very modest, so new customers aren't rapidly growing on trees. I would not be surprised, therefore to see consolidation or failure in the photography software community in 2024.
   
   
2. We have too many Chinese lens manufacturers chasing the same customer with bargain basement pricing, so we'll see consolidation or failure in that group, or they will have to find ways to target higher-end, and unique lenses. How many inexpensive 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm prime lenses do you need? You'll notice the trend line here: in 2023 we started seeing more of these Chinese makers shift from manual focus to autofocus lenses, and that will increase again in 2024. We now have five or six that are well into that transition, but they're still all targeting basic prime lenses. Everyone buys a fast prime lens or two because they think they need it, then puts that optic on the shelf and uses their zoom ;~). Again, the number of new-to-cameras customers is not growing very fast at the moment, so once you have six companies having sold all those folks a <US$300 lens, what's next? Specialty lens companies such as Laowa, which has tended to concentrate on macro and very wide angle, are probably not in any trouble at the moment. The camera makers themselves aren’t creating many such lenses, so Laowa is mostly competition free. But the ones trying to horn into the basic prime set are going to see diminishing returns. Moreover, they’re mostly buying glass from the same two sources (one Chinese, the other Hoya). This makes it more difficult to distinguish their 85mm f/1.8 prime effort from someone else’s, for example. Moreover, many of these Chinese lens makers are using rumor sites and discounts to acquire customers, so we have the same customer acquisition cost problem I mentioned with software. One thing I noticed in redoing the zsystemuser.com lens database at the end of the year is that a lot of the Chinese lenses have gone up in price from when they were announced, which suggests to me that between real costs, customer acquisition costs, and currency exchange rates, they were cutting it close to the margin in the first place. I’ll also point out that I’ve seen some quality decline issues from at least two companies I’ve sampled lenses from. It’ll be interesting to see how the plethora of lens makers manages the stresses that they have to be facing in 2024.
   
   
3. ILC market shares are going to shift more in 2024. We’ve already seen this a bit in 2023 with Nikon’s two-pronged Z8/Zf launches, which helped produce a 1% overall unit gain, despite those being higher-cost products. Canon, OM Digital Solutions, and Sony will lose market share, while Nikon and Panasonic will gain market share. I’m not sure about Fujifilm, but they’ve been on a slow gain path. Some of this is like what happens with football teams. Confidence boosts results, and results boost confidence. Lack of confidence reduces results, and reduced results lower confidence. Right now Nikon is quite confident that their strategy is working. I see them doubling down in 2024 (I’m expecting three solid new camera launches). Sony, on the other hand, launched the A9 Mark III early, which shows lack of confidence that it would hold up with the February onslaught of new cameras from others. Yes, the technology is “nifty,” but is it practical? I don’t know yet, I’m not on Sony’s list of people to provide early samples of the camera to. And I’ve already forgotten the A6700, it was so luke warm. Canon’s still got a R5 Mark II and R1 to launch, but the bulk of their sales are in R6 and below models, and that part of the lineup feels price sensitive and just holding its own to me. One thing that tells me a lot about camera units in the future is lens units. Looking at the lens data I have available, there was a bit of a shift from Sony E to Canon RF and Nikon Z in the past year. Of course, that’s predictable, because Sony has been selling E-mount for longer and lens purchases from established Sony customers have mostly been made now, with only a bit of supplementing going on. Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon are now clearly firmly committed to mirrorless, so their mounts are getting extra sales from the DSLR-to-mirrorless conversions and their newly committed mirrorless users. That said, the Sony lens retail sales numbers I can see look a little softer than I’d expect, and the Canon/Nikon numbers look a bit stronger than I’d expect. No doubt we have a three-horse race. Sony took second place in the back stretch, but Nikon is now coming on in the turn. 
   
   
4. Compact cameras ought to return, but only partially will. A Fujifilm X100 update seems likely in February. The question is whether or not it will be mild (same image sensor and lens) or not (new image sensor, change in lens). Right now, the X100v is still unobtainium, so it probably doesn’t matter a lot whether we get a mild or hot upgrade. However, the right upgrade choices could make this camera a scorcher (hotter than hot). I sense we’ll also see Ricoh find some minor thing to change on the GR in 2024 in order to call it “new.” So we’ll get a lot of press about new compacts, but just how new they will be is in question. Thing is, demand for “a good compact” is higher than it’s been in a while. Nikon users are still lamenting the demise of the DL. What do we put in our pockets? Oh right, a competitor’s product. Meanwhile, Canon’s PowerShot line is now the Canon NoStock line, so it’s unclear what’s happening there. Sure, the vlogging PowerShot V10 is available, but that’s not what most of us would call a compact camera. Even Sony seems to be ignoring its established RX line, other than a vlogging-specific model. There’s absolutely demand for large sensor, high competancy compact cameras, particularly shirt/jacket pocket sized (easy to always carry). I’m hoping that someone other than Fujifilm and Ricoh has figured that out, but my prediction is that 2024 isn’t the year that will happen.
   
   
5. We'll lose more Web sites. It’s pretty obvious: two forces are at work here. On the one hand, many of those who’ve been covering photography on the Web are aging out (as am I). On the other hand, generating revenue from Web content continues to be a challenge. It takes very high quality, consistent quality, and constant production of content to be able to make the argument to readers and/or viewers that they should be paying something for it. Moreover, a lot of that “payment” is virtual, via advertising or affiliate links. Note what I said about photography software and Chinese lenses, above: they’re paying premiums to acquire customers from content sites. If the content site starts degrading, they’ll get fewer customers, fail, and everyone will suddenly have less income from those sources (disclosure: this site has no such income from direct software or lens sales).  But getting back to the first problem, I’ve noticed more and more of my aging Web colleagues asking for donations or trying new revenue-generation platforms (e.g. Medium, Patreon, etc.) in attempts to bring in the income they need to keep their sites going. My contention in media has always been—dating all the way back to the 1970’s—is that revenue follows content. Meaning that if revenue is declining, it’s probably because you’re not serving the right content. You fix revenue issues with better and more content, and finding the readers and viewers for that (which implies the content site's customer acquisition cost). As you get older, it gets more difficult to feed the black hole for content that the Internet has become, and you’re less willing to put in the effort to find new readers and viewers. What I keep seeing is friends “give up” on that and just shutter sites. Even at the high end this has been a problem. We almost lost dpreview this past year, and even though it now has a new owner that is better aligned, you can see that revenue generation is still an issue there: more ad positions have opened up, bigger ads are shown—particularly annoying on a limited laptop or mobile screen—while the content generation has gone down a notch. Circulation and ad sales is both an art and a science, but again, it’s the content that brings the readers and viewers that will see those ads. At the moment I don’t see any of the top sites that are showing absolute danger signs, but I do see a fair number of ramp ups trying to monetize the current level of content, which is usually a leading indicator of eventual failure. (If you could really ramp up revenue from ads and links on current content, that’s an indictment of your previous sales efforts ;~). 

This is an election year and at the moment the inflation-runaway actually ran away and we’re back close to where we expect to be. Most signs indicate we’ll have a relatively healthy economy in 2024, which will mitigate much of the above. At the moment, I’m not expecting any rapid change to the above. What I’ve defined is longer-term predictions that will take some time to play out in the current environment.

For the most part, my “predictions” are really just pointing out trendlines I’m watching. The old adage that a high tide floats all boats is operative in 2024. The economy seems to be high tide, particularly as far as disposable income for hobby purchases like cameras, lenses, and and software. So if you do start seeing the failures and shifts I outline above, that means the company/product/site was even more on the ropes than we were able to see from the outside. I’m betting we have a few of those boats that have real leaks and won’t survive.