News/Views
The View After CP+
Okay, so what did we learn from CP+? Given that it was the first major photography trade show of the year and on home court, it's worth spending a bit of time to try to comprehend what is and isn't going on. This year's CP+ had about 50,000 on-site visitors, over 300,000 online visitors, and featured well over a hundred exhibitors.
Camera Slowdown
Introductions: 3 meaningful (OM-3, S1RII, V1), 2 not-so-much (bf, P1100)
The slowdown in significant camera introductions continues, and even when we do get a new camera, it's often immediately met with a "we apologize for not being to produce enough to meet demand." I keep getting told that this is a supply chain problem coupled with caution by Tokyo, but I'm getting a little skeptical of that explanation without any supporting detail. We've already got far too many politicians, executives, and just-generally-rich dudes running around claiming things without presenting a shred of evidence. I'm looking for the camera company that can stand up and say what's really happening.
Sigma is the closest thing we have to that. Their disclosure that they can only make nine (!) of their new bf cameras a day is the way things should work. That's probably about 2500 cameras a year when all is said and done. They simply have limited machines that can carve that aluminum block into a camera shell, and they aren't fast. I suppose they could add more machines, but Sigma's acknowledgment that they aren't pursuing that course at the moment tells us everything we need to know: the bf (and fp) cameras are a hobby business for them; not integral to their growth and profitability. On the other hand, Sigma isn't openly discussing what's happening on the lens side of their business, where it appears that their hands may be being tied by Canon and Nikon.
Fujifilm, Nikon, and Sony all have pending cameras to launch. The fact that they didn't announce them on home turf where they'd get a lot of attention tells me that whatever is slowing the product development cycles isn't done yet. In Fujifilm's case, they'll wait until the upcoming Fujikina (next month). In Nikon's case, I'm pretty sure their next announcement is a few days either side of their year-end financial results report in early June. Sony's next camera announcement seems to have slipped twice, so I'm not sure when it will hit.
Unfortunately, new cameras tend to be made of unobtainium even when announced. The Canon Powershot V1 carries that to several degrees: not available outside of Asia; not available immediately; and probably in short supply when it does ship.
Firmware Not Quite Here Yet
Nikon was once again demonstrating things in their booth that actual camera owners can't get. Everyone remembers the Z9 that meowed when it took images (installable shutter sounds). Now we have the Zf playing Pong via the autofocus system. More interesting was that the Zf's in the Nikon booth had firmware that understood the new Flexible Picture Controls and connected to Nikon Imaging Cloud. I'm sure we'll get that at some point, but for now it's missing in action, and what we did get was new Z6III and Z8 firmware that have video feature updates centered around the new power zoom lens. Neither firmware for those cameras has Flexible Picture Control support nor connects to Nikon Imaging Cloud.
To me it feels like Nikon is getting out of sync with itself. It's unable to bring all cameras up to speed with Nikon Imaging Cloud, Flexible Picture Controls, and power zoom features. The this-camera-has-it-but-this-one-doesn't problem is now out of hand. The Zf in the booth, for instance, had Cycle AF-area mode as a configuration choice (Z6III still doesn't have it and needs it more).
Of course, I'm happy that Nikon is out of sync with itself. If they suddenly dropped Z50II, Zf, Z6III, Z8, and Z9 firmware updates that rationalized and equalized the feature sets, I'd be spending a lot of time updating books.
Meanwhile, the rumors were that firmware updates for the Canon R1 and R5 Mark II would show up for CP+. They did not.
Lenses, Lenses, Lenses
Introductions: 10 mainstream, about two dozen others
I was happy to see Nikon, Sigma, and Sony all introduce two new lenses each in the days prior to the show. Each continues to round out their extensive lineups in their own unique way, extending each line into new options. We all love options, though we get confused by them ;~).
I was less happy to see over 20 additional primes hit the market, and so many of them manual focus. I'll give Laowa props for continuing to introduce more interesting, not-done-before lenses, but 7Artisans and Viltrox seem stuck on "we can't find a prime spec between 20 and 100mm we don't want to produce." I will say this, though: note that the L-mount is getting traction in some of those Chinese optic vendors. The only reason I can think that would be the case is that there's a Chinese L-mount camera coming (DJI already is an official L-mount supporter).
But the bigger disappointment at CP+ was the continued "announce but don't disclose" problem we now have coming out of Asia. You'll note on my sansmirror.com CP+ page that there's a lot of non-linked items. That's because "yes we announced it, here's our press release and you can see a prototype over in that case," but no actual specific information other than focal length and aperture is provided. Size, weight, filter size, optical design, price, and actual release date now seem to be optional for lens announcements. To me, that shows an insecurity from the lens companies; they believe they need announcements now so that they look more credible. Sorry, it's making you look less credible ;~).
Then we have Zeiss, which seems to have no idea what it's doing. The world doesn't need a 50mm f/1.4 ML and 85mm f/1.4 ML Otus manual focus lens, even at greatly reduced prices (from previous Otus lenses). Sonyrumors was exasperated when no one used their "buy now" links for the new lenses, which sort of proves my point. Why they left the market in 2019 and have now returned is 100% unclear (I'll have more to say about that soon). I'm sure Cosina's happy (they're the actual manufacturer), but is anyone else?
Positive Vibes
In general, the mood in Tokyo at the moment seems to be upbeat. Sales were up in 2024 and higher than the initial forecast (more on that below). Though economic clouds are building on the horizon—tariffs, recession, et.al.—the Japanese and Chinese companies seem positive about the future of photography.
Everyone was pointing to one or another gain they made in the past year, plus highlighting things they were extremely proud of. The expo was generally upbeat and busy.
CP+ and others do a lot of surveying of participants, so I thought I'd share a few snippets from all those surveys:
- 65.4% of those at the event and online say that they "take photos as a hobby." The professional and professional adjacent responses hit 15.7%.
- 45.4% of those at the event and online say that they "rarely take videos." If my memory serves me, this is down from the last time CP+ asked that question.
- The "most used camera" is now mirrorless (at 52.7%) followed by DSLR (at 23.5%). Smartphones are in third at 17.9%.
- 56.2% view photos "mainly on smartphone/tablet". Gee, I wonder how they get there? ;~)
Meanwhile, CIPA uses CP+ to publish their annual report and future outlook. Total camera shipments in 2024 went up 10%, with mirrorless up 16.1% and DSLRs down 14.4%. Here's the kicker: China shipments were up 24.5%, while Europe lagged at a 3.1% increase. Americas was in between at up 7.3%.
To me, the eyebrow raiser was that lenses were only up 7% overall, which means that the attachment rate—lenses sold per camera—went down. I have to wonder if the Chinese are eroding lens sales now, as Japan-based CIPA doesn't count non-member shipments.
So what is CIPA predicting for 2025? This:
- Overall camera shipments will be up 1.1%.
- Interchangeable lens camera shipments will be up 1%.
- Lens shipments will be up 2.9%.
Which probably makes you wonder what CIPA predicted for 2024 back at CP+ 2023:
- Overall camera shipments down 4% (actual: up 10%).
- Overall interchangeable lens camera shipments down 1.8% (actual: up 10.2%).
- Overall lens shipments down 0.7% (actual: up 7%).
So, last year the camera companies—who all contribute their views to the yearly CIPA forecast—were pessimistic and then that turned out to be wrong. That, by the way, is one of the reasons why there was a lot of out-of-stock happening in 2024, particularly early in the year: the CIPA estimates are based upon Japanese companies actual production forecasts. At the time of last year's CP+, everyone had scaled back their production estimates. Given that the companies are mostly pessimistic again this year, if demand continues as in 2024, we're going to have more shortages.
However, we're now in a different economic environment. The likelihood of a trade war and a recession have been raised dramatically, and neither of those would be good for camera and lens sales. Here in the US, most people don't realize that the government is the largest employer, and if you fire even 5% of the government staffing plus remove a similar number of illegal immigrants, that is a huge economic drag on the economy, large enough to be felt by everyone. Most macroeconomic models are now flashing red.
Curiously, big business CEOs seem to be quietly backing what's happening in the US, mostly because they believe that their regulatory constrictions will be loosened. However, the real problem is going to be consumer demand. With fewer consumers (even illegal migrants consume basic things) and fewer people working, demand will absolutely go down. The Fed just reversed their projection of GDP growth in the first quarter of 2025 to a decline, which is a clear sign that the demand curve may already be down.
So while the vibes were briefly positive in Yokohama last week, the reality is that camera makers have a lot to contend with this coming year, at least here in the US, and by extension, Europe (the two together are about half of the camera market). Their go-to response will be to micromanage where products go, which likely means China and the home market get more units, plus large potential markets such as India will look more inviting.
We'll see how it plays out. I will say that predicting anything for the coming year is a giant game of uncertainty. Let's hope that next year's CP+ will be another one of positivity, but that's not my current bet.
The Grinch Sent Me Email
Update: The Grinch and I have been emailing back and forth after I posted this email. Our cordial conversation would make a good article all by itself, as it speaks to something the camera companies really need to figure out if they want to grow the photography market.
------------------
"As the move to mirrorless requires new lenses , I feel extorted by Japan Camera Corp.
Add to this the huge price for a piece that mainly consists cheap plastics.
Except for the electronic silent shutter , mirrorless cameras don't offer any advantages.They are just as unpocketable as Dslrs.
Electronic displays on cameras feel bad compared to optical viewfinders.
No matter how much you trade journalists trump it up , we consumers wish the mirrorless to go bankrupt."
Message exactly as received via email; no editing.
------------------
Oh dear, someone had a bad day. I often don't know how (or whether I even should) respond to such emails.
I need to point out that I don't know exactly what camera he is thinking of that could possibly fulfill his antiquarian demands. It would have to (1) not require new lenses, (2) be made entirely of metal (heavy!), (3) have an optical viewfinder, and (4) fit in a pocket. Oh, and it probably also has to be inexpensive to avoid any "extortion."
Has any interchangeable lens camera ever met that product definition? The closest I can come to anything recent that might even begin to please this person might be a Fujifilm X100VI, only that camera has a fixed lens and is also unobtainium at the moment. Not to mention the fact that it's expensive for what it is.
Obviously, if enough people share this view of the camera market, the camera companies are in deep trouble. But the thing is, if this writer's demands were to be met by the camera companies, the companies would be in even bigger trouble, because basically once customers have bought an inexpensive-old-lens-metal-pocket beast, why would that group buy anything else?
Change is never without downsides. Change also won't continue happening if there aren't significant upsides for both producer and user. So you have to evaluate any major change (e.g. DSLR to mirrorless) or even minor change (e.g. Z6 to Z6II) in terms of how the downside and upside balance. Too much downside and not enough upside means that potential buyers sit things out. Lots of upside with little downside, and the camera maker will have a hit on their hands. What I find interesting is how many more people are fighting against all change now and believe that there is some nirvana that will happen in a completely static market.
Everything you see around you—roads, autos, computers, wireless communications, local stores, and way too much more to list here—came about because our predecessors all dreamed, planned, then got together and made then distributed new things. Things that were meaningfully better than what came before.
When I started sansmirror.com back in 2009 (!) I got a huge pushback from sated DSLR users who felt that they didn't need anything that mirrorless cameras provided. What's interesting today is that the primary response I get from someone who finally transitioned from DSLR to mirrorless is that they now clearly see the benefits. Such as autofocus anywhere in the frame, seeing not just the exposure but the additional rendering elements (white balance, profiles, etc.) as you compose, pre-release capture capabilities, and much more. The primary drawback? You had to buy into a new system, with an emphasis on the word "buy".
As a sports and wildlife photographer, I'd even argue that the other usually complained about attribute of mirrorless—that it has an electronic and not optical viewfinder—is actually another benefit. True, early mirrorless cameras had pretty terrible, distracting EVFs. Today, however, I find that I can compose in situations where an optical viewfinder would have me guessing, without any real other drawback (a DSLR wouldn't even focus in those low-light situations). For example, outside of the daylight hours in Africa: since I'm seeing what the camera is going to record rather than the completely dark optical view, I can actually frame. Heck, in some cases, I can't even see the subject clearly without the camera. Since so much of animal behavior happens in these edge-of-day situations, mirrorless opens up new possibilities for me.
In closing, let me take on the commenter's claims individually:
- "...the move to mirrorless requires new lenses" — No, it doesn't. It requires a mount adapter, sometimes bundled free with a mirrorless camera. Of course, most of us have discovered that the newer mirrorless lenses are simply better, because the change in mount and and simpler alignment means that quality and consistency is better with a mirrorless lens. Still, you don't have to use one. (Yes, that's true for OMDS and Sony users, as well, though their adapters are now long forgotten.)
- "...huge price" — Most price complaints ignore inflation. The Nikon 50mm f/1.4G introduced in 2008 was US$485 then. Adjusted for inflation, that would currently be US$710. Nikon just introduced the 50mm f/1.4 for the Z-mount at what price? US$499. Oops.
- "...for a piece that mainly consists cheap plastics" — Two problems here. First is the use of the word "cheap." That's a total made up notion by the writer, as they have no idea how inexpensive or expensive the components used in modern gear are. The bigger issue is the oft-repeated myth that metal is better than polycarbonate. For some things yes, for other things no. Indeed, if you were to dissect that 50mm f/1.4 for the Z-mount I just referred to, you'll see that the polycarbonate outside is there to protect a metal frame inside. Why? Because when you drop metal and it hits something it distorts and doesn't return to form, which would make the lens a complete teardown to fix. When you drop polycarbonate, it either bounces back to form or breaks. In the case of a break, that level of fall pretty much would have totaled a metal lens, but really only requires outer shell replacement for most modern lens designs.
- "Except for the electronic silent shutter , mirrorless cameras don't offer any advantages." — Not even close to correct. I've already alluded to some, but there are plenty more. One really big advantage is that manufacturing alignments are easier to get right with mirrorless, so the actual lens mount and image sensor tend to be more precisely positioned, an important attribute as pixel counts go up. But there are plenty of other advantages (again, too numerous to list here).
- "They are just as unpocketable as Dslrs." — I'm not sure DSLRs were ever contemplated to be pocketable; nor were film SLRs. However, some mirrorless cameras have been (at least jacket pocketable). So just on the premise alone, the writer's argument is incorrect. Apparently the writer also doesn't want a high-capability, interchangeable lens camera, but rather something he can just carry in his pocket. Well, there's always smartphones, but considering how anti-tech his sentiments seem to be, I'm sure he would have plenty of reasons to avoid using one.
- "Electronic displays on cameras feel bad compared to optical viewfinders." — The odd thing here is the use of the word "feel." Feel isn’t really an optical characteristic. As I noted earlier, many early mirrorless cameras had EVFs that were lacking in some way. Current state-of-the-art mirrorless cameras have some pretty incredible viewfinders, though. The Z6III's EVF is truly remarkable when you're photographing in HEIF or producing N-Log video. I could also point out that DSLR viewfinders had plenty of issues: alignment, lack of camera information that could be clearly seen, adjustments for scene brightness that made manual focusing unreliable, and more.
- "No matter how much you trade journalists trump it up..." Ah, the oblique insult. At least I suspect the writer believes that "trade journalist" is a derogatory. Otherwise there's no reason to put the word "trade" in front of "journalist." I've gotten very used to being insulted, from the subtle to some very nasty responses. It started back in 1994 when I first started supporting Nikon cameras on the Internet and has continued with my Internet presence through today. Yes, I take strong, clear stands. But I also will self-correct if it becomes clear I'm wrong. Still, I have to wonder why some people even bother reading my work, let alone responding to it (the writer in question has been reading me for some time, as he pops off with a negative email regarding one of my articles every now and then; he probably already has his email client open again ;~). If you don't accept, believe, or trust what I write, aren't you wasting your time reading it?
- "...we consumers wish the mirrorless to go bankrupt." — See the irony there? He's a consumer who doesn't want to consume. Moreover, he is overstating his case by using the plural, as though he represents everyone. He clearly doesn't, since 4.76 million folk bought a mirrorless camera in 2023, and 2024 had already matched that number by October.
The email I'm responding to with this article appears to be from a neophobe ("a person who dislikes or fears anything new"). He's certainly entitled to be one. What I'm puzzled about, however, is why is he using a computer to read a Web site about a technology-driven product and using a modern communication form (email) to express his neophobia. He's clearly not going to convince me (a neophile) to change what I write, so I just have to take this as more of the angry acting out that seems to be one of the clear consequences of the anonymous Internet. (I'll repeat: I was not for an anonymous Internet when those discussions were happening.)
Sadly, by reaching out to me with all these what I consider to be non-supportable gripes, it just reminds me I have to do an even better job of presenting the case for the products he seems to want to go away.
CP+ Week (non-mirrorless)
This is the week where the biggest announcements centered around the big Japanese consumer photography show, CP+, will get made. I've had a page up on sansmirror detailing the announcements so far, and it will continue to update it as each new announcement is made, but we're also getting a few products that don't fall into the mirrorless category, so I'll cover them here.
February 19th. The big non-mirrorless news so far is the curiously low-key announcement of the Canon Powershot V1. Yes, that camera is only going to be available in Asia (at least for awhile), but even in Asia the announcement was relatively low key.
The irony is that the V1 is a power shot directly at the Sony vlogging machine (ZV-1F, ZV-E10, maybe even FX30). Clearly, Canon is feeling that they need to throw everything into their competition with Sony now. The V1 has a brand new dual-pixel 22mp image sensor that's virtually equal to the m4/3 size in area (225mm2), but without the 4:3 aspect ratio. 4K/30P is downsampled, 4K/60P is done from a pixel-to-pixel 1.4x crop. Canon Log3 is supported, with 10-bit capture.
As you'd expect from a vlogging-style camera, it relies upon a fully articulating 1.04m dot Rear LCD touchscreen (no EVF) and has both headphone and mic sockets, as well as an audio connector built into the hot shoe. Interestingly, the V1 also has a built-in cooling fan so that it can be a continuous vlogger (or streamer, as UAV/UAC is built in). While the V1 is designed to be handled like a vlogger, it is capable of 18.7mp (5750 x 3840) stills at up to 15 fps mechanical shutter, 30 fps electronic.
Up front we have a retractable-for-transport 16-50mm (equivalent) f/2.8-4.5 5EV stabilized lens that can focus to 2" (0.05m) backed by a 3EV ND filter. Overall, the V1 is about the same size as the old M100/M200 type cameras and weighs 426g. Price is under US$1000. But the camera will only be available initially in China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. And that apparently won't happen until April. I'm told that the V1 will eventually be announced worldwide, though.
Also ironically, Nikon had something similar in mind back in 2016 when they announced and then unannounced the DL18-50 (though that was with a 1" image sensor). Nikon didn't believe me when I said a true wide angle compact would sell. Apparently now that the camera companies are listening to "influencers", going wide with the zoom turns out to be almost necessary. If the V1 sells in quantity, I'll consider myself vindicated. Again.
I still have to wonder, though, if the camera makers are mostly missing the point. These days I do vlogging chores with a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 because it is designed to purpose really well, and the smartphone connection works fast and reliably. A 30 fps still camera with a reasonably big sensor in a (large) pocketable camera is interesting, but as far as I can tell, the V1 isn't truly optimized for still use, so it's not going to dislodge others easily. (Disclosure: I have reviews of the Leica D-Lux8 and Fujifilm X100VI coming soon, but I'm still trying to clear a lot of other things off my plate first. 11 lens reviews. Another book. Web site designs. Remodel the office. Oh my.)
Interesting Things Written on the Internet (Volume 26)
"I doubt we'll see this sensor in any future model..." —multiple comments on Canon's announcement of a 410mp image sensor
By way of explanation, 410mp is 24K video, or 24,592 x 16,704 pixels.
That specific image sensor? No, we're not likely to see it in an upcoming Canon camera. The announcement itself is coordinated with SPIE Photonics West (a conference for optics and photonics work), and is really speaking to two things: Canon is not only fully capable of smartphone level photosite sizing, but more importantly, pulling immense amount of information off the image sensor quickly. In this case, that 410mp sensor can achieve 24K video at 8 fps, or 12K video at 24 fps.
However, don't rule out really high pixel counts. More sampling over the same area opens up many options. As an engineer friend pointed out in response to something I wrote earlier, at about 4x the pixel density you not only can improve the phase detect focus performance, but you also start to be able to develop a useful depth map. You're still essentially at the same final pixel count, dynamic range, and noise-at-standard-output size, but you have more information to do more things. I've written it for a couple of decades now: I'm always taking more sampling, all else equal.
What's really happening at Canon is this: they have prototype chips that allow them to investigate what they might be able to achieve with more sampling. When they figure out what that is and it imparts a tangible user benefit, you can bloody well bet that Canon will have a camera with a megapixel monster inside.
"Your AI edits may interact with each other and require updating" —post by Greg Benz
You bet. Moreover, this is a variation on the "in what order should I do things in processing raw files" question that has been around since the beginning. I've been reticent to write much about that because it keeps changing as new tools and workflow appears. I have enough things I need to update that don't get updated fast enough than to put a "raw workflow order" article on the site ;~).
However, Greg has done some of my work for me. I invite you to take a look at his AI order article and video, as it explains at least a subset of that fairly concisely. Short version: if you're going to use AI Denoise, do it first. Then learn the order of the other AI tools and do them in order.
"OM [Digital Solutions] told us that the OM-3 is effectively the replacement for the much-loved Olympus Pen-F...explaining it was impossible for them to make the Pen-F design fully weatherproof." — Photographyblog
I find that statement to be incredible. This would effectively be saying that creating an off-set viewfinder camera makes it impossible to weatherproof, while a centered viewfinder is. Sounds like a made-up-on-the-spottism explanation, to me.
I mean, I get it: OMDS decided that their more retro looking camera would be SLR design, not rangefinder design. Not that there's all that much difference between the two in actuality, other than where the viewfinder sits and whether you have a viewfinder hump or not. Other than that, I see no functional differences between the Pen-F design/controls and the OM-3 design/controls. So in that respect, I suppose, OMDS could indeed claim "we did the OM-3 rather than a Pen-F II because we liked that idea better." Both ideas play off older Olympus designs—particularly in panda cladding—and both feature the flat soap-bar-in-leather front instead of a real hand grip.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest why OMDS chose OM-3 instead of Pen-F II: the SLR-type design is about a half inch wider than the rangefinder design. It's highly likely that when someone disassembles an OM-3 you'll find that OMDS didn't really redesign the OM-1 Mark II digital board, and it needed a wider area.
Frankly, I'd say that we haven't yet seen OMDS design a new camera since taking over from Olympus. We've seen tweaks and refits of existing designs, but nothing particularly new from them. I'll also double down on my claim that Olympus/OMDS has missed a significant opportunity, a m4/3 compact camera to take on Ricoh's GR and Fujifilm's X100. And a Tough m4/3, too. Those have been clear opportunities to expand their volume and up their average selling price while still reusing the most expensive parts (m4/3 image sensor and TruePic processor). Total miss on Olympus/OMDS's part. Instead we get almost an identical camera in a different body at (currently) the same price.
The Software Landscape Continues to Morph
Adobe is now on new higher pricing for the Photography Plan, and it wasn't difficult to predict that others would see that as a reason to follow.
Let's start with Adobe. The Photography Plan that includes Lightroom and Photoshop is now US$20/month, though there's currently a discount for the first six months of US$5/mo. You do get 1TB of cloud storage now, a significant increase from the old 20GB if that's important to you (it may be if you use Lightroom instead of Lightroom Classic while traveling).
You can also get a Lightroom only (all versions) plan from Adobe for US$12/month, also with 1TB of cloud storage.
Adobe users of the original plan that opted to pay annually were grandfathered for this year at the old US$10/month price, but they still only have 20GB of cloud storage.
So if you're an Adobe user, you either enrolled long term to keep your old Photography Plan price or are paying (1) 20% more but no longer have access to Photoshop or (2) double the old price, but with more cloud storage.
I know my position on this is controversial to some. Unlike some vendors, Adobe has shown that they're using the SaaS (software as a service) fees to continue to do extensive and fairly frequent feature and performance benefits. Today's Photoshop is so much better than the original Photoshop CC it's difficult to describe (and would take me a lot of writing to do justice to). So far I'm pleased with how they've treated those of us who decided to come along for the SaaS journey from the beginning. US$120 to stay at the forefront of image editing software seems reasonable to me.
I will also say this: I've been poking around my image archives and using the current Photoshop on images I took just after the turn of the century. Things like Super Resolution and the newer imaging engines, et.al., have significantly improved what I can get out of all those now 20+ year-old raw files. I think that's something that's worth a subscription: Adobe has been making my old images better.
Moving on to Capture One. The new there is two-fold: subscriptions are about to rise 6%. Billed monthly, the full (mobile and desktop) version is US$34/month, the desktop only version is US$24/month. In my mind, that's more money for less product (than Adobe) now. I didn't see a lot of feature/performance improvements that justified the high price, so much so that I dropped my subscription late last year with version 22. Your mileage may vary (Capture One is popular in studio settings and for certain cameras).
Meanwhile, Capture One has a Valentine's Day present for its user base: on February 14th the community support forum will be closed. It's unclear what motivated this decision, but it's likely an attempt to reduce costs.
Up in Oregon, On1 Photo RAW 2025.1 is on sale at US$50 for the perpetual license (though note that you'll only get the .1 minor updates, not any future major updates). They have more expensive plans that include mobile and cloud computing and major updates via subscription, but I suspect a lot of their attraction to the user base right now is the potential low one-time cost. If you're not constantly switching/upgrading cameras and are happy with the current feature set, the sale price through February 13th seems appealing.
What I've noted, though, is that many On1 Photo RAW users are essentially "subscribing." By that I mean that they buy a perpetual license and then upgrade every year when a new offer is presented. If you're in that category, On1 starts to become something more like a US$5/month option, at least at the base level. I suppose now that I'm not paying for Capture One I'll have to take another look at On1 (disclosure: I sometimes use their Effects plug-in).
I have this suspicion that we're entering a difficult period for the software companies. With camera introductions significantly down, and the fact that if you buy a high-end camera you're not likely update any time soon so don't need the "new version that understands your new raw files", I think more people are going to be looking at getting off the subscription bandwagon than on.
If, as I predict, that we're in a world now where we have maybe 6m ILC sales a year without any significant further growth, I find it difficult to believe that all the software we have today will survive for long.
We're Now Flooded by Primes
I get it: certain prime lens specifications are very low-hanging fruit for someone wanting to get into the optics game. 35mm, 50mm, 85mm even at f/1.4 are all simple enough that I believe that even I could design a pretty good lens from scratch these days. Moreover, the basic glass sources needed are readily available and expanding, so the biggest problem really is just reverse engineering the camera’s focus/exposure communications and gearing up manufacturing. Neither of those seem all that difficult, either.
And, of course, they aren’t. That’s pretty much proven by well more than a dozen Chinese purveyors of said optics that have become prevalent in the last few years. In almost every mount I check, Chinese prime lenses more than double the number of lenses that are available. My list of Chinese prime lenses now numbers into the many hundreds. But these tend to be in a limited set of focal lengths, pretty much all primes, with a strong concentration in the 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm lengths.
I have to wonder if there’s enough there there for all these companies to survive. I mean, if everyone bought just one Chinese prime lens for their new camera, that would only be a total of about 6m units total a year. At an average selling cost of just over US$100, that’s only a US$600m market to share between 15+ companies (20+ if we include the Japanese makers). Of course US$40m a year for a new, entrepreneurial company sounds like a lot when you start from US$0. But I don’t think it’s sustainable, and I’m being generous here in how many people will actually buy such lenses.
The other problem with lenses is that once you have a competent, fast aperture prime in your desired focal length, are you going to later buy another?
The camera companies have been wading through this issue, themselves. Lenses got really good in the late teens, so anyone that has recent lenses has really good lenses. And once they buy out a “set” their continued buying tends to fall off. That’s why new configurations (originally 16-35mm but these days everything from f/2 zooms to new focal length choices) have gotten attention. People keep asking me why Nikon didn’t come out with a 500mm f/5.6 PF VR S for the Z-mount. Well, they’ve sold almost 40,000 for the F-mount, and you can use them on a Z System camera with an FTZ adapter, so exactly how many of those folk are going to pony up thousands of dollars just to get rid of the adapter?
Meanwhile, one reason why we have f/1.2 Nikkors now is a bit of an attempt to get those holding onto older f/1.4 lenses to "upgrade."
The real problem comes down to market stability. When something completely new appears that has a compelling advantage (e.g. DSLRs at the turn of the century), two things combine to create real market growth: (1) replacement actions; and (2) new buying interest. The replacement action triggered by DSLRs was people moving from film to digital. The new buying interest was that a number of perceived hurdles with mastering cameras were removed, so more people gravitated to them. Broadly speaking, this doubled the market for ILC. Growth. Consistent and impressive growth for a decade.
The same thing didn't happen with mirrorless. That's because of replacement frictions (poor EVF versus good optical viewfinder, for instance). Moreover, the actual photos of DSLRs still hold up today, meaning less need to update. We see this particularly with D850 users, for instance. I don't judge a D850 image to be any worse than a Z8 image. This means that other things have to trigger the replacement, and those other things aren't nearly as compelling as the film-to-digital shift was. Meanwhile, some new buying interest actually went to smartphones as mirrorless got foothold.
The result is this: over the course of a decade, mirrorless went from 3.96m units to 4.83m units (and some of the latter number is really delayed buying due to two very down years triggered by the pandemic coupled with the continued demise of DSLR sales.
Best case, mirrorless can probably achieve somewhere in the 5-6m unit range a year, but will find itself on a plateau very soon.
I've met a few people at companies in Tokyo who track this sort of thing. I also know that when they report "plateau" the companies shift in some way to try to figure out how to better their monetary positions. That comes in a few ways: (a) cost cutting; (b) product category shifts; (c) accessories; (d) emphasizing higher priced products; and sometimes (e) new halo products (which are also higher priced).
The Japanese companies have finally figured out that they completely abandoned compact cameras a little too quickly. That's a category shift they can (re-)exploit. Sony's A9 Mark III with its global shutter was an attempt at "new halo," but after a very brief sales bump, it's no longer providing that. Emphasizing the higher priced products has pretty much run its course now; you can't keep going to the well with that one.
Which brings us to accessories (which includes lenses). Nikon had this grand plan—and even shared their goal with the financial community—that they'd achieve two lenses sold for every camera in the Z System. Didn't happen. Not going to happen. And now with the Chinese producing more lens choices for the Z mount than Nikon, even the current level of lens sales will be challenged.
Cameras (and lenses) are feeling like a broken market again, with a fairly close ceiling that won't be penetrated (e.g. 6m ILC units/year).
We're finally about to hear about some new products because CP+, the biggest camera show in Japan, happens at the end of February. Pretty much all the Japanese companies like to launch something when they have their home market's attention. I'm writing this in mid-January prior to getting NDA (non-disclosure agreement) information so that I can state my expectations, not what I know will happen (yes, I write most of my articles far in advance of them appearing, partly because I need time to revise and edit them*). Basically, I suspect CP+ will be relatively boring in terms of new cameras, with perhaps some shift towards new compacts. The least-boring bit of the CP+ product announcements will likely be on the lens side, because the Japanese now have that Chinese competition to deal with, and there are plenty of niche-y lenses that can attract attention from all those 35 to 85mm primes. But still, I'm not convinced we need a lot of new lenses, and particularly not primes in the mid-range.
We'll see soon if I'm right.
Late update: what I'm hearing from US dealers about January sales is pretty bleak. I don't think anyone's beating last year's sales numbers. That predicts something else: other than Canon, whose fiscal year is over, the rest of Japanese camera companies are trying to figure out how to meet their stated year-end goals before the March 31st closing date comes racing up on them. I expect stronger rebates/discounts in the US, probably with more bundle offers, but given our new administration and the threat of tariffs and the chaos that might create, this could get tricky. Hopefully, everyone's stocked up their US subsidiaries already with what needs to be sold between now and April 1st.
*This article was started on 12/30/2024, mostly finished by 1/14/2024, then edited in the last week of January.
