Cameras and Photography Explained

Based upon future anticipated shipping patterns (cargo vessels and ports have to plan in advance, and much of that data is publicly available), the real crunch from the China tariffs probably begins some time in May. Even if the trade war were concluded today, there would likely be a period of a few weeks starting in May where Asian imports no longer meet US orders. Moreover, it would be expensive to try to get through such a cargo vessel lull by using air transport temporarily, should an importer decide they absolutely need product. 

So what's that mean for photographic gear? 

Probably more than most people think. That's because buying photographic gear is, for most people, a discretionary purchase. You're more likely to buy in times when disposable income is plentiful, less likely when you're penny pinching.

The problem starts with cargo ships. Because no one wants to pay 145% tariffs unless they absolutely have to, a lot of cargo originally destined for the US will never leave an Asian port. Three weeks later, the US West Coast ports suddenly are operating at much lower levels (current Long Beach estimates are for a 25% year-to-year decline in May). This leads to temporary employment cuts at the ports, but also leads to less need for further domestic shipping (i.e. trucking and rail). Which leads to more temporary employment cuts. Meanwhile, no new product shows up at retailers, leading to eventual product shortages and further temporary employment cuts. 

Employment cuts lead to less discretionary income and less spending in the overall economy, which starts a slow downward spiral where future orders are lowered, thus future cargo ships don't get loaded in SE Asia for the US, and on and on. 

When I made the statement about the difference between ignorance and stupidity when I first wrote about the tariffs, this is part of what I was referring to: we know the likely outcomes of engaging in an all-out tariff war. We've already seen Wall Street gyrating as it tries to figure out how this war will play out. Particularly given that the current administration keeps putting contradictory policies into and out of place. 

June is going to be the start of a very difficult time for camera gear here in the US if this trade war goes on much longer. Some products won't be available, others will have higher prices, dealers will be floundering trying to get their inventory and cash into alignment, and camera companies will be staring at an overall down year for unit volume and sales (the rest of the world can't make up for any substantial decline in the US market, particularly since any recession in the US would spread Internationally). I've already pointed out to Nikon Z System users that if they want certain lenses made in China that they're in stock now but might not be in the very near future. If one of those sixteen lenses was on your summer buying radar, you're about to see the radar go blank.

Thing is, June is historically a high volume month for camera gear, as people consider what they'll be taking on vacation travel with them for the summer. Moreover, Father's Day and graduation presents also tend to play a large part in late spring sales. I'm fearful that this year will be very different than previous years. Particularly for US camera dealers, who are the canary in the coal mine. 

Why do I say that? Well, you can simply continue using what you have if you don't buy anything new. It won't kill your photography. The camera makers, meanwhile, will micromanage where their production goes temporarily, which means they'll increase export to countries other the US. It's your brick and mortar camera dealer that's in the vulnerable position. If you rely on a local dealer, now is the time to make sure you're really supporting them, otherwise they might go away. 

There will be no winner in this war. Only a clear loser, and long term that would be you, the consumer (and that's regardless of where you live). 

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Currently anticipated impacts here in the US:

• Canon — Increasing list prices soon, fewer Instant Rebates until then.
• Fujifilm — No new imports of X-M5, X100VI, and GFX100RF into the US for the time being. 
• Nikon — Cancelled most Instant Rebates (effectively a price increase) while pondering what to do next.
• Sony — Notified dealers of multiple pricing changes, some of which were changes to changes, in the past week.
• Overall — I'm aware of one camera that won't be initially introduced in the US, and two more that are currently going to get a delay.

I keep getting tariff related questions, and now we're starting to see the "price increase" articles, though without much specificity. A few are asking me whether the camera companies are going to change their product plans for the year. Still others speculate about trans shipment workarounds.

Let me explain what's going on, starting with trans shipments.

The basic idea that people are promoting is that by first shipping the product to another country—e.g. China to Japan—that the tariffs would change. That is not true. This was tried by some but both International and US laws adapted to essentially foreclose that. There have been some recent exceptions that got around a specific tariff. For instance, building something, disassembling it and importing it into the US as parts, then remanufacturing it here. Under the current tariffs, that wouldn't work, as the parts themselves would be tariffed the same as the manufactured item. 

Next up, I've seen a lot of headlines in the photography press about "price increases." Most of those are leaks out of the subsidiaries and dealers about a temporary response. Without knowing what the actual cost of importing an item into the US will be next week, next month, or later in the year, the subsidiaries all seem to be putting a temporary halt to some of their future sales and rebates. That doesn't address what's already on dealer shelves, though, so it is highly likely that you're going to get contradictory statements: new instant rebates coupled with cancelled instant rebates. 

You might have seen that "electronics" have been given a temporary tariff reprieve. I haven't actually seen anything from our government that specifically states which categories of goods are covered by that. The US complies with the "harmonized system structure" that was developed Internationally, which divides every possible product into logical sub-categories with specific attributes (which was why I was able to tell you that Camels aren't tariffed between the US and Japan). The current document of record published by the US is dated April 10, 2025 and basically only catches up with the 84% to 125% change in China tariffs. "Cameras" are not in the same category as "smartphones" and "computers," which apparently were what the administration referred to on Friday afternoon and which was talked about all weekend (the "Apple/Samsung exception"). 

So in terms of pricing, I don't think anyone actually knows what the price of any particular camera sold a month from now will be. There's inventory that needs to clear from dealer shelves, and there's new inventory coming in. Those two things may be priced differently.

In my discussions, no one in the US seems to know exactly what they're going to do long-term yet. We've seen (or heard about) some short term changes, some of which were then changed again already. The latest is that the popular Fujifilm sellers (X-M5, X100VI, and the just announced GFS100RF) are apparently temporarily no longer being imported into the US, mostly because these products are not really in stock in the US and any new order FujifilmUSA might bring in would be subject to the China tariffs (which on any given day in the past ten days were 10%, 30%, 45%, 84%, 125%, or 20%, depending upon what kind of product and which day and hour you looked it up). 

Which leads me to the question about whether camera companies are going to change their future product plans. Short answer: yes. Unfortunately, we don't know how those plans will change yet, nor do I think the Japanese know, either.

A source in Tokyo actually pointed out an unintended consequence of what is going on right now in this trade war: supplies. The camera companies were just getting a handle on post-pandemic supply chain, though image sensors were still a bit of an issue. The panic point in Tokyo right now apparently centers around the supply chain again, particularly given China's response to limit export of rare metals and other key materials. Tokyo will figure out what to do about tariffs in their usual micromanagement of the bean counting, but right now they're apparently worried that they won't have some things to count. 

Ironically, here I am having to write about this topic (again) when the primary advice I've been giving people for two decades is that the camera gear we have is more than adequate, that we should all be concentrating upon improving our use of said gear. That's something I've been concentrating on myself the past few months, but if we're no longer buying new cameras and lenses in the future, it's what we'll all be doing. 

I really didn't want to prolong this discussion, but unfortunately a lot of misinformation is now spreading and we need to deal with it in order to have a reasonable discussion about how the photography business is going to be impacted by recent Trump actions.

One thing I'm noting is that everyone is getting one thing wrong about the tariffs; they all assume that a tariff is on the list price of the product. That's not true unless the customer bought the product directly from outside the country. The 36% tariff that NikonUSA would have to pay would come on the "price" that the subsidiary is "paying" for the unit—technically, a term called declared value—not the list price. So, if NikonUSA was getting a 50% discount from corporate on the import, and if NikonUSA chose to pass what they paid as tariff on to the eventual retail customer, then the additional price burden would really be more like 18%, not 36%. 

Because camera dealers get such a small discount from the camera or lens maker—typically 15 to 20%—it's unlikely that dealers can absorb this new tariff burden. It's either going to be the camera maker or the eventual customer whose finances are directly impacted, perhaps both.

This unfortunately brings up another problem that we've had in the past but is likely to return: the parent company could "game" the declared value through the distribution path to help reduce the tariff impact. For instance, a product could be imported to NikonUSA for less than it is to Nikon China. That's technically illegal as it triggers "dumping" laws, though catching such actions becomes an enforcement problem. Moreover, whether or not the US would actively police such activity is unknown. 

I believe there's a bit of a panic about how much prices will go up if Trump's tariffs stay in force. Prices will probably go up less than you think. But any increase that ends up in the 10-20% range is still going to be seriously felt by the photographic community. Note that B&H's Payboo "we'll pay the sales tax" change made for a significant shift in buying away from local dealers, and there we're talking about only a 5-10% cost-to-customer differential.  

Ironically, the auto industry, which invested in North American production via a previous trade agreement with Mexico and Canada negotiated by Trump, might be harder hit than the all-imported camera industry. That's because the car makers counted on that agreement to target their investments, and ended up scattering plants across all three North American countries in ways where parts ship back and forth across the border two, three, four, and sometimes more times. Each time a part re-enters the US it would be tariffed under the new plan. So what happens is that the parts inside a car could go up in price significantly, which, in turn, can make the price of the car go up more than expected, even for autos assembled in the US.

In case you didn't get the irony, let me explain it more simply: an industry that does manufacture in the US (autos) may be hit harder by the Trump tariffs than an industry that has no plans to ever build in America. As with many things Trump, what he says ("bring manufacturing back to the US") is in direct contradiction to his actions.

So let's deal with that (manufacture in the US). As someone who's managed both over his long career—I've manufactured overseas and manufactured in the US—I have a pretty good sense of why you do one versus the other. When labor becomes the biggest element in your product cost, the tendency has been to shift production overseas, where labor is much less expensive. When parts are your biggest cost and labor is minimal, it often pays to manufacture in the US (as long as tariffs don't increase your parts cost ;~). But note that "labor is minimal" bit. If manufacturing is brought back to the US in any meaningful volume, it's likely to be robotic manufacturing. This does two things: (1) requires fewer workers; and (2) requires workers with different skill sets and knowledge. 

Trust me, I get it. I understand what many of the Trump supporters have been saying and why the "Make America Great Again" slogan resonates with them. These folk desire for things to go back to some unspecified way they were at some "magical" point in time. Unfortunately, that's not the way life works. You don't get to "perfection" and then just rest on your laurels forever. You have to evolve based upon whatever forces are arrayed against you at any given time. 

Wage increases measured in constant dollars have not really budged this century for those in the lower quartile (25%) of the population. If you're in the top 10%, then yes, you've seen clear wage increases. However, if you add in benefits (overtime, insurance, paid leave, retirement contributions, etc.), the story is one of real increase pretty much across the board, but still probably not at the level you'd desire if you're in the bottom quartile (and who wants to work overtime to get ahead?). [source: Pew Research]  

The thing that the few that are writing me with complaints, and which they're not understanding about Trump's tariffs is this: they do nothing to increase wages, but they will do quite a bit to erode purchasing power. Moreover, these folk didn't seem to notice what happened coming out of the pandemic: "Between 2019 and 2024...low-wage workers experienced historically fast real wage growth (adjusted for inflation)." [source Economic Policy Institute]

What we're all fighting right now is perception. One side perceives a problem that doesn't really exist. The other side sees the response as a new problem that is being created. What next happens is that misinformation spreads virally through our now compromised media and social networks, and the differences in perception compound and escalate. 

This month I finished endowing a new permanent scholarship at the Indiana University Media School: the Herbert A. Terry Ethics and Integrity in Media scholarship. I put my money where my mouth pen is: we're not being well served by media at the moment, partly because its ethics and integrity have been compromised. Hopefully, my small contribution will do some modest part in fixing that in the future. 

In the mean time, this past week I've spent time away from discussing photography, writing articles or books, and reviewing new gear in my own attempt to make it clear that we have policies now in place that will potentially erode the photographic community in ways that are destructive, and for no clear reason. If you don't think that the photographic community is important to me, then you haven't been reading my posts for the past 30 (!) years.

I really don't want to prolong this discussion. However, if left in place Trump's tariffs will likely have more impact on the companies we photographers rely upon and how much we pay for our gear than any possible new product that might suddenly appear could have. Mine was one of the first Web sites (back in 2003) that expanded to cover what's happening economically in the photography market, and the tariffs are potentially the biggest such story so far, and we've already had some large ones (quakes, floods, pandemic, etc.). To ignore the tariffs would be saying I abdicate writing about economics at all. (Disclosure: my PhD work was in New Technology Economics and Management.)

I have a prediction about the tariffs. Trump's tactics have consistently been performative theater, not action. By that I mean he announces that he's going to do something and that a problem will go away, but rarely does it. In his first administration he dismissed NAFTA, the trade agreement that binds the US, Mexico, and Canada. His renegotiation resulted in some rewording, alterations in phrasing, and punctuation getting changed, but nothing actually substantive.

The high likelihood is that the tariffs as they've been announced cannot stick. Even if there are negotiations that happen, it seems unlikely that his key reason for applying them—reduce the trade deficit—will actually occur. Again, a lot of loud rhetoric, bullying, and challenging, but it's unlikely to create real action on the Presidentially-perceived problem (not that any action is needed to reduce the trade deficit itself, but that's a story for another Web site).

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Bonus: I keep seeing others similarly say that Trump's tariffs are just part of a negotiating tactic, basically bullying other countries into things we want from them. Perhaps. But one thing I've long written about is the unintended consequences of any statement or act. I once saw a well-known professional photographer pull up a blooming plant and put it where he wanted it in a scene. Well, that worked great for him, but long term that had plenty of other consequences, none positive. 

One unintended consequence of the Trump tariffs is simple, and what I've been trying to point out: the photographic community now is stressing. It might get smaller. Companies we rely upon for gear are also now stressed. Dealers we count on are highly stressed and worried that this might be the end for them. An industry that doesn't really have—nor will it likely have in any foreseeable future—an onshore manufacturing presence will be hurt, and with it, those of us who use their products.

Some countries have already put up a surrender flag. Vietnam is offering to remove all tariffs on US products (though Trump's stated tariffs currently also require a 10% tariff no matter what, unless you're Russia or Belarus). What will come of that response is unclear. Mostly because Vietnamese tariffs aren't what were targeted and penalized by Trump: the trade deficit with Vietnam was. 

Japan has some soul-searching to do, I think: they have a long list of food and animal related tariffs in place against the US, though neither side apparently cares if you import a camel (true: zero tariff on camels, both directions). The US has some reciprocal food and animal tariffs on Japan, but mostly chose to put reciprocal tariffs on other goods in response, such as pickup trucks. There's absolutely a negotiation that could take place between the two countries because of that. Whether it will or not is another story. Again, Trump is hiding his knee-jerk reaction to physical good trade deficits behind what he calls, but aren't, reciprocal tariffs.

But it is other unintended consequences that are the story for the moment: the stock market has cratered; inflation might not be controllable by the FED; the dollar is down in value; the economy is likely to slow; distrust in the US has risen around the world. There may be even more unintended consequences we haven't yet learned about. It took the US four years to essentially reverse course after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs went into effect in 1930. It took many years and a war before all the unintended consequences played out. 

President Trump this afternoon finally announced his "reciprocal" tariffs, and it's not good news for photography fans in the US.  

Managers at the Japanese camera makers are all currently huddled around big tables trying to figure out how they're going to weather the massive tariffs against their products in a market that comprises about a quarter of their sales. Meanwhile camera dealers across the US are already looking at the recent small uptick in sales with fond memories. 

As with anything Trump, the details seem murky, somewhat contradictory, and subject to change, but the way things are being read right now is that starting on April 9th, shipments to the US are subject to:

• 24% tariff on imports from Japan
• 36% tariff on imports from Thailand
• 46% tariff on imports from Vietnam
• 34% tariff on imports from China (in addition to previous 20%; also deminimis avoidance is cancelled)

(Note that as I update this, various publications are reporting different numbers for China and different interpretations of how the new 10% tariff on everything works with the reciprocal tariffs. If you'd like to read the actual declaration Trump made, you can find it at whitehouse.gov.)

Canon has a majority of their production in Japan. Nikon has the majority of its production in Thailand. Sony manufactures in both those countries. OM Digital Solutions manufactures in Vietnam. So you can see that someone's going to be taking it on the chin, perhaps everyone. Note that Nikon's Z5II announcement was likely priced with some potential tariff accommodation in mind, but I can assure you Nikon was not expecting 36% tariffs on their gear coming into the US. I suppose the only good news for camera makers is that smartphone makers are also locked into the same nonsense. 

Interchangeable lens cameras have not been made in the US since Kodak cancelled the SLR/n over nearing two decades ago (and that was basically reassembling a Nikon DSLR into an American made body). We're not likely to get anyone thinking about making them again, even with substantive tariffs in place, so for photographers, the tariffs really represent a new tax on gear. A tax that is likely to be constantly changing as the administration starts to discover exactly what chaos they're creating and tries to adjust their toupees policies. Of course, they don't care about the camera market—it's not big enough to offset anything they want to do—so it may be worse for photography than it is for other markets that have some sort of leverage to trigger renegotiations. 

You may remember that after the US election last fall, I cancelled plans for changes and expansions to my business. I anticipated this chaos. You cannot plan into total uncertainty; the likelihood that you'll waste both your time and money is not just high, but presumable. As it is, retaliation by other countries will likely impact my ebook business, and I may have to put a geofence on purchases because of that (a one person business cannot easily handle 200+ reciprocal grudge tariffs). 

While I try to avoid political discussions, today's announcement reminds me that most people don't know the difference between ignorant and stupid. Ignorance is when you don't know that you shouldn't do something. Stupidity is when you shouldn't do it and know what the outcome is likely to be, but you do it anyway. The US's newly stated tariff policies are stupid. 

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Oh, you wanted the bulleted bottom line? Then:

• Camera gear in the US will get more expensive because it will all be tariffed.
• Predicting what you'll have to pay for new gear will get impossible as tariffs may change, and if inventory piles up, there will have to be sales of some sort.
• Sales of camera gear will slow as the economy slows.
• More camera dealers will close their doors because they live off of sales turns, and those will go down at higher prices.
• Many items will get harder to find in stock as camera companies shift new product shipments to non-tariff nations.
• Repairs will take longer, as no camera subsidiary wants to bring in extra parts they have to pay tariffs on.
• Repairs will cost more, as the tariff has to be recovered for the part that they waited for.
• Camera companies will listen to American customers less, as we'll be a smaller part of their overall sales.
• Cheap Chinese accessories will go up in price because the loophole they were using (deminimis) is now closed.

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Bonus coverage: What do the macroeconomic models say about price increases and/or tariffs?

First, a caveat: macroeconomic modeling is never right. The actual economy is more complicated than we can model, and people's behaviors can alter over time, making it mathematically more difficult to come up with a perfectly accurate assessment. Moreover, there are several hundred different macroeconomic models available to run (and more that are private), and they differ in some of their economic assumptions. Keynesian and Friedmanian assumptions have some key differences, for example. That said, models do produce useful results to consider, and many recent models tend to predict within a narrow band from what actually happens. We're not yet to the Seldon level of mathematics, but we do have tools that are useful and have proven to be within a reasonable margin of error.

I tried a few different models to try to get a sense of what might happen with near universal tariffs. But the simplest model is the most direct and easiest to understand (and most likely to be further off from the final result). Here's what it says: if you apply a 25% price increase to all products in the GDP, inflation of course jumps to reflect that. Indeed, this would be called hyper inflation. In response to that level of inflation, the Fed will almost certainly have to raise interest rates more than the inflation rate to try to keep that from becoming the start of runaway inflation. Meanwhile, the GDP goes down over 6%, which is a severe recession. Jobs don't tend to get hurt much short term, but wages don't track with inflation at all. The problems get worse over time.

Now, the tariffs range from 10% to 54% and don't apply to all products, obviously. Some native-made products will escape a forced price increase. However, corporate behavior is pretty predictable. If you make widget in the US that sells for US$1 and all the competitive widgets from overseas sell for US$1.10 to US$1.54, you're going to raise your price, at least up to the level where you still get the sale. This is why I used a midrange (25%) value for price increases in the model.

This also introduces us to the notion of sensitivity to inflation. What happens to the GDP at different inflation levels? At somewhere between 5 and 10% inflation, the GDP goes from growth to contraction. Between those two numbers (5% and 10% inflation) interest rates would likely double. 

If we run the simplified model at a lower 15% overall price increase to all products (some will be more, some will be less, which again introduces a bit of unpredictability), we get a very bad result: recession and stagflation. Stagflation is what happened to Japan in the 90's and from which they're still trying to recover from today. Repeated fiscal stimulation (low interest rates, direct stimulus, etc.) simply built up the debt-to-GDP ratio to over 200% in Japan. Coupled with the proposed renewal of the original Trump tax cuts along with promised new ones, America would be doing the same thing Japan did: increasing the deficit without getting economic growth. 

I simply want to remind everyone in the US reading this article of a simple truth: this is what you voted for (surprise: I didn't). Despite his denial, Project 2025 was clearly always going to be a central goal of a second Trump administration. He also telegraphed much of his expected policies in his first administration, but there were still a few adults in the room at the time that helped restrain him. Not so much this time. 

The sad news is that there are Republicans in the House and Senate who understand what I just wrote and know the likely consequences of supporting the President, but do so anyway. 

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Further Update: So now that the press has been able to ask questions and get responses, we now see the "formula" by which Trump calculated tariffs. It's nonsensical. Moreover, we've now read through all the tariff schedule, and guess what, we're going to tariff penguins and one of our own military bases 10%! No, you cannot make this stuff up—oh wait, the one with the weave actually did make it up—but if you don't believe me, try reading TechDirt's full analysis and explanation. Anyone who thinks the whole tariff schedule shows great leadership is just showing their own stupidity. I can't say that more plainly.