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This page of the site contains the latest 10 articles to appear on bythom, followed by links to the archives.
Amateur Statisticians, Again
No sooner did Nikkei publish their mirrorless market share report (chart summarizing that, below), did the amateur statisticians once again whip up their completely wrong analysis, one of whom went to the trouble of asking ChatGTP for help. But garbage in, garbage out.
One problem is that these amateur statisticians have trouble with reading comprehension. The report Nikkei quoted was for mirrorless market share, not complete camera market share. That didn’t stop one site from pulling up full camera share reports for previous years from different sources, and come to the conclusion that Canon is in trouble (if you want a more accurate analysis of what’s happening in the market, see mine).
Taking three sources with no overlap to create a pattern over four years to predict for ten years forward is a big statistical no-no. But no, this particular site then took that multi-sourced and non-conforming data and had AI do the hard work of coming up with projections from it. That led them to the conclusion that Canon will have a 7.7% market share in 2033, and Sony an 82.1% market share.
To add humor, not only did we get that ridiculous projection, but said poster couldn’t even read his own fake table. He wrote “Nikon...will continue to grow steadily.” But his table says 12.95% in 2024 down to 10.7% in 2033, which as you’re probably aware, is not what anyone would call growth. If it is, Nikon has been growing like gangbusters for several years now ;~).
Anyone can do statistics these days. Even political pollsters. The problem is that those are almost never accurate use of statistics, and thus the reliability of all these amateur projections we see these days is essentially zero.
Even for someone like me, whose PhD minor was in statistics, it’s difficult, as the reliability of data has gone down, too. About the only two consistently reliabible data points in cameras that are publicly available now are the CIPA monthly numbers, plus Nikon’s quarterly financial statements. But even those are difficult to square together, because Nikon still reports all ILC while CIPA breaks mirrorless and DSLRs out.
When I made my 2003 projection of peak DSLR being reached sometime in 2011 (I was off by about six months), I did that from four known, reliable data sources. Unfortunately, one of those is now private and another no longer reliable. Moreover, the projection didn’t rely upon the camera market volume directly, but rather home adoption. One of the things I discovered in my PhD work is that future volumes can be predicted by household penetration numbers. I’d point to my long study of this, but I can’t find a copy at the moment.
You might also have noticed this chart making the rounds (again from Nikkei):
Note the hump. This tells us that every home in Japan decided they needed a digital still camera, so household penetration went up; so did camera sales, obviously. But as smartphones started taking over the photo job, Japan has returned to more where they were in terms of number of dedicated cameras in each home.
This is exactly the area I’ve been studying for quite some time. It’s what made me suggest that we’d fall well below 6m unit sales before we did. Unfortunately, the available data to me at the moment is not global and for only a couple of markets, but the suggestion to me is that somewhere in the 4m to 6m range is the nominal long term level of camera sales. I see a little uptick in average ownership among the young recently, but it’s unclear yet whether that’s just faddish or a real new trend that will push the number upward.
If I’m right about a relatively flat overall market long term (or even a slow decline), this makes market share strategies really important. As I note in my sansmirror article, I see everything is upside down right now: one of the smaller market shares is making the highest per unit profit, which usually doesn’t hold for long.
There’s little doubt that Canon is under stress right now. Their long-term strategy of targeting half the market (50% market share) is not likely achievable in the short term without dramatic cost cutting as well as ratcheting up product discounts. By dramatic, I mean more than they’ve already done.
Since everyone else is doing junk statistics, I’ll do a junk prediction here (though partially based upon a broad knowledge of how all this works): within three to five years, Canon’s camera market share will have dropped probably ten points, Nikon will have gained five points, and the Big Three ILC shares will look more like Canon 40%, Sony 30%, Nikon 15%, all ±2. Oh, wait, that’s exactly where we are with the current mirrorless market ;~). Maybe not so junk, after all.
Crippling Your Own Product
Panasonic's recent launch of the S9 reminded me of a complaint I'm finding myself having more and more often: not optimizing for your product design.
In particular, the S9 has the same issue as the Nikon Z30 does: a camera that relies on the Rear LCD doesn't have a display capable of practical use outdoors. TFT displays aren't exactly all that bright to start with, but anyone wearing polarized sunglasses is going to have real problems. The creators Panasonic (and Nikon) are targeting already complain about screen brightness on bright days with 1000 nit brightness smartphones, so why would these companies think that they can get away with 250 to 450 nits? It seems to me that this is just asking for trouble with customers, and likely to provoke returns or "no buys".
Products solve user problems, or at least they should if the designer was paying any attention. But more and more I keep finding that this is being ignored in various ways by the camera companies. The reason for ignoring use cases usually breaks down to "easier to design it that way" or "bean counters told us to use a cheaper part."
Another good example is tripod mounts on long lenses. Canon, Nikon, and Sony all apparently continue to give the job of designing that to a junior intern engineer, who just copies previous designs and thus guarantees failure. First problem: the "handle" portion of these mounts are far too small for most hands, and the best way to carry heavy long lenses without putting too much stress on the mount is via that handle. Oops. Second, no one uses 1/4" screw threads to mount three to eight pound lenses on a tripod any more; we all use Arca-Swiss style plates, which provide a faster and more secure mount as well as doing a better job of making two masses into one, which is what you want for stability.
Tamron has finally started making their tripod mounts with Arca-Swiss plates, so Canikony can no longer claim that they haven't seen any such thing in their home ballpark. In essence, virtually everyone now (1) removes their supplied tripod mount or (2) replaces it with a third-party plate. I don't recommend #1 on lenses over two pounds, as you need a way to carry via the lens, so everyone ends up spending US$50 to US$200 more to buy a part that should have been supplied with the lens. (And let's not talk about the stability of the foot to rotating plate connection...)
Cameras are a Virus
I’ve begun to think of technology advances much the same way I do about viruses: there’s constant on-going evolutionary mutations, mostly mild, with only an occasional outlier that establishes a new species and has any true new abilities.
I’m not alone in this thought. Even the BBC once said “the hi-fi world has become something of a graveyard for bright ideas that come to nothing,” but that the CD was a “real” change.
This idea of failed (tech) “species" with occasional successful new ones is something I’ve both experienced and observed in my long career. Moreover, the way in which some tech species fail varies considerably. I’ve been at companies with products that died because of cash flow issues, licensing arguments, and even the very weird “too successful to continue as a Subchapter S while unable to transition to Subchapter C due to the tax consequence.” It isn’t always lack of sales, poor/wrong product, or economic recession that kills off tech products.
One thing I admire about the Japanese engineering teams is that they're exceptionally good at producing small mutations (iterations) that inch a tech species forward. The thing that everyone admires about Silicon Valley is different: the Valley seems to be able to spontaneously combust a new hardy tech species from out of nowhere.
We need both things to happen to get better cameras. Call it in-box and out-of-box thinking if you want to use the cliched terminology.
Most of the criticism over recent camera introductions is that it's all in-box thinking. Some more pixels, some more attention to focus algorithms, faster movement of data, and so on. What I hear becoming louder in the customer complaints is requests for things that currently aren't being done in our cameras. And, of course, I've been a long time complainer about cameras not yet having really moved into the 21st century in terms of moving data over the airwaves.
One of the biggest requests from users these days has to do with computational computing. Caution: many are conflating what they see that looks okay on a smartphone screen with "computational imaging makes better photos."
Before we go further, let me correct one thought many have: our cameras already have plenty of computational computing. The complaint really has to do with the fact that smartphones seem to be doing more, and are doing it IRT (in real time). Moreover, we've had some computational stuff before that has been removed from later cameras. Remember Nikon's BSS (best shot selection)? That, or a newer mutation of that would be truly handy in a Z9 that pops off 120 frames per second on a pre-shot capture (e.g. "ignore the images of the bird just sitting, and only show me the ones of it taking off and still in frame").
We have two competing changes in final pixel approach going on right now that also need to be better resolved. The first is AI completely making up pixels; the second is computational reconstruction of pixels. In the former, new pixels appear out of nowhere. In the latter, pixels are formed by examining before, during, after pixels and putting the best pixel forward (or combining them to remove quantum shot noise). Perhaps we want both mutations, but I'd also like to have more control over both when and how each of them are used.
This is actually one place where the smartphone and dedicated camera makers can (and should) be different. Smartphones just give you their best guess. No one wants deep menus and lots of buttons to control things on their phones. Smartphones as a camera are a convenience product, not a high quality, high performance tool. Dedicated cameras (mostly) assume an intelligent controller (you) is making intelligent decisions (or overrides of decisions). The difference is important. Not everyone wants the smartphone simplification, but not everyone wants to be stepping in all the time to assert more control. These two groups of users can and should coexist. The question is whether you do both in the same device.
Recent Curiosities
I'm sometimes amazed at the Japanese design decisions. To wit:
- Ricoh WG-8 waterproof/tough camera — Not only can you use it underwater, but you can use it as a Web camera for video conferencing. From the horse's mouth: "Not only for use outdoors, but also in everyday business situations." Uh-huh. And those six LED lights around the lens will give you a real nice ring lighting effect. Sadly, using it as a Web camera requires you to hook up via the USB port, which means you're running on battery power for that conference. Hope it isn't a long one.
- Pentax (Ricoh again) 17 camera — Hey, a new film camera is being made. Hey, it's a half frame camera that takes verticals (when held normally). Guess we know who that's targeted for, but it seems to me that "creator" crowd will quickly balk at the workflow, inconvenience, and cost. Did someone at Pentax actually survey this and discover an unmet demand that will be ongoing? Meanwhile, there is such unmet demand for a sophisticated, modernized film camera. (And an irony: Pentax launched the 17 on June 17th, but due to the Nikon Z6 III hoopla on that date, most sites didn't cover the Pentax until the 18th ;~)
Not that the Chinese are doing better:
- Insta360 GO 3S — In the progression of Insta360 trying to figure out a way to dislodge GoPro (and maybe DJI), the Insta team just continues to try come up with new action camera designs, hoping one will stick. The GO 3S might, because it's magnetic ;~). I suppose I should support them because it's sort of modular—I espoused modular designs back after the turn of the century—and at 1.4 ounces (39g) for the camera only it's the smallest and lightest 4K camera around. But the problem here is the thing is so small that you only get about 30 minutes of recording time and it'll take you another 30 minutes to recharge it completely. So I'd call it an intermittent action camera. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like here, it's just that going this small generates real compromise, and it probably won't always work for me.
Do You Know What's Automated and How?
In working with students at workshops for a month, and then also dealing with some big questions that came in via email while I was off the Internet, I noticed a commonality in assumptions that I think I need to tackle directly:
Not everyone realizes that something auto is making decisions for you
Take white balance, for example. Nikon currently has four different automatic white balances: Auto Keep White, Auto Keep Overall, Auto Keep Warm, and Natural Light Auto. Do you know how they differ? Do you know what your raw converter is going to do with each of them? Do you think that "auto" has no other consequences than for white balance?
I'm guessing that you don't.
First of all, artificial light is different than natural light. Natural light is a form of black body radiation, which means that light spectrum is created continuously both in value and time. Most artificial or human-modified light tends to have spectral gaps and peaks, plus they often have a frequency component. I'm a strong believer that if you're outdoors during the day photographing in natural light, you should always use Nikon's Natural Light Auto. If you're indoors (or outdoors at night in a city area with artificial lights present), you can pick one of the other auto white balances, but I'd argue that you need more information and should be using that to perhaps make a different choice.
But beyond just what "auto" is doing to color information, there's the issue of histograms. The in-camera histograms are based upon JPEG settings, including white balance. I keep having people tell me that they photograph in raw and don't need to worry about white balance. They are wrong. Either that or they don't care whether the histograms and highlights displays on their camera have any accuracy whatsoever to what is actually recorded.
But it doesn't stop there. On a Nikon we have Picture Controls (Fujifilm has Film Simulations, and every maker has their own term for their image profiling). The default Picture Control is Auto on a Nikon body out of the box these days. Auto in this context means that the camera can alter contrast, gamma (brightness), saturation, hue, and a host of other controls on its own. Like white balance, this impacts how accurate your in-camera histograms and highlights may be, but on mirrorless cameras these days, it also means what you think you see as "proper exposure" in the viewfinder may actually not be recorded that way in the raw file. Oops.
Even the Nikon Standard Picture Control has some automatic response to it. Neutral and Flat are the best choices to avoid automation decisions on Nikon cameras.
Of course you're using matrix metering, right? Nikon's matrix metering is eerily accurate. But only to a point, and only if you know what things impact it. Matrix metering makes automated decisions based upon a great deal of inputs. Focus point, for instance. Worse still, things may change if a human is detected (Custom Setting #B4: Matrix metering face detection).
A lot of you are using automatic ISO. This function works differently in different exposure modes, so do you know what it does in the exposure mode you use? I keep finding folk who use Auto ISO in Manual exposure mode—the only choice I think makes any real sense—who can't tell me what happens when the exposure gets outside of the parameter range they've set for Auto ISO (maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed). You've asked for "automatic," so something's going to happen ;~).
Recently I had someone tell me that they had changed their Focus Tracking With Lock-on value while they were using 3D-tracking as the AF-area mode. Nope, they didn't. Focus tracking speed is fixed with 3D-tracking, an unannounced and often unseen change that catches people unaware.
I could go on, but I think I've made my point: you need to know what all the automation is doing and whether its going to impact other things you need the camera to do. So:
- Figure out all the settings you use that do automatic things in the background.
- Figure out whether you need that automation or not.
- Figure out what side-impacts the automation may have on your results.
That last bit brings us to post processing.
Adobe and Nikon don't agree on white balance, for instance. While Adobe reads the EXIF data for white balance from your raw files, Lightroom and ACR interpret that information differently than does Nikon. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly how Adobe changes things, but you should note that the color temperature reported by Adobe products is way different than that reported by Nikon NX Studio. Something "automatic" is happening in the background.
I can tell you a bit of that, and it's not the best of stories. Adobe creates their profiles for cameras from two known-light exposures. One in carefully controlled artificial light, one in controlled daylight. Adobe appears to make the assumption that white balance is "linear," thus any temperature between those two known ones should be linearly placed between the exposures they captured. Likewise, if the color temperature is outside those two reference values, things are still assumed to be linear.
Thing is, what do we know about differences in image sensor filtration? It predominately varies in the red and blue filtration. Even within Nikon cameras there are some significant differences. The pro bodies have tended to have slightly higher red response, the consumer bodies slightly blue response. I have to build a UniWB separately for every camera because of this. But technically, you should be profiling more than the two data points Adobe uses if you want to be even close to accurate with color in extreme lighting conditions.
I could write a dissertation on all the "automation" that is undocumented or even mostly unknown that comes into play with both our cameras and our post processing workflows. The "average" user, on the other hand, wants to use automation as much as possible because there are too many variables that should be controlled to make you a perfect craftsperson (or deviant artist).
Personally, I'm tolerant of some automatic bits in my photographic process, as long as I understand that they're there and I have some idea that what they're doing isn't going to contra-impact what I'm doing.
I'm hoping that the camera companies don't think that FSP (fully self photographing) cameras aren't the real design goal in the future. While I know some of you want FSV (fully self-driving vehicles) and Elon Musk has promised you that for over a decade now, photography is personal and should stay personal. You show me your world, and I show you mine. They should not be automated to be the same.
And So It Begins...
This is a little off-topic to photography at the moment, but I'll try to bring it back round by the end of the article.
As I've predicted, Apple has now fired back at the EU (European Union). The actual Apple statement is brief and to the point:
Two weeks ago, Apple unveiled hundreds of new features that we are excited to bring to our users around the world. We are highly motivated to make these technologies accessible to all users. However, due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.
Specifically, we are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security. We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety. [source John Gruber, DaringFireball.net]
As I've pointed out before, the EU has a number of regulations that now directly relate to modern technology, and there's an under-the-surface political motivation behind those to keep American tech companies from dominating in Europe at the expense of European tech companies. (Note that the EU's "penalty" is based upon 10% of world-wide revenue, not European revenue for the offender, which is telling.) The above-surface motivation is to "protect European citizens." I'm personally not aware of any European citizens group contending that they're being directly harmed by Apple, for instance (Google is another story ;~).
Much of the discussion about regulating tech has to do with so-called "gate-keeping." For instance, you can only install applications on iPhones that come from Apple's App Store. The problem I (and Apple) have with what the EU is trying to do is that they're in essence trying to set themselves up as the world's gatekeeper. And in doing so, invalidating the whole reason for companies to build integrated products with ecosystems in the first place.
That last statement needs a bit of explanation, as I'm a fan of extensive ecosystems. However, if you can only profit from the core product in an ecosystem, those products are going to be much higher in cost to users and less likely to take root. Moreover, as we discovered over and over in tech's history—particularly with the computer/OS/application/peripheral construct—you also will run into no one taking responsibility for interoperability problems. The core product maker will point to the add-on provider, the add-provider will point to the core product maker, and the user problem will remain unsolved.
I believe consumers vote with their wallet. The fact that the Apple ecosystem has such a substantive uptake in the market is due to people voting with their wallet. Apple controlling their ecosystem is one of the ways in which they've been able to build better and better products that do things other companies struggle with. (Aside: I do wonder, however, why Apple hasn't said "sure, side load from somewhere else, but we won't guarantee it works, doesn't leak your privacy data, or even takes advantage of our recent technology additions. Those side-loaded products won't take advantage of our core, integrated features.")
Now let's bring this over to photography for a moment. Several US states—including California, which tends to set precedent due to its size—have been creating right to repair laws. As I've reported, NikonUSA now has set up a self repair site. It's still unclear exactly what that will entail, as at the moment we have one lens repair manual and the parts section has no parts you can buy, just a warning. Okay, it does have a number of lubricants necessary for lens servicing, but you might want to look at the prices of those ;~).
It's clear that, at least at the moment, Nikon has decided to try to comply with these new US regulations, but those regulations are still on the lax side, for the most part. However, where are Canon and Sony on this issue? Don't know. Are they waiting to be sued first?
The real gatekeepers of the world tend to be governmental in nature, either by law or by regulation. The problem with that is we're going from a more open global market to a more tightly regulated regional market in ways that are now impacting companies pretty directly. That's because the laws and regulations are getting tougher to protect perceived regional interests. It's most visible at the moment with the EU's fights with the American tech companies, but it's starting to spread to much wider regional regulation of products that are used globally. One has to wonder just how much the right to repair notion will cost NikonUSA, for instance, to provide their own user repairs. Up until now NikonUSA has used a prix fixe method for repairs that come to them; if the volume goes down because people are self-repairing, one wonders if they can continue the inherent prix fixe benefits or have to increase costs for repairs that NikonUSA performs. Fixed overhead is a real cost that has to be passed on somehow.
Another sample: I've long been an advocate of real-time communication with cameras. That requires going through a country-by-country certification process (for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and for any other radio frequency interference the electronics might cause). One reason why the Japanese camera companies have avoided adding cellular to their cameras is that it's not just a country-by-country certification process that's necessary, but a cellular vendor-by-vendor process, as well. It's very time consuming and costly, and Tokyo has (wrongly) decided that it's not worth it.
There's no clear, easy answer to what's going on in terms of regulations at the moment. Regulations, in theory, perform useful functions for us, and is one of the ways that rampant capitalistic profit-taking, among other things, is held in check.
However, Apple's statement about their just-announced features not making it to Europe indicates that there's increasing friction over how much regulation they'll accept and why. This is not going to end well.
My Start to Spring Cleaning
Yes, I know we're deep into spring already, but I'm finally back in the office after quite a bit of travel, looking around, and seeing a mess has built up.
A lot is involved with performing garbage collection spring cleaning. As a working photographer everything from logical to physical is involved, and tasks you probably don't have to perform for your photography, such as accounting, are also involved.
This year I've started my spring cleaning with my computer systems. For the moment I haven't decided to upgrade anything, but that will probably come soon enough. Thus, one of the first things I looked at was what was on those computers. In other words, photographic software.
I'm being ruthless this year. I found that I had a clutter of as many as a dozen raw converters taking up space, plus the inevitable plug-in and support software pileup that seems to happen regularly. Moreover, much of this requires constant tithing to keep up to date.
Therefore I've simplified my raw converters down to basically three. In order of preference/use: Adobe ACR (Photoshop), DxO PhotoLab, and Nikon NX Studio. (See my article on zsystemuser.com for more.)
There was a time when CaptureOne would have been that second choice, but the reason to have a second or third converter around has to do with having a clear, alternative choice of demosaic and controls. While CaptureOne provides the former—different color modeling—it doesn't really provide me the latter any more, and is certainly not worth the more-than-Adobe pricing they've adopted to me.
Similarly, I've simplified my noise reduction tools to basically Adobe's Enhanced DeNoise and the no-longer-sold Topaz DeNoise AI (plus I have DxO's Prime de-noising options in PhotoLab). No, Topaz I don't want to pre-process my images with your demosaic tools in Photo AI, particularly when they require me to make adjustments I'm not interested in (ditto with DxO's Pure Raw). It adds to workflow, takes time, and doesn't provide me the results I'm looking for.
The Nik tools are potentially on my chopping block, too. I haven't upgraded to Nik 7 Collection. I don't use the U-point tool, I don't need yet another HSL tool, though maybe the speed improvements might be useful. However, I find that I'm using a Nik tool far less often than I used to now, so I think the handwriting is on next year's wall.
I'm undecided at the moment about Ingest/Review. With Photo Mechanic also in the more-than-Adobe pricing mode, I'm finding that to be a real issue, particularly since the UI/UX is still geeky, clunky, and odd, new features aren't really being added, and I'm doing less sports work where the speed IPTC features of Photo Mechanic are unique and useful. FastRawViewer works fine for wildlife work, much less expensive, and has interesting evaluation tools that Photo Mechanic doesn't.
All in all, I've lopped over US$500 off my yearly software costs. Yes, this will make me less capable of speaking to all the software options (unless, of course, the suppliers want to put me on the review copy lists). But it will also allow me to start considering demonstrating why the products I've chosen were chosen and how well they really work.
Next up: going through the studio, the gear storage, the office, and all the spillover places (my home hall closet is simply full of bags), and figuring out which gear goes. I've already got a large pile, but that's going to turn into enormous soon.
I should be through with this year's spring cleaning just about the time that next spring rolls around...
Lust, Love, and In Love
Yes, I'm going to anthropomorphize hunks of metal, glass, and plastic, but we all do it, right?
Let's face it, we tend to talk about our photographic equipment with the same language we use about our significant others. That can run the full gamut of expression, but today I want to write about the positive side of that: how we express how well we like our cameras and lenses.
I thought about this as I was contemplating my yearly "get rid of gear" eradication program. I realized, for example, that I was still in love with some bits and pieces, but had just fallen down to loving others. As I considered this more and looked at how others were expressing their GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), I realized that we often go through predictable cycles.
For instance, when the design and marketing departments get their jobs right and announce something new, we often lust after it. We have to have it. It's perfect and does no wrong. Or at least we perceive it to be better than what we have and that it will do things we need doing.
Once over the initial reaction and with the new gear in our hands, we often then hit the love phase. Yes, it's basically what we wanted, and we have a mostly positive relationship with it. Over time, though, one of two things happen: (a) love fades, or (b) love blossoms.
For a "love fades" example, the Sony RX100—pick any of the seven iterations as your starting point—triggered a whole bunch of initial positive reactions among photographers. Many of those were associated with the "quality camera fits in shirt pocket" aspect of the RX100. Any serious photographer wants to always be ready to photograph, and here was a camera that was providing true carry-always ability.
Then we started using the RX100 and the initial lust quickly turned to something else. Note that the six updates of the basic camera all tried to deal with one or more of the irritations that users reported, but some of those changes created new irritations, and now Sony is iterating things as a completely different beast (ZV-1). Worse still, a number of the most frustrating problems weren't dealt with by Sony (e.g. number of images/charge, terrible small controls and clumsy UX, less-than-20mp-capable results). The primary reason Sony could get away with that for so long was that all the other camera makers abandoned the serious shirt-pocket camera market. Thus, it was love it or have nothing.
Over time almost every RX100 user I know fell out of love with the camera (including myself). Most gravitated to something somewhat bigger in order to get past all the problems that Sony had presented us. Okay, our "better" replacements don't fit in a shirt pocket, but maybe a jacket pocket instead?
Of course, as smartphones got more capable in photo ability, some just abandoned the idea of a dedicated camera completely and started using their iPhone/Galaxy/Pixel as their shirt pocket camera. And the more that happened, the more the camera makers ran fleeing from the scene.
My current "love blossoms" examples are, as you'd probably expect, mostly Nikon gear. For example, the Z8 and Z9 pair. Here all the updating Nikon has done keeps refreshing the products in ways that felt like our love was being returned (oh dear, too much anthropomorphizing?). We started using the Z9, ran into some things that didn't feel or work right, and then Nikon went about (mostly) fixing those and adding more capability. Not just once, but four times now. It's difficult to fall out of love with someonething that seems to adapt to our desires and needs.
Overall, the various camera makers all seem to be in different positions today in regards to this lust/love thing. Canon seems less desirable these days for reasons that are tough to fully explain, but abandoning the M system and not replicating those models in RF didn't help. The "no R1 but here's an R3" thing didn't play as well as I think Canon thought it would. And lenses? Don't get a Canon user started on that subject.
Fujifilm has parlayed into the more megapixels desires to achieve love. I call this the Trophy Wife of cameras syndrome, and it plays well with those that have aged along with their dedicated cameras.
You have to love Leica, otherwise you can't explain why you paid so much money for something that isn't quite as good at some things than less expensive gear.
Nikon users are bifurcating in terms of their love: Z8, Z9, and maybe the Zfc/Zf users are still in love, while the Z50, Z5, Z6, and Z7 users are feeling neglected.
The m4/3 crowd appears to have taken the "til death do us part" pledge.
Finally, Sony users are similar to Nikon users; some Alpha models are still being loved, while others are feeling neglected. Curiously, the former jealousy thing that Nikon users had for Sony models has now inverted, with Sony users now jealous about things they see in Nikon (particularly all those useful firmware updates).
I started thinking about this topic back around Valentine's Day (for obvious reasons) but given that cameras are mostly bought in this spring-to-summer and later Christmas holiday periods, I postponed the article to when you're most likely having these feels. (For those over 30, the term "feels" is Millennial slang for an overwhelming emotional reaction, which pretty much describes how most people justify buying a new camera these days.)
That said, here's the punch line: the last new Canon camera was launched in May 2023, the last new Nikon camera came along nine months ago, and the last new Sony Alpha was announced seven months ago. So most of you are probably pining for something, anything, to lust after. If you didn't pick up one of those recent Canikony cameras, you may be out of love with what you've got and looking for a new love.
Ah, Spring...
The Marketing Kefluffles of 2024
Panasonic seems to have stepped in it, but every camera maker is suddenly checking their shoes.
With the Panasonic S9 launch two different issues came to light: (1) Panasonic had used stock images from other camera makes in their marketing for the S9; and (2) a well-known YouTuber implied that Panasonic was playing favorites with invites to a pre-release event.
I'm not really going to comment on #2 other than to say all of the pre-announcement things camera companies do is absolutely marketing oriented, and in particular, targeted at driving up sales upon announcement. Camera manufacturers have specific ideas of how they want their launch announcement to be amplified by others. It's a marketing department decision as to whom to invite to events or give early access to. Frankly, I too think the Japanese camera makers are making bad decisions there, but if you look at sales numbers, the first few months of sales for a product are the most important, and that's where they're focused: goosing the initial demand. So-called influencers are the cheapest way of amplifying a message, and the camera companies want that message to be 100% positive.
It's #1 that's the real problem. Moreover, it's been a real problem for decades, as Panasonic's mea culpa eventually revealed. Essentially, Panasonic tried to explain their way out of the problem by saying that their Web site was established over 20 years ago to promote video cameras, and that the original idea of using images not necessarily from the device being promoted was established then. This is shorthand for saying "our marketing department has always taken shortcuts." Almost everything Panasonic has said on the problem so far has just made it worse.
Panasonic entered the still digital camera market with LUMIX branding in 2001, so what Panasonic is really saying is that they've been using this practice of using stock photos to illustrate what their cameras do for two+ decades.
Sankei-Shimbun in Japan went to the trouble of asking each of the major camera makers whether or not they use the same practice. I could have predicted the answers, because the answer is mostly some form of yes.
Specifically, Canon was quoted as saying that they used such images, but not in "photos that promote performance". Hmm. That's an interesting equivocation. Sony said that they used such images, but always identify the equipment used. I'm not 100% certain that that's completely true. I seem to recall past Sony marketing where that wasn't true; maybe things have changed. Nikon said that they never use such images to "introduce features and performance." In general, I believe Nikon has been true to that claim for quite some time: their current marketing materials process for almost every launch requires images from their ambassadors or launch partner photographers and often are very last minute in getting finalized because of that. (I don't know why Nikon "hides" their brochures for the cameras, but if you can find one, you'll see that the images are pretty much all delineated with photographer, camera, and lens information, and many of those images or sequences related to them also show up in the Web site materials.)
There is an interesting side to all this, though, and that's a pretty simple question that you should ask: at which point during/after a new camera launch do you feel confident in what it can and can't do? And why?
Free Safari in Botswana Webinar
Find out what happens when 36 (!) Z8 and Z9 cameras (and a couple of D500's) descend upon Botswana
Thom Hogan (byThom) and Mark Comon (of the Creative Photo Academy, shown above photographing something other than the lion next to him) will host a free webinar session on June 6th at 5pm PST that details their experience teaching together in Africa this past April. Thom spent over a month photographing in the Kalahari as well as the Okavango regions, and Mark joined him for the Okavango portion of the trip. We experienced it all: dogs, cats, migrations, and pretty much all of the Big Five and the Little Five (though we won't be sharing photos or locations of any endangered species). Thom even had an African Wild Cat show up at his tent (yes, it looks like a house cat, but it certainly doesn't behave like one).
Both safari instructors will show you images, talk about lessons learned/relearned, and discuss the basics of technique while photographing on safari. As usual, Thom and Mark will also answer pretty much any and all questions you might have about the Nikon gear they used or Botswana safaris in general.
This event requires preregistration. You can join us by clicking here and filling out the required information. Video of the event is available to those registered usually within a day of the event, but be aware that the recorded video is at a lower video resolution than the event itself.
Don't miss out. This planetary alignment of Thom and Mark only occurs occasionally.
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