Cameras and Photography Explained

I keep getting asked the AI question: "do I use AI?" Or sometimes "do I think AI will render photography meaningless?"

My answers are "yes" and "no" respectively. And in those answers lies the headline: I sometimes use AI tools to assist in my conversion and processing, but I'm not into generating completely new scenes. (There's also a "middle area" between the two, such as generative expand, where you use an AI tool to mimic an area to extend a scene, which isn't so much making up something new as using what's known to project further.)

But let's examine that second question a bit. The implication behind it is that our Insta and Tok doom scrolls will become full of deep fake landscapes, selfies, portraits, and more. That instead of capturing the news—e.g. photojournalism and broadcast journalism—we'll be illustrating someone's opinion of the news. Real Estate listings would be 100% fake. Food ads will go from their current highly manipulated to totally fake. You wouldn't need to buy new fashion from a clothing store, as you could just swipe it in on your selfies from the Generative Fashion store. Heck, you could probably skin your Kia with some sort of system that allows it to chameleon into a Porsche. 

That's not a real world. That's living in a fantasy world. As much as Hollywood seems to want to have us live in fantasy worlds two hours at a time, I don't believe such a universe is livable 24/7. Way back in 1978 I wrote a screenplay called Labor Day where I envisioned such a existence that was so reversed from reality, that Labor Day was celebrated by actually doing some (unnecessary) labor. The realm the characters lived in, however, was antiseptic and monolithic because ultimately, you can't change the fantasy on everyone every day. That would not only be exhausting, but counterproductive.

I'll remind everyone that painting went through this same crisis (caution: I'm going to extremely oversimplify). Cave art slowly evolved from absolutely crude, symbolic, and mostly unrecognizable to us to something that we do recognize, though still crude. Over time the notion of realism became mainstream. Then in the 1800's we started to see the rapid creative branching that led to impressionism, cubism, and all the other isms. Realism, though, is still clearly present in painting, though (e.g. social realism, new realism, and particularly photorealism). 

Ultimately, the visual arts are all about "made you look." Preferably: "made you look, pause, and study." There's no doubt that Generative Photography will make you look, especially as it gets more and more extreme. However, Real Photography done well and right has always been in the "made you look, pause, and study" category, particularly because it relates a story/place/event that existed and is meaningful, not a fantasy that will never exist. Thus, I believe we'll continue to see high practitioner photographers who understand this and continue to do the Sontag thing ("stand on the shoulders of those that came before..."). 

And those photographers very well may use AI assists to try to ferret out things that mask the underlying reality, such as noise (and particularly color noise). They'll use AI-based autofocusing for times when they can't manually follow a subject fast enough. They may even use generative remove to take something out of a scene as they would have done had they had the ability (e.g. that white RV parked way out there in your otherwise natural scene). I'm all for those helpful uses of AI. 

But just typing words into a browser to get back an fantasy image? No, not for me, and not a photograph.

As I continue to decipher and analyze the 2024 year end data for cameras, both from company financials as well as other sources such as Nikkei, one aspect of the numbers that doesn’t get talked about much is compact cameras. 

CIPA reports that 1,880,414 compact camera units—cameras with integrated lens—were shipped in 2024. Doing some calculations on all the Nikkei, TSR, and company numbers, I come up with:

• Canon — 430,000 units
• Fujifilm — 130,000+ units, mostly X100IImodels
• OMDS — 30,000 units, probably all OM Tough TG-7 models
• Ricoh — 60,000 units, probably all GR3 models
• Sony — 470,000 units

Note that an OM Tough TG-7 is US$550, a Ricoh GR3 is US$1130, and the Fujifilm X100VI is US$1800 (Fujifilm has already tariff adjusted their pricing, OMDS and Ricoh are about to do so). These are prices that rival lower-end (typically APS-C) mirrorless cameras, which seems to indicate to me that there’s still reasonable demand for the shirt-to-jacket pocket camera. Canon has restored some of their PowerShot line, though the most easily available one in the US is the V1 model, which is more video oriented (a new pocket Elph is rumored to come soon). Nikon still seems to sell a few P950 and P1100 superzooms. Panasonic’s ZS99 and FZ80D cameras also seem to be selling. Sony’s RX line was just given a high-end refresh in the RXRIII. 

The question I have is this: are any of these options the “right” design for a serious photographer? 

Maybe?

The just announced (but more expensive at US$1500) Ricoh GR4 seems pretty good in terms of performance and function, though it still looks a little too old-school compact with it’s controls. The Fujifilm X100VI is my current choice, though it has a lot of overkill for my needs and I almost never use the fancy optical side of the viewfinder. Since the US$1500-US$1800 price seems to be where “highly functional, strong results, but still pocketable” seems to live now, is there a better camera definition that fits the serioius user space? 

Probably. 

The “base” that feels right to me is 26mp APS-C, large articulating OLED Rear Display (brighter in daylight situations), and 24-50mm (equivalent) f/2.8 zoom (a short zoom answers the 28/35 and lens adapter questions). We can argue about whether an EVF and flash is required, and what storage is used. But state-of-the-art subject detect focus and as much user control/customization as possible need to be present, too. Speaking of which: buttons you can find and distinguish with your fingertips, even with thin gloves on are also required. I’m not going to do pro-level video with this product, but it should produce good looking 4K/30 when needed. 

There’s clearly a 50-100k annual volume that would be obtained by such a product in the price range I note. That’s a very viable product. So why haven’t Canon, Nikon, or Panasonic produced one? 

Ironically, the 2013 Nikon Coolpix A (16mp APS-C) these days sells for US$500-600 (before any tariffs if it’s coming in from overseas) in good condition, and is still a highly viable compact camera. If Nikon simply stuck their current 20mp sensor and EXPEED6 chip in and changed nothing else, a Coolpix A+ would be a best seller at US$1200, maybe more. 

Way back in the 1980’s in Silicon Valley I began regularly hearing the words “voice UI.” In other words, control a device using voice instead of buttons or keys, let alone a mouse or as some of us were working on at the time, touch. 

I was a “voice control” nay vote. The reason was simple: voice control really only works in private situations. I’ll use two simple examples, both travel based:

1. You’re driving your car and say “change radio channel.” 
2. You’re on a plane and want to change what’s shown on the seatback display so say “show latest movies.”

You already know what I’m going to write: #1 works because the odds are that you’re the only one in your car. #2 doesn’t work because the person in the seat next to you just said “show latest TV shows.” (Don’t laugh: I was just on a flight where four different people around me tried to pair their headphones to their seatback screen but that showed up on my iPad mini as a pair request, which I denied ;~). 

So how is this relevant to cameras?

There’s a company, Camera Intelligence, that just got another big round of funding and who's building an m4/3 camera that supports AI-interpreted voice commands. Indeed, that seems to be the only “innovation” involved (at least the only one they’ve talked about in the press releases I’ve seen). Their specific video example has someone at a tourist destination saying: “hey, could you record a 30-second video” and “great, can you now make the colors more vibrant?” First problem, there’s a lag that’s significantly longer than a button press involved in responding to both things. Second problem, if not used in a private situation, their camera would probably also respond to me standing next to them saying “stop” to my out of control child. Oopsie. 

Of course, you might imagine that AI could learn to distinguish your voice from others. Still, can you imagine standing in the room at the Louvre with the Mona Lisa in it where everyone is talking to their camera or phone? 

I’m not saying voice control shouldn’t be attempted. It’s been shown to be a great way to help the disabled stay current with technology, for instance. The Mac I’m writing this on can be pretty much completely controlled by voice, right down to moving the virtual mouse. However, voice still has that privacy/public issue. A disabled person may already be isolated, so privacy isn’t an issue for some, but “open access” to voice control is something that can be quite problematic.

We already have the problem of people talking incessantly on their smartphones in public places. On my recent plane trip I heard one end of fourteen conversations while in the waiting area, the boarding line, and even in my seat waiting for the plane to take off. Clearly we can’t have voice control everything as well as being the only communication channel used, otherwise we’re all going to be in a constant din of voices. Indeed, that will trigger another disability category, as there is already a group of people who have hearing issues in situations where everyone is speaking; we’d just be making that a problem more common for them by using voice for everything. (Those folk, by the way, hate and avoid Apple stores, because all the reflective surfaces in those stores just make for a constant voice din that interferes with their ability to hear a one-on-one conversation.)

When I published my “Hey Nikki” April Fool’s joke last year, I was surprised at how many people went all the way to the buying page (thousands!). Apparently quite a few folk think voice control is the answer to something. That “something”, by the way, is almost always "complexity.” The proper way to address complexity comes from better design, and that may or may not include some voice control. For devices used in public, I don’t see voice as the best answer to controlling a device, however. 

I wish Camera Intelligence luck. But I think they’ll need something other than “voice control” to actually make a camera that’s viable in the market. 

I'll be right up front about this: I have mixed feelings about Ricoh's update to the GR, the GR IV. While I've not had the chance to use one for photography yet, just going through the details via press release and other Ricoh-provided information makes me feel like there's a bit of contradiction now going on.

Specifically, price versus design (and by implication, use). 

The original GR in 2013 was one of the early APS-C compacts, and sold for US$800 against a plethora of smaller-sensor compacts that were morphing in all directions (simple auto, breadth of features, more pixels/lens, etc.). As a basic, shirt pocket camera with considerable 16mp image quality, it became a carry-everywhere and street photography staple. The GR II in 2015 added Wi-Fi at no price increase. The GR III in 2018 added 24mp and sensor-IS, but lost the flash, with the price bumping up to US$900.

Today Ricoh officially introduced the GR IV, with a 26mp sensor, a better IS, a redesigned 28mm (equivalent) f/2.8 lens, better image processor, 53GB of internal storage, and a microSD slot (instead of SD), all for...wait for it...US$1500. We're now nearing Fujifilm X100VI territory, but frankly, the control structure, lack of an EVF, fixed Rear LCD, lack of weather sealing, and poor video specifications start to raise some real questions in my mind at the price point. 

Yes, the GR IV is pocketable and half the weight of the X100VI. That's probably it's key selling attribute. But the GR IV, unlike the Fujifilm, still seems very compact camera-ish to me. Small, fiddly physical controls that haven't changed in over a decade and challenging battery life (despite a bigger battery not compatible with earlier GR's), for example. 

Despite what I just wrote, the GR IV's real competition isn't the Fujfilm X100VI or Sony RX100VII, it's your mobile phone. So the real question here is whether you're getting the value for substituting a dedicated camera for the current mobile phone in your pocket. And that's exactly where my mixed feelings come in. Yes, I'd prefer Sony's 26mp APS-C sensor that's used in the GR IV to the trio of little beasts that in my current iPhone. But that really only happens at 28mm ;~). While the Ricoh offers "crop" focal lengths, suddenly things start to even up some.

But here's the real issue: even Ricoh's press release doesn't provide enough distinction about why you'd want the compact, as it uses the word "snapshot" as it describes the camera (e.g. "...excellent choice for snapshot photography, even for professional photographers."). Most professional photographers I know are using their phones for so-called snapshots. 

Am I glad Ricoh continues to iterate the GR? Sure. But I get this distinct impression that they're tackling that with a fairly narrow mind now. At the new price point, I expect better (and more). The basic UX hasn't changed a lot since the old GXR modular camera design, though it seems to have a cheaper feel than the GXR's.

tl;dr Prices won't be going down, only up

It's been awhile since I wrote about the tariff issue. It's time for an update.

TACO (Trump Announces, Chickens Out) doesn't actually describe the tariff situation, as some in the media seem to think. It's more like TICK, TICK, TICK (Trump Incites, Changes Kick). It's a classic bullying tactic being applied to key financial relationships between countries. 

Take Japan, for instance. The established tariffs on photo goods—which the US doesn't make and isn't likely to make—was in the single digits, as low as 2% on many items. Trump announced a 35% tariff to be applied starting in August, then negotiated a 15% tariff. Incite, then change the kick (back away in this case). 

However, 15% is still a double digit increase and much higher than the previously existing tariffs, And this pattern is replicating across multiple countries where "agreements have been announced." (I put that last bit in quotes because an agreement is a finished document, and we haven't exactly been seeing those.) Vietnam was going to be 40%, now will be 20%. China was 145%, now is temporarily 30%. Thailand is currently at 20%, though Trump's August 1st deadline originally promised a 35% tariff.

All four countries I just mentioned produce significant amounts of the cameras and lenses we buy here in the US. Products from all four will be more expensive soon, if not already.

Overall, for all hard good products in the US, tariffs averaged about 2.5% in 2024. Here in 2025 they're currently averaging 17% (source: Jefferies). That's a significant change.

Which brings us to "who pays the tariff?" Trump has insisted that Americans won't pay it. While I've seen some evidence that some of the producers lowered their price some at the port, the bulk of the evidence says that most of the tariffs are being paid at the port by the importer. (There's also a temporary impounded import where the item sits in the US and doesn't get tariffed until it is removed from the temporary US warehouse; some of the camera companies have used this in anticipation of the initial tariff being lowered at some point, which is what has happened for Japanese imports.) So the tariffs are mostly being paid by the importing company (typically the camera company subsidiary). Whether they pass them directly on to customers is the question.

To date, that was a half-and-half solution, as described above. The camera companies are afraid of losing customers, so they've moderated their pricing changes to be rolled out over time. The Nikon Z5, for example, was on sale at US$1000, and now is available at US$1100, a 10% increase. But the list price is still the same US$1400 (and going to go up I believe US$50 on September 1st). 

While that 10% increase at first looks the same as the originally thought 10% Thailand tariff (now 20% under TTT), another factor comes into play: the tariff is on the distribution price, not list price. With cameras, that price can be half of sale price, so NikonUSA could be paying 10% on US$550 (US$55) but you're paying 10% on US$1000 (US$100). Thing is, the actual tariffs have bounced around so much, so fast, I'd not want to be the one trying to keep track of everything. Nikon clearly raised the prices of everything that's coming in from China last month, but there's no indication that the China deal is a "final deal" (if there is any such thing in the Trump world; he has a reputation for trying to negotiate after a contract is signed or a job finished).

Mainstream media has been wondering why we haven't seen inflation budge much with all these new costs. Don't worry, it will. Soon. It didn't budge in Q2 2025 when the tariffs started because they were initially absorbed as losses at most companies. But with most making price adjustments in Q3 2025, these will now show up in later inflation figures. 

If you look at the port import volumes, there was a significant uptick in late 2024 and early 2025, which would seem to indicate inventory buildups, particularly of goods from China. This was followed by a huge dip in shipping when the original tariff amounts were announced, but bounced back temporarily to historically high levels again when the first TICK happened. That said, the current forward projection for the Los Angeles port—which is where most of our photo gear comes through—is for a double-digit drop starting in August through the holiday season (source: National Retail Federation). 

Putting on my economist's hat—my PhD work was in New Technology Economics and Management—pretty much all the models I have available for forecasting say the same thing: prices on anything imported are going to go up and likely stay up. How much is the question no one can answer for sure. Macroeconomic theory says something has to give, but so many variables are involved it's easy to get a detail wrong in a prediction. For example, three distinct possibilities for cameras/lenses exist: (1) volume goes down due to higher prices; (2) volume stays relatively the same for cameras but other products bought with disposable income have to go down (e.g. fewer lenses and accessories bought); or (3) camera companies lower prices (in other words, absorb more of the tariff) in order to keep volume intact. But note in #3, that's lowering prices from a higher price point (post tariff) to start with. 

Going back to that Z5: will it hit US$1000 again during the holidays? Maybe (assuming no new tariff changes come along). That would require Nikon to discount it US$450, which is on the high side of what they've done before. I believe NikonUSA was ready to price it at US$900 for Christmas 2025 as it was, given that it's an older camera that has paid back its R&D costs manyfold. Still, the tariffs now make it difficult for the <US$1000 full frame camera to exist. 

The bigger problem is that what I wrote about above is happening (slowly) across all imported products in the US, from food to parts for making US autos and homes. The cumulative impact of the implied inflation from that is what economists are worried about. And given the size of the US economy, if it starts to tank (e.g. recession), that will impact the rest of the world, as well. As I've written before, this is a play we've seen before, and it doesn't have an uplifting ending. Well, prices get uplifted, but that's not what I meant ;~).