If no one releases new products for a month, the photography Web sites all start hallucinating.
Some rumor sites are posting “coming in 2025” camera models that, well, aren’t coming. I asked ChatGPT just to see what it might hallucinate, and for Nikon it came up with Z9II, Z7III, Z5II, Nikon Cinema camera, Coolpix P1000, and screw-drive lens adapter. Well, one of those is true, and two of the others are possible. ChatGPT's response is actually a better list than what two other rumor sites I saw had posted, though.
Meanwhile, another site just published a “Top 10 Best Cameras Under $500 for 2025” article where two of the cameras were well over US$500, two were not really still photography cameras, two were instant cameras, and one was designed for kids. Realistically, the best camera under US$500 right now is probably a used model ;~). And as I write this, it isn’t yet 2025, so their headline basically suggests that there won’t be a new, better option next year. Click baby, click.
Then there are the sites that are picking off lists of what sold during two weeks at one store in Japan and making as if that is information that says something about the global market. Nope. It says who was incentivizing sales people and what was actually in inventory to sell. To put that into context one dealer recently told me that a Leica Secret Shopper came to his store and afterwards he got a big lecture from Leica because he didn’t have any Leica cameras for customers to see. Well, that’s because he still has multiple backorders for all their cameras that Leica can’t deliver to him and he’s sold everything they have shipped him. Leica's not going to top any list at that store at the moment ;~).
Finally, we have sites now all regurgitating Shotkit's latest survey, implying that it reflects the market (it does not). Shotkit's data is derived from "1000 responses" to a survey link posted to "Facebook Groups, Shotkit email subscribers, and Shotkit Facebook followers." Curiously, they claim to have 57,000 newsletter subscribers, so are you telling me that you had what was probably a ~1% response rate from their newsletter subscribers? (Disclosure: I get greater than 10% response rates to my surveys, sometimes as high as 30%). Unfortunately, when you got to their question regarding which camera you use you got an annoyingly exhaustive list of cameras (Nikon SP? Really?) that had duplicates and missing cameras. Feels a little GIGO to me.
It’s not worth citing which sites the above were or give links, as there’s no reason why you should go to them and I’m not interested in giving them free clicks; they'd just see that as a reason to keep publishing useless information.
I worry that things aren’t going to get much better soon. 2024 only had 24 cameras of the types I cover on my sites, and at least four of those probably won’t get any love from me. The next significant release I’m aware of will come just prior to CP+ and probably in February, so we could have another month of this waiting around looking at other’s hallucinations.
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Bonus: Another "story" making the rounds is that Fujifilm had the two best selling cameras at MAP Camera (Japan) in 2024. There are big problems with a simple #1 through #10 list, though. Things have changed a bit in the US, where we don't have a lot of camera stores in one concentrated area any more. But it used to be that one store in town tended to sell Brand Y while another tended to sell Brand X, and the reason for that often had to do with dealer/distribution relationships and incentives. Then there's the issue of when cameras came on sale. The Fujifilm X100VI was introduced in February of last year and topped the sales list. Impressive. But the X-T50, Nikon Z6III, and Canon R5 Mark II all came out mid-year and were #2, #6, and #8, respectively, so that, too, is impressive. However, that all reflects the fact that cameras sell best when they first come out, then decline in ongoing volume. Which makes the Nikon Z8 in 10th place all the more impressive, as it not only is the second most expensive product on the list, but it's also been selling for over a year-and-a-half. That said, the biggest problem with such a list is we don't know the volume levels (actually, I'm not sure if we know if the list is based volume or yen, nor with the ILCs how they counted kits versus bodies, nor what incentives MAP offered customers on any of those products). Digicame-info made a comment I'd disagree with—and that's where most of the English sites got this information—"Canon is performing somewhat poorly in 8th and 9th place, and it is concerning that its new product, the EOS R5 Mark II, is not doing very well on Map Camera." Really? Ninth best selling camera in only a half year worth of sales when supplies were initially constrained is "not doing well"?
