ruifo
No longer a newbie, moving up!
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The camera business is in serious decline, and has been for four straight years now. I think the market for D300 replacements is very small now, and confined mostly to a small, rather select group of camera buyers. The kind of people who hang out on forums, and who are very serious are the ones who want pro-like features in $1599 price point "semi-pro" bodies...and I just do not think the market for those cameras is as large as some people think; I think the forum amplification effect makes it seem like a D400 is needed by more people than there are actual buyers: the real money-makers for the camera companies are the lower-end bodies in the first two slots price-wise. So, D3xxx and D5xxx, followed by the D7xxx class, with the flagships being only a teeny-tiny part of actual sales, but carrying with them a lot of cachet.
The higher-end, semi-pro bodies in the $3,500-$3,000 price, ie the Canon 5D Mark III and Nikon D800...THOSE seem to be the profit centers that have replaced the $1699 7D and D300s in the sales pyramid...I think the camera makers have realized the $3,000-$3500 price cameras are now entrenched among serious enthusiasts, pros, and pro-wannabes, so...they are not very concerned with the D300s replacement, and Canon has let the 7D stagnate since 2009, with nothing of an update...Nikon does the "s" refreshes from time to time on some models.
photokina 2014 (properly spelled photkina, with NO caps) might be a disappointment to those who want the camera universe to be improved in the way it was when he camera market was expanding, but the market is definitely shrinking now. Still, it would be nice to see advancement in capabilities like buffer and FPS and so on with a D9xxx, or a D400, but it seems like Nikon and Canon have both shifted a LOT of attention to the high-end mid-level bodies like the 70D and D7100, for sales volume at "reasonable" prices. There is one thing I see good: Expeed 4 for Nikon in the new D810 seems to have allowed higher frame rates and better focusing; from what Thom Hogan says, there are more than 50 differences between the D800/D800e and the D810, and the focusing is now VERY close to that of the D4s, and does not have that same slight, occasional lagginess the D800 has compared to the D4 in focusing on tough targets. To me, that seems like the big deal: the new Expeed 4 processor MIGHT be one of the keys for the next-gen bodies...so maybe now with Expeed4 a reality, Nikon can bump up the stakes bit and get to a D9300 and a D7300 and/or a D400. They certainly have the SENSOR for it, 36MP, and now they have an engine that can actually handle all the associated tasks with such big files.
Very good points, Derrel,.
To add, last year this article here inked was released:
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The Interchangeable-Lens Camera Market is Now Bigger Than Point-and-Shoots
The Interchangeable-Lens Camera Market is Now Bigger Than Point-and-Shoots
Published on July 15, 2013 by David Becker
It’s official — the point-and-shoot market is dying, while DSLRs and other interchangeable lens systems champion the cause for standalone cameras.
A new report from retail researchers NPD tallies U.S. sales of $2.1 billion worth of interchangeable lens cameras between June 2012 and May 2013, an increase of 5 percent over the same period a year ago. U.S. sales of compact cameras, meanwhile, plunged 26 percent, to $1.9 billion. This is the first time interchangeable lens cameras have surpassed the sleek-and-shiny segment.
Analysts say the drop is (surprise!) due to smartphones, which have been eating away at the point-and-shoot market since 2009. Manufacturers such as Olympus and Fujifilm are trimming or eliminating their compact lines to focus on higher end offerings.
Yet plenty of people still care about image quality (or at least want to look like they do), hence the proliferation of what used to be the high end of the camera market.
The upshot is if that people are going to schlep around a dedicated camera these days, they want it to be worth the trouble.
Which seems pretty obvious. Yet apparently not obvious enough to prevent speculation such as ZDNet‘s “Have smartphones killed the SLR” online debate (resounding reader answer: “No”, which posits that superphones such as the 41-megapixel Lumia 1020 are turning SLRs into a “niche” market just a notch above wet collodion process enthusiasts.
“The DSLR’s bread and butter market — the consumer, the prosumer and photography enthusiast — no longer needs or even wants to carry these beasts anymore,” asserts ZDnet.
This may have some truth to it, but it’s still a big stretch to assume those sore-necked enthusiasts are ditching everything in favor of smartphones. Anyone heard of the mirrorless segment, which continues to toy with the perfect delta between portability and image quality?
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I'm not sure how 2014 will end up. Recent articles point out the decrease in DSLRs will not be as fast as predicted (by some).
=> A Look at Why DSLRs Still Sell Much Better than Mirrorless Camera Systems
=> Death of the DSLR? What's in store in 2014 for photography? - Bob Atkins Photography
=> Photokina 2014 Preview ? What to Expect? | THEME
Hopefully, Nikon and/or Canon will be smart enough to launch mirroless bodies able to use their DLSR mounts. But I guess that will still take some time, for market segment segregation.
I am indeed curious about the photokina 2014.