On another forum arose a discussion around the new iPhone 16 and its amazing photo/video features, which I think may be of interest here as well.

 

Basically, many people wondered how it is possible for a phone to do things that even a top-of-the-line mirrorless camera can't do. A very expensive phone sure, but 1500€ is a fraction of the cost of a top-of-the-line camera that can go up to 5000€.

So what? Conspiracy theories and even the suspicion of Canon's famous cripple hammer returns.

In reality, the devil is in the details.

 

Number of iPhones sold worldwide in 2023:

 

231 million units

 

Number of cameras sold worldwide in 2023:

 

1. Canon … 3.34 million units (46.5%)
2. Sony … 2 million units (27.9%)
3. Nikon … 810,000 units (11.3%)
4. Fujifilm … 430,000 units (6.0%)
5. Panasonic … 260,000 units (3.6%)
6. OM Digital … 180,000 units (2.5%)
7. Ricoh Imaging … 60,000 units (0.8%)

 

Source

 

R&D costs are scary and the number of units sold is the only way to deal with them and maintain revenue margins.

 

I for one was shocked to read the numbers. Nikon sold 800k cameras worldwide so the figure should be divided among all models. I don't understand Japanese so I don't know what range of cameras the statistic includes.

 

Bye

 

 

14 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Number of cameras sold worldwide in 2023:

 

1. Canon … 3.34 million units (46.5%)
2. Sony … 2 million units (27.9%)
3. Nikon … 810,000 units (11.3%)
4. Fujifilm … 430,000 units (6.0%)
5. Panasonic … 260,000 units (3.6%)
6. OM Digital … 180,000 units (2.5%)
7. Ricoh Imaging … 60,000 units (0.8%)

 

Source

 

R&D costs are scary and the number of units sold is the only way to deal with them and maintain revenue margins.

 

I for one was shocked to read the numbers. Nikon sold 800k cameras worldwide so the figure should be divided among all models. I don't understand Japanese so I don't know what range of cameras the statistic includes.

It just says "digital cameras / video cameras" in the article. The main snippet here:

The rate of decline in the global digital camera market share has slowed compared to before, and demand for high-performance mirrorless cameras is increasing, with our magazine describing it as “high-performance mirrorless cameras are strong and the market is recovering.” The ranking of sales volume share remains the same as in 2022 , with Canon in first place, and if you add Sony’s share in second place, the two companies will exceed 70% of the sales volume share. Canon and Sony still seem to be overwhelmingly strong. I would like to see the share based on value as well.

is accurately translated.

Not going to buy it, but I'll take a look at the Nikkei report when I'm in Japan, see if they give any more details on actual camera ranges per maker.

I found another related April 2024 article here, giving a lot of details for the Japanese digital camera market (based on a survey of roughly 10,000 outlets throughout Japan)

https://www.gfk.com/ja/insights/mi20240418
 

The article highlights that 2023 was the is the first time in 13 years that the digital camera market experienced positive growth, with a 7% sales increase compared to the previous year.

Importantly, interchangeable lens sales experienced a 4% growth compared to 2023, whereas interchangeable lens cameras 9%

 

- Here is a graphic of camera sales in Japan per camera type and per year.

From left to right:
 

- digital cameras as a whole (blue)

- compact cameras (green)

- interchangeable lens cameras (yellow)

- interchangeable lens (red)

 

 

 

And this graphic here shows user preferences influencing Japanese camera purchases, from October 2022 to January 2023 and October 2023 (light blue) to January 2024 (dark blue)

 

 

Top to bottom:

 

- autofocus speed

- maker / brand

- pixel count

- autofocus accuracy

- camera size / weight

- autofocus range and number of focus areas

- in-camera stabilization
- continuous shooting speed
- available lens range
- eye-tracking AF


cheers
 

ben

Edited September 16, 20241 yr by bghazzal

I'm suprised Sony isn't at the top. While I shoot a canon all I see to hear about is people raving about Sony.

The iPhone sales numbers are almost scary, but Apple does not only develop the camera of that device - it is also a quite powerful computer with everything that goes along with this, in particular software development I suppose. Still, this is a huge advance in numbers over interchangeable lens cameras. I would not have expected this to be so large.
I wonder if all the software-magic for the image processing can one day be applied to (raw) images taken with other cameras afterwards? In essence will Apple transfer this all to a photoshop equivalent? Perhaps they already did and I just don’t know about it…

Blowing against the wind, and maybe totally mistaken, but do have my doubts as to whereas phones will really leave their mark on the underwater photography/video world.
 

Sure, smartphones killed compact cameras (which are also making a comeback of sorts at the moment, but this could just another retro-trend) yet there's a major difference, in that people usually have their phones with them during everyday life activities.

For diving, yes, people will bring their phones on a boat, but it's quite a step-up to build an UW imaging kit around a smartphone intended as your primary imaging device.

Yes, I know it works fine, and that people are doing it, that it would save having an extra device etc... I've seen recent phone housings even with filter attachements (Divevolk and others), and even if you counter this with an amazing dive video filmed on an iphone,I do have serious doubts as to whether this will really catch on.

At the moment there still is something of novelty to it, and it seems we're in a phase were gadgety products are one the rise in the underwater imaging world - so given phone sales, it seems natural that phone housings seem like the next big thing, and that phones (and AI capactities!) will sweep the UW imaging world like a tidal wave.

 

But again, something feels off, and it the anticipated explosion of demand doesn't really seem to be happening either...
So let's see in a few years, if we can  point the finger at my lack of foresight in this domain or not.

 

Why? Well I see the form factor as a drawback, also the fact that phones are not dedicated devices, plus maybe psychological reluctance to bring a phone underwater for diving, and having to deal with a proper housing etc...

There's also the fact that action cams exists and are easier to use in such a context, and also that people looking for more complex products / applications will probably be willing to invest time and momey in building a practical UW kit around a more specialist product than a phone, regardless of the phone's technical bells and whistles.

 

Same goes for underwater tablets and UW wireless data transmission... beyond professional applications, retailers and technology geeks, will people really bother?
 

At the moment it reminds me more of those soft "surf" vinyl housing intented for using DSLRS at the beach.
Works, some people bought them, but didn't really catch on for a number of reasons...

So I'll bookmark this and see if I was totally off-mark, and housing manufacturers will mostly be seeling phone (or whatever Swiss-army knife devices phones have evolved into) in a few years

cheers

13 hours ago, Klaus said:

I wonder if all the software-magic for the image processing can one day be applied to (raw) images taken with other cameras afterwards? In essence will Apple transfer this all to a photoshop equivalent? Perhaps they already did and I just don’t know about it…

 

We spoke about it on another thread I link here.

 

Long story short: computational photography is here to stay and camera manufacturers are really behind even if some features make a timid appearance.

 

As much as the marketing of the photography market would have you believe otherwise, the features of a top-of-the-line mirrorless camera are ridiculous compared to a mid-range smartphone, but the price of a mirrorless camera is at least 5 times higher.
In another forum there was a very heated discussion about these numbers. Basically the question is, if the numbers are so merciless, why don't camera manufacturers use the same hardware platforms used in phones, thus counting on an economy of scale?
If you search the net, the question has been asked dozens of times and the answer is not obvious. When it comes to smartphones, many people confuse the operating system (Android, IOS) with the hardware platform (Snapdragon, Tensor, and A15), and the answers are completely wrong.

 

 

Definitely for computational photography, but I don't think it will kill the dedicated-camera market.

Really interesting times - looking at the Nikkei graph posted in the other thread, illustrating the "penetration rate" of digital camera in Japanese households in 2023 makes it look like armaggedon for digital cameras.
But then the article I posted above also shows that the same 2023 was the also the first time in 13 years that the Japanese digital camera market experienced positive growth, with a 7% sales increase compared to the previous year, and this growth concerned interchangeable lens cameras (9% growth) and lenses of all things...

Statistics are very useful, but have to be approached with caution, and given context, meaning.

While camera functions on phones are great, let's not forget the primary function of smartphones is not photography, but clearly online media access and communication. This is what people use them the most for on a daily basis.

I'm confident cameras will become more phone-like in their features (computational features, automation, media sharing etc,), I doubt that phones will fully replace dedicated physical cameras for photographers.
Something about the dedicated physical object, form, lenses...

Sometimes I wonder if we're not already at peak smartphone, a form of saturation of the non-dedicated device that can do everything but also relies on limiting physical interfaces and ergonomics.
Beyond memory snaps and other social, interractive content, will imaging users, especially hoobyists, want more touch-screen / vocal commands, or return to the comfort of physical ergonomcs, handles triggers, balance.
Will users want even more automation, even less to do to capture images, or will this kill some of the interest? Phone touchscreens will soon be obsolete as an interface, thing headset mounted integration etc - but will this really "kill the camera" or will the dedicated camera just become (in a way like it already is), something else, another tool, with sligthly different purposes and persepectives?


Probably both will evolve in parallel, with smartphones filling, like they already do, the role of a compact, always available, memory snapping (and sharing) device - the new instamatic / polaroid - and likely biting into the action-cam market as well.
While dedicated photography / imaging equipement will continue to appeal to hobbyists and professionals.
This could be even more marked for specialist applications like underwater imaging.

 

ben

 

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by bghazzal

I'm glad these discussions are at least happening. Everything davide and bghazzal are observing is happening in real time these days and whether or not it replaces high end large systems remains to be seen. 

 

I've probably used a smartphone underwater more than many (most?) here. I started with my iPhone Xr then iPhone 13 PRO Max in DiveVolk housings plus use my iPhone all the time above water.

 

When I pick up any camera I immediately have to "think more" whether it' exposure or whatever.....Computational capability built into any smartphone makes this process seem like the dark ages of imaging 😞

 

I still own a 1" sensor 20 MP Canon G7X II compact camera. Will take it to Cozumel next week ( thank goodness after the hurricane) and won't be using my iPhone underwater for the foreseeable future.  I've probably posted the opposite here but for now it's the direction I'm going......

 

Another thought is despite taking the occasional video clip (my Canon G7X II has really good 1080P) I'm more a stills shooter.

 

If video was my main interest I'd keep using my iPhone or the new DJI 5 (which I actually have a set up in a shopping cart as we speak.) Simpler, smaller, etc.

 

Another diver in our small group is bringing his 24MP  APS-C  Canon R50, the same camera I posted photos shot in the beautiful Nauticam NA-50 housing with a WWL-B.  It's great but he has a SeaFrogs housing with flat port for the Canon RF-S 18-45mm kit lens plus small dome port for the Canon RF-S 10-18mm rectilinear lens.

 

We will be shooting all these set ups so stay tuned 🙂

 

David Haas

 

Howard Hall with a Gates 6K (or ????) set up a few years back 🙂

 

17 hours ago, bghazzal said:

Blowing against the wind, and maybe totally mistaken, but do have my doubts as to whereas phones will really leave their mark on the underwater photography/video world.
 

Sure, smartphones killed compact cameras (which are also making a comeback of sorts at the moment, but this could just another retro-trend) yet there's a major difference, in that people usually have their phones with them during everyday life activities.

For diving, yes, people will bring their phones on a boat, but it's quite a step-up to build an UW imaging kit around a smartphone intended as your primary imaging device.

Yes, I know it works fine, and that people are doing it, that it would save having an extra device etc... I've seen recent phone housings even with filter attachements (Divevolk and others), and even if you counter this with an amazing dive video filmed on an iphone,I do have serious doubts as to whether this will really catch on.

Ben honestly, it's a matter of generation maybe ; although I'm in between Dave and you agewise, I feel closer to Dave's opinion.

The dream I have is to leave my 40kgs of photography lugagge home, avoid to drag a 10 to 12 kgs rig on Tulamben's rocky shores and replace it with a smallish rig max 2 kg encompassing the 2Xth generation of an iPhone (that might be called the iLife or something like that then...), no housing needed -since it will be 200m deep waterproof- along with 2 small LED strobes/videolight and perhaps an aberration free wide angle iConverter (thanks to the integrated lens distorsion and color correction software) that would fit in my SMB pocket.

 

I'll skip the moment when old bearded photogs who first had to carry a 4*5" inch chamber camera and climb on a ladder switched their equipment to a handheld 35mm camera called Leica I, allowing for street reportage. it was the start of the trend though...     

Remember when digital cameras came in 25 years ago? On my side I went digital from the early days we could put a compact Oly 3Mpix into a plastic housing, something the slide shooting serious photogs used to laugh at. Even 10 years after I came across a group of US photogs in Lembeh led by a famous pro photographer (his book was listed into the White House gift list) who was swearing no pixel number would ever outpass slides definition... Hahaha : we can have a good laugh now. The guy was so sure, oh well, another visionary person.

 

On the other hand I see many young UW photographers especially in Asia who haven't practised (nor are interested into) land/studio/street/name-anything-dry photography, many of these guys/gals can achieve correct to excellent UW images without knowing much of the "basics" of photography. They hire one good spotter, as the trend is now to shoot without a strobe but continuous lighting it's easier to get a WYSIWYG photo in the electronic viewfinder, let alone the sensor dynamic abilities : exposure wot? who cares? Repeat 200-300 times a dive, you might get interesting results in the end.

For many, it's the results on Instagram that count : hence the iPhone evolution is the natural photographic bean-to-bar automation without the sweat or the knowledge in between.

 

Ok, we might still be currently in the period where the weight of your rig defines your "manhood", although I feel it is in decline, the good times where you would hear ooohs and aaahs on the beach when you bring a dual strobe housing/large converter dome are over. Now the guides in Tulamben are just listing the equipment they already know by heart, sometimes a frown when they notice something special, they'd even snub you for missing an accessory for your new strobe. 

My Gen Z daughter and her friends don't have the same POV, they don't like to carry check in luggage and pay for it, they don't appreciate the fuss in between shooting the images and sharing them on social networks. It's the fast result and the storytelling around that is valuable, not the process. Let the 'puter do the work. She did good videos with her iPhone and an Amazon case on her first try.

You may argue that they don't have the same focus in photography as we do but I am anticipating that the UW Smartphone use will increase the number of people doing UWphoto as much as the evolution from analog to digital, many of whom won't have a photography process focused mind.

Some 50 years ago Cartier Bresson abandoned photography for drawing because for him it wasn't real art, he claimed doing photography schematically needed only an eye and a valid finger after all. That's what Smartphone photography would be about : back to the basis in a sort.

   

Add on top people like me don't want anymore to carry weight, I don't see a bright future for the big rigs like we have now. For me that's a deep trend.

Edited September 24, 20241 yr by Luko
typos

Yes i hear all this, and agree it's definitely the trend, and I think everyone pretty much agrees with that.
Industry leaders, media, and pretty much everyone in the room here 😄

And the weight argument is certainly a good one - but this doesn't mean that cameras, miniaturisation, computational functions etc will not bring UW kits back to smaller, more manageable proportions.
 

What I do have my doubts about and am discussing here, is the replacement and eradication of dedicated imaging equipment by generalist, non-dedicated tools, especially of the smartphone-type.

But let's see - the technology is out there, and phone cameras are getting better by the month (week?), housings are available and pressure resistant phones are maybe already tested and out (if there's really a market for it, that is)

Which means that the smartphone underwater explosion should happen in the next, what, 3/4 years most? Maybe less?

It's fun to imagine the revolution for underwater imagery.
The younger generation will shoot on smartphones because this is what they know, what they do and also like (it's in their DNA, to use a tired corpo-trope, which stands for Digital NAtive, right?).
Tired veterans will make the switch, more or less reluctantly, because big rigs are cumbersome and heavy, airline luggage policies too restrictive, and anyway if they can do the same or better with their phones, so why even bother?
Software will make up for all those heavy, unnecessary, physical elements (such as optics and lights) anyway.

Remaining camera makers, holding on to their brand-names, will be trying to sell add-ons for phones or already filing for bankruptcy - housing manufacturers will only sell phone housings and lights (while this is still needed, since low-light functions will soon be fully handled by software making Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" indoor shots look amateurish...).

Underwater imaging equipment will be reduced to a few online outlets, selling whatever specialised pieces of equipment are still (barely) needed and underwater drones for people who can't be bothered getting wet.
Professional applications will be upheld by action cam makers, non-banned equivalents of DJI, but even in this field it will all be almost all software (and light-field cameras 😁😁😁)

Sharing, social media (an old world word, since all media is now fundamentally social) will be showcasing a mixed bag of reality based content, and reality-derived content of all shapes and sizes, some with interactive functions enabled, others not.
BBC Blue Planet 10 will allow you be at the center of a baitball or see it through the eyes of a predator (but also offering a "visual only" version for artistic respectability, and pleasing the old farts still watching rather than interacting with the content)

And who knows, we might even be spending time in a metaverse that finally looks better than the one of Godzilla-attacked-Wendy's fame, and drone-based cars will be flying, at last. 😅


I'm well aware that since the iPhone was launched in 2007 and we got pictures of all the material products it could and has replaced -  this has become the doxa, the accepted obvious direction, a crossroad that only blinded fools like that photographer arguing that slides would never be replaced by digital pixels could misread.

the future is now

 

And we already have further ventures into generalistic, broad-sweeping interfaces aiming to further integrate what phones currently do into "augmented reality" (here's another word that smells fishily obsolete already...), think google glass or apple vision pro, but on steroids, where you can "do everything", including typing out your Minority Report, just by looking and pointing into thin air (life).

And implants, or less icky devices offering similar integration capacities, are probably not that far around the corner either, for always more integration, immersion, less is more.

So why would anyone want to hold an imaging-dedicated object like a camera in their hands? Who would bother, and why?

Underwater, won't the logical trend be to integrate cameras into dive masks and live-stream your dives?
It's not like camera integration hasn't been tried already, from go-pro mounts to integrated mask cams, to video "flashlights" like the Paralenz...
Less to carry, less to do, less to worry about = more pure, unadulterated fun, right?
less to do, more to live (© patent pending)
And I'm sure members of your daughter's generation cohort, her friends or maybe her kids, will use such devices at least a couple of times (if they can still fly somewhere on holidays, that is...).

Yet my point in all this is that I'm not totally convinced that all of this stampede-forward will rid us of dedicated physical imaging devices (ie "cameras") altogether.

Especially for hobbyists ("photographers") and professionals.
Something about form and function, practicality, a little on the same lines as to how Kodak mini-instamatics or Polaroids didn't kill the camera market, as some people thought they would at the time. They served a slightly different purpose.
I see smartphones (and their all-purpose, further integrated offsprings) and cameras (dedicated imaging devices) going along the same way - crossovers for sure, but not necessarily mutually exclusive. Maybe.

Same line of thinking goes for musical instruments perhaps? Were synthesizers, midi-instrument, ProTools and (argh) DJs, and even digital audio in general (from recording to Napsterized digital output) were revolutionary, but somehow also not the first nails in the coffin?

ProTools, recording studio killer

The Cartier-Bresson example is also an interesting one in that painting is a more physical activity than photography, a return to form but also to a more hands-on visual creation medium than clicking a shutter and developing prints will ever be (a beautiful irony is that photography was once anticipated to kill-off painting completely as a medium...)

And beyond the physical object, in a world soon completley saturated both by quality point-and-shoot an partially to fully computer-generated content, will there not be some sort of longing for a return of the physical, if not in the medium itself, at least in the tools used?

With iphones and other smartphones capable of taking award-winning pictures and shooting professional video, with action cams killing it  like never before -  why are interchangeable lens camera sales going up in Japan in 2023?
Is it just a glitch in the Matrix, a last dying hiccup of aging photographic-Mohicans before the curtain falls for good? Or is there something else going on there?

Also, for some odd-reason, I'm not sure sharing images on "social media", Instagram or other is actually the endgame for imaging. It certainly seems this way now, (after all, what else is there, print?) but I think there are also hints that things might evolve a little differently in the future.
 

I would just say: don't underestimate the backlash to the major, mainstream trends we see now. 
Especially when it comes to hobbies, personal time and more professional application.
But this is most likely the Butlerian-jihadist luddite in me speaking, of course 😄

"Nikonos-users of the world, unite!"


So I've done it - it's 2024 and I'm putting these crackpot ideas out there for you folks - or whoever might be accessing archives by then - to laugh at in 10 or 20 years, laughing at how wrong I was in doubting the smartphone and its multifunction integrated offsprings as the ultimate camera killer, in what will likely be a time where people will just be creating imaging content without actual subjects being shot, since they will just be choosing and working from captures from their 360° archived life-feed  (and making smashing composites on their first try, no doubt 😅)
A world where dedicated cameras/imaging device are no longer made or sold, and Cartier-Bresson would likely shun painting for prompt-based generative-art...


crappy open-source AI generated image of a boy with a smartphone.

Edited September 25, 20241 yr by bghazzal

 

15 hours ago, bghazzal said:

this doesn't mean that cameras, miniaturisation, computational functions etc will not bring UW kits back to smaller, more manageable proportions.

May be I'm wrong but since the first Leica came out with the 35mm format (that was exactly 100 years ago btw) there was no other significant and successful miniaturization in the history of pro/prosumer photography (except for spy cameras if that counts as professional usage...almost forgot the lame analog APS-C try that started pushing Kodak towards the edge of the cliff.).

A sort of analog optics glass ceiling, pardon the pun?  I dunno... but it seems the history of optics was always in the direction of "the bigger the better".

 

On the other hand integrated computational functionalities will need a wider screen (that is to say if you want to control them, otherwise all the craft is in the machine & back to square one : smaller but powerful Smartphones win, why bother.) that's how SmartPhone sizes are getting bigger btw, so I guess any development in that direction would fall into a size tradeoff or a change of paradigm rather than a pure evolution.    

 

15 hours ago, bghazzal said:

the replacement and eradication of dedicated imaging equipment by generalist, non-dedicated tools, especially of the smartphone-type.

Eradicated? Maybe not like Smallpox was.  Probably depends on which kind of photographer and what cameras we are talking about. After all, some studio pros are using big PhaseOne cameras, sensor more than twice the size of the FF (60k€ for the entry kit mind you) although the medium format market has got much thinner since digital tech allowed zillion pixels sensors.

 

How I see it, there might be a much smaller niche than currently. If you roughly try segmenting the market :

- UWP consumer/beginner : I only have very little doubts on the fact the smartphone will overtake the digital photo market within the next 5 years.

- UWP prosumers  including most of ourselves on this board. Probably a matter of 10 years, there is currently an ongoing switch from dSLR to the still new MIL cameras that will curb the adoption cycle for the next 5 years or so, what will be the next replacement in 10 years? Just time for the UW accessories to develop.

- UWP professionals/film makers : that niche I was talking about, 8.000$ worth per optic, RED cameras etc. Not for me, not for you, 10% on this board maybe? Probably the last virus infested niche. Brands will paraphrase "Professionals, how many divisions have they got?".

 

A point where I don't fully agree is the concept of generalist/non dedicated tools differenciation in the vast history of tech evolution. I'm afraid it's only a semantic criteria to differenciate "us" from "them" at certain periods of the evolution (ie the "Who knows" from the "who doesn't").

To me it's more how it is used than what it was made for, ie. what was the computer made for before digital photography : generalist or dedicated use? Sometimes the tech can drive the usage.   

 

15 hours ago, bghazzal said:

Yet my point in all this is that I'm not totally convinced that all of this stampede-forward will rid us of dedicated physical imaging devices (ie "cameras") altogether.

Especially for hobbyists ("photographers") and professionals.
Something about form and function, practicality, a little on the same lines as to how Kodak mini-instamatics or Polaroids didn't kill the camera market, as some people thought they would at the time. They served a slightly different purpose.
I see the smartphones (and their all-purpose, further integrated offsprings) and cameras (dedicated imaging devices) going along the same way - crossovers for sure, but not necessarily mutually exclusive.

 

Perhaps. However on the things I observe in the long run :

- Tech brands often drive the market and the usage of such practise of a "medium art" (Oh wait... I'll explain the reference later) with their innovations, it's an "offer pushed" market rather than a "demand pulled" market (otherwise there would not be so many questions/complaints about strobes for instance). If the market expectancies are reduced, don't expect much innovation, meaning less "dedicated" solutions (talk about Pentax, Minolta, Kodak, Ilford, etc most sticking to old tech. That makes me think I have dozens of 135 and 120 filmrolls in my fridge, they have been sitting there for 15 years, they've probably been into 3 different fridges.)

- Whenever some hype excavates long forgotten or lo-tech practises (Lomography, polaroid, cross developped film, lith printing, etc.) almost immediately a computed solution will propose similar outcome with less efforts, resulting in more adepts on the "generalist side" device. 

 

15 hours ago, bghazzal said:

why are interchangeable lens camera sales going up in Japan in 2023?

 

An effect of the dSLR to MIL systems migration, probably.

 

15 hours ago, bghazzal said:

The Cartier-Bresson is also an interesting example in that painting is a more physical activity than photography, a return to form but also to a more hands-on visual creation medium than clicking a shutter and developing prints will ever be (a beautiful irony is that photography was once anticipated to kill off painting completely as a medium...)

 

That's the keypoint for me. We're talking Philosophy or History of Arts, drifting far away from the initial post, technicalities, etc.

We've lost 99% of the readers at that point. That is to say .. errh, 2 readers.

So be it and open that second bottle of wine.

  

I've been HATED by photographers saying that : Photography is NOT a real Art. Luckily dear ole Henri backs me, hence I'm not afraid ("je crains dégun" in french Marseillais). 

Or like Bourdieu said "Un Art Moyen" (with the french pun on "Moyen" understood as both "average" or "physical mean") Not really an Art but a social practise, where both the means and their outcome (emphasizing on the lack of correlation) say more about the photographer social environment with little to do with art values like freedom of creativity.

There was far more physical activity with the analog printing process, moving your hands, either burning or dodging parts of the print under the projection of the neg film, controling the temperature and the rocking frequency of the chemicals bath in order to increase contrast of tint your print with shades of color. Why is there anymore anyone shooting with dark room chambers, printing cyanotype, coal transfer or so? these were beautiful prints though, now left for geeks, who wants to be pigeonholed as a geek?

     

Hence the way I see it is that one social practise will evolve along with more general social practises with the means the community are generally using. 

Whoever would like to return to a more hands-on/minds-on Art might find another way or enjoy being called a geek by young Smartographers throwing pebbles at him for using outdated alu housings with different lenses.

 

Interesting that you refer to music and analog musical instruments but that is a true Art, instruments haven't evolved a lot since a while, isn't it? So I guess Artistry is the real password/vaccine against generalist tech evolution.  

I think a hint for the future would be asking everyone here not "how they see the tech evolution" but rather "why they engaged into UW photography and their motivations behind." I think it would be a good proxy.  

 

Edited September 25, 20241 yr by Luko

  

9 hours ago, Luko said:

 

May be I'm wrong but since the first Leica came out with the 35mm format (that was exactly 100 years ago btw) there was no other significant and successful miniaturization in the history of pro/prosumer photography (except for spy cameras if that counts as professional usage...almost forgot the lame analog APS-C try that started pushing Kodak towards the edge of the cliff.).

A sort of analog optics glass ceiling, pardon the pun?  I dunno... but it seems the history of optics was always in the direction of "the bigger the better".

 

On the other hand integrated computational functionalities will need a wider screen (that is to say if you want to control them, otherwise all the craft is in the machine & back to square one : smaller but powerful Smartphones win, why bother.) that's how SmartPhone sizes are getting bigger btw, so I guess any development in that direction would fall into a size tradeoff or a change of paradigm rather than a pure evolution.   

 

 

Yes - but we’re also considering  computational functionalities replacing traditionnal optics, right? In the same way that a smartphone’s tiny lens always you to do away with glass and get good results.

Same goes for lighting, as strobes / lights will no longer be necessary thanks to computing power. So future dedicated devices (cameras) will no doubt be greatly miniaturised as well, which has great implications for underwater imaging.
If we take it even further, screens will probably be replaced by lens integration, like the budding vision-pro technology.
But this far ahead, we might not even be talking about devices per se - like cameras, smartphones will also be long gone 😄

ah the joys of anticipation...

 

9 hours ago, Luko said:

 

How I see it, there might be a much smaller niche than currently. If you roughly try segmenting the market :

- UWP consumer/beginner : I only have very little doubts on the fact the smartphone will overtake the digital photo market within the next 5 years.

- UWP prosumers  including most of ourselves on this board. Probably a matter of 10 years, there is currently an ongoing switch from dSLR to the still new MIL cameras that will curb the adoption cycle for the next 5 years or so, what will be the next replacement in 10 years? Just time for the UW accessories to develop.

- UWP professionals/film makers : that niche I was talking about, 8.000$ worth per optic, RED cameras etc. Not for me, not for you, 10% on this board maybe? Probably the last virus infested niche. Brands will paraphrase "Professionals, how many divisions have they got?".

 

A point where I don't fully agree is the concept of generalist/non dedicated tools differenciation in the vast history of tech evolution. I'm afraid it's only a semantic criteria to differenciate "us" from "them" at certain periods of the evolution (ie the "Who knows" from the "who doesn't").

To me it's more how it is used than what it was made for, ie. what was the computer made for before digital photography : generalist or dedicated use? Sometimes the tech can drive the usage.   

 

Timeline noted, and time will tell - I believe dedicated cameras that are not smartphones will survice in some form or another, and that we might actually be reaching peak smartphone multifunctionality.

Saying this I'm aware that the odds look very small, but I've said it and look forward to being proved wrong if I have enough time to see it through.

As stated, I’m really discussing here is current smartphone use, which, to simplify, is using a non-dedicated (= not designed from the ground up for imaging purposes) generalist (=which does many other things other than imaging) device with a great photo functionalities, but also one not specifically designed for the purpose.

However, if I'm not mistaken, using a non-dedicated device for imaging is also a first (ie cameras, no matter how portable or throw-away they might have been, were cameras only).

The sheer practicality if it has swept compact cameras away, we definitely agree - and it's only logical, after all carrying cameras in bags or pockets was always a nuisance for people who didn't really make a hobby out of it, so replacing them with a device  people will carry with them all day long was a no-brainer.

Yet again, that said I do have doubts that his trend will mean hobbyist photographer’s primary tool will be non-dedicated generalist (ie- that does everything and more) Swiss-army knife smartphones - and even more so for underwater imaging... But who knows, maybe the future is formless.

 

But at the moment, despite the odds, I still believe that dedicated imaging tool (let's just call them "cameras" if this is clearer) will prevail.
In a different form, yes, integrating technology which was designed to overcome smartphone photography limitations, yes.

But as I was writing above, I don't think hobbyists (not just prosumers, just people with an interest in taking pictures and video) will be shooting on smartphones in the future. Again, time will tell, and I'm curious.
And underwater after all, Angrybirds isgreat for long deco stops, so why not stream movies, read the news or chat with friends? Don't get me started on dive live streaming 😄

This is what I meant by dedicated vs. generalist tool - a tool built for imaging purposes.
It’s not really us and them, it’s more along the lines of do you want your frying pan to be your health monitor? Is it practical or does it also get in the way?
Do you need, or want the million non-imaging related functionalities in your primary underwater camera?
It might be a generational thing as well (read: old-fartism), but a lot of people around me are downsizing their multimedia multifunctional tool base, going back to more monofunctional relationships to objects, for a variety of reasons.
But again, this is probably generational, and a backlash to perceived current noise/signal ratios.

Back to smartphones instead of cameras, I totally see the appeal for impromptu shoots holiday snaps and all the rest, but would a hobbyist, with a passion for taking pictures or video underwater really want to bring their bank account, phone contacts, play Angrybirds, email with them to shoot underwater - even if it's perfectly safe to do so?

All the wonderful stuff that a phone does is also largely unnecessary for imaging purposes, and in a way limits the development of the tool (ergonomics for instance).

This is partly why I stubbornly believe non-generalist, dedicated imaging tools ("cameras" ) will survive the smartphone revolution in some form or another.

The computer is a good example of a generalist tool, which evolved out of dedicated calculation devices filling basements to using this calculation / processing power to run a variety different programs, thus allowing it to do different things.

The "office suit" was born (cue in memories of my the first Apple 2 in my dad's office...).

Does that mean you want the Adobe CS sofware suit in an airplane cockpit? not really.

However, and this is where it gets even more exciting, computer-based functionalities have then been integrated into dedicated tools - and this is pretty much how we arrived at digital photography cameras.

Similarly, I’m convinced functionalities designed to overcome limitations of camera phones will be integrated into future dedicated imaging tools (cameras), but that the smartphone won't kill dedicated imaging tools (cameras).


***

 

Regarding art, I'm probably not the right person to discuss this with 😅

My broad view on the subject is that Art with a capital A is a concept which evolved in a specific cultural and philosophical context, based on what were practical, functional practices, then “elevated” to a theoretically superior, transcendental plane.
But in many ways it is also a matter of perspective.

For music, as a social-anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, I also still see music as primarily functional activity (music in culture, music as culture).
Instruments, music production (and consumption) have all evolved radically in the past 50 years, since music production is now basically software/computer/sample based since the digital revolution changed everything.

However, some forms have undergone a deep freeze, thwarting their evolution, as they became set classical forms, instrumentation. They still evolve of course, but at a much slower pace.

Western classical music, for instance, also evolved out of functional practices (ceremonial, religious, entertainment…), which gradually settled in form and function.
Classical western music instruments as well, evolving into the form we know until the late 19th early 20th century.
And while it can certainly be appreciated as a pure Art form, it is nonetheless still deeply linked to social functions and practices (very interesting to work on the ethnography of the classical music concert or of the opera, for instance...)
Jazz is another example of a living cultural practice (again, deeply functional to begin with) settling into a classical form taught in conservatories.
And nowadays, same goes for electronic music for instance, etc...

 

My point here is not so much to correlate gear and artistry - I think you can do Art with a smartphone, DSLR camera, paintbrush or a pair of tweezers - and that the medium - any medium - will fall on a spectrum as to its relationship to the ideals of pure Artistic creation...
When it comes to underwater imaging, I'm actually more interested in naturalist documentation (with a bit of aesthetics sprinkled on to top for good measure of course), than in the artistic rendering of reality by a photographer's eye. Which is why, as much as I love an impactful picture, I still miss motion and favour moving pictures as my partial re-rendering of reality.
But that's another story 😅

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 20241 yr by bghazzal

And yet...

I have two young adult children (ages 19 and 21), both have been diving since ~12 years old, and both picked up underwater photography a few years (and at least 50 dives) later.  One shoots with an A7RV, and the other shoots with my older D500. Above water they only take pictures with their iPhones, posting on Instagram, etc. However, underwater they continue to choose to shoot with their (relatively) big and bulky rigs. In part because they have invested enough time and learning  to understand some of the nuanced differences of what they can capture with a fast AF, manually managed exposure system. 

Even they are a bit of an anachronism -their friends both thinking they are a bit cool but odd for carrying such weighty systems. 

I think we will eventually see a majority of underwater shooters using things like iPhones, but I don't think we are in immediate "danger" of this in the next few years. Certainly every new u/w photographer end up evaluating options like this, however I see the more serious folks in this group eventually step up to compacts or small mirrorless systems. I'll wait to see if/when my kids look to make the switch to an iPhone underwater - that will be a key indicator for me.

As for me, I recently moved from a D850 to the Z-8, however next week (heading back to Anilao) I'm bringing along my D850 & 60mm as well, because there is still a significant gap in performance when shooting blackwater.

 

Edited September 26, 20241 yr by OneYellowTang

2 hours ago, bghazzal said:

When it comes to underwater imaging, I'm actually more interested in naturalist documentation (with a bit of aesthetics sprinkled on to top for good measure of course), than in the artistic rendering of reality by a photographer's eye. Which is why, as much as I love an impactful picture, I still miss motion and favour moving pictures as my partial re-rendering of reality.

 

 

Very serious!

 

You are condemned to Dante's circle of videographers!

 

I think there are areas where the size of the sensor or the size of the lens cannot be replaced. I don't expect underwater photography to be taken over by smartphones.

 

On land, it has become established that I shoot wide-angle up to 50mm with the iPhone and 50-400 (travel and medium telephoto) or 200-600 (birds in flight) or macro (90mm) with the A7 IV and at this point I am also sure that no replacement is possible with a mobile.

 

I hope those sales figures don't tell the whole story!

 

I really like Olympus lenses and cameras so hope OM System stays viable. As the other manufacturers are part of large corporations with other sectors to support R+D, OM System seems at a disadvantage when it comes to resources. I wonder how that volume of sales can sustain new product development .

6 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Very serious!

You are condemned to Dante's circle of videographers!

😱

"I see... Canon colours..."

 

17 hours ago, bghazzal said:

  

 

Yes - but we’re also considering  computational functionalities replacing traditionnal optics, right? In the same way that a smartphone’s tiny lens always you to do away with glass and get good results.

Same goes for lighting, as strobes / lights will no longer be necessary thanks to computing power. So future dedicated devices (cameras) will no doubt be greatly miniaturised as well, which has great implications for underwater imaging.
If we take it even further, screens will probably be replaced by lens integration, like the budding vision-pro technology.
But this far ahead, we might not even be talking about devices per se - like cameras, smartphones will also be long gone 😄

ah the joys of anticipation...

 

Timeline noted, and time will tell - I believe dedicated cameras that are not smartphones will survice in some form or another, and that we might actually be reaching peak smartphone multifunctionality.

Saying this I'm aware that the odds look very small, but I've said it and look forward to being proved wrong if I have enough time to see it through.

As stated, I’m really discussing here is current smartphone use, which, to simplify, is using a non-dedicated (= not designed from the ground up for imaging purposes) generalist (=which does many other things other than imaging) device with a great photo functionalities, but also one not specifically designed for the purpose.

However, if I'm not mistaken, using a non-dedicated device for imaging is also a first (ie cameras, no matter how portable or throw-away they might have been, were cameras only).

The sheer practicality if it has swept compact cameras away, we definitely agree - and it's only logical, after all carrying cameras in bags or pockets was always a nuisance for people who didn't really make a hobby out of it, so replacing them with a device  people will carry with them all day long was a no-brainer.

Yet again, that said I do have doubts that his trend will mean hobbyist photographer’s primary tool will be non-dedicated generalist (ie- that does everything and more) Swiss-army knife smartphones - and even more so for underwater imaging... But who knows, maybe the future is formless.

 

But at the moment, despite the odds, I still believe that dedicated imaging tool (let's just call them "cameras" if this is clearer) will prevail.
In a different form, yes, integrating technology which was designed to overcome smartphone photography limitations, yes.

But as I was writing above, I don't think hobbyists (not just prosumers, just people with an interest in taking pictures and video) will be shooting on smartphones in the future. Again, time will tell, and I'm curious.
And underwater after all, Angrybirds isgreat for long deco stops, so why not stream movies, read the news or chat with friends? Don't get me started on dive live streaming 😄

This is what I meant by dedicated vs. generalist tool - a tool built for imaging purposes.
It’s not really us and them, it’s more along the lines of do you want your frying pan to be your health monitor? Is it practical or does it also get in the way?
Do you need, or want the million non-imaging related functionalities in your primary underwater camera?
It might be a generational thing as well (read: old-fartism), but a lot of people around me are downsizing their multimedia multifunctional tool base, going back to more monofunctional relationships to objects, for a variety of reasons.
But again, this is probably generational, and a backlash to perceived current noise/signal ratios.

Back to smartphones instead of cameras, I totally see the appeal for impromptu shoots holiday snaps and all the rest, but would a hobbyist, with a passion for taking pictures or video underwater really want to bring their bank account, phone contacts, play Angrybirds, email with them to shoot underwater - even if it's perfectly safe to do so?

All the wonderful stuff that a phone does is also largely unnecessary for imaging purposes, and in a way limits the development of the tool (ergonomics for instance).

This is partly why I stubbornly believe non-generalist, dedicated imaging tools ("cameras" ) will survive the smartphone revolution in some form or another.

The computer is a good example of a generalist tool, which evolved out of dedicated calculation devices filling basements to using this calculation / processing power to run a variety different programs, thus allowing it to do different things.

The "office suit" was born (cue in memories of my the first Apple 2 in my dad's office...).

Does that mean you want the Adobe CS sofware suit in an airplane cockpit? not really.

However, and this is where it gets even more exciting, computer-based functionalities have then been integrated into dedicated tools - and this is pretty much how we arrived at digital photography cameras.

Similarly, I’m convinced functionalities designed to overcome limitations of camera phones will be integrated into future dedicated imaging tools (cameras), but that the smartphone won't kill dedicated imaging tools (cameras).


***

 

Regarding art, I'm probably not the right person to discuss this with 😅

My broad view on the subject is that Art with a capital A is a concept which evolved in a specific cultural and philosophical context, based on what were practical, functional practices, then “elevated” to a theoretically superior, transcendental plane.
But in many ways it is also a matter of perspective.

For music, as a social-anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, I also still see music as primarily functional activity (music in culture, music as culture).
Instruments, music production (and consumption) have all evolved radically in the past 50 years, since music production is now basically software/computer/sample based since the digital revolution changed everything.

However, some forms have undergone a deep freeze, thwarting their evolution, as they became set classical forms, instrumentation. They still evolve of course, but at a much slower pace.

Western classical music, for instance, also evolved out of functional practices (ceremonial, religious, entertainment…), which gradually settled in form and function.
Classical western music instruments as well, evolving into the form we know until the late 19th early 20th century.
And while it can certainly be appreciated as a pure Art form, it is nonetheless still deeply linked to social functions and practices (very interesting to work on the ethnography of the classical music concert or of the opera, for instance...)
Jazz is another example of a living cultural practice (again, deeply functional to begin with) settling into a classical form taught in conservatories.
And nowadays, same goes for electronic music for instance, etc...

 

My point here is not so much to correlate gear and artistry - I think you can do Art with a smartphone, DSLR camera, paintbrush or a pair of tweezers - and that the medium - any medium - will fall on a spectrum as to its relationship to the ideals of pure Artistic creation...
When it comes to underwater imaging, I'm actually more interested in naturalist documentation (with a bit of aesthetics sprinkled on to top for good measure of course), than in the artistic rendering of reality by a photographer's eye. Which is why, as much as I love an impactful picture, I still miss motion and favour moving pictures as my partial re-rendering of reality.
But that's another story 😅

 

 

 

Wow, Ben, this is all so thought- and beautiful… did you use chatGPT for this?

Just kidding, but that’s what my kids would have done.

I use my phone for messaging, occasionally to pay for parking. But I HATE taking pictures with it. Just doesn’t get me in the mood. However, some kid waving around his IPhone will likely make at least as good a shot than me with a real cam.

Maybe smartphones will become the entry-drug into uw imaging, then eventually be replaced by a real camera in the hands?
Alas, cameras are almost never made specifically for uw use, they are usually adapted. So, once they’re gone above, they’ll be gone beneath the waves soon after.

But for the moment, we can still discuss and vividly disagree about (dis)advantages of some really heavy screw-on optical addition to our gear collection. And worry about the money it costs and WAF required. It doesn’t get any better, no?
😉

How nice to see threads derailed like driverless trains! But then again, we are on general chat and so as the next round of beers arrives I say my two cents. 🍻

 

I totally get it! When we talk about smartphones and cameras, we always end up comparing them to good vs. evil, matter vs. antimatter, and so on. What I really meant was the technology inside smartphones, not smartphone itself. So, let's start with the data:

 

• Research and development are directly proportional to the numbers in the market in which you operate, and the numbers we saw in the first post are merciless.

• The technology supporting the photo/video/audio/connectivity department of a smartphone is years ahead of a mirrorless camera.

• It's only a matter of time before some of the amazing technology developed for smartphones makes its way into the photography market of yesteryear. I'm not sure exactly how, who, or when it will happen, but I'm excited to see what the future holds!

 

These are the data. From these I can only speculate.

 

A market leader, they usually have no reason to change things; on the contrary, they try hard to maintain their monopoly. They act like incumbents. Just think how late Canon, Nikon & co. embraced mirrorless technology and, once they did, how quickly they are saturating the market.
Vice versa, those who want to enter or gain market share have every interest in shuffling the cards with innovations. Staying in the photographic sector, the first real mirrorless with interchangeable lenses was the Lumix G1 in 2008 (formally the Epson and Leica). Panasonic never had big numbers in the photographic market. Sony, another company that did not have large shares at the time, was the one that contributed the most to its spread among professionals with the A7 in 2013.
But perhaps the most striking example of an outsider overtaking you on the right is Apple in the world of telephony.
None of Apple's current competitors in smartphones existed before the invention of the iphone. Look what happened to Nokia ⚰️

 

A company must enter and disrupt from the outside. Current camera manufacturers are only capable of repeating themselves and innovating with the dropper. It is in the nature of things.

 

It's so important for a company to enter and disrupt from the outside. It's a shame, but current camera manufacturers are only capable of repeating themselves and innovating with the dropper. It's just the way things are!

It's a bummer, but it's tough for a big company in the smartphone game to want to sink their money into a tiny market like photography. Maybe it's the opposite! Samsung made some pretty cool mirrorless cameras that were ahead of their time. But then, without any warning, they left the photography market. The whole photography division was moved to the mobile division, which is a much more lucrative market.

 

In my opinion, and this is just a fantasy, one company that would be perfect for shaking things up is DJI.

 

But beer has arrived and we'll talk about that later 🍺

 

 

My gut feeling is that one big driver behind the computational development was / is to make pics possible WITHOUT all the big and dedicated lenses and so on. To some extent the goal is replacing optics with software as much as possible. Taking this technology into mirrorless cameras is maybe counter-intuitive for these companies? And why bother, given the market size…

On 9/28/2024 at 7:52 AM, Klaus said:

My gut feeling is that one big driver behind the computational development was / is to make pics possible WITHOUT all the big and dedicated lenses and so on. To some extent the goal is replacing optics with software as much as possible.

 

This is true to some extent. This was the main driver for the development of these technologies, the most immediate use. But there are much more creative applications. Again from the second part of article I had linked in another thread:

 

https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0681063194/computational-photography-part-ii-computational-sensors-and-optics

 

This technology is already being used. It is the one that allows you to blur in post parts of the image. Combined with other AI devilry is what allows Davinci Resolve to mimic different lenses in post. Not perfect abut It already works, and with the speed at which these things are going (just remember what was DALL-E one year ago) I can imagine what's possible in a couple of years. Then I am not a photographer but there are several features in Photoshop that allow similar things.

 

 

Here I take up a somewhat crazy post on another forum. 

 

https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/88008-the-camera-of-the-future-is-not-full-frame-with-a-prime-lens/

 

Quote

All that changes outwardly is that the full frame sensor becomes 3 small ones with 3 modules (12mm, 24mm, 85mm), and AI does the rest. No more lenses. It would look like a normal Sony a1 with a pancake lens on the front.

 

The concept is:

• For ergonomic reasons, cameras will remain among us with similar shapes and sizes and will never be replaced by a smartphone. 
• These cameras will have technology similar to what is implemented on smartphones that will allow you to have a single lens and decide what lens to use, which film emulation and other parameters in post production.

Quoting the computational photography article I linked:

 

Quote

 

It's impossible to imagine a smartphone presentation today without dancing around its camera. Google makes Pixel shoot in the dark, Huawei zooms like a telescope, Samsung puts lidars inside, and Apple presents the new world's roundest corners. Illegal level of innovations happening here.

DSLRs, on the other hand, seem half dead. Sony showers everybody with a new sensor-megapixel rain every year, while manufacturers lazily update the minor version number and keep lying on piles of cash from movie makers. I have a $3000 Nikon on my desk, but I take an iPhone on my travels. Why?

 

 

So if we already have all these features in our smartphones with tiny little sensors, imagine what I could achieve with a proper camera. Why not?

And here we arrive to you second statement:

 

On 9/28/2024 at 7:52 AM, Klaus said:

Taking this technology into mirrorless cameras is maybe counter-intuitive for these companies? And why bother, given the market size…

 

Yes, thay have a monopoly of a shrinking market so they have no incentive to push things forward with tech that they don't control.

 

So IMHO a real change can only come from an external actor. Certainly not one from a more profitable market such as the smartphone market. That's why I was giving the example of Apple. This company had never produced a phone but was a leader in designing computers that are in everyday use and had the genius to think outside the box. How it ended up we all know.

 

That is why in the previous post I was referring to DJI. This company has all the cards to accomplish something similar.
It is a world leader in the drone market. These flying things incorporate several completely different technologies:

• Photography and video
• flight systems
• sensors
• telecommunications

Today a drone is a super concentrate of integrated technology. Leveraging their knowledge in different fields, they have been entering “adjacent” markets for years with excellent results:

 

• Their camera gimbals are among the most widely used by professionals in the industry
• Their LIDAR focus systems for cameras and manual lenses are the most advanced in the world and are used by professionals along with their gimbals.
• One of their very strange cameras is beginning to be used in blockbuster film.
• Their remote image control systems have become among the best in the film industry.
• Their action cameras in just a few iterations have reached and surpassed Gopro levels.
• The Osmo Pocket is one of the most incredible projects of recent times.

Their strength lies in integration. You have a DJI wireless microphone? you connect it via BT with one click with all their products.

 

All of this where in 2024 we, 90% of mirrorless users, consider it normal that the only reliable way to download photos and videos from our camera, is to physically remove the card and insert it into a special reader.

 

Ciao

 

 

@Davide DB

Well said, however there is a bit of revisionist history in the argument you make.

Apple was not the first company to create a smart phone, and actually there were Android devices availabe on the market (made by Danger) before the first iPhone was released. I understand the argument you are making, but both Japan and Korea had internet enabled "smart" phones (with app stores widely available) well before the iPhone. Several of the manufacturers still exist today (although most now standardize on Android).

Apple did well to consolidate the market, however only a small bit of this was due to technology, the rest was through coerce the "app ecosystem" to within a walled garden (the app store). 

Without arguing the ethics of this, consider that just last week the founder of OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT) and one of the original designers of the first iPhone & iMac have now partnered up to build a new consumer wearable AI-device that is being designed to replace phones altogether (as they have already stated).  I think we've already seen the "peak smartphone..." moment - the future will be something else. AI-driven, much more personal, multimodal (input & output), more attentive,  and less of a distraction. 

19 hours ago, OneYellowTang said:

@Davide DB

Well said, however there is a bit of revisionist history in the argument you make.

Apple was not the first company to create a smart phone, and actually there were Android devices availabe on the market (made by Danger) before the first iPhone was released. I understand the argument you are making, but both Japan and Korea had internet enabled "smart" phones (with app stores widely available) well before the iPhone. Several of the manufacturers still exist today (although most now standardize on Android).

Apple did well to consolidate the market, however only a small bit of this was due to technology, the rest was through coerce the "app ecosystem" to within a walled garden (the app store).

 

Hmm, are you talking about imode enabled phones for Japan?
These certainly predated the iphone and smartphones by a few years, but also didn't really compare to smartphones and apps from what I remember...
It was basic email + browsing (and a manga / book reading app) and not much else. No real app store (or apps...) to download.
Which was certainly ahead of its time (a bit like the French Minitel network vs. home internet, ever heard of it?), but very limited and quite a different environment.
imode was also introduced in France just a couple of years before the smartphone explosion, by Bouygues Telecom if I remember correctly. It was slooooooow, but sometimes you could check email and (sometimes) load a webpage...

 

I remember when I started going to Japan, Japanese phones were more advanced, with colour cameras, then video when we had the first still still cameras... Very cool.
 

And then... smartphones happened in Europe.
And all of a sudden my cheap smartphone became and object of interest in Japan, 2009 maybe, I don't really remember - as the imode operating clamshell phones and carrier protectionism meant smartphones were introduced later, much later in Japan....
People were asking to see my phone, and really impressed as these kind of phones were not available on the Japanese market.
Not sold, but also not useable on Japanese carrier networks - SIM cards, for instance, are a recent introduction in Japan (which was a deliberate move to secure the domestic market)

It was a little bit sad, to see Japan lagging behind so much after being such a symbol of advanced technology... Really felt like the end of an era...

Another thing I remember is that in the early days, after Android / Apple smartphones were finally introduced, it that Japanese users had to pay to dowload/use even basic apps.

I would show all these apps to my sister-in-law before realising that the Android "playstore" or whatever what they were accessing through their carrier was called required payment to download, and for most apps (including youtube, gmail...) a monthly payment IIRC...
This lasted a bit before it was normalised like elsewhere.

People were shocked we didn't have to pay to download apps and or to use them for the most part, just data quotas.... 😅

 

Another fun fact about Japan is that carriers actually rebranded Korean (Samsung) phones for the Japanese market at first - so Samsung Galaxy phones were rebranded as "Docomo phones", with no Samsung brand or model name, and sold directly by carriers on the domestic market - so as not to underline how behind Japan now was... This was a little weird as well...

 

Bu things have changed - my current Japanese smartphone is a Chinese Oppo, which I got free bundled with a Docomo-linked subsidiary carrier subscription (OCN) - however, as i just found out, the Oppo models sold in Japan are not sold in SE Asia, so my efforts to change get the battery changed (which is very easy to do in Kuala Lumpur) all failed...
So there's still a bit of protectionism there I guess.

 

And nowadays, other than home-based monthly internet subscriptions, internet access is still ridiculously expensive in Japan compared to Europe or S.E. Asia, and with low data quotas...

Just to give an example, my Japanese phone has one of the cheapest plans, which is 500 Mb of data per month, for around 8 euros per month...

Edited October 1, 20241 yr by bghazzal

1 hour ago, bghazzal said:

Just to give an example, my Japanese phone has one of the cheapest plans, which is 500 Mb of data per month, for around 8 euros per month...

 

Here in Italy for that price you get 50Gb or even unlimited.

 

 @OneYellowTang yes, you are right but everybody acknowledge that iPhone is considered to be a breaking point.

I had a Nokia N85 and was contemplating switching to PalmOS. Everyone was using Blackberrys for work...

 

Returning to photography, was there such a radical change in the past that the players in the field changed?

I am thinking of the time when The historical European brands, Leica, Zeiss, Kodak, Agfa were supplanted by Fuji, Nikon, Canon. 

The Japanese started working as manufacturing plants for Western companies and then replaced them. I don't know if we can point to a precise turning point that can be traced back to technological innovations.

16 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Returning to photography, was there such a radical change in the past that the players in the field changed?

I am thinking of the time when The historical European brands, Leica, Zeiss, Kodak, Agfa were supplanted by Fuji, Nikon, Canon. 

The Japanese started working as manufacturing plants for Western companies and then replaced them. I don't know if we can point to a precise turning point that can be traced back to technological innovations.

I haven't looked into the history of major Japanese camera makers, but you've spiked my curiosity!

I know most have been around for a while, probably 1960s or earlier, predating the "Japanese electronics" era.
My first film camera was my dad's Canon AE1, which if I remember correctly was a hit in the late 1970s.
(edit - yes, it seems most manufacturers were general optical equipment makers, already active pre-WW2, somewhat similar to German optical companies, which probably inspired these ventures)

One thing to remember is that "Made in Japan" was generally a synonym of bad quality until the 1980s...
You're absolutely right about manufacturing plants - one big electronic export product (before the VCR boom) after WW2 were Japan's cheap radio transistors, which were of notoriously bad quality.

The association between Japanese products / exports and cheap quality goes back to the interwar period. After the 1970s, the "bad quality electronics" stigma hopped from "made in Japan" to "made in Hong-Kong" and "made in Taiwan" before ending up on "made in China", where it still is to this day (for Chinese company branded goods anyway...)

If I dig into the remaining memories of my Japanese studies, when it comes to electronics, things really changed in Japan after the oil crises.

After WW2, Japan had a mixed-economy, with an almost Soviet-style economic planning set out by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI), coupled with fluid cooperation between senior civil servants and business owners including surviving Zaibatsu conglomerates revamped in Keiretsu groupings (eg Mitsui, Yamaha, etc), and the financial sector.

Directives were set out by the MITI and the industry would follow (this level of State planning and involvement actually predates WW2 and went quite far - for the anecdote some sovkhoz/kolkhoz type collective production experiments even happened during the Japanese colonisation of Manchuria, (which didn't go too well with the Imperial government's official anti-communist stance...).

All this to say that the power of the MITI directives was enormous, and this level of State planning and fluid implementation (senior civil servants and management had gone to the same schools, and had interpersonal relations) coupled with a compliant financial sector, is really something quite unique, and one of the major reasons for Japan's rapid economic success post-WW2...

I mention this because up to the oil-crisis, Japan's economy was driven by different plans, including a major coal-production focus in the 1950s along with (cheap) transistors/electronics, but after that the major MITI focus was the petrochemical industry (which is why you have all these "kombinat" plants along the inner sea for instance...)

 

However, after the oil crises, MITI changed directives, moving the country's economy away from its petrochemical focus to the production of high-end, high-tech electronics. R&D budgets were enormous, and everyone jumped on board.

This is why by the end of the 1970s early 1980s, Japanese electronics are booming, innovation flourishes and - lo-and-behold - quality also improves at a very fast pace...
 

The Golden Era... This is when we see Mitsui linked-companies develop the Compact Disc - which had actually been invented by Philips in the Netherlands - to make it into a practical commercial product, and also the invasion of Japanese VCRs, and all the rest (tape recorders, compact hi-fi sets, walkman, discman, TVs, laserdiscs, portable laptops, minidiscs, game consoles, MIDI musical instruments, DVDs, DAT, digital audio and video and so much more...)

Back to cameras, Japanese camera makers also benefited greatly from this national focus on high-tech R&D and production, and I think it helped fuel the transition to digital imaging...

All this came to a grinding halt in 1989, when the economic bubble burst - Japan has been recovering ever since, and lost the way to its former assemblers, mostly based in its former colonies, Korea (which also had zaibatsu/keiretsu-like structures founded during the Japanese colonial period, see chaebol) and Taiwan...
Let's not forget that during the colonial period, both Seoul and Taipei had prestigious Imperial Universities where most of Korean and Taiwanese pre and post-WW2 elite had been educated, a fact which, despite obvious political tensions, helped economic cooperation (in accordance with the Japanese "flying geese paradigm", the Gankō keitai-ron)
Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS started out as an assembler for Toshiba, for instance...

After 1989, the world of Japanese electronics, R&D budgets were slashed, feet were generally freezing-cold, and there was also a tendency to refocus on the domestic market instead (you wouldn't believe the number of innovative Japanese domestic products, good and bad, which never made it out of Japan...), but with no great success.

The Koizumi era in the 1990s also saw the introduction of neoliberal economic directives, privatisation and deregulation (inspired by predating Reagan/Thatcher type economic policies) in Japan,  all of which didn't really help in this case - Japanese industries missed both the next-generation TV and the smartphone successive boats, along with a few other heavy trends in the process...

The post bubble-burst 1990s were the end of the powerful MITI (renamed METI) planning directives, and Japan is still bobbing around in the aftermaths of the radical economic policy changes of the 1990s/2000 to this day...

It is in this very special post-boom and post-crisis, conservative environment that Japanese camera makers operate, and nonetheless still dominate the international market. And other than the Samsung camera initiatives mentioned above, there have actually been very few forays into the camera market.

Beyond the limited scope of the camera market, I wonder if this might be also be linked to the fact that optical / lens production require precision glass technology that few Asian countries possess, or at least not to the level of Japanese plants.

This context also helps understand why Japanese camera makers have been generally conservative, generally offering limited innovations, and with a slower implementation (in stark contrast to what was happening in the late 1970s and 1980s...).

 

cheers

ben
 

Edited October 1, 20241 yr by bghazzal