This has been an interesting discussion to watch and has taken several turns. Being a member of the aging dive population certified in 1963 and taking up U/W photography in 1967 like Adam and others I have had an opportunity see dramatic shifts in the dive industry. When I moved to Florida fifty years ago I was frequently the only diver on a dive boat with a camera. I fact spearguns outnumbered cameras by about ten to one and hunting/collecting were the common interests.
When it comes to the age demographics of the diving industry I see the glass as half full rather than half empty. Attracting young divers has a lot more to do with mentoring than it does with economics. Every year at DEMA and I have attended a lot of years, PADI announces that they certified over a million new divers world wide during the year but they never talk about the million that dropped out of diving during the same year. What has stagnated is the ability of dive operators, dive clubs, dive certification agencies and more to keep young people involved in diving. I see plenty of young divers doing certification training at Blue Heron Bridge and I see plenty of them using GoPro’s and cellphones to capture images. The problem is that without mentoring they move on to snow boarding, hang gliding, skydiving and many other equally expensive sports. What we should be concerned with is keeping young diver’s involved in diving. To illustrate the dive industries desperate attempts to attract young people into the sport you need only look at the attached photos. At DEAM 2007 the dive industry launched sponsorship for the SCUBA Race Car. The industry spent over a million on sponsorship in an attempt to get young people who were watching stocker car racing to make the crossover too SCUBA. In hindsight the industry may still be questioning whether this was money well spent.
Back to the original topic of the camera industry being in “stagnation” again I see the glass half full. I think it would be more correct to say that the industry is having growing pains just as it did when it shifted from film to digital. During that shift we witnessed winners and losers. In the U/W photo realm we lost the Nikonos line of cameras arguably the gold standard for U/W cameras to digital SRL’s. I kept my Nikonos RS and lenses for over fifteen years and reluctantly entered the digital world with an Olympus E-1 that I used most for crime scene photography in my former life. I did not begin using digital underwater until Olympus E-300/330. Adam may appreciate that among the first six lenses dropped for this 4/3 system was an 8mm fisheye, 50mm F/2 macro (still one of the best macros made) and the 7-14mm zoom.
With the switch to mirrorless cameras we see a move away from 20th century tech and a move toward 21st century tech. The fact is that DSLR’s will suffer the same fate as film cameras, it is only a matter of time. So the question is which companies will best adapt and who will be left behind.
If you are starting to build a new system will it make more sense to buy into 21st century mirrorless glass and expect the more recent entries into mirrorless to equal or exceed their DSLR models going forward. The flip side is to invest in the excellent line of DSLR’s now available and see what the future brings.
Regarding glass will you want to carryover DSLR glass to a mirrorless system going forward. This did not workout as advertised when moving from film to digital and it is safe to say it won’t be the best answer when moving to mirrorless.
Olympus riding off into the sunset has brought on some panic and gloom but I see it as an opportunity for others to succeed. The M43 market remains strong with many new camera lines like Z-cam embracing the lens line. Olympus has many brilliant M43 Pro lenses with more to come including the 150-400mm F/4.5 Pro and 8-25mm F/4 Pro.
The idea that new product are revamped 2016/2017 vintage is just wrong. The Sony A7R IV is nothing like the A7R II, Nikon and Canon have announce new high end cameras like the EOS R5, Canon EOS-1D X Mark III (an Olympics offering as Alex suggested) Nikon D780, Sony is about to announce a completely new A7S II replacement, Z Cam E2 and more. All of these cameras have or will have housings for U/W use. Many new lenses are coming as well including several which are applicable to U/W photography.
Again an excellent thread, I can buy into the premise that digital sales are declining but I can’t buy into the premise that the camera industry is stagnating.
I also think that the U/W photo market is excelling with a verity of new products. I have never seen so many new strobes, lenses including water contact optics, housing options and more as I have seen in the last three years.
