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September 29, 2003
Dichotomization of the Digital Camera Space?
I'm sensing that digital photography is slowly splitting into two groups with very different needs and equipment.
The first group is the serious consumer, prosumer, and professional photographer. These folks really care about the quality of the photograph and are concerned with (if not educated on) the specs of the camera beyond mere pixel counts (the importance of which I think is overrated anyway). This group cares about printability (where megapixels do matter) as much as anything. Digital SLRs and full-featured, dedicated digital cameras are the type of kit that this group goes for.
The second group is the snapshooter and whim photographer -- the folks who just want a quick image of some people or things and the most likely use is emailing the image to a family member or friend. For these folks, 2 megapixels is too much (that won't easily fit in an email or on a webpage) and even the mention of aperture settings is enough to induce instant boredom. This group loves the concept of the integrated digital camera -- phones and PDAs with cameras in them are the new hot must-have devices.
So where does that leave the middle-of-the-road digital camera? You know, that 3-megapixel, 3X zoom unit about the size of a hamster. It's too big to easily fit in your pocket (so you never have it when you need it) and it's too limited to let you take really nice photos. My prediction is that this segment of the market will slowly shrink and we'll see fewer and fewer of these rather mediocre standalone digital cameras. What we may see is this portion of the market start being dominated by cheap imports.
Most folks who can afford to get what they want, however, will settle either for the camera integrated into their phone or PDA (.3-1.5 megapixels) or will go out and buy a "real" (standalone) digital camera (5 megapixels and up) with more controls than the Apollo lunar lander.
So, which group do you live in...the serious photographers or the fun snapshotters? Or, am I all wet and you think there's more than enough room for the whole range of products and price points?
Posted by Craig in Photography
Comments
This is exactly what's happening to the regular camera space, with the market bisecting into high-end professional cameras, and one-time-point-and-shoot disposables. The mid-spec film cameras are suddenly getting cheaper... but I believe they'll eventually find a price point where their market share is stable.
With regard to digital cameras, I'm actually middle-of-the-road. I've been an enthusiast before, during my Canon A-1 days, and I had the usual bag of tricks - Canon, Tamron, Sigma lenses and other gear - but I found I was neither good enough a photographer nor had enough opportunities to make full use of my system. And my back was killing me, hauling around the gear. Point-and-shoots had terrible quality. I settled on a Canon Photura, a marvel which engineered a camera around a zoom lens, which had enough control for me to play with to provide killer photos.
Right now, I don't think I have the back to shoulder gear for the high-end digital cameras (though I'm tempted), don't want to go to the cheap digitals, but am a bit frustrated with my large-ish 4MP Toshiba. I like the PDA/cam idea, but would probably like a separate digicam for 'real' pictures. Any suggestions?
Posted by: Sam at September 30, 2003 10:54 AM
Try the new Canon Rebel Digital for less than $900. If you want to spend more, try the Nikon D100 or Canon 10D. Can't go wrong with any of these cameras.
Posted by: Ken at September 30, 2003 11:07 AM
I belong more to the snapshooter category, but all the same would like to produce decent pictures when I do take them. At the age of 52 I've just bought my first camera, because I've been waiting all this time for them to become small enough to fit in a pocket. I've bought an Exilim Z3 (3 megapixels, 3 x optical zoom). It's not all automated, there is a certain amount of control over the camera, but I haven't got much idea how to use it. I don't want to turn into a camera obsessive, I just want some half decent pictures. Are there any books or websites that could provide some fairly basic information on getting the best out of this class of digital camera?
Posted by: Basil at October 7, 2003 7:07 PM