Demand For High-End Cameras is Soaring (economist.com) 132
Luxury camera maker Leica Camera reported record sales in 2023, defying the global decline in digital camera demand. The German company's Q3 model, priced at $6,000, saw six-month waiting lists upon release last year. Industry data shows premium camera sales are surging as smartphone photography dominates the consumer market, Economist writes.
The Camera and Imaging Products Association reports the average camera price has tripled in six years as manufacturers shift focus to high-end models. Fujifilm's X100 series, launched in February at $1,600, is sold out and commanding higher prices on secondary markets. Nikon and other brands are following suit, prioritizing premium offerings. From a report: In a Japanese interview with Yomiuri, Nikon's president, Muneaki Tokunari, acknowledged that while smartphones harmed overall sales of digital interchangeable lens cameras, they may contribute to the demand for high-end cameras. Not many years removed from dire straits, Tokunari also outlined Nikon's ambitious expansion plans, including its recent acquisition of RED Digital Cinema.
Tokunari says that many camera businesses were recently operating at a loss and that some competitors excited the photo business altogether. This was, unsurprisingly, driven in large part by the massive growth of the smartphone market and the improving quality of smartphone cameras, which reached the "good enough" stage the late Steve Jobs predicted years before the camera industry felt the sting of smartphones.
However, "We are now in an age where smartphones and digital cameras can coexist," Tokunari explains in the machine-translated Yomiuri interview, initially spotted by Digicame-Info. "Global sales of digital cameras have fallen to one-twentieth of their peak. However, domestic companies are doing well. The top five companies hold most of the world's market share. This is a rare example in Japanese industry."
The Camera and Imaging Products Association reports the average camera price has tripled in six years as manufacturers shift focus to high-end models. Fujifilm's X100 series, launched in February at $1,600, is sold out and commanding higher prices on secondary markets. Nikon and other brands are following suit, prioritizing premium offerings. From a report: In a Japanese interview with Yomiuri, Nikon's president, Muneaki Tokunari, acknowledged that while smartphones harmed overall sales of digital interchangeable lens cameras, they may contribute to the demand for high-end cameras. Not many years removed from dire straits, Tokunari also outlined Nikon's ambitious expansion plans, including its recent acquisition of RED Digital Cinema.
Tokunari says that many camera businesses were recently operating at a loss and that some competitors excited the photo business altogether. This was, unsurprisingly, driven in large part by the massive growth of the smartphone market and the improving quality of smartphone cameras, which reached the "good enough" stage the late Steve Jobs predicted years before the camera industry felt the sting of smartphones.
However, "We are now in an age where smartphones and digital cameras can coexist," Tokunari explains in the machine-translated Yomiuri interview, initially spotted by Digicame-Info. "Global sales of digital cameras have fallen to one-twentieth of their peak. However, domestic companies are doing well. The top five companies hold most of the world's market share. This is a rare example in Japanese industry."
Likely a fad. (Score:2, Interesting)
This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sens
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Fujifilm's own ad copy for the X100 says it best:
That screams "influencer," not "professional photographer."
Leica is the Rolls Royce, not the Mercedes/Lexus (Score:3)
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I dunno...I don't know any other company that is making a full frame dedicated monochromatic camera besides Leica.
I LOVE my M10M....use it all the time.
I think Phase One makes one, but it's at least $36K for back alone I think?
I did think I hea
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And as far as the Fuji GRX line...those bodies have come down in price to be actually competitive with the upper line Canon's and Sony's....the GFX100 II S is like $4999.....that thing is amazing....
I'd certainly consider these to be serious camera makers, no?
Good cameras are like any other commodity, people will have their preferences. For myself, my next camera will probably be the Zfc Nikon, with the adapter for the F mount lenses. I don't know if this is considered a High End or not at around a kilobuck. But it reminds me of and feels like the old Nikon F2 camera I cut my teeth on, and I have a lot of older Nikon lenses.
That's the important part for me - I still use classics like the 55mm Micro-Nikkor with its superb flat field performance. And I'd buy the
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The only Nikons I own are still the old 35mm ones, AND I have the lenses to go with them...
I've been toying with gettin the ZF (I want to stay full frame, not crop sensor, and the price different isn't that much)....because I too like the external controls.
I'd likely use it only to adapt lenses to....both my old Nikkor F lenses as well as a lot of vintage glass I've been having a lot of fun with...especially some of the old soviet lenses and the tr
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The only Nikons I own are still the old 35mm ones, AND I have the lenses to go with them...
I've been toying with gettin the ZF (I want to stay full frame, not crop sensor, and the price different isn't that much)....because I too like the external controls.
I'd likely use it only to adapt lenses to....both my old Nikkor F lenses as well as a lot of vintage glass I've been having a lot of fun with...especially some of the old soviet lenses and the triplet glass back in the say which create some awesome swirly and bubble bokeh.
I like that that Zf also comes in some custom body colors if you order from factory...definitely a fun looking camera...digital with old world charm.
Speaking of messy lenses, I have an old Diana camera that I keep thinking about adapting to my Nikon. Those lenses were horrible plastic things that could make really strange images. I have to check to see what it is worth before tearing it apart. They were quite collectable, and I have the whole thing, including the box it came in.
Check to see if the Soviet lenses were radioactive. Shouldn't be a problem, but always good to know.
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For serious photographers, glass matters.
And truly "serious photographers" have never been anywhere near the majority of the market. Leica's "record sales" (whatever that means) nothwithstanding, smartphone cameras gutted the market for dSLRs and mirrorless cameras - as the Nikon exec admitted.
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For serious photographers, glass matters.
And truly "serious photographers" have never been anywhere near the majority of the market. Leica's "record sales" (whatever that means) nothwithstanding, smartphone cameras gutted the market for dSLRs and mirrorless cameras - as the Nikon exec admitted.
They sure did. And DSLR's are nowhere near as convenient to take nude twerking or dick pix with as a a smartphone. Outside of professional or "Prosumer" use, the purpose built cameras like SLR, or DSLR were kind of like Vanity items. I have a collection of Nikon Lenses that I parted with a lot of money to pick up, so Ima getting a mirrorless Nikon for Christmas.
Re:Likely a fad. (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends. The modern celebrities that kids want to emulate are Youtubers. Cell phone cameras look Ok for that, but any halfway decent dedicated camera looks better.
A lot of people go through the phase of giving the social media influencer thing a try and end up buying a decently expensive camera as part of that. Sure they get tossed aside by most after a while, but then there's always a new group of aspiring "influencers" buying new ones again.
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It might be a fad, but I wouldn’t call it analogous to the vinyl craze. Vinyl isn’t actually better than digital (and is in many, many ways worse). Dedicated cameras do produce better photos than do phone cameras. Even my decade-old Sony A6000 (which only cost me $500—far less than the cameras discussed here) blows my iPhone 14 Pro’s camera out of the water with just the cheap kit lenses it came with.
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the A6000 does not have a viewfinder, only a screen, which is impossible to see in true day
Re: Likely a fad. (Score:2)
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I see your point and where you're going with this....
I'd argue, however, that a human photographer, doing edits from RAW images himself...still is taking the picture, since HE is the one editing it after setting the composition.
I'd argu
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I believe taking a photo with a modern phone is still "taking a picture". The composition and "choosing the moment" are 2 things that you, as a human, do fully, and they're very important part of "taking a picture". Now, yes, the phone also does a first layer of edits. DSLRs also do (hence the noticeable color difference between Nikon and Canon). Heck, even on film, depending on what film you chose, the picture will come out different. Regardless, I don't think what the
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I see your point and where you're going with this....
I'd argue, however, that a human photographer, doing edits from RAW images himself...still is taking the picture, since HE is the one editing it after setting the composition.
I'd argue letting a computer do it all...well, that's more towards the point of the parent post asking "if you are taking a picture or just setting composition"....
I think if the human is there from setting composition...tripping the shutter...and "developing" the image with crops, contrast, color grading, etc....that person is still "taking the picture".
I think that makes the distinction.
Thoughts?
There are a lot of different viewpoints about "the image". Some people like Henri Cartier Bresson, believed that the image taken must be printed "as on the film". That you choose the moment, and take it, and that's it. I've always thought that was kinda bullshit - apologies to the good Mr Bresson. Ever since I started making images in the late 1970's, I would touch up exposure and composition as needed, which of course has to happen on a 8 by 10 created from a 35mm image considering the different aspect ra
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If you are a photographer, it is only ok to do global adjustments. If you start editing sections it is no longer considered a photograph.
What about dodging or burning in the darkroom?
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Even Ansell Adams was known to do a bit of burning and dodging.
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Choosing the shutter speed, choosing the aperture, choosing the focus point.
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Oh, I certainly use my phone for 99% of my photos, and for some workflows, its image processing pipeline definitely makes it easier to take better photos than with the old Sony.
I actually only got interested in photography when I got a trio of poison dart frogs and was disappointed by the quality of the photos I got of them from my phone. I tried the A6000 with the kit lens and was pleasantly surprised by how much better the shots were. I later bought a $700 macro lens (more expensive than the camera!) and
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The DSLR market is dead, everyone wanting interchangeable lenses is going mirrorless. However, the cameras this article is talking about are neither of those, they are all high-end fixed-lens cameras.
The DSLR market is not dead. Nikon, Canon and Pentax still make and sell them. You are also wrong about the cameras in the article : it mentions the Q3 which is a fixed lens compact, but also M-series cameras which are interchangeable lens rangefinders. Rangefinder cameras were supposed to die a death even before DSLR cameras were, but here we are.
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You are also wrong about the cameras in the article : it mentions the Q3 which is a fixed lens compact, but also M-series cameras which are interchangeable lens rangefinders.
Oh guess you have a subscription, I don't. Can you
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DSLR is very dead. Yes they still sell them but when was the last time they released a new model? The last Canon was what, 2020 with the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III? Nikon's latest is the D780 in 2020. Both high end full frame cameras targeted at pros. The last consumer DSLR from Nikon was the D3500 in 2018, and from Canon the EOS 90D and Rebel SL3 both in 2019. Mirrorless is now over 70% of new sales for non-fixed lens cameras and that is growing every year. You perhaps forgot the D6 that was introduced in 2020. That's a serious bit of kit for being dead.
But claiming that a camera that has not been replaced in a bit over three years in no way indicates that the DSLR market is dead. This is not the Smartphone market, where new models are introduced every year lest they fall behind. You are using the smartphone metric to compare against very professional equipment that lasts a long time.
You don't need to replace professional DSLRs every year. Indeed the presumed dead D6 uses lenses, many of which date back to 1959, which is why people like me that have a sizable investment in lenses stick with Nikon. Even the new Mirrorless with their Z-Mount lenses have an adapter that continues the legacy.
When I started in Photography, I used a Nikon F2 that was already 10 years old. It functioned well until I retired it for an F3, which I used for several years until getting a D1, Which was over 20 years ago, and Nikon is only up to the D6 now. As I noted, it is high end professional equipment that serves its users well, and for many years.
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But claiming that a camera that has not been replaced in a bit over three years in no way indicates that the DSLR market is dead. This is not the Smartphone market, where new models are introduced every year lest they fall behind. You are using the smartphone metric to compare against very professional equipment that lasts a long time.
No I'm not, and I'
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But claiming that a camera that has not been replaced in a bit over three years in no way indicates that the DSLR market is dead. This is not the Smartphone market, where new models are introduced every year lest they fall behind. You are using the smartphone metric to compare against very professional equipment that lasts a long time.
No I'm not, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to attribute shit to me that I didn't say, thank you.
If what I say pisses you off, ignore me. The amount of cameras Nikon makes is not the here or there of whether a camera is dead or not - You brought it up, not me.
If it pleases you to say that the DSLR is dead, then ignore a camera that was introduced just a few years ago, then take your Android, and wow the world with its prowess. Fact is - yeah, there are a lot of mirroless options now. But you claiming ass you wrote:
"The DSLR is very dead." that dear sir, is utter bullshit. I'm going to get a mirro
Re: Likely a fad. (Score:2)
I am sorry you are somehow taking this news so personally but you can fuck off with your straw-man and ad hominem bullshit.
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The DSLR market is dead, everyone wanting interchangeable lenses is going mirrorless. However, the cameras this article is talking about are neither of those, they are all high-end fixed-lens cameras.
The DSLR market had been dying for a long time, and will continue dying for many, many years in the future.
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There is a new class of compact, cheaper but still expensive, fixed lens cameras like the Fujifilm X100 series. They have manual controls and decent auto modes. Fujifilm has film emulation modes that are really good too, and nice big sensors.
They are a step up from phones in terms of image quality and the skill needed to use them, but also cheaper and simpler than DSLR/mirrorless cameras. A new niche that appeals to amateurs and people who want to carry something small and light, but want more than their ph
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People saw the movie Civil War and want to be war photojournalists.
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It also may be social media folks finally making enough money to upgrade to these newer cameras that can do photo/video.
The X100 mentioned in the article only does 720p/24fps video.
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Its unlikely a fad, but more folks finally upgrading. Its a surge in demand, that will definitely die down for a few years until the next upgrade cycle. It also may be social media folks finally making enough money to upgrade to these newer cameras that can do photo/video.
I think it's like the claims that the desptop is dead, first killed by laptops, then tablets.
And then people updated their desktops.
No, it's a continuing trend (Score:2)
Snapshot cameras are effectively dead. The smartphone killed them. Good cameras continue to be popular. This has been the trend since the death of film.
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Rumors of films demise have been greatly exaggerated....
In fact, there's quite the resurgence in film....new cameras coming out, even new film emulsions coming on market.
Myself, I love shooting medium format film...hard to find a digital sensor that shoots 6x17......
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Rumors of films demise have been greatly exaggerated....
In fact, there's quite the resurgence in film....new cameras coming out, even new film emulsions coming on market.
Myself, I love shooting medium format film...hard to find a digital sensor that shoots 6x17......
A friend that takes pix of bike races that I provide comms for still uses film cameras. While I do digital now, he found a kindred spirit. We bring in our old film cameras to ooh and ahh about every race. He has a freaking F2 that I drool over, and I brought in my mint RB-67 that I picked up for 250 dollars some years back. (it was left at a rental, and never picked up - some insurance company paid dearly for that loss is the best I can figure.
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I don't think it is a fad. I think there is a real market.
There are WAY more people producing video content today than there were 20 years ago; or even 10 years ago. So makes sense that the demand for high end camera is going up.
$2000 for a good camera is ridiculous if you take pictures of pretty bird once every other month. But if it is tool of your business, then it is really not that much money.
Look at the number of youtube channels that make decent money. Or streamers on twitch or whatever that make dec
Not a fad - cameras beat phones in quality (Score:5, Informative)
This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sensors on our smartphones and action-cams are the norm these days.
Nearly every word you wrote is just factually incorrect. First of all, an iPhone can only match a full frame when you view it on a small screen, like your watch and if you have bad eyesight, your phone...yeah, they look the same when you view it on your Apple Watch...view it on a 4k monitor and you'll see why we still have cameras. The image quality difference is striking. That's why every pro photographer uses a full frame camera. If you were correct, modern pro cameras would be iPhone sensors with a lens mount. No one wants to carry a heavy, expensive full frame camera with HEAVY lenses to a photoshoot. We do so because the image quality is massively different. Seriously, my camera bag is like 30lbs.
The same applies to action cams. If they produced the same quality video, Hollywood would be using expensive action cams instead of heavy rigs. Photographers and cinematographers are very pragmatic people. They're not hipsters. Smaller size allows for more impressive shots and more flexibility when shooting on location
Photography has never been ubiquitous. Cellphones only killed casual sales...the same people who relied on Polaroids for photography in the 90s aren't buying full frame cameras, but everyone who owned an SLR pre-digital is still buying real cameras. In the 00's, yeah, a bunch of casual families bought point and shoot cameras and even DSLRs on whim at Costco on the holidays, but let's be real, most people that bought a camera at Costco never bought a 2nd lens and probably took about 100 photos before their Canon t3 ended up on a shelf in the closet. They were never photography enthusiasts. Photographers, amateur and professional never went away...Canon, Sony, and Nikon have had healthy sales, even in their worst days.
Also your statement "Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sensors on our smartphones and action-cams are the norm these days" is the most profoundly ignorant sentence I've read on slashdot in a long time....and that's saying something. High end sensors are HUGE and power hungry. Good sensors make for shitty, cumbersome phones. A phone and good camera provide two drastically different experiences. A camera is for when you care about quality and don't care if it fits in your jeans pocket. A phone compromises sensor size and quality to fit in your pocket. IF we could make something close to a FF sensor quality in a phone sensor, it would be a MASSIVE hit. It would revolutionize medical devices and photography and now we'd have a new lens format that's a fraction of the size and photographers would LOVE it. I'd love for my lenses to be 1/3 the weight. I'd love for a fancy 20lb monster to go down to 6lbs. It would be a MASSIVE MASSIVE sales boom for the camera makers as everyone would rush out to buy news lenses and bodies. We don't have that because that's not how physics works. If you solve that...you'll be a VERY wealthy person!
Photography is a hobby and a profession, just like cooking. Some people cook nice meals with fresh meat and produce, others open a can or throw something in the microwave and call it a day. Photography is remarkably similar. Just because you don't know any camera enthusiasts doesn't mean we're not there...it just means you have limited contact with the outside world.
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This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. ....
Nearly every word you wrote is just factually incorrect....
^^^ Mod this latter up. The OP was spouting bullsh1t.
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When I got into photography, phones didn't have cameras (or maybe they did? but like.. shitty grainy flip phone photos). I used my DSLRs for years, simply because they produced better photos than anything else commonly available. The sensor was still small, but it did the job for what I needed (i.e. it's for photos on a wall, not like.. commercial posters). There were better cameras out there, or more expensive ones, but I didn't want to spend for nor car
By your logic, all food eaten would be frozen. (Score:2)
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"So....you're saying you're losing enthusiasm for photography as a hobby. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean everyone is that way."
No, he doesn't appear to be saying that at all, and your bias against his point is showing.
You seem to believe all "real" photographers *must* use expensive equipment to take pictures. Poor you.
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... It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly...
You are obviously out of touch with serious photography (as was the writer of TFA). I am into it, and was not even aware of a "craze", only of the market settling down after covid and after all the point-and-shooters have put their budget DSLRs away in favour of their phone cameras. The people using "high end" cameras are professionals and serious amateurs, as they were before (and during) the digital camera craze which peaked c2000-2010 when numerous cheap and cheerful DSLRs were made available for casua
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Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors.
I can't speak to their mirrorless cameras, but... with Nikon, at least, you could mount and use almost all of their vintage lenses on most of their dSLRs - and glass has always been much more important to photographers than the camera bodies themselves.
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Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors.
I can't speak to their mirrorless cameras, but... with Nikon, at least, you could mount and use almost all of their vintage lenses on most of their dSLRs - and glass has always been much more important to photographers than the camera bodies themselves.
Exactly. All my Old Nikon lenses fit on my new body - some of the old ones need a little filing on the fstop tab, but that's easy. And some of the old lenses are really good, like my Micro Nikkor 55 mm lens. I used that as much for group shots as macro work, because of its flat field.
Re: Likely a fad. (Score:2)
It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on
Though unlike with vinyl, it isn't a total downgrade compared to existing alternatives. I can't say I've felt the need for a dedicated camera, but they do have measurable improvements over smartphone cameras. Vinyl only has the exact opposite, being inferior in every way to even 80s era CDs. Dynamic range, signal to noise, unusable lows, inaudible highs, you name it. Worse, the idiots that buy today's vinyl don't seem to understand that the sound engineers create them from digital masters now, because the a
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This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze. Unlike the vinyl record craze it doesn't have decades of vintage gear to fall back on, at least not when it comes to digital sensors. If you want to feel special holding a camera that quotes nostalgia and have money to burn this will work once or twice. However, I expect this market to remain niche and the current fad to die off quickly. Especially when digital image enhancement and ever-cheaper high-end digital sensors on our smartphones and action-cams are the norm these days.
Don't forget - every single improvement for smartphones is an improvement for digital cameras as well. The presumed death of DSLR's is based on the concept that high end photography is fully capable by a cheap Android phone, and hasn't happened yet, mainly because it won't.
The culprit is the lens. Fact is, the tiny lenses on Smartphones just can't measure up to the bigger lenses on DSLRs. It is physics. The tiny focal lengths needed to use that tiny lens on a very thin body rules it out.
Aside from th
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This is for people with money to burn. It's likely a fad, like with the vinyl record craze.
Vinyl record craze is strange in a world where a superior alternative exist. There is no superior alternative to a dedicated high end camera. If you think Smartphones are comparable then you are absolutely delusional.
There will always be professional cameras for ... actual professionals who recognise smartphones for the cheap consumer toys they are.
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It's not that strange. When you buy a vinyl album, you generally get a code to download a digital version as well, so you get the audio benefit, but there's a pleasure in playing a vinyl album, plus the artwork.
Remember the posters you got in some copies of Dark Side of the Moon? The pyramids poster? And the 8x10 headshots of the Beatles in The White Album?
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Smartphones are great for "good enoug
Leica is high...but those others? (Score:2)
But the Fuji crop cameras are not $$$....just average priced. The GFX digital "medium format" cameras, while a bit more money, aren't outrageous in price.
And with Canon and Nikon..they have models in all ranges.
The thing is, there are still quality and looks issues you can do with full camera bodies with larger sensors and higher quality interchangeable glass.
Hell, adopting older vintage lenses on a modern camera will give you looks for video and stills you just can't get on a
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Ok...guess it depends on your disposable income, and interest and intent on cameras.
Photography has, historically, NEVER been a cheap hobby.
I work semi-pro on my stuff...I don't do it for a living, but I do it to make money on some of it...and I like shooting concerts, etc.
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And with Canon and Nikon..they have models in all ranges.
Having models and developing modes are two different things. Both Canon and Nikon have announced they are abandoning the low end camera world and have actively made moves in that direction for several years now. Which makes sense since you're competing with smartphones when you develop a sub $1000 camera. There's no roadmap announced by Nikon for a Z30/Z50 replacement. They already bailed from DSLR (Canon still produces high end DSLR and has stopped manufacture of low end ones). Both have announced the end
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DSLRs are dead...no one's using the mirror slappers anymore.
I've retired my old Canon 5D3....getting the new R5II....mirrorless.
But yeah....point and shoots are dead, with few exceptions like the Leica Q3.
But there will still be several models, for instance...Canon will still have the R6's for awhile and I think there is a R7 with a crop sensor?
I know Sony still has several models and so does Nikon.
But yeah..point and shoots and VERY
OF (Score:2)
How much of this demand is driven by OF? That's the question I have.
I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
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I highly doubt many "professional" photographers or cinematographers are filming on iPhones. Don't get me wrong cell phone cameras have come a long way and look nice, but dedicated cameras have also benefited from the same advances in technology and look comparatively even better.
And the reality is that for OnlyFans the "fans" would likely be far more forgiving of camera quality compared to other types of work.
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Thanks for your post, I was struggling to understand what "OF" meant! Which is exactly not what I wanted to be searching for on my work computer.
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I am not an OnlyFans subscriber, so I can't make any definitive statements. However, OnlyFans is very competitive. A small number of people seem to make a lot of money.
I suppose even if they don't make much, they are pretty relaxed.
I watched a OF content creator giving an interview (on a podcast) and she said that she does solo work, and it gets hard to get up for the daily grind (I decided to leave that sentence as is.) but she makes less than a thousand a month for daily masturbation videos. Other than the very few, for most, it's like that.
What is worse, after they decide to stop, it's all out there, and once on the intertoobz, it's somewhere, forever.
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I do know something about normal (non-porn) movies as I have a few friends who have had small parts in well-known films. They get residuals not just paid one time for the acting and those are significant. I don't know if porn actresses get that. I don't know if
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You're incorrect - need an eye exam? (Score:2)
I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
If you think that, you haven't viewed a FF vs iPhone on a monitor...or you have BAD cataracts. The difference is massive, especially indoors. I might get tricked if it's a beach shot on a sunny day and there's too much light to handle, but there's no scenario where you wouldn't need to wear sunglasses in which an iPhone looks anywhere as good as a Full Frame camera with a good lens from the same year. The difference is massive as a FF sensor would be VERY cumbersome in a phone and if you could get the sa
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... not once did I say an iPhone compares to a FF camera. lol
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Pros don't use phones. The quality is terrible. There's a reason YouTubers and porn producers buy real cameras and it's not out of boredom or hipsterism. Next time you're around a buddy with a good camera, have him take a picture indoors with a good camera and one with the best smartphone on the market...now view it on a 4k display. You'll see why you're incorrect.
True, dat.
When used within their "sweet spot" the phone cameras do an okay job. Good lighting, no zooming, and no speeding objects. But damn, that sweet spot is pretty small. And there's a reason modern smartphones have 3 separate lenses. You can't do a real zoom lens so you have to have different lenses to minimize just blowing up pixels to pretend zoom. And people often discover just how awful the images are if they zoom way in, in low light conditions.
The technology to make a tiny lens that has a p
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Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
Bullshit.
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How much of this demand is driven by OF? That's the question I have.
I can't see a basis for the demand, otherwise. Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now.
Why wouldn't the ladies take their OF pussy pix with the iPhones if the quality is so good that iphones are placing the professional equipment? Think about it.
Anyhow, I have an iphone 13 pro max, and while I've taken some decent images and vids with it, it is severly limited in in camera effects. No pull focus, the rolling shutter problem, the lack of control over DOF. I could maybe do documentaries with no effects, but can't imagine doing full featured work.
Same for an Android, in case someone thinks
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"Even professional photographers and cinematographers are able to use iPhones for most of their work now."
LOL, no. Show me a wedding photographer using an iPhone exclusively, or even mostly, and I'll show you someone who went for the cheapest quote.
Have you watched behind the scenes of movies? Take a look on YT of some BTS of the latest Top Gear Special, "One for the road". Still using big, complex cameras.
It's not about software, or sensors, although those are important. It's about the glass.
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https://www.imdb.com/list/ls099338955/
https://www.cashify.in/12-movies-which-you-never-knew-were-shot-completely-on-iphone
Look at the specs on the latest iPhone. It's more than capable and exceeds a lot of what was used even a couple years ago, costing many times more.
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https://www.imdb.com/list/ls099338955/
https://www.cashify.in/12-movies-which-you-never-knew-were-shot-completely-on-iphone
Look at the specs on the latest iPhone. It's more than capable and exceeds a lot of what was used even a couple years ago, costing many times more.
Spec wars. Now how are the tiny lenses better than the big ones on the DSLRs?
The lenses mean a lot. Look up the specs on the Nikon D1 camera. Abysmal by today's standards. But I've made good quality 16 by 20's from them.
I hope you do know you are arguing for smartphone superiority over professional equipment with professionals and artists here. Not a great look.
Mirrorless (Score:4, Interesting)
My daughter had an assignment to take some nature pictures. She doesn't have a phone so I gave her our old Sony NEX mirrrorless camera that doesn't see much use anymore. I hooked up the fast 50mm prime lens, showed her how to use the scene dial and sent her off.
The pictures she took are better than those made by my wife's new iPhone. They are more detailed and have better depth of field. Colors look better, too. The NEX is about ten years old at this point. My daughter had never used a real camera before and took fantastic shots.
While steadily improving, phone cameras are still no substitute for a real camera with a big sensor and a whole bunch of lens in front of it.
Re: Mirrorless (Score:3)
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Mirrorless is certainly much better than a phone camera, in that regard - but full-frame, in turn, has the advantage over the typically smaller mirrorless sensors.
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Because there is no depth of field with a phone lens. Only a fake blurred background
Ugh, you are spot on. The fake blur just doesn't look right at all.
Depth of field is all about the weirdly named "circles of confusion" which means that as the distance grows further away from the focus distance, the individual "points" of the image will become larger and larger circles. And the receding circles tend to grow at a lesser rate than the approaching circles. And the circles all over lap, so the result is blurriness dependent on distance.
I tried to simplify this, because I think I might be
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This is not surprising (Score:2)
Phone cameras are good enough for snapshots
The market for simple, cheap cameras is dead
People who either want superior image quality or have enough money to afford an expensive trinket, get a premium camera
I use a Sony A7-IV, shoot RAW and use post processing software. I get excellent results, far better than a phone can deliver
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Military uses? (Score:3)
With Ukraine war blowing the lid off drones of all kinds being mainstream military tech, powered mainly by off the shelf civilian technologies it makes me wonder. Those fixed wing medium cost drones that operate high end cameras on a platform that's in low six digit cost. Where do their camera modules and lenses come from?
Note that I'm not talking about cheaper everpresent Mavics and other quadcopter drones and their clones doing low end reconnaissance, but the medium end fixed wing drones that all are found from both sides with integration of "whatever we can find on the market for good price and suitable performance". Though it's quite possible that these camera modules are used in the upper end quad copters as well.
It seems that a lot of this boom is in fact same as ongoing boom in other drone parts. Civilian technology repurposed for military use, because it's actually better and cheaper than military grade hardware made for same purpose.
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You can order MIPI camera modules by the tray, with CSI being the most common and the widest range of capabilities. For the most part you can hook up a wide range of camera modules to a device's CSI port. Some microcontrollers and SoCs have multiple MIPI/CSI ports and can handle multiple streams (multiple ISPs and multiple encoders).
I think if I wanted to order camera modules for fairly sophisticated industrial uses, like on a drone. I would go for ones for automotive use because they handle temperature ext
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No one cares about temperature extremes in Ukraine during most of the spring, summer and most of the autumn. It doesn't get meaningfully cold outside winter, and when it does it usually causes things like fog which prevents effective usage of drones anyway.
Automotive cameras are fundamentally unsuitable because what you need is high resolution and high framerate with good zoom capability, and you really don't care about long terms reliability as recon drones don't live long in the war. Automotive cameras ar
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No one cares about temperature extremes in Ukraine during most of the spring, summer and most of the autumn.
Depends in the altitude you're flying your drones. There is of course a difference between sea level and 1-2km that drones are known to fly at.
Early morning flights also face more issues with condensation and cold than you suggest, even in those seasons.
Automotive cameras are fundamentally unsuitable because what you need is high resolution and high framerate with good zoom capability
So just like the automotive cameras I use in my stack.
and you really don't care about long terms reliability as recon drones don't live long in the war
I never said it was about long term reliability. You pulled that straw man out of your own head.
The nice thing about automotive cameras is they are readily available and pretty cheap if you need the specs
Well, it makes sense (Score:2)
There's high end cameras, and phones for everything else.
Pro tip: If you stay one major release behind the curve, there are some hot deals on ebay, where people are dropping last year's model for this year's flavor.
My Sony A7R5 cost quite a lot (Score:2)
AU (Score:2)
Appearances partly responsible (Score:3)
Pro photographers find it harder to charge people money for photos taken with a cellphone. It needs to *look* professional.
With that said, there are applications for high-end cameras that are very much required. Cellphones don't have interchangeable lenses, greatly limiting the flexibility for true enthusiasts.
Re:Appearances partly responsible (Score:4, Interesting)
Pro photographers find it harder to charge people money for photos taken with a cellphone. It needs to *look* professional.
Correct. Most clients would feel very pissed off if the pro they were paying thousands for turned up with a phone camera which was possibly not even as good as the one they had in their own pocket.
My father was a pro photographer in film days. That was when every Tom DIck and Sally had a 35mm SLR, probably an "amateur" Pentax K1000 or Olympus OM10. Sure, there were professional 35 mm cameras like the Pentax LX and Nikon F3, but they all looked the same to a casual onlooker. So my father used a medium format camera, and by its size there was no mistaking that for an amateur camera. Whether the final pictures were much different to most clients was debatable.
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Hey, don't make fun of the Pentax K1000! That was my first "real" camera! Pretty amazing, actually, because it required *no* battery to operate. The only thing the battery did was power the light meter.
Wealth disparity (Score:3)
explains this. The top 10% or 20% vs. bottom 80%. Refs:
https://usafacts.org/articles/... [usafacts.org]
https://static01.nyt.com/image... [nyt.com]
"To be in the bottom 50% meant a family had less than $122,000 in wealth. That represented about 64.3 million, or half of, families in 2019, owning just 1% of the nation’s wealth. Further, of this group, some 13.4 million families (about 1 in 10) had negative net worth: they didn’t even have a slice of the pie."
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13.4 million is about 1 in 5 of 64.3 million, not 1 in 10.
4K Mirrorless (Score:2)
Gateway drug (Score:2)
Phone cameras are a gateway drug to lure non-photographers in, train them up on tens of thousands of easy snaps, and ultimately make them understand why a phone isn't as good as a real camera. Then it's all downhill from there.
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Oh so you must own several then
Well played sir, well played indeed.
He walked right into that trap!