What Happened To the Photography Industry In 2014?

Iddo Genuth writes 2013 was the worst year for the photography industry in decades — but what happened in 2014 and will the upcoming blitz of cameras (including the super resolution Canon 5D S with 50MP sensor to be announced tomorrow) change everything in 2015? The official numbers published by CIPA (the Camera & Imaging Products Association) are out and they tell a story of a struggling photography industry trying to stay afloat in a sea of smartphones. Will it survive? This is the big question all of the photography manufacturers are facing over the past two years, and eventually what does it all mean for us as consumers? One thing that tiny phones lack, no matter their megapixel count, is the space for heavy glass or large sensors, which seems to leave a lot of room in the market even for small(ish) but dedicated cameras.

Comments

Optics!

[wikthemighty]

Really, the only thing my SLR does better than my phone is Optics, which makes distance & low-light photos possible. Taking a snap of what you had for lunch? My phone does that just as well as the SLR.

LFI

[MouseR]

Get me an affordable light field imaging camera and I might spend as much as I did on my phone. Otherwise, it's still just pictures and I dont see the point in carrying another device which doesn't offer significant advantages to what my phone provides.

As someone who has both a DSLR and an iPhone 6

[Xaedalus]

The DSLR taught me the technical side of photography and how to appreciate it. I'm a fair-to-middling amateur, who bought a Nikon D40 and loved it so much that I taught myself the basics of photography. My D40 allowed me to take some beautifully-staged photos that have won small-time photo contests and generated enough demand that I sold some prints. All the manual controls at my fingertips taught me how to stage a photo. That, IMHO, is the power of DSLRs and why they should never go away. There is a great deal of art and beauty in taking the time and effort to put knowledge of photography into effect to capture the beating of a hummingbird's wings, or the exact refraction of light through the dew on a flower. But the work I love the most are my "catch the moment" photos, where the power and beauty come from all the independent factors like outside lighting, people, animals--all the stuff that cannot be controlled for. My iPhone is more than good enough to catch those moments. I have taken photos with my iPhone that, while technically inferior, manage to catch the moment of light and tone and mood and people that I perceived. It is my generation's polaroid, and I enjoy trying to compensate for the technical inferiority by taking compelling photos. It's fun, I fail A LOT which is to be expected, but my few successes are pretty amazing. The market adjustment isn't a bad thing, it is just once again separating those who value technical prowness in staging a good photo, versus those who just want to take a photo.