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What Happened To the Photography Industry In 2014?

Posted by timothy on from the it-got-even-more-nervous dept.

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.

4 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. MP = BS by monkeyzoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The megapixel count has already been irrelevant for 5 years or more, even on actual digital CAMERAS! Any astute consumer will note that the higher-end cameras by each manufacturer have FEWER megapixels than the entry level models in the series. For the entry-level, megapixel count is a dick-measuring contest to attract naive and ignorant shoppers.

    1. Re:MP = BS by monkeyzoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, it's because less megapixels allows more light to reach each pixel on the sensor. Megapixels does not equal quality.
      And to be clear, I was speaking of new models released within months of each other across price points. Do a research of the last 12 months of cameras from Canon or Panasonic on a photography review site and you will see through The Matrix that is mass consumer marketing.

  2. Re:What happened? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We shot a lot of slides when I was a kid. When I first saw kodachrome it blew my mind. I wish there was anything today that could compare. I have a 4k monitor and view 10MP pictures on it but its not even close. I guess i'll have to wait for the 8k projectors.

    Watch this and be blown away:
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzXgSMbBu0

  3. Re:What happened? by arth1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Color gamut, contrast and gamma are better on a calibrated CRT then on a calibrated LCD.

    Amen.

    When you calibrate a CRT, you shift an analog envelope, and every color between the color points you adjust shift smoothly.

    When you calibrate an LCD, you shift a digital value to one that already existed, and lose a boatload of the digital color nuances between the color points, making many of them the same color.
    ANY calibration of an LCD means decreasing the number of colors. The "xxx% NTSC/AdobeRGB" gamut value becomes false the moment you adjust it, dropping through the floor.

    Plus, there are colors that an LCD still cannot display at all, like warm yellow. You would need a negative blue value to approximate them given the temperatures of R, G and B in LCD displays.
    Don't believe me? Take a paper McDonalds potato chip container. Try to match the red and yellow on it on an LCD display, comparing it to the physical colors.
    Even on the best LCDs, that won't work. The best you can do is a perceptual approximation, using brain trickery by shifting other colors so the brain compensates by thinking there is more warm red than there actually is. But that only works as long as you only look at the screen. Hold up something that really is that color, and it won't match at all. Or do a printout, and the result will be truly wrong, and that's not the printer's fault.

    CRTs are also limited, but not nearly as badly as LCDs.