agentlossing
All-Pro
- Real Name
- Andrew Lossing
I read this post on The Online Photographer about the collapse of the camera market and one of the comments in particular stood out to me, from John Camp:
That strikes me as the simplest explanation for the rise and fall of camera sales, even beyond the smartphone rise. There were a conspicuous number of non-photographer parents and such who toted entry-level DSLRs who have since switched for phones, of course, but I suspect the market sloughed off those people well before the last 3-5 years, and the continuing decline we see is nearly 100% due to the relative excellence of modern cameras."The big bump that camera companies enjoyed in the first part of this century was mostly a sales illusion caused by enormous jumps in the quality of digital cameras in that time period. I don't know how many cameras I bought between 2004 (Nikon D2 for me) and 2015, but I bet it was ten or twelve, at least. Probably a new camera every year, or more than one. So many I can't even remember them all. Since 2015, for me, the number is three (two GX8s and a Nikon Z6) and I still have and use all three with nothing on the horizon that will cause me to seriously upgrade, unless I back up the Nikon. I believe that there will always be enough enthusiasts to support three or four camera manufacturers, but the companies will be smaller and tighter, and the new releases will be fewer. And that's fine."