[redrockcoulee]

The biggest reason not to buy a new dslr is owning an old dslr. I do not mean a real old one but one from the past two generations. It was a huge step when I went from a Nikon D1X to a D200 but not so noticiable upgrading to a D300 and the only reason I did that was because it was available to me at no cost. Most of the most recent improvements in models really only helps a few people, those pushing the edge in high ISO or in large prints for example but for most of us any model from the last few years is a very compendent piece of equipment. The industry was built on rapid replacement of gear which has now been outgrown, we are not outgrowing our cameras as much as the companies need us to. The newer models will not make us better photographers and for many will not even make it easier for us to create our photographs, we were already owners of cameras that were up to the job.

I am speaking about the bulk of people using dslr not those on this forum who do not represent the average person anymore than those on a car forum represent the average communter. I may eventually get a K3 but unless it breaks I cannot see me getting anything to replace it for many years, I have had the K-r for I think 3 years which may be longer than some here go without 'upgrading' to the latest model but probably less than the average person will now being doing

[dtmateojr]

"Nothing worthwhile to say" can be taken in different ways: either you rant about it or do a serious reality check. You rant if you feel that you are being told not to buy new gear. Of course you can buy whatever you want but if you think that new gear will result in better shots is being deluded. Buy because you like it but not because of some unrealistic expectations.

[dansamy]

Welcome to Flickr!

There's your trouble!

[RGlasel]

Printing is an art in itself

I think you mean art in the old sense of craft, but in some ways printing has become art, not an art. Many artists are making prints from engraved wood blocks. Some are making their inks by hand. There are even artists that make their own paper! I doubt if anyone can whip up a batch of emulsion to make their own photographic paper, but as digital technology allows everyone to have virtual darkrooms that go beyond what could be done with chemical solutions and a stopwatch, we see a return to manual, analog techniques that allow a few to differentiate themselves from the casual masses. Look at the "toy" camera movement, which is a reaction to high definition DSLRs. The same thing will happen to the display of digital images, the mainstream will move to lower quality with greater immediacy. We are already at the limits of the human eye when it comes to placing micro-dots of ink on paper, the next step is to make the paper a graphic object in itself. Almost all video is shot in HD, yet we spend more time watching downsized and downsampled clips with the absolute minimum of production quality on handheld devices, than on those monster flat panel displays that take over our living rooms. So hang onto your 24MP cameras, it's only downhill from here.

[Digitalis]

I don't really disagree with most of his observations, just with his superior tone.

I can sympathize with that.

Besides, the decline in sales probably has more to do with something simpler and more structural like the reduced number of household formations and babies born in the west after the financial crisis, or with the ageing of the Baby Boom out of its acquisitive phase into the preservationist phase, than it has to do with cameras or features or the photographic gear industry.

I am inclined to agree - many complex problems can be broken down into simpler ones, I'm a huge fan of occam's razor. My take on it is that one of the most restrictive things about even entry level DSLR and even mirrorless cameras are the fact that they are just too big, and even if the bodies themselves are small you have to deal with the lenses, even if they are slow-as-hell gutless optical wonders they are still to large as well*. I have to admit I laughed when Fuji announced the 56mm f/1.2, on those small cameras that lens is huge. It reminds me of the Canon 50mm f/0.95, which if you recall with the lens hood on blocked more than half the RF window on the very camera it was designed to be used on!

You write with authority and from experience, and (apparently) only about equipment you own or have used. It seems clear you and your family have been at the top of your profession for decades. Yet you never seem to condescend to the rest of us - you just inform and move on. (Unless someone is really being an idiot).

Thank you, Though I will point out I am prone to arguing with idiots. I have a similar aversion to hubris, condescension and elitist posturing. But in order to be part of a community you sometimes have to deal with people who live outside your experience, whether that be socioeconomic,academic or ethnic.etc.etc

*though I have to say Pentax did very well with the DA15mm f/4, 21mm f/3.2, 40mm f/2.8 and 70mm f/2.4 Limited lenses. But most users want to get the best bang for their buck - and zoom lenses will always appeal to the entry level crowd even if they are terrible lenses.

[Clavius]

Speaking for myself, knowing perfectly well a 16mp camera is more then enough for my prints, I still want the higher resolution cameras. With the bigger sensor. Because I want to crop sometimes; and not just a little bit either. And I like the extra wide angle performance of larger sensors. Not to mention the extra light sensitivity. And to top it all off, I'm a big kid that loves gadgets. It's those little benefits that the marketing departments don't exploit enough or don't exploit at all. Consumers only see a big blobby DSLR and have no idea about IQ benefits.

But even when only using pictures on facebook, people still notice those benefits. It's like they've all collectively settled on phone-quality-is-enough and get their eyes opened when they see better images. Since I have a.. (I'll but it delicatetly to not upset people) ..FF MILC that slips in my jacket pocket, the shots that I normally do with my cellphone have been completely replaced with those instead. The pics on that camera are so easily shared via smartphone. People do clearly notice it, and ask about my cellphone, assuming that I use that on all those casual occasions, only to be confronted with a camera. IMHO that's a first sign of the camera industry adapting to the cellphone business disruption.

[Nesster]

You all realize this same discussion, with much the same points, was being had 100 years ago, 120 years ago, 80 years ago... In fact, probably it came into existence with photography itself.

[Rondec]

The biggest reason not to buy a new dslr is owning an old dslr. I do not mean a real old one but one from the past two generations. It was a huge step when I went from a Nikon D1X to a D200 but not so noticiable upgrading to a D300 and the only reason I did that was because it was available to me at no cost. Most of the most recent improvements in models really only helps a few people, those pushing the edge in high ISO or in large prints for example but for most of us any model from the last few years is a very compendent piece of equipment. The industry was built on rapid replacement of gear which has now been outgrown, we are not outgrowing our cameras as much as the companies need us to. The newer models will not make us better photographers and for many will not even make it easier for us to create our photographs, we were already owners of cameras that were up to the job.

I am speaking about the bulk of people using dslr not those on this forum who do not represent the average person anymore than those on a car forum represent the average communter. I may eventually get a K3 but unless it breaks I cannot see me getting anything to replace it for many years, I have had the K-r for I think 3 years which may be longer than some here go without 'upgrading' to the latest model but probably less than the average person will now being doing

This is very true. In a sense a camera is a computer that happens to take photos. Present cameras have advanced to the point that there is no particular advantage to upgrading. If you own a D7000, why would you buy a D7100 or a D7200? I don't know. Adding resolution doesn't seem to hold the answer and even something that I might like, like another stop of dynamic range, isn't something that folks who use SLRs in general would understand or value.

I has always been true that you could skip a generation of cameras without missing too much. Now, I think you can skip two or three generations without missing much, particularly at the low end.

[redrockcoulee]

I think you mean art in the old sense of craft, but in some ways printing has become art, not an art. Many artists are making prints from engraved wood blocks. Some are making their inks by hand. There are even artists that make their own paper! I doubt if anyone can whip up a batch of emulsion to make their own photographic paper, but as digital technology allows everyone to have virtual darkrooms that go beyond what could be done with chemical solutions and a stopwatch, we see a return to manual, analog techniques that allow a few to differentiate themselves from the casual masses. Look at the "toy" camera movement, which is a reaction to high definition DSLRs. The same thing will happen to the display of digital images, the mainstream will move to lower quality with greater immediacy. We are already at the limits of the human eye when it comes to placing micro-dots of ink on paper, the next step is to make the paper a graphic object in itself. Almost all video is shot in HD, yet we spend more time watching downsized and downsampled clips with the absolute minimum of production quality on handheld devices, than on those monster flat panel displays that take over our living rooms. So hang onto your 24MP cameras, it's only downhill from here.

Actually people are making their own photographic papers and emulsions as well as a few are even making their own film emulsions. That is in addition to the wet and dry plate stuff. Not sure if I have a link anywhere on either of my computers but there is a course on it in Rochester either this month or next month for example and threads about it on APUG.

And yes I think the current interests in some of the older techniques are a response to the precieved artifical perfection of digital and the removal of happenstance from photography however woodcuts and other traditional printmaking techniques have never fallen out of favour, they have always been taught at art schools and practiced by printmakers (my wife is a printmaker). I am not sure what the originial alternative processes was a reaction to in the 70s. It should be noted that today's alternative process workers are often taking advantage of what digital can offer such as digital negatives for contact processes. Some shoot with film, scan, PP in PS make a digital negative and then return to the darkroom or go outside to expose their paper. Its a great world for photographers right now; my wife and I have from toy cameras to several LF ones, pinhole cameras and digtial SLRs, a darkroom and a great Epson printer. The near future may not be as bright for the large camera manufactures until they either come up with something entirely new to convince us we need or adjust to a non fast expanding market.

There is a need to look to emerging markets to keep sales up as IMHO the market in the developed world is saturated; we no longer need to keep re-buying the same thing and already have the tools to create the images we want (depending on our skill levels of course).

[jon404]

@nesster -- "this same discussion, with much the same points, was being had 100 years ago..."

I'm 70. As a boy on the 1950's, had a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, 620 (120) film. Fixed aperture and shutter speed -- and IQ somewhat like a smartphone today. But my stepfather, a photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, used a 4" x 5" Speed Graphic... and I still have a photo album with 8" x 10" prints that he made for my mother. The other day, I bought a coffee-table book of Julius Shulman's architectural photographs... on 11" x 14" paper... and he used a 4" x 5" view camera in the 1950s and 1960s, in Los Angeles. The image quality of these 4" x 5" photos is -- by our standards -- not so good. The lenses were nowhere-near as good as they are today. But the images are stunning. Those huge negatives recorded so much information, and when they had brightly-lit scenes -- wow.

In the mid-1960s, I moved to New York and started working in ad agencies, on the art side. Then, all the photographers wanted or had 2¼ 120-film Rolleis -- twin-lens Rolleiflexes, Rolleicords. And as the offset-printing revolution rolled through, those 120-size images were more than acceptable for full-page ads, even for 2-page spreads in magazines. A strong image made for a good ad -- and small, light cameras made for more action photos.

Then in the 1970s, the argument about what was 'professional' started to change again. I remember when I saw my first SLR -- it was a Nikon F2 with that ugly pentaprism on top. Like my friends, I just didn't take it seriously -- the negative size was way too small, and magazines like National Geographic wouldn't accept 35mm images. I didn't recognize that it -- and the Asahi Pentax that started the SLR boom -- were the start of a long industry boom that has lasted until, well, now. Sort of like when I saw my first Toyota car, a 4-dr Toyopet taxicab, over in Sausalito in 1968 -- and busted up laughing. Little did we know.

My take on the camera-history I've lived through? The devices get smaller as the lenses get better. Professional requirements have stayed the same -- big prints for that bride's book; high-quality images for print reproduction, like full-page spreads in Vogue magazine.

So the DSLR will still be around for awhile, certainly for professionals. It will take some breakthroughs in optics to design pocket cameras that deliver medium-format quality. But they are coming. The Sony RX100 was a shock, and maybe next we'll see 36 MP pocket cameras with zoom folding-gate-optics lenses. Stuff professional IQ into a smartphone? Don't think I'll see that, in my lifetime. But you will!

[dansamy]

My take on the camera-history I've lived through? The devices get smaller as the lenses get better. Professional requirements have stayed the same -- big prints for that bride's book; high-quality images for print reproduction, like full-page spreads in Vogue magazine.

So the DSLR will still be around for awhile, certainly for professionals. It will take some breakthroughs in optics to design pocket cameras that deliver medium-format quality. But they are coming. The Sony RX100 was a shock, and maybe next we'll see 36 MP pocket cameras with zoom folding-gate-optics lenses. Stuff professional IQ into a smartphone? Don't think I'll see that, in my lifetime. But you will!

In that case, maybe the NX mini & the Q are ahead of the times.

[jon404]

@dansamy -- "NX mini & the Q are ahead of the times..."

Absolutely. For professional use, they are probably as small as you can drive the form factor -- you have to be able to adjust aperture, shutter speed, ISO, EV, exposure lock, etc., etc. Which means buttons or sliders, physical controls, right? because if you put those controls on an LCD touchscreen, then you wouldn't be able to immediately see the results, say, of moving a spot exposure point and locking it. Although maybe you could design a cover for the LCD screen that would flip down, and would have the buttons or sliders on the inside of the cover. We are also hitting a pixel limit on those 3" screens -- 900,000 pixels is certainly more than the eye can resolve, at our 250-to-300 pixel human-perception limit.

I'm assuming continued advances in sensor pixel density -- or more powerful computer processing, interpolating the pixels available. Current medium-format quality should be available in a pocket camera within 10 years, maybe sooner... on an APS-C size sensor. But to get that IQ on a small, small sensor... that's the Holy Grail. Because then we can have smaller lenses, like the Q. Imagine if you had a Q-50... with a 50 MP 1/2.3 sensor! That should be possible. Sensor design -- chip design -- seems to have no limits as to packing more and more components onto the chip. The two posters below, made before I retired from Qualcomm four years ago, give an example of the way engineers think. Smaller! Faster! More powerful! And when you have a lot of very bright people working 60 hours a week to push the envelope, change is rapid -- and that affects every other industry that the chips go into -- like, now, the camera industry. Buckle that seatbelt!

[Digitalis]

Actually people are making their own photographic papers and emulsions as well as a few are even making their own film emulsions. That is in addition to the wet and dry plate stuff.

Funny you mention that I have some students that have shown interest in collodion photography. And I make my own Platinum printing paper.

[Clavius]

Funny you mention that I have some students that have shown interest in collodion photography. And I make my own Platinum printing paper.

That seems like a lot of trouble to go through. What's the advantage of making your own paper?

[Digitalis]

I cant' say i'm looking forward to teaching the wet plate process...who wants to handle the potassium cyanide?

That seems like a lot of trouble to go through. What's the advantage of making your own paper?

Because I know how to make a pure platinum print - most platinum prints don't contain much elemental platinum in them, they are mostly palladium. Palladium, is cheaper and difficult to separate from platinum. The reason why most platinum prints have such a steep contrast curve is because of this impurity, palladium also gives a warm tone to the images which I do not want. Pure platinum prints are dead neutral, silver halide prints are basically green and white - you need to put the prints in a selenium bath to neutralize that green cast, which also has the practical upshot of increasing the archival properties of the print.

Platinum prints are well known for their inherent immunity to the kinds of degradation silver halide prints go through and if they are displayed properly there isn't any reason why they won't last hundreds - if not thousands of years. Platinum prints also fetch high prices because of their excellent archival properties, and also because of the skill and expense of the raw materials required to make them.