[beholder3]

Seems like all those costly mirrorless advertising and hyping activities have not convinced photographers around the world. Zero growth.

Basically both types if ILC seem to find very similar numbers of buyers in spite of all the marketing and much fewer new DSLR models being introduced.

I would speculate that in the future the covid-19 effect will hit the more expensive luxury toys more than the the cheaper ones.


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[biz-engineer]

Interesting to see the average price of a DSLR unit out of factory is $350, compared to $600 for a mirrorless unit.

[WorksAsIntended]

Interesting to see the average price of a DSLR unit out of factory is $350, compared to $600 for a mirrorless unit.

I think the reason simply is the big part of cheap dslr sales like the Canon EOS 4000D. There is no equivalent in milc sales.

[tareqjhe1]

I think it's a good time to buy some products like this for future. Hah!

[zzeitg]

Less units, but much more money.


Anyway... I have absolutely no plan to even start thinking about DSLM.

[Mistral75]

(...)

I would speculate that in the future the covid-19 effect will hit the more expensive luxury toys more than the the cheaper ones.

(...)

I'm not so sure. Wealthy people will remain wealthy. Not-so-wealthy people will have to cut on everything but basic expenses (food, rent and so on).

A bit of insider information from a friend of mine who is the head of Hermès's logistics: their main problem during the Hubei confinement was to deliver their products there. People kept on ordering, if anything in bigger quantities than usual.

[beholder3]

I'm not so sure. Wealthy people will remain wealthy. Not-so-wealthy people will have to cut on everything but basic expenses (food, rent and so on).

That is a possibility as well as it has its own logic. But I do not expect that since cameras are usually used outside or at events and with people. I do not think that being restricted to walking outside alone or staying at your home actually triggers people buying cameras.

I could imagine that now more PCs, notebooks and image processing software is being sold. Anything you can do alone at home. But cameras?

[biz-engineer]

The future of photography is photography, is not gear (gear is the metal box that you use to make the pictures...). Because for still photography the gear has reached a plateau, mirrorless doesn't change anything to that plateau. New camera models are designed around video recording capabilities (4K, 8K, slow motion) with zero improvements for stills. For stills, you might want to indulge yourself a GFX100 in a smaller body at a price significantly lower than the current GFX100 price, but that not coming any time soon I'm afraid. For stills, Pentax has is all, it goes up to offering one the higher DR sensor available , plus pixel shift on the K1 and dynamic pixel shift with SR on the K1 II, that's pretty much state of the art , not even Sony Ax series have that.

[Rondec]

I'm not so sure. Wealthy people will remain wealthy. Not-so-wealthy people will have to cut on everything but basic expenses (food, rent and so on).

A bit of insider information from a friend of mine who is the head of Hermès's logistics: their main problem during the Hubei confinement was to deliver their products there. People kept on ordering, if anything in bigger quantities than usual.

I think the issue has to do with how the middle class is feeling after the Coronavirus shut down (probably not very flush with cash) and how frequently they replace their camera gear.

My guess is that this year is going to be pretty terrible overall for camera sales and the top end in particular is going to take a beating. Of course wealthy people are still wealthy, but even they have taken a bath with stock market crashing the way it has. I think everyone is going to make do with a generation older gear until the economy recovers, which is at least a year away.

[biz-engineer]

My guess is that this year is going to be pretty terrible overall for camera sales and the top end in particular is going to take a beating. Of course wealthy people are still wealthy, but even they have taken a bath with stock market crashing the way it has. I think everyone is going to make do with a generation older gear until the economy recovers, which is at least a year away.

Interestingly , tech companies haven't slowed down, they expect to sell more in the second half of the years after the virus crisis is over. They say, the underlying demand for new product is still there, customers just postpone some of their purchases. The other thing is central banks injecting short term cash and governments paying bills, and spreading the short term spending spike over the long term debt, and this might trigger a positive economic growth cycle after the infection is over. Currently, we have negative perception of the virus crisis because of short term view of it. In reality, the infection cycles last one month , and one month slow down in one year is less than 10%. If lots of sales are recovered after one month , the drop of revenues this year will be less that 10%, not a very big impact actually. For the camera industry however, the underlying demand for cameras is naturally falling without virus; the virus crisis might just be used as an excuse for explaining low sales at end of 2020.

[Rondec]

Interestingly , tech companies haven't slowed down, they expect to sell more in the second half of the years after the virus crisis is over. They say, the underlying demand for new product is still there, customers just postpone some of their purchases. The other thing is central banks injecting short term cash and governments paying bills, and spreading the short term spending spike over the long term debt, and this might trigger a positive economic growth cycle after the infection is over. Currently, we have negative perception of the virus crisis because of short term view of it. In reality, the infection cycles last one month , and one month slow down in one year is less than 10%. If lots of sales are recovered after one month , the drop of revenues this year will be less that 10%, not a very big impact actually. For the camera industry however, the underlying demand for cameras is naturally falling without virus; the virus crisis might just be used as an excuse for explaining low sales at end of 2020.

A lot depends on where things are at. In the US, most things were shut down the middle of March, but in many states this isn't going to crest till the middle of May or the beginning of June. That isn't one month off of work, but two to two and a half months. Europe will probably be different, but I can't imagine Italians going out and purchasing a bunch of camera gear in June either.

As of right now, Virginia, where I live, has closed non-essential businesses until June 10th and that's two months away. If there isn't a major recession, it would be shocking.

[WorksAsIntended]

We will see. I know already that my total income of this year is very significantly less than last year due to Corona. My company lost quite some money and therefore I will not get my winning share as I usually do. I will propably also need to cut my salary a bit. While I am happy to still be able to continue my life as usual and do not fear to loose my house or the need to change out style of living significantly, I know others will be in a very different situation. A lot of people earning good money but not being rich will have lost enough to not go buying luxury goods.
What is the impact for me? No DFA85 this year for me, even if it will be available, no new road bike, such things. Nothing bad for me, but if a lot will do the same, sellers will feel this.

[zzeitg]

The other thing is central banks injecting short term cash

This behaviour will just worsen the problem. Necessarily it will cause high inflation, while salaries will stagnate or even be reduced. In the end normal people will be more affected by "the help" from the central bank, than they would be by the crisis itself. There's already now too much money in the economics, commercial banks are full. What we have is not a drop of demand, it's mostly drop of offer, caused partially by the measures of authorities and partially by preventive actions of the companies themselves.

Anyway it's interesting to see how fragile is the whole system. Consequently there will be lack of trust, which will last long and make people think twice before buying anything.

[WorksAsIntended]

The amount of money does not matter if it is not liquid.
The money is necessary to prevent insolvency where the cash is not free.
Of course inflation is a bad aftermath in this case, but the is no other option imho.
I own a house with two shops in it. Both are not able to pay the rent now. I won't insist on it at this situation and therefore postpone some work that I wanted to have done at the building instead which is not necessary. If they owe money to their supplier they are doomed, although their stuff they own would be easily enough to pay for it. Liquidity is all that matters. So we need easy credits right now and for the banks to give it we need central banks to enable it.
This will not prevent all damage to economy, but still is necessary.

[biz-engineer]

This behaviour will just worsen the problem. Necessarily it will cause high inflation

Yes this was the way they did in the 70s , they printed money without a debt contract to balance the cash, i.e devaluation. But economists learned that devaluation wasn't a good thing. Now all central banks create money and balance it with the same amount of long term debt, which is peanuts compared to the public debt already there before corona crisis.