[surfar]

One of my daughters in Brisbane has had her ground floor flooded

Water levels like the 2011 situation,I hope she's safe.

In Lismore there were people stranded up on roofs this morning after a RAPID rise.

[AfterPentax Mark II]

The article is not good, as it completely ignores photographic needs and customer education. Some customers upgrade because it's "cool", some customers upgrade between the new camera model solve a problem that they have with their current camera system, and problems can change depending what we aim at. The camera industry has no interest in educating customers. That's how most sales of new camera highly correlate with marketing expenditures and there is a huge used market of perfectly functional cameras accumulating dust.

The only reason why you buy a new camera is that you are not satisfied with what you got.

[BigMackCam]

"We are constantly pressured into buying the latest cameras." I wonder... are we? I see folks on online forums say that, but I rarely encounter that pressure, myself.

I don't think it's pressure, necessarily, but I do think some folks upgrade due to "FOMO" generated by reviews and forum discussions, and/or because they mistakenly believe "better" equipment will somehow make them better photographers. If you have the budget, it's easier to buy new gear than to practise with what you have and stretch its capabilities. I'm sure many of us have, at some point, bought gear thinking our photography would miraculously improve as a result, but I wonder how many of us (a) were fully utilising the capabilities of our older equipment, and (b) actually got the level of improvement we expected from our new gear.

I don't suggest that everyone upgrades for these reasons. I know there are folks who can and will utilise the improved capabilities of newer equipment. Then, there are those who buy new gear simply because they want to and will enjoy using it - and that's fine too...

[Dartmoor Dave]

It's an interesting article with a bold idea at the centre: that manufacturers should make a smaller range of cameras, release new models less often, and design them to do what photographers actually need.

My own feeling is that, as the market for interchangeable lens cameras dwindles, the companies that are already small enough to survive in a shrinking ecosystem will have the best chance of living on. The big Canikon beasts that have existed so far by feeding their enormous bulks off a mass consumer herd are actually more at risk than the little Pentaxes that already have a smaller appetite.

[MikeStnly]

It's an interesting article with a bold idea at the centre: that manufacturers should make a smaller range of cameras, release new models less often, and design them to do what photographers actually need.

Sounds like Pentax to me.

[texandrews]

Most camera Salesmen* I have dealt with are shockingly ignorant of what they are actually selling.

Pretty true a lot of times

The only ones that really know their stuff are the sales reps I have met from Leica, Phase one and Hasselblad.

I think there's a reason for that. The 3 companies share low sales volumes. So they're not going to have separate tech reps to the same extent as other companies; thus the sales people must double on that role. But I see this changing, at least in the U.S.---now, you can't count on any sales folks to really know the gear.

[MikeStnly]

now, you can't count on any sales folks to really know the gear.

When the top three camera makers each have 15-20+ models and you add in the smaller brands they have to know 100+ cameras, not an easy task. Certainly they can't have hands on experience with all of them.

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Last edited by MikeStnly; 02-28-2022 at 10:52 AM. Reason: typo