[gazonk]

The point here is cameras like FF and RAW files require processing power, large storage, bandwidth, and most of all consumer time and education to get into a "workflow". The entire sales regime of higher-end cameras like FF are dependent on all of that. They are dependent on a consumer who has "free time" to spend in front of a fairly powerful PC and get into a "workflow" complete with software like LR and Photoshop.

But just a few minutes ago, a friend posted some nice holiday shots made with a 5d Mk III and processed on an iPhone...

[goubejp]

I wonder how he can judge the quality of his post processing on such a small screen

[Aristophanes]

ut saying slower PC sales will hurt the DSLR market is almost like saying a warmer than normal winter in Miami is going to hurt snow blower sales there. Practically no one is going to make a camera decision based on their PC. Instead, some will make a PC decision based on their camera. That's because the camera is the creative instrument and the PC is just a supporting tool.

The camera is dependent on the PC.

The PC is not dependent on the camera.

Discretionary spending on PC's is being replaced by discretionary spending on tablets and smartphones.

Those devices also have cameras.

Despite decent sales to government and business, PC sales are in a significant 5-year slump.

Despite getting cheaper and much more powerful.

And almost 100 million more people added to the worldwide middle class in that time period.

This means it is home PC's not being replaced or bought at all.

This is a bad dynamic if you make only cameras dependent on PC's.

Image viewing is also increasingly turning to mobile devices.

Not just Flickr but the entire media and publishing industries.

At both ends the dedicated camera maker is pinched by devices they have no stake in make or sales of.

And none of which posses much Japanese input both manufactured or designed.

This is something of a cultural barrier affecting how our system cameras play in the OS ad networked world.

Canon wanted you to bypass the PC and print photos on a Canon printer.

Didn't work.

Sony and Panasonic created AVCHD to bypass the PC and view proprietary HD video on their TV's.

Didn't work.

Fuji and others bought into IRSimple to bypass the PC and share images between cameras.

Didn't work.

Now Apple, MS, and Google, each much larger than the entire photographic industry, have bypassed the camera makers with multifunction mobile OS's.

Their mobile OS cameras are eviscerating the small camera market and are starting to affect the entire photo industry.

The system camera makers have two aces up their sleeve: optics and installed base.

But they are still at a major disadvantage until their devices play nice with mobile OS's.

And reduce their overall dependency on PC's.

It's not really a contest; OS companies now set the market the camera makers play in.

Camera makers that start this cooperation will do OK.

Those that fail will sell into a shrinking market of users and will fail.

That may mean ignoring some of your most vocal customers.

Where the photo goes right after shooting is now critical.

Smartphone use has conditioned consumer expectations regardless of camera type.

Like the 1-hour mini-lab the expectation is of near-instantaneous image use and sharing.

This is actually reasonable in the digital age where the text message is instantaneous.

If the smartphone can do it the $2,000 system camera should as well. LOL.

Post-processing images later on a PC is a tiny niche with volatile profitability.

Even Adobe sees little profits in that group and largely dumped them from premium software.

The same 20 guys on DPReview yell a lot about it.

"Workflow" doesn't sell nearly as many cameras as JPEG.

Some users here need to understand the larger market.

Pentax sells system cameras and lenses.

That's all they do.

[gazonk]

I wonder how he can judge the quality of his post processing on such a small screen

Me too, but the photos look wonderful on my 27" screen (he shoots RAW+JPEG, so I guess he'll spend some more time processing the best shots after the holiday).

[Kunzite]

Aristophanes, please answer: how many PCs per FF DSLR do we need?

[IchabodCrane]

Text removed due to non-structure.

By far the #1 and #2 factors for slowing PC sales (IMHO) are saturation of the market and lengthened upgrade cycles as capability has outstripped need. Neither of those are a detriment to high-end camera use or adoption.

Anecdotal case in point: Our company's upgrade cycle and, ultimately, purchase rate of PCs has slowed but we use PCs for more and more powerful things than ever before. Oh... we also use tablets now, too, but not for manipulating 100+ MB spreadsheets with pivot tables. The important point here is the adoption of tablets has been coincidental to using complex spreadsheets.

About the instant gratification angle and one-hour labs -- how did Kodak ever sell more than a few rolls of Kodachrome?

[gazonk]

Smartphone use has conditioned consumer expectations regardless of camera type.

Like the 1-hour mini-lab the expectation is of near-instantaneous image use and sharing.

This is actually reasonable in the digital age where the text message is instantaneous.

This is very important, but I think you're a bit quick to announce the death of PC post processing. I think we'll see different kinds of amateur system camera users in the near future:

1) Those who just need better-than-smartphone/compact IQ but still primarily will use it to post to Instagram or similar (young users) or share kid and grandkid shots on Facebook or similiar (older users).
2) Those who are a bit more serious about their photography

IMHO, group 2 will remain larger than you think for quite a while, and they will want to do post processing. But they may still want the "Instagram features"! This group, I think, will still shoot RAW, but they would like a "one click access" to social sharing services.

So, post processing will not die so fast, but instant sharing will be required.

[Aristophanes]

By far the #1 and #2 factors for slowing PC sales (IMHO) are saturation of the market and lengthened upgrade cycles as capability has outstripped need. Neither of those are a detriment to high-end camera use or adoption.

Anecdotal case in point: Our company's upgrade cycle and, ultimately, purchase rate of PCs has slowed but we use PCs for more and more powerful things than ever before. Oh... we also use tablets now, too, but not for manipulating 100+ MB spreadsheets with pivot tables. The important point here is the adoption of tablets has been coincidental to using complex spreadsheets.

About the instant gratification angle and one-hour labs -- how did Kodak ever sell more than a few rolls of Kodachrome?

My government department has now lengthened our upgrade cycles both for desktop and laptop software and hardware by at least 2 years and the money saved from that has gone into mobile devices. The adoption of email by citizens has forced government to respond in "email time" requiring responses not tied down to a desktop (and laptops are much more costly than a Blackberry).

Kodachrome sales were on a long decline since the 1980's in part because they didn't have quick turnaround and was higher-priced and exposure fussy. In fact, that's a large reason why Fuji is the last brand in E6; their Fuji mini-labs could process and print on the fly equal to C41.

This is very important, but I think you're a bit quick to announce the death of PC post processing. I think we'll see different kinds of amateur system camera users in the near future:

1) Those who just need better-than-smartphone/compact IQ but still primarily will use it to post to Instagram or similar (young users) or share kid and grandkid shots on Facebook or similiar (older users).
2) Those who are a bit more serious about their photography

IMHO, group 2 will remain larger than you think for quite a while, and they will want to do post processing. But they may still want the "Instagram features"! This group, I think, will still shoot RAW, but they would like a "one click access" to social sharing services.

So, post processing will not die so fast, but instant sharing will be required.

I'm not announcing the death of anything. I agree with your summary.

I am saying that slowing PC sales and a shift to non-desktop OS's means that camera makers also have to anticipate their user market switching.

But not everyone. RAW and PP workflow hobbyists will persist and be profitable and drive a large part of the prosumer industry. Those same users still need to understand their installed base is largely supported by the non-PP users buying the same cameras or a notch below in the same ecosystem.

This is important because for items like the K-3 and Pentax FF it's not like there are a couple of million uses not yet into Canikonsony land who are waiting for a Pentax version so they can get down to their "workflow" and who are also ready to spring out for a few TB's of storage for those juicy 250MB TIFF's or PSD's, an Adobe PS subscription, a decent 24"+ pro monitor, 8+GB RAM, offsite archive storage, taxes on all that, etc. I should point out that one of the rationalizations behind Adobe's move was declining PC sales.

I went to Wal-Mart the other day to look for a kid's foam baseball bat for t-ball. Right inside the door is their separate photo lab and camera store. In a large pyramid was a stack of Nikon D3100's, maybe 20 units visible and least 2x that under their open cabinet. There are more D3100's in that Wal-Mart alone than they sold FF's at Henry's Atlantic in the last 6 months! I know because I asked the sales manager at Henry's (Canada's largest chain of photo stores) which is located a block away and where I go to hang out away fro the family (sad but true). Wal-Mart DSLR customers are not going to spur large sales of PP and they're not going to invest in multi-TB file storage. A Wal-Mart pyramid of Nikon's drives the sales of large sensor cameras supporting all us who are a "bit more serious". And it appears that if those same customers have a choice between a $400 desktop PC and a tablet at $289 (the new Google Nexus) they'll choose the tablet. That's largely what the market data is saying. So that tablet device now has to power the files from the D3100. That's emerging as the new home PC dynamic for the extended part of the system camera market. I suspect Wal-Mart is the recipient of last gen Nikon's because DSLR sales are slowing and that is in large part because of the disconnect between the equipment taking the photo and final use. A guy walking out of the store with the Nikon and the Nexus cannot get them to work together, so the tablet stays in the customer's bag and the Nikon stays in a pyramid at C$389 with VR kit lens. Which also explains why mirrorless sales are stalling because that same store had a handful of Nikon J 1 series kits at C$180 and it's hard to compete with a D3100 at such a low price for the IQ.

They were out of foam baseball bats.

[Clavius]

But they are still at a major disadvantage until their devices play nice with mobile OS's.

All my DSLRs play extremely nice with mobile devices, I just use an Eyefi card. Maybe the next step could be built in wifi, but I personally don't care at all.

I'm not announcing the death of anything. I agree with your summary.

Look at the thread topic, and look at your own topic you're trolling here. It's offtopic, uninformed, annoying and very biassed.

[mecrox]

My government department has now lengthened our upgrade cycles both for desktop and laptop software and hardware by at least 2 years and the money saved from that has gone into mobile devices. The adoption of email by citizens has forced government to respond in "email time" requiring responses not tied down to a desktop (and laptops are much more costly than a Blackberry).

Kodachrome sales were on a long decline since the 1980's in part because they didn't have quick turnaround and was higher-priced and exposure fussy. In fact, that's a large reason why Fuji is the last brand in E6; their Fuji mini-labs could process and print on the fly equal to C41.



I'm not announcing the death of anything. I agree with your summary.

I am saying that slowing PC sales and a shift to non-desktop OS's means that camera makers also have to anticipate their user market switching.

But not everyone. RAW and PP workflow hobbyists will persist and be profitable and drive a large part of the prosumer industry. Those same users still need to understand their installed base is largely supported by the non-PP users buying the same cameras or a notch below in the same ecosystem.

This is important because for items like the K-3 and Pentax FF it's not like there are a couple of million uses not yet into Canikonsony land who are waiting for a Pentax version so they can get down to their "workflow" and who are also ready to spring out for a few TB's of storage for those juicy 250MB TIFF's or PSD's, an Adobe PS subscription, a decent 24"+ pro monitor, 8+GB RAM, offsite archive storage, taxes on all that, etc. I should point out that one of the rationalizations behind Adobe's move was declining PC sales.

[snip]

They were out of foam baseball bats.

"Workflow" is an unlovely word, I agree, but what's wrong with what it describes? Many on here will be doing exactly these things and likely getting good results from equipment far, far short of the high-end in IT but still perfectly adequate. Mobile phones are great for sharing, I agree, but if you want something more than that from your photography then mobile phones aren't that great after all. And nor is the instant sharing of jpegs, sight almost unseen.

If you want to take better photographs then imho you need to slow everything right down and look, really look, and ask yourself about it before taking the shot. They ask yourself what you are trying to express later, in cool reflection, when you come to PP. Buying into the FB instant gratification thing is fine from time to time but in the end it's shallow and unsatisfactory.

I don't think anyone is exploiting a Soccer Mum by doing "slow" photography. No Soccer Mums were hurt in the taking of my pictures. In fact you could stand this somewhat guilt trippy thing on its head. If it wasn't for folks who do take enormous care and produce astounding work - I am certainly not among their number - the camera-makers would never have been inspired to make better equipment and the Soccer Mum would never had been inspired enough to want to own a camera in the first place - and even though the great artists of the medium never get rich from it and in most cases probably don't even get by. It's a two-way trade.

I do think the camera-makers have to get with the programme, literally, and overhaul their entire approach to IT. Sure. But I don't think any of that alters the fundamentals. if you want to get better at photography, you need a lot of time, reflection and practice. It's hard work. if some breadhead comes along and claims the key to improvement and achievement is posting instant jpegs on FB with a Nikon D800, run for your life.

[northcoastgreg]

Do you realize how many times that has been said? 8MP was all any one needed.... then it was 12MP was perfect.... This week 16MP is the magic number.....

Then why not have 100MP sensors, or 1,000MP? If bigger is always better, why be content with 32MP?

The fact is, right now the 24MP sensors really aren't moving things forward. They provide a negligible amount of increased detail than 16MP sensors at the price of bit more noise and significantly bigger files. When we have 24MP APS-C sensors that actually provide increases in practical real world use, then it will make sense to use them in cameras. With the current state of technology, the 24MP APS-C sensor, whether in its Sony or Toshiba variants, is a marketing ploy.

And Sony will not keep producing 16MP APS-C sensors forever.

Perhaps not. But there's no reason why they shouldn't. Even if the technology does move forward, many photographers don't need 24MP.

Actually, the thought of endlessly recycling the sony 16mp sensor for APS-C is already not even thát ridiculous. The quality of the K5IIs output is already such, that with good lenses there is not really much more to improve upon.

That could wind up being true. Moreover, it does look like the technology is slowing down. The K-5 is still the dynamic range king among APS-C cameras. The Nikon D3s is still the high ISO king, and that camera was released four years ago. There's nothing inevitably about technology progress. A technology can improve by leaps and bounds for several decades and then suddenly slow down to such a point that is no longer commercially feasible to move it forward. In1929, it took 48 hours to fly (commercially) from New York to Los Angeles. In the early 50s, commericial flights took 8 hours. In the early sixties, commercial flights took about 5 and a half hours. Today, fifty years later, commercial flights still take about 5 and a half hours. While I suspect there's still room for improvement in sensor technology, the rate of improvement is clearly slowing down. It would be unreasonable to assume that the next ten years will see as much improvement as the last ten years.

[skankin_giant]

In1929, it took 48 hours to fly (commercially) from New York to Los Angeles. In the early 50s, commericial flights took 8 hours. In the early sixties, commercial flights took about 5 and a half hours. Today, fifty years later, commercial flights still take about 5 and a half hours. While I suspect there's still room for improvement in sensor technology, the rate of improvement is clearly slowing down.

Well air flight has gone backwards a little, Concord could do London to New York in around 3hr 30mins, 2hrs 53min was it's fastest time, it now takes between 7.5 and 8.5 hrs, just a tad safer though......

Cheers Steve

[Kunzite]

Then why not have 100MP sensors, or 1,000MP? If bigger is always better, why be content with 32MP?

Nobody is saying that "bigger is always better".

[Aristophanes]

The fact is, right now the 24MP sensors really aren't moving things forward. They provide a negligible amount of increased detail than 16MP sensors at the price of bit more noise and significantly bigger files.

Actually I predict the K-3 will be the K-5II with a 24MP Sony sensor.

Maybe not much else save for video making AF and H.264 a la the K-30/50/500. Maybe dual SD's. Maybe articulating LCD. Longshot on a touchscreen LCD. I'd be thrilled if we saw built-in WiFi.

Overall you are right that the perceived difference between 24 and 16 MP's given the same ISO and read-out noise being identical means it's only a resolution difference and less any other upgrade. What makes it worthwhile is if it comes in at the same price point as the 16MP. File size does loom as a barrier to many who see this as perhaps spurring a PC upgrade, which they may not want. So more MP's is a knife that cuts both ways.

If you want to take better photographs then imho you need to slow everything right down and look, really look, and ask yourself about it before taking the shot.

There are many philosophies about photography since its inception. Many say the opposite of your advice. Workflow and PP are more likely to dissuade camera sales than spur them. Some enjoy PP creativity (jsherman I'm looking at you) and others hate it (Monochrome can chime in here).

Regardless instant messaging meets photography without the DSLR (unless you buy the Eye-Fi kludge at added cost and a PITA to set up and keep set up and at the expense of much better SD cards). All this while camera sales are dramatically slowing. Connect to sell, I say. Connect the dots.

[mecrox]

Actually I predict the K-3 will be the K-5II with a 24MP Sony sensor.

Maybe not much else save for video making AF and H.264 a la the K-30/50/500. Maybe dual SD's. Maybe articulating LCD. Longshot on a touchscreen LCD. I'd be thrilled if we saw built-in WiFi.

Overall you are right that the perceived difference between 24 and 16 MP's given the same ISO and read-out noise being identical means it's only a resolution difference and less any other upgrade. What makes it worthwhile is if it comes in at the same price point as the 16MP. File size does loom as a barrier to many who see this as perhaps spurring a PC upgrade, which they may not want. So more MP's is a knife that cuts both ways.



There are many philosophies about photography since its inception. Many say the opposite of your advice. Workflow and PP are more likely to dissuade camera sales than spur them. Some enjoy PP creativity (jsherman I'm looking at you) and others hate it (Monochrome can chime in here).

Regardless instant messaging meets photography without the DSLR (unless you buy the Eye-Fi kludge at added cost and a PITA to set up and keep set up and at the expense of much better SD cards). All this while camera sales are dramatically slowing. Connect to sell, I say. Connect the dots.

Lol, photography and camera sales are two completely, completely different things. If you get them mixed up then you are back to the old Apple advertising line promising that if you buy a Mac you'll soon be Michaelangelo. There's an element of shortcuttery going on here. Another quite well-known one is that it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something, whether it's photography or playing the violin. Of course camera companies are businesses and they aren't really likely to lay out the bald truth as in "Your first 10,000 images are your worst". In the digital era, make that 100,000. As ever, caveat emptor. Most of us will soon be using all the IM facilities on new camera OSes but it won't make us better photographers.