[RonHendriks1966]

Sport's imaging is an overcrowded sector in jobs... and i guess a dead end for photo companies.

There are more photo section overcrowded. Making money with concert photography isn't easy these days.

[Rondec]

There are more photo section overcrowded. Making money with concert photography isn't easy these days.

Making money in many fields of work is tough. The thing is that you have to stand out and sell your skill. The demise of photography is a long way from being a real thing. There are still plenty of people who value still images and are willing to pay well to have them made. The hard part is getting to know the right people and being a good enough sales person that you get a job.

It isn't about gear as such, but you do need to have an adequate level of gear in order to stand out.

I'm not sure what has happened, Ron, but there was a time when you took a lot of photos and seemed to enjoy photography and now you've turned into a grouch who attacks whatever new gear Pentax decides to release. I think it would help just to take some photos with your K-01 or even get a K-1 and have some fun with it. Don't use the features you don't care about, but life is too short to spend it being critical of things like this.

[Cynog Ap Brychan]

but life is too short to spend it being critical of things like this.

So many cameras! So little time!!! (I need help for my GAS... seriously!)

[thibs]

So many cameras! So little time!!! (I need help for my GAS... seriously!)

Ah, another GAS victim

[beholder3]

Sport's imaging is an overcrowded sector in jobs... and i guess a dead end for photo companies.

Honestly most types of photography where you shoot rapidly changing subjects can probably very soon be fully replaced by drones with cameras and smart algorithms to pick the right shots and "sports" is especially easy to automate, because the artistic part is close to nothing (usually way below smartphone selfies) and requirements are so low. Most of it all is just defined by capturing the right "moment".

Do 8k video and let a computer pick the right frame.

If you look at what get's published even on title pages during Olympics, the first thing that comes to mind is "sad" from a photography side.

If you think about it, it's rather simple: All those areas where people complain about technology most (machinegun framerate photography, subjects that need "tracking" and superfast AFC) are obviously the ones where technology is more important than artistic photographer skill. Thus the photographer is relatively unimportant. Thus it is desireable to replace him completely with fully automated options.

Why would anyone want to waste money of low level human jobs which can be easily replaced by computers?
Do we want to pay lighthouse-keepers again?

[reh321]

Sport's imaging is an overcrowded sector in jobs... and i guess a dead end for photo companies.

and totally irrelevant to discussions here. Lots of people take pictures of sports and never collect a penny. Almost every year people will post something of the following at a generic photo forum where I'm a regular: "My daughter/son/grandchild is playing sports; what do I need to buy so my pictures aren't so awful?" In addition, there are various other photography venues {such as some birding settings} which have the same requirements.

---------- Post added 05-13-16 at 01:22 PM ----------

Honestly most types of photography where you shoot rapidly changing subjects can probably very soon be fully replaced by drones with cameras and smart algorithms to pick the right shots and "sports" is especially easy to automate, because the artistic part is close to nothing (usually way below smartphone selfies) and requirements are so low. Most of it all is just defined by capturing the right "moment".

Do 8k video and let a computer pick the right frame.

If you look at what get's published even on title pages during Olympics, the first thing that comes to mind is "sad" from a photography side.

If you think about it, it's rather simple: All those areas where people complain about technology most (machinegun framerate photography, subjects that need "tracking" and superfast AFC) are obviously the ones where technology is more important than artistic photographer skill. Thus the photographer is relatively unimportant. Thus it is desireable to replace him completely with fully automated options.

Why would anyone want to waste money of low level human jobs which can be easily replaced by computers?
Do we want to pay lighthouse-keepers again?

"Weegee" Fellig got his knickname because he instinctively seemed to know where news was going to break, so his competitors suggested that he must have a Ouija Board; a great sports photographer has similar instincts. Yeah, you could put cameras to cover ever point from every angle, but we aren't ready to pay for that quite yet.

[Cynog Ap Brychan]

"Weegee" Fellig got his knickname because he instinctively seemed to know where news was going to break, so his competitors suggested that he must have a Ouija Board

The radio tuned to the Police waveband helped, too...

[HopelessTogger]

The radio tuned to the Police waveband helped, too...

Huff has the liiiiiight!

[Nicolas06]

In a lot of services the providers try to be innovative and provide new and better service or product without the customer asking for it. It gives them an edge over the competition.
I gather from your statement that pro photographers don't do that. They don't try to give their customers the best quality they can; they only give them the minimum quality product that the customer asks for?
Hm.
I did not know that. But I'm not a professional photographer.

Pixel shift, many MP, is a photographer wish, and I would say more, not really a photographer, but a technician, engineer wish. For normal people, once there enough, once it doesn't look soft on screen or printed, there no more added value. They don't care.

To me a photographer can't hope to make money with a 36MP or PS. Everybody can do the same. You just need to buy the camera, 1800$ now, maybe 1000$ in 2 years, that quite low barrier to entry. Worse it is not even visible because most viewing/printing medium can't really benefit of it.

You need things that people like me or their friend that has a DSLR will not be able to do. You'll have to make photos that look great, that illustrate exactly what they need, and you'll have to be able to do that consistantly. Do not expect your clients to have bionics eyes because they won't. Don't expect them to look at your prints with a magnifying glass because they wont and anyway the printer would be the limiting factor.

But if the model look a bit too fat or if the product they want to sell doesn't look fantastic, you'll be in trouble. If you take action picture and you miss the key action they'll be an issue... If you sell war picture and only manage to get macro flowers with PS, you'll have issue too. Except maybe if the flower is near a bullet... maybe...

The problem is that the qualities the client look for maybe very different than one might think. If it was sharpness and MP, all people would be spending their time doing gigapixels projects with automated panoheads or at least saving to buy the latest phaseone with 100MP. Shooting large format film and scan latter on might be indeed the norm.

[reh321]

Pixel shift, many MP, is a photographer wish, and I would say more, not really a photographer, but a technician, engineer wish. For normal people, once there enough, once it doesn't look soft on screen or printed, there no more added value. They don't care.

To me a photographer can't hope to make money with a 36MP or PS. Everybody can do the same. You just need to buy the camera, 1800$ now, maybe 1000$ in 2 years, that quite low barrier to entry. Worse it is not even visible because no medium can really benefit of it.

You need things that people like me or their friend that has a DSLR will not be able to do. You'll have to make photos that look great, that illustrate exactly what they need, and you'll have to be able to do that consistantly. Do not expect your clients to have bionics eyes because they won't. Don't expect them to look at your prints with a magnifying glass because they wont and anyway the printer would be the limiting factor.

But if the model look a bit too fat or if the product they want to sell doesn't look fantastic, you'll be in trouble. If you take action picture and you miss the key action they'll be an issue... If you sell war picture and only manage to get macro flowers with PS, you'll have issue too. Except maybe if the flower is near a bullet... maybe...

The problem here is what are the qualities the client look for. They are not necessarily first and foremost more MP, more sharpness. And honestly if that was the key, if Mp and sharpness was the key all the pro would still use large format film or do buy the latest 100MP phaseone and do gigapixels projects on top of it thanks to automated pano heads.

So, in your opinion, what does Pentax {or Canon, or Nikon} need to put into their next camera so that a "pro" will buy it before his current camera dies of old age.

[HopelessTogger]

So, in your opinion, what does Pentax {or Canon, or Nikon} need to put into their next camera so that a "pro" will buy it before his current camera dies of old age.

Sorry to butt in, but in my opinion the only thing left is getting really good focus peaking and exposure information into the OVF (an advanced digitized focusing screen I guess). That and continual AF performance upgrades.

[RonHendriks1966]

So, in your opinion, what does Pentax {or Canon, or Nikon} need to put into their next camera so that a "pro" will buy it before his current camera dies of old age.

Different things may do that, but it is hard to get people to spend money on something that does exactly what their current camera can do.
- overall speed in processing
- reducing Weight
- faster af
- getting faster connected to Internet (pro want faster transfer, maybe 4g, amature want get directly to social media)

Camera's are very simple things. They only make images (and video). While my smartphone can make calls, runs my navigation, goes on Internet, makes images and video, runs Spotify and many many more things.

Just think what would it take for you to replace your just bought K-1. I guess Ricoh has to jump true hoops to get you take your wallet anytime soon.

[Nicolas06]

So, in your opinion, what does Pentax {or Canon, or Nikon} need to put into their next camera so that a "pro" will buy it before his current camera dies of old age.

Depend what pro you are. For weddings or event, anything indoor, I think a camera that would handle noise/low light better is something that would sell well. That half the reason for FF.

I'd say a camera that would also automatically post process the pictures to the level of what the carefully post processed photoshopers can do, that would be nice. Basically picture taken with such camera would already look time better than what 99.99% of other people would even shoot. That would be a game changer. No need to spend 1-2 days to post processed an event. And if the brand ensure that only highend expensive camera have it, it could be kind of barrier to entry for some time. I guess if it was linked with a recuring fee like I don't know 50€ a month that would be nothing to a pro but expensive enough to ensure no amateur would ever get it.

For actions shooters and birders alike, you must have a camera that always focus on the most interresting part of the scene and no matter what the photographer is doing wrong, manage to take the shoot. Problem as I understand it... Nikon almost did that already. The only thing that remain is incorporating it in lower end bodies.

You could think to remove the need for a tripod. With good enough software there no reason the camera could not assemble a full picture from many, keeping the best of each, and reducing noise and other artifacts. Our brain does it. No reason the camera couldn't. Basically that's making pixel shift effective in whatever working conditions.

That just a few. But I think none are easy except maybe the AF, but Pentax is already working on it, in fact. And the one with the money to invest are Google or Apple or Samsung... Not Pentax, Canon or Nikon. So anything related to software or even research on sensor may come first to smartphones.

The manufacturers continue to do what they have done for years, because they don't know better. Few year ago with digital, that was the jackpot. Now that's the past, everybody has his DSLR that take high quality pictures (if you know how to use it) and everybody has a smartphone that they already use more than the DSLR (and cost as much)... Except a few amateurs and pros... The easy money time is finished. Honestly I don't even know why us as consumers we would want to have to buy a new camera every 2 years. Or even as a pro why that would be beneficial? For the society as a whole this is wasted time. If a thing is great already, time to invest on something else.

[falconeye]

So, in your opinion, what does Pentax {or Canon, or Nikon} need to put into their next camera so that a "pro" will buy it before his current camera dies of old age.

This is an interesting question.

Looking at the current D500 buzz, just pushing the state of the art a little bit still seems to do the trick. Just stay ahead of the pack.

What separates pro-level cameras from more enthusiast-level cameras IMHO is responsiveness. Compared to the top of the line cameras, cameras like a A7rII etc. feel like toys, sooo slow in everything. A pro-level camera must be able to catch the image in less than the blink of an eye, including the time required to grab the camera. And contrary to popular belief, no current camera is without its limitations. So, that's an area to improve.

Another future area probably is 4k and 8k video capture with in-body frame selection apps.

OTOH, I think in-camera post-processing is useless. Images will simply be shared to a tablet and processed there. All pro photographers carry tablets these days. But ease, speed and reliability to offload images to tablets in an area for huge improvements. IMHO, this should be a fully automated process and Nikon's snapbridge is a step in the right direction here (permanent pairing).

Eventually, I think image quality (low light noise etc.) can't be improved much anymore beyond what a full frame camera delivers today. So, a pro-level camera has to differentiate elsewhere. And this does include medium format, because fast MF lenses either don't exist or would have too shallow DoF.

[reh321]

This is an interesting question.

Looking at the current D500 buzz, just pushing the state of the art a little bit still seems to do the trick. Just stay ahead of the pack.

What separates pro-level cameras from more enthusiast-level cameras IMHO is responsiveness. Compared to the top of the line cameras, cameras like a A7rII etc. feel like toys, sooo slow in everything. A pro-level camera must be able to catch the image in less than the blink of an eye, including the time required to grab the camera. And contrary to popular belief, no current camera is without its limitations. So, that's an area to improve.

Have you used a K-1 yet? I'm wondering how you would rate a strong Pentax entry compared to something like the A7Rii {since this thread is said to be about the K-1}