[Rondec]

The only camera companies I am interested in TODAY are Sony ,Panasonic and Samsung. I have not shot a single still shot with my new Panasonic GH4 since I could get up to 8.8mp stills from my 4K (4096x2160 or 3840x2160) GH4 videos. After using the ultra high quality EVFs in my full frame Sony VG900 and Panasonic GH4 I have zero interest in DSLRs with OVFs. I don't have any Samsung cameras but if the NX30 had 4K video I might have purchased it.

Samsung NX30 with 16-50mm f/2-2.8 S ED OIS Lens

So if you go out to take a photo of a landscape, you just video it and then grab a frame that you like? Somehow it seems you would lose not only resolution, but also dynamic range in such a fashion.

[Christine Tham]

More likely, photographers in the future will do more things than just photograph.

I think that was probably more the point I was trying to make. "Photographers" of course will still survive - at a minimum, the people on this forum, or at least those that still survive at an arbitrary point in the future.

However, whatever cameras will evolve to in the future will not be purchased by people who call themselves "photographers". If that makes any sense at all.

Just like Walkmans and MP3 players have almost disappeared, subsumed by smartphones, and the people who buy them don't necessarily refer to themselves as music listeners, although they may well be listening to quite a lot of music on their phones.

You are assuming that the camera functionality on a phone will never be as good as a "real" camera. I am not so sure, a phone with Lytro like capabilties that crowd sources other information from nearby phones may well produce an image that exceeds what can be produced by any camera today.

Of course, cameras (as we know them today) won't disappear completely. Neither did Walkmans or MP3 players. In fact, I just bought the latest high end Walkman - the ZX1. It's basically an phone sized Android device with no phone, but it has 128GB of memory, a discrete headphone amp, high end DAC and plays high resolution music (I have been feeding it DSF files ripped from SACDs). I bought it because I do consider myself a music listener, just like I still consider myself a photographer. It will be interesting to speculate how a pure camera will evolve in both form factor and functionality.

Looking at the way the computer has evolved is a possible indication of how dramatic the shift can be. From a mainframe to a mini to a micro to a laptop to now tablets and phones. The iPhone 5S that I am currently using is more powerful than the desktop computer I was using only a few years ago, which itself was more powerful than the minis and mainframes from the beginning of my career. And the sort of person who buys an Apple product is completely different from the sort of person who bought an Apple ][ (I was one of them).

[Rondec]

To be fair to the camera makers, they aren't going to share any strategic plans with media folks, or even Thom Hogan.

I find it hard to believe that there won't be "photographers" in the future, as Christine stated. I've been doing volunteer photography work for a theater organization for 5 years. And lately, i've been encouraging others in the organization to take over the "job". Sure, there are a lot of smart phones/cams around, but the results i've seen so far, don't compare to what i and other enthusiasts are producing for this theater - AND THEY KNOW IT. Today the job of a photographer is not to just click the shutter, but to be able to process those photos, up to and including any photoshop layer work that may be needed. The average smart phone user doesn't have a clue how to do some of that stuff - at least thats my bias and experience.

More likely, photographers in the future will do more things than just photograph.

Photography won't die out. When photography came into existence, it was thought that painting as a craft was threatened, but it never was. Video has not threatened still photography. in any real sense. There are of course, a group of people out there who believe that it isn't about skill, it is just about high quality gear, but there will always be a people who value a well lit, well composed shot that captures a scene, or their kids, or their family in a special way -- and are willing to pay for it. The hard part for photographers is to be up front in selling their skills to a public that is very gear oriented.

[mecrox]

Photography won't die out. When photography came into existence, it was thought that painting as a craft was threatened, but it never was. Video has not threatened still photography. in any real sense. There are of course, a group of people out there who believe that it isn't about skill, it is just about high quality gear, but there will always be a people who value a well lit, well composed shot that captures a scene, or their kids, or their family in a special way -- and are willing to pay for it. The hard part for photographers is to be up front in selling their skills to a public that is very gear oriented.

Ah yes, the art is in the taking and not in the photograph so to speak.

[Christine Tham]

Photography won't die out. When photography came into existence, it was thought that painting as a craft was threatened, but it never was. Video has not threatened still photography. in any real sense. There are of course, a group of people out there who believe that it isn't about skill, it is just about high quality gear, but there will always be a people who value a well lit, well composed shot that captures a scene, or their kids, or their family in a special way -- and are willing to pay for it. The hard part for photographers is to be up front in selling their skills to a public that is very gear oriented.

Perhaps. But what people want from photography and the photographic process itself is changing, just like painting as a craft changed over the years, and video also is evolving.

I doubt very much that the "public" is "gear oriented". Most people I know couldn't care less about things like DOF or lighting, or full frame vs APS-C.

But photography for a lot of people has become a lot more personal, interactive and a lot more immediate. Rather than have a photographer interpret events in their life, they prefer to interpret and capture those events themselves, using a smartphone and Instagram. Or Snapchat.

I wouldn't necessarily assume that a good Instagrammer is somehow "less skilled" than a professional photographer. I have seen some incredible and creative Instagrams. Of course, many photographers are now active on Instagram and other social media. One photographer I know shoots a photo every day at dawn using his iPhone and then publishes them on Facebook and Google+. Some of his creations are amazing, but what is interesting is that he uses exactly the same tools as an average person - he processes and posts those photos from his phone - he doesn't spend hours processing them afterwards (okay, sometimes he does, for extra special photos).

As for people willing to pay for a skilled photographer, that is a fast disappearing segment of the population. I know quite a few professional photographers, almost all of them tell me it's getting harder and harder to find clients, and the ones that are surviving are relying on an established client base. Having skills don't matter much if the skills are not valued or appreciated.

As an interesting case study, two friends of mine are currently on a 3 month travel across Europe. One is a photographer, and bringing a decent set of gear with him. The other is a casual shooter (using a Samsung point and shoot), but have taken lessons. One takes photos with great skill and care, and processes them properly and posts days or even weeks after the event. The other uploads photos and videos straight onto Facebook from the camera using Wi Fi.

I am finding I am enjoying the output of the casual shooter a LOT more. I feel connected to the images, because she posts them minutes after taking them and I feel like I am there with her. I chat with her on Facebook on the photo she has just taken, and she is not a bad photographer at all, she has a very good eye for composition. The other set of photos are more technically polished, but lost a lot of impact because I know I am seeing them weeks after.

For my Hong Kong trip, I tried to blend both approaches. I took photos on my NEX6, but uploaded them to my phone immediately, and with minimal processing, published them on Facebook. I got great feedback from my friends, and the whole experience was so enjoyable it made me see a completely different side to photography and why things like Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat works. I now actively considering dramatically shortening my workflow from days to hours or even minutes (and investigating appropriate tools to allow me to do so), and I am happy to trade off final image quality for the immediate impact and feedback.

[jogiba]

So if you go out to take a photo of a landscape, you just video it and then grab a frame that you like? Somehow it seems you would lose not only resolution, but also dynamic range in such a fashion.

If I am going to take a photo of landscape I will use my 24mp full frame Sony VG900 or GH4 in 16mp still mode if I don't have the VG900 with me but so far 4K video frame capture still shots of the kids for posting on the web are good enough.

[Clavius]

As for people willing to pay for a skilled photographer, that is a fast disappearing segment of the population. I know quite a few professional photographers, almost all of them tell me it's getting harder and harder to find clients, and the ones that are surviving are relying on an established client base. Having skills don't matter much if the skills are not valued or appreciated.

The demand for professional photographers is not disappearing but just changing too. Photographers that don't evolve together with the rest can expect a hard time. Just two examples of an evolved photographer:

Have you ever visited a webshop where you can rotate the products 360 degrees in all directions, zooming in and out as well? Those have to be photographed, many many times. And all of them have to be perfect. It requires both gear and skill.

The same thing goes for those hotels that display their rooms, lobbies and restaurants in those 360 degree panoramas with which customers can preview the location. Again gear and skill.

I can barely keep up with the workload. Not because I'm so extremely good, or because I advertise so darn well. No, only because my competitors are all stuck in inertia. They only want to work the way they did it in the past ## years. Anyways, fine by me.

Next up? I think we may have to keep an eye on 3D. (Everything double, LBA²). Some potential customers have already inquired if I did it. I can not (will not) sell them "no" the next time. Otherwise I'm making the same mistake.

[Rondec]

Perhaps. But what people want from photography and the photographic process itself is changing, just like painting as a craft changed over the years, and video also is evolving.

I doubt very much that the "public" is "gear oriented". Most people I know couldn't care less about things like DOF or lighting, or full frame vs APS-C.

But photography for a lot of people has become a lot more personal, interactive and a lot more immediate. Rather than have a photographer interpret events in their life, they prefer to interpret and capture those events themselves, using a smartphone and Instagram. Or Snapchat.

I wouldn't necessarily assume that a good Instagrammer is somehow "less skilled" than a professional photographer. I have seen some incredible and creative Instagrams. Of course, many photographers are now active on Instagram and other social media. One photographer I know shoots a photo every day at dawn using his iPhone and then publishes them on Facebook and Google+. Some of his creations are amazing, but what is interesting is that he uses exactly the same tools as an average person - he processes and posts those photos from his phone - he doesn't spend hours processing them afterwards (okay, sometimes he does, for extra special photos).

As for people willing to pay for a skilled photographer, that is a fast disappearing segment of the population. I know quite a few professional photographers, almost all of them tell me it's getting harder and harder to find clients, and the ones that are surviving are relying on an established client base. Having skills don't matter much if the skills are not valued or appreciated.

As an interesting case study, two friends of mine are currently on a 3 month travel across Europe. One is a photographer, and bringing a decent set of gear with him. The other is a casual shooter (using a Samsung point and shoot), but have taken lessons. One takes photos with great skill and care, and processes them properly and posts days or even weeks after the event. The other uploads photos and videos straight onto Facebook from the camera using Wi Fi.

I am finding I am enjoying the output of the casual shooter a LOT more. I feel connected to the images, because she posts them minutes after taking them and I feel like I am there with her. I chat with her on Facebook on the photo she has just taken, and she is not a bad photographer at all, she has a very good eye for composition. The other set of photos are more technically polished, but lost a lot of impact because I know I am seeing them weeks after.

For my Hong Kong trip, I tried to blend both approaches. I took photos on my NEX6, but uploaded them to my phone immediately, and with minimal processing, published them on Facebook. I got great feedback from my friends, and the whole experience was so enjoyable it made me see a completely different side to photography and why things like Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat works. I now actively considering dramatically shortening my workflow from days to hours or even minutes (and investigating appropriate tools to allow me to do so), and I am happy to trade off final image quality for the immediate impact and feedback.

I don't know about where you are, but my wife is a professional photographer and she has to turn away clients because she is busy enough. She is selective with who she photographs, because she wants people who value her style.

As to the whole upload immediately thing, I find it really annoying. People aren't very good at culling their photos and I am not willing to wade through twenty-five mediocre photos to see one that strikes me. It is probably a little different if I was actually on the trip. My brother took a trip to Rome, got home and immediately uploaded 392 photos for friends and family to look through. It was brutal.

But each person is different, but I value more time spent in culling and editing photos.

[monochrome]

As for people willing to pay for a skilled photographer, that is a fast disappearing segment of the population. I know quite a few professional photographers, almost all of them tell me it's getting harder and harder to find clients, and the ones that are surviving are relying on an established client base. Having skills don't matter much if the skills are not valued or appreciated.

My son was recently married to a lovely young lady, whose father hired the currently-hot bridal photography group for the whole gig. I was struck by several things: 1) It cost what I considered a fortune - nearly $15,000; 2) The photographers were disinterested and as a result the experience was tedious; 3) the 800 preview jpeg's were poorly lit, poorly composed and flat; 4) Judging by the finished book, Photoshop must be awesome, but like a vision of the raw food before the fine meal, I can't get the previews out of my mind. In contrast a friend hired the more traditional team of two dark-suited older men for his daughter. They were professional in demeanor, respectful, invisible, one-click-and-step-aside shooters. I'm told the preview set was good enough to take as-is and the book is fabulous. They charged $10,000 flat, including a 2-hour studio session with the bride for the B&W 11x17's and silhouettes. With additional prints ordered by relatives it ended up around $13,000 and the entire wedding party says they felt like it was an adventure. Is the problem competition or is the problem the photographers?

I am finding I am enjoying the output of the casual shooter a LOT more. I feel connected to the images, because she posts them minutes after taking them and I feel like I am there with her. I chat with her on Facebook on the photo she has just taken, and she is not a bad photographer at all, she has a very good eye for composition. The other set of photos are more technically polished, but lost a lot of impact because I know I am seeing them weeks after.

My daughter had a semester abroad in Dublin. Every day she took several iPhone shots of things she was doing or that she thought interesting and made up a photo/commentary blog site for about 150 followers. Instagram was in its infancy and didn't really work well yet. Sure, we Skyped once a week and that was joyous, but opening her blog every morning and reading about and 'seeing' her previous day was much, much better. The photos didn't even really need to be good - that wasn't the point. 'Seeing' the Grand Canal from her balcony as she saw it only hours before was the point.

We're missing the entire point of Instagram and weblogs - they aren't about good photographs (as we define them). They might not even be about photographs at all. They're really about paradigm-shifted conversations that we have with a new time interval between the initiative and the responsive. They're about a new language that doesn't use words to communicate but does have some immediacy. Rather than feeling threatened we could embrace this new, exciting addition to our opportunity set while we continue to expand our skill with and uses of our traditional tools and medium.

We can have both.

[bdery]

Their websites could be huge and useful repositories of articles and videos about photography and generally "how to" information was well as getting the best from developing and printing your stills (or distributing videos, etc.). Instead there is often a token effort or no effort at all.

Well, Pentax has been doing one thing right there, showcasing great images on the PPG.

Nikon and Canon are banking on the idea that people will want full frame cameras as then next step up in image quality, but for most people, they just don't need that extra stop of image performance.

Yep, and Nikon has been struggling for two years now. The D600 debacle probably didn't help them.

[Winder]

I don't know about where you are, but my wife is a professional photographer and she has to turn away clients because she is busy enough. She is selective with who she photographs, because she wants people who value her style.

Business has been very good the last couple of years.

As to the whole upload immediately thing, I find it really annoying. People aren't very good at culling their photos and I am not willing to wade through twenty-five mediocre photos to see one that strikes me. It is probably a little different if I was actually on the trip. My brother took a trip to Rome, got home and immediately uploaded 392 photos for friends and family to look through. It was brutal.

But each person is different, but I value more time spent in culling and editing photos.

When shooting a band for promotion we are often asked to provide some instant JEPGs that they at tweet out or put in Instagram so that they stay in front of their fans and followers. We throw some quick filters on it and send it out. Instant uploads are valuable in their own way. They provide immediate feedback from the public which some people seem to really like and need. With certain industries like music everything needs to be instant. Bands can be forgotten as quickly as the become popular.

[philbaum]

Yep, and Nikon has been struggling for two years now. The D600 debacle probably didn't help them.

I think a lot of us, including Nikon, are guilty of myopia - near sightedness :-). We are familiar with out own "world" and assume that the rest of the world, by extrapolation, is flat like ours. The truth is that its more complex than that, the world is round after all with a wide variety of trends and actual needs.

A. Nikon seems to assume that since the FF camera is the greatest thing since sliced bread, that we will all jump in our SUV's and rush out to buy one. The truth is that there are few NFL and professional wildlife photographers that actually need FF cameras and micro-4/3 to APS cameras will adequately serve many of us. Indeed there are cons to FF cameras such as their size, weight, expense. Nikon seems to have most of their resources in the FF arena, when most of their business seems to be in the APS marketplace. That may be ok for short strategic gains, but not adequate for the long-term.

B. All camera companies need to get their managers out into the real world to see how their cameras are being used and what the complaints and needs are. They seem to get most of their feedback from the marketplace which is not a comprehensive source of feedback - i.e. it doesn't tell one where the opportunities are, just which products that one is currently making are most attractive.

C. Sure, there are those folks that are into facebook and social networking for which smart phones will adequately serve. But this crowd does not encompass the other photographic activities, and will never do so. It makes me laugh every time some pundit implies that smart phones are going to take over the photographic world. They are no more accurate than the Canikon managers who claim that the FF camera will take over the photographic world.

[RyanW]

I am finding I am enjoying the output of the casual shooter a LOT more. I feel connected to the images, because she posts them minutes after taking them and I feel like I am there with her. I chat with her on Facebook on the photo she has just taken, and she is not a bad photographer at all, she has a very good eye for composition. The other set of photos are more technically polished, but lost a lot of impact because I know I am seeing them weeks after.

I don't doubt it. The web has caters to our instant gratification desires. The more professional shooter may have better photos, but we have to wait and they may not look much better on the web, but would need to be printed to look better. Assuming both people have the same general composition skills, immediacy tends to cancel out the better quality imparted by a better camera and better processing.

There is a fellow on dpreview, Skip Hunt, that has a blog that follows his journeys. He pumps up people before and during his trip via the blog and then sells images and books. He shoots primarily with point and shoot cameras. I think immediacy is as or more important as is always with you in accounting for phone camera popularity.

[mecrox]

Well, Pentax has been doing one thing right there, showcasing great images on the PPG.

I don't know PPG that well though perhaps I should know it a lot better. I'm not that good at browsing vast online galleries. I prefer a little more guidance, a smaller selection. The internet is overwhelming enough as it is.

I was really thinking of the kind of resources put out by outfits like Topaz Labs. Someone may or may not like their software and their many articles and videos but by golly they use their online how-tos and the like as a very potent marketing tool and they keep up the flow of information, too. So one gets the feeling that someone somewhere is really making an effort. It all helps. On other sides of the Pentax world there is getting the most from your compact like a WG-4, with more emphasis on instant sharing to social media perhaps, or up the scale of equipment (K3, 645z) the longer and more considered (and demanding) articles on a site like Luminous Landscape. Everyone has their preferences and likes and might well suggest very different examples, but the point is that the internet can be used to set up a very potent learning resource which also serves to make your customers feel they are valued, so they will tend to stick around. Just look at how universities have used this approach online, for example on iTunes but far beyond. It's become massive.

I think this maybe connects with a point made by others on this thread, namely that as a class Japanese executives have been too much in the office and not enough on the street finding out what their customers really get up to. This leads to seeing "the camera" as somehow distinct from the rest of life, just another product we really don't need to explain because someone else should be doing that anyway. So I would see this as an opportunity for Ricoh. Actually they are quite well placed to take it. They already have bits of it, like the PPG, they don't have a huge product catalogue to accommodate, they have their brand ambassadors and they already have experience of the idea from their Ricoh and Pentax clubs and the like in Japan. Do I expect them to take it? Not really, on the basis on the past couple of years. But it's a good dream all the same.

[monochrome]

The truth is that there are few NFL and professional wildlife photographers that actually need FF cameras and micro-4/3 to APS cameras will adequately serve many of us

Almost no one who owns a free-standing digital camera really needs the camera.The iPhone was would have been sufficient for almost every photograph taken since roughly 1998 Every little bit of technology beyond the iPhone is hubris, a superfluous waste, overkill, braggadocio and score keeping. 6 standard deviations of photographs taken since the invention of digital photography could have been taken with a Yashica Electro or Instamatic, printed and scanned for web posting and been indistinguishable from what's already there.

The Insanity of Crowds always ends this way - a collective realization that the next step is the cliff.