Originally posted by BigMackCam For the benefit of all readers:
I have never consumed someone else's droppings (nor, for that matter, my own).
Other than Tony Northrop’s verbal version.........
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Originally posted by BigMackCam You may be right. That said, it's been a very popular format for a decade now, and the cameras can offer image quality that isn't far behind APS-C sensor cameras of comparable release dates. I've always liked fairly chunky cameras, but having handled some Olympus models at various shows, I can understand the attraction. And surely the wide range of interchangeable lenses (including some very fine glass indeed) will continue to differentiate m43 from phones? I don't know... but it'll be interesting to see what happens next...
Of course I’m right. I’m always right.
Seriously though, The present users of m43 are probably not going anywhere as long as they are content with what they are getting. However, there is the potential for feature creep and quality improvements in cell phones to close the gap with M43 thereby eroding their potential market. This is what happened with compact cameras.
The people who want M43 for compact telephoto lenses to facilitate BIF photography (as an example) are something of an outlier. I suspect most users are of the more mundane travel or family photographer type, prime candidates for a multi use device such as a smartphone with an advanced built in camera.
Let’s face it, if a person has to choose between leaving their cell phone or their camera at home, the camera is going to stay in the closet.
---------- Post added 11-01-18 at 11:22 AM ----------
Originally posted by mecrox Quite possible but not for a while. Cell phones can't put 20 quality mpx on something at 300mm f2.8 or 600mm f4 with sophisticated AF and all the rest, unlike APS-C or M43. Maybe in five to ten years? But by then those formats will be fifteen to twenty years old and nothing lasts for all that long in this game. However, we can't be sure how interested the cellphone-makers would be in doing that in the first place. They might - or might not - decide that some things were best left to specialist tools and were a step and a cost increase too far for them.
How many M43 users are buying super telephoto lenses? I’m thinking the number is quite low. Cell phones don’t have to attract that user, who is quite a specialist, they just have to attract enough of the more mundane users to make a big enough dent in camera sales.
Originally posted by mecrox
Plus, some people just like cameras and lenses and taking photographs with cameras and lenses. For myself I think that is always underestimated in discussions about technology - some people just like cameras and lenses regardless of what's inside them, who made them or what else those folks could get instead. If there are enough of them, that's the market.
And a subset or niche of that audience probably likes netsuke-like small and will pay for the miniaturization and design involved, just as they did for the Pentax Q for example. In the case of Olympus one needs to look at the continuing influence of Yoshihisa Maitani.
The people who just like cameras would, of course, still have the ability to buy cameras. No one is saying that they will go away. I note that the Pentax Q series has been dropped, as has the Nikon 1 series. What this says about people willing to pay for miniaturization I can only guess at. Some are, but I guess not enough.
As an aside, I purchased a Q and several lenses when it first came out. I seriously underutilized it, but my wife decided she liked it and used it for several years. She stopped using it when she gave up her flip phone and entered the world of smartphones a couple of years ago with an iPhone5. She has no desire to pick up the Q or any other camera, the smartphone floats her boat quite well