Changes being brought by smartphone cameras

It will be interesting to see the effects in features and prices on our gear brought about by the large reduction in sales of upscale cameras.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304672404579183643696236868?KEYWORDS=cameras

Very interesting, Arthur.

One would hope that this kind of competition would drive the Canons and Nikons of the world to push the technology. These cell phone cameras may have lots of pixels but I can't see them having large dynamic ranges, fast shutter rates etc. and still remain competitive as a basic phone. I shoot with a Canon 5Diii because I love the high dynamic range and high ISO. As an electronics engineer by trade would like to see the camera manufactures move beyond the 12-14 bit resolution to something like 16-18 bits. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to get proper exposure of both the sun and dark areas of a sunset. Hopefully the low end cell phone technology will drive the mfrs. to make this kind of improvements to keep the pro photographer interested.

I don't see smart phone cameras as replacing high end DSLRs, but I do see them as creating an entirely new category of informal lower quality images for web sharing. This is really all that most folks want these days. I do see compact mirrorless cameras like the new Sony offerings with full frame and interchangable lenses at half the weight as being serious competition for Canon and Nikon higher end cameras.

Agreed that smart phones aren't a threat to the DSLR market. Two entirely different markets. Not sure why the article associates the two...

Canon and Nikon are seeing lower sales because the market is becoming saturated and the incremental improvements in each subsequent update are smaller and smaller, to the extent that upgrading isn't worth it except for a small % of the market that must have the latest and greatest feature set. The lack of demand should drive down prices considerably over the next few years, similar to what happened with PCs over the past 10 years.

It's also worth remembering that SLR sales took a huge swing upwards with the introduction of dSLR's ~10 years ago. It looks to me like we're seeing those numbers gradually erode, perhaps heading back down to the levels that were being sold in the early- to mid-90's.

I'm not sure this erosion of DSLR sales the media is talking about is a reality. I've not seen one of those articles give stats and I know for a fact that the D800 and D800E have been major game changers for Nikon. My photo tour business was up almost double this year and most of the clients were sporting new DSLRs.

Bob,

According to experts that have access to the data:

"You're talking about a 10-15% decline [in DSLR shipments] all over the world. Which is kind of shocking because that market's been growing double digits for almost ten years," says Christopher Chute, market intelligence firm IDC's research director of worldwide digital imaging.

I also remember seeing excerpts from Canon's quarterly report that also supports the DSLR sales decline.

It is a maturing technology and market, so I would expect this at some point.
I know I don't feel the need to upgrade because of great new must-have features being released every year.

My take on the article is that there may be fewer people graduating up from pocketable digital cameras and deciding that a camera phone is all they need. There may also be a number of people who invested in interchangeable lens cameras and then came to regret their decision because of the bulk and weight.

My only concern is whether Canon and Nikon, et al, will need to increase prices to offset the reduced production numbers.