[giobox]

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked.

ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones. If we are being blunt, Amazon bought dpreview to use as a sales funnel for DSLRs and cameras, which they simply don't sell so much of anymore. A sad day though.

I know dpreview covers cameras beyond ILCs, but ILC reviews where always by far the most popular content on the site - in the DSLR boom/Phil Askey years it simply was the gold standard in DSLR reviews. I still remember pouring over the classic battle between Canon's 300D and Nikon's D70 for entry level 6mp DSLR supremacy constantly on dpreview circa 2003/4.

[vwoolf]

I'm seeing a lot of people discussing sales numbers; here is one article showing the decline in terms of both lens and interchangeable lens cameras shipped: https://bythom.com/newsviews/real-camera-economics.html.

Lenses appear to have declined by about 66% from 2012 to 2022. Cameras, by a little under 50%.

This decline makes sense to me. I have a Fuji XT4 which I like a lot, but, also, starting around the iPhone 13, phones got really good. Their automatic exposure in sunlight, for example, is often (not always) great. At the same time, the software quality in pretty much all cameras leaves much to be desired: I can go on a rant about the number of clicks necessary to wirelessly transfer from camera to phone but would rather not, and people have been ranting about that topic for at least a decade.

[mod50ack]

Phones definitely cannot compete with ILCs in the applications that photographers use. Phones fundamentally lack the larger sensors and specialist lenses that allow ILCs to produce the images they do. Yes, phones can blur stuff to fake bokeh, but even very basic things are not accounted for in phones.

What phones can do is replace dedicated cameras for the basic photography needs of many consumers. Point and shoot cameras have gone by the wayside. So have many cheaper consumer-oriented interchangeable-lens models. Many people bought APS-C DSLRs and just used them with the kit lens. That market has fizzled out. For one, most of those people now just use their phones. But even if they don't use their phones, DSLRs from the early 2010s still produce good images by today's standards.

But you know what a smartphone can't replace? My 135mm f/1.8 lens, just to name one. And full-frame sensors are way better than phone sensors. I'd much rather use my Canon 5Diii (from 2012) than my Pixel 6 Pro.

More than that, I feel that in their question to get bigger and bigger sensors, phone cameras have missed the mark with their actual purpose. The Pixel 6 Pro, for instance, has a larger sensor size to get a shallower depth of field. But this is NOT a welcome change when I am photographing pieces of paper and get the wrong focus in my images. The fact that you can't stop down the aperture on the lenses in 99% of phones is a major limitation. And that's just the beginning.

Now, I'm not saying I never use the camera on my Pixel. But I am saying that it's not at all useful for anything I'd use a real camera for.

[lmm]

> Phones definitely cannot compete with ILCs in the applications that photographers use.

That's overly broad. A lot of what photographers do doesn't need those capabilities (hell, some photographers work with literal children's toys), and the niches where you need them are getting smaller all the time. There are a few things you still can't photograph well with a phone (e.g. birds in flight), but that's a long way from being all photography.

> The fact that you can't stop down the aperture on the lenses in 99% of phones is a major limitation.

My last two phones have been able to do this, FWIW.

[throwaway290]

In Asia I see more people with cameras year after year. It is now at a point where striking a convo about a camera someone has is tired because the next person over also has a cool camera. I mean I saw a guy with TWO Leicas yesterday. Fuji's mirrorless are huge and medium format is now as frequent as those Fujis were 6-8 years ago.

It's not only about features, in which I still think cameras best phones any day. It's also about the process. I don't want to use the same hated device that pesters me with work and atrocious social media for something artful. Same reason film is big lately. Sadly DPR due to its name excludes film.

[schroeding]

> Same reason film is big lately.

Also Instax / Polaroid. AFAIK, Fuji makes the majority (or at least a very significant chunk) of their consumer camera sales with Instax cameras and Instax film.

[throwaway290]

Also cheap digital compacts are popular, which are smaller than those instant film ones but also have the nostalgic look and cost a fraction of a phone. And a number of niche hobbies like astrophotography, wildlife, extreme macro, all requiring digital cameras. Saying if the phone can take nice photos (for some values of nice because physics make it impossible to rival the quality) then cameras should be obsolete is like saying your phone can zoom so microscopes are obsolete.

[mod50ack]

> That's overly broad. A lot of what photographers do doesn't need those capabilities (hell, some photographers work with literal children's toys),

OK, but nobody is doing serious photographic work (professional or hobbyist) using children's toy cameras. Those are used for an occasional laugh. Now, yes, you can photograph most things with your phone. But my full-frame cameras produce WAY better portraits than my phone, which is supposed to have a fairly decent camera for a phone.

> My last two phones have been able to do this, FWIW.

Good! Hopefully this will become more common. The fact that the Pixel 6 Pro expands the sensor size but keeps a fixed-aperture lens made the camera worse, as far as I'm concerned.

[lmm]

> OK, but nobody is doing serious photographic work (professional or hobbyist) using children's toy cameras.

Some serious artistic photographers do do serious work with them, taking pictures to show in galleries and the like. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone was out there doing professional e.g. wedding photography with one, for customers who want photos that look a bit different. Of course it's a stylistic choice, but camera choice often is.

> But my full-frame cameras produce WAY better portraits than my phone, which is supposed to have a fairly decent camera for a phone.

Now that's interesting - well-lit, no motion or anything, but still much better portraits? Would be interested to hear some more details about what's different/better.

[mod50ack]

> Of course it's a stylistic choice, but camera choice often is.

OK, I guess I mean to exclude this kind of work which is done because the cameras are of much worse technical quality — these are by definition not applications for which traditional dedicated cameras are used.

In other words, the toys are not replacements for more capable equipment. Yes, you can shoot with a Barbie camera (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkmrFguxgS0). But nobody could seriously claim that it replaces any standard ILC. We're not discussing whether or not phones (or Barbies) can take photos; we're talking about whether or not they can replace ILCs, and in what applications.

> Now that's interesting - well-lit, no motion or anything, but still much better portraits? Would be interested to hear some more details about what's different/better.

Well, of course, also, we don't always have good lighting or a lack of motion. Often, I am photographing people in motion, or in poor lighting, or both. And that's not a super niche thing. Imagine photographing an actor who is in the middle of a rehearsal (which I've done many times). A dedicated camera is just the right tool for that job, with the appropriate lens attached. Not to mention, of course, you want to have a somewhat telephoto lens for that — and one area where phone cameras have been, to my eyes, mostly marketing bluster is that of "super-zoom."

But looking back just at the same gear example I mentioned earlier: I often use my Sigma 135mm f/1.8 lens on my (full-frame) Canon R5. Now, I'll concede that this lens itself is much, much larger than anything you could slap on a phone, and the full-frame sensor is also far bigger than what you'd find on any phone, so you'd EXPECT something larger.

Now, to be fair, this is one of the lenses you can buy (tied with a Canon and Sony of the same spec) with some of the shallowest possible DOF on a full-frame camera. I don't always shoot wide open, but sometimes I do. In the ideal situation, I'd be shooting at ISO 100. And a 45MP FF sensor at its base ISO is just going to be ... really good. Admittedly, the iPhone (more than the Pixel, to my eyes, by a LONG shot) can produce some OK fake bokeh. But I suppose that my eye is good enough to know real bokeh from fake. My R5 will focus perfectly on the point I want and get the shot I am looking for every time. And AI-based trickery won't work equally well with all subjects; pure optics stays the same no matter what you're shooting.

The Pixel, though, in my opinion, produces pretty bad photos. Everything is NR'd, sharpened and HDR'd until it looks like a watercolor. I much prefer to apply (in most cases) pretty limited adulteration to my photos (which I shoot in RAW). I can shoot RAW with my phone, but I've never been anywhere near satisfied with the results. I will confess that the RAW results from the iPhone are significantly better, though still nothing like what I get from my dedicated camera. (I won't use an iPhone for reasons unrelated to photography.)

[WWLink]

"starting around the iPhone 13, phones got really good"

-exasperated sigh-

I wish I could agree but I just can't. I feel around that point pictures taken by phone cameras stopped looking real. They started forcing stuff like HDR and AI correction and very heavy handed noise filtering.

Looking back at my old pictures from the 2010s, I think my canon digital elph took better pictures than my phones do now lol. I realize how stupid that sounds.

[numpad0]

To me they do seem to be getting “better”, in air quotes, I think due to ILCs supplying ground truth data…

IMO the real problem is that there aren’t much connection between that photos you like and people. “If we take the S.D. Card out of the proper camera and insert it into a proper Computer…” just don’t cut it anymore.

They only have a phone each. You have to be able to get the photo to the phone to social media before the flash unit finishes recharging(on fresh batteries of course). Else they’ll lose interest.

[ge0rg]

The companion apps provided by ILC manufacturers are just horrible, broken, useless. I was really glad that I could hack the in-camera "send email" function of the Samsung NX500 to send the picture to a VPS which then forwards it to my favorite photo sharing chat instead.

[mrelectric]

No, you're right. Pictures taken by my one plus one (especially the raw ones) were much much better than my new latest Samsung.

[georgemcbay]

> starting around the iPhone 13, phones got really good.

ILC cameras also got really good.

I'm not at all doubting that smartphones are the primary cannibalization vector, but even for people who prefer to use cameras with significantly larger sensors than can be put into a smartphone I think the cameras themselves reached a point years ago where it became difficult even for ILC enthusiasts to justify upgrades on a regular basis because what people already owned was "Good Enough". I reached this point with the Sony A7R Mk3 and other people probably reached this point sooner.

For years it felt like Canon and Nikon were kind of aware this would happen with ILCs and were dragging their feet on camera body tech making incremental upgrades behind where the technology should have been if they were competing full speed, and then other vendors like Sony just came smashing in without being part of this implicit agreement and pushed camera body tech along extremely quickly for a few years (with Canon/Nikon having to follow along to some degree to keep up) and it didn't take many iterations of this pushing the technology to where it could be for ILC camera bodies to be something you feel no itch to upgrade from year to year because the shiny new thing is an extremely marginal upgrade.

So the cannibalization of the market probably had two fronts, the larger one from smartphones, and a smaller but still significant one from "Good Enough" (which is an issue smartphones are starting to run into as well).

[bdavisx]

Yep, my wife and I used to do wedding photography and from that period we have 2 Canon 5D Mk II's and 2 40D's along with 3 L lenses, some primes and a few cheaper zooms. There's absolutely no reason we would ever need another camera. Even people with a single body wouldn't ever need another one unless they broke it.

[tagrun]

I'm guessing you don't record videos then.

In terms of video capabilities, Canon 5D Mk II is limited to 8-bit 4:2:0 1080p H.264 recording at 30fps, maxing out at 12 minutes of recording. That is a far cry from 10-bit (or 12-bit) 4:2:2 4K, 6K or even 8K RAW or ProRes at 120fps or higher with unlimited recording from a similarly priced camera in today's money.

(It's also limited in terms of RAW photo as well though: the best recording option is 8-bit 10MP RAW)

No phone comes anywhere near that either, not to mention the lenses for phones can't compete with the real interchangeable lenses. The difference probably doesn't matter to someone who is just going to record his baby walking around and watch it on a 7 inch screen, but of course that's not the target audience for those cameras.

[t0bia_s]

10bit and 4:2:2 is only for editing in post, majority of consumers don't need that.

[tagrun]

If you read the last sentence of the post that you're replying to, I already said that it won't matter to most people.

That being said, "is only for editing in post" (which is not really true, banding is an issue in scenes with high dynamic range with 8-bit, not limited to sky but also with strong lights or deep shadows) doesn't mean people won't want it. Around 10-15 years ago, in the age of single-digit-GB slow SD cards and weaker camera/phone processors, that's what people used to say about RAW photos repeatedly. Now it is mainstream in even in phones, with built-in editing apps and easy to use desktop programs with few knobs. This means editing itself in post isn't a barrier for mainstream adoption, the issue is video editing currently has a high barrier as it is essentially impossible on portable devices, the programs have their learning curves, and the whole stack requires some financial investment.

[lmm]

Videos are not what most people mean by "photography", 10-bit is mostly a gimmick (there are situations where it gives a real advantage, but they're niche), and higher-than-1080p resolutions are honestly pretty marginal a lot of the time. 30fps is pretty awful though.

[irrational]

I'm still a bit interested in buying a ILC camera, but I assumed at some point the prices would start dropping, but they really haven't. Demand has gone way down and supply isn't really limited. There is even competition. But the prices remain fairly constant.

[Zak]

Used is the budget option. Cameras aren't in the kind of rapid development cycle where an older model isn't competitive, but it's often half the price of new, or less.

[re-thc]

The prices will go up as the products become more a niche. Less demand = lower economies of scale.

[stephen_g]

I wouldn't expect that to happen... Especially with lenses (full of expensive bits of glass) but new cameras will always be sold at a premium. Firms set prices for products, supply and demand mostly doesn't come into it (except pushing prices up perhaps when availability of components are constrained).

[cameldrv]

Look again at that chart. It's even worse for cameras. It's almost a 75% decline.

[numpad0]

> I can go on a rant about the number of clicks necessary to wirelessly transfer from camera

Yeah this is a huge unaddressed issue that must be hemorrhaging users out of cameras. It’ll need a substantial rework in cameras and perhaps phones too, but I’ve seen enough times that the display of LCD taken and uploaded on social media and they must know that’s being done.

They could make a phone-camera hybrid, with or without in-camera Lightroom, TransferJet, USB cable transfer, anything in those direction that were attempted low-effort and forgotten.

People aren’t going to appreciate current hours-long delayed gratification that current ILCs require. No way.

[throwaway290]

These android-based cameras you talk about exist but not sure why any serious photographer would use one. When I need the camera I need it now, not wait for the camera app to decide to boot. Also, posting the result on social media as is is a thing of the past, people do post processing now and pros use raws. To develop a raw well you gotta use a proper big screen.

[t0bia_s]

Cameras made after 2016 are so good in terms of image quality that you will not see any improvement in newer cameras. So upgrading is reasonable option only for those, who need better functionality, which majority of amateurs don't need.

[stephen_g]

It depends for what. There are still ways to go with video, but mostly only for people who care to colour grade their footage. I expect a significant proportion of people now are buying mirrorless cameras now almost entirely to shoot video so I expect it is a major consideration. Things like in-camera 10-bit raw video recording which is still fairly rare. Probably mirrorless cameras will start being able to shoot 5K or 6K too, which is useful (for reframing by cropping in, otherwise downscaling to increase visual quality).

[t0bia_s]

It is pointless for casual consumers and professionals usually use cameras dedicated for video (Arri, RED), not hybrid camera.

Sure, there is specific group of enthusiastic folks on youtube that promote products consumed... by youtubers I guess?

[asdff]

The thing is, there's another boom currently going on. The mirrorless boom, and this site is the gold standard for that one as well. Now there is no home, and its much harder to gleam the differences that are actually meaningful between these many mirrorless cameras (and new dslrs that do get made).

[adrr]

It isn't a boom. It is just a transition from DSRL/video cameras to mirrorless. Market is consolidating around mirrorless for everything from photography to video. Hire a wedding photography and a wedding videographer today, they may have the same equipment.

[thomasjb]

I believe that TLRs are going to make a resurgence and wipe out this mirrorless fad

[Krisando]

I have yet to see a TLR in real life.

[WWLink]

Yea now we're going to have to put up with youtubers trying to build a brand and shove their personality into every review they make. :(

[bradlys]

a "boom" is an overstatement. The camera industry overall is dying and struggling. We're down to something like 10% of camera sales from 2010. There is no boom. There is a transition from DSLR to mirrorless for the few existing dedicated camera photographers out there.

[johnvanommen]

I have a $600 DSLR that I bought at Costco on a whim, fifteen years ago. Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade. Camera phone lenses do alright when it's sunny outside, but DSLRs kill it when it comes to medium and low light.

[duffyjp]

I have an entry level Nikon paired with their F1.4G 50mm lens. It takes staggeringly good portraits in any conditions.

DPReview was of course my primary source of information when choosing equipment. Sad indeed to see them shutter.

* https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-le...

[asdff]

And of course, the dslr looks perfect in perfect light too. You can do things that make your images even better with dslrs since you have access to the raw files and complete control over exposure. You can underexpose for a night scene to not blow up highlights and shoot at lower noise or at a shutter speed you can hand hold without blur (depends on your current focal length), then pull up the exposure only on the shadows where you aren't liable to notice much noise anyway. You can get that shot on a bright blue day that looks like what you eyes see with this technique, where you can see the blue sky and shadows under trees just fine, by exposing for the sky to not blow it out, and then pulling up the shadows. For any pro digital camera built in the last 15 years, you can pull a lot before the noise gets too unruly. A camera like an old 5dmk1 is still great at this, and its almost 20.

Trying to expose for the highlights is annoying on the iphone at least. It doesn't hold exposure lock that reliably, and the slider needs to be a lot more sensitive to actually let me quickly stop down the exposure. Usually I miss click since you have to swipe several times, and it resets the exposure. Then you are left with a jpeg that's compressed with some aggressive de noising applied probably missing most of the color depth too.

[foldr]

You can easily shoot RAW with manual control over exposure (and even focus) on an iPhone with Halide or other third party apps. Aperture is fixed, of course.

[asdff]

IMO if a third party app has to bring the feature its not really a part of the phone. Apps come and go. Plus apps like halide are paid so you could think of it as a tax to get to actually use some of the hardware you purchased.

[astrange]

Exposing for highlights doesn't work the same way on a phone since it's doing multiple captures and HDR merging.

(Well, it can if you use a third-party camera app.)

[FollowingTheDao]

The only people who think Smartphone Cameras take better pictures than SLRs are not photographers.

It is not just low light, it is depth of field, exposure control, the minimization or absence of computed exposures.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max and only shot in RAW mode. That is the best I can do. Saving money fro a mirrorless camera so i can start shooting again.

[tonyarkles]

> The only people who think Smartphone Cameras take better pictures than SLRs are not photographers.

Amateur photographer here, currently have a Canon 80D and a 20-year collection of medium-quality lenses. You're completely right. The photos that this thing takes are miles ahead of my iPhone 12 Pro; you just can't beat a sensor with big pixels and an aperture that's 10-100x (? I don't know the actual ratio) larger than a smartphone lens. But the one nuance is the old saying "the best camera in the world is the one you've got with you"; I have some beautiful shots from this camera, and the 20D before it, and the Rebel XT before it, but some of my absolute favourites were shot on a smartphone because it was in my pocket at the right time and the DSLR was at home in the bag.

[deltarholamda]

The final output isn’t the only criteria either. The file may look good, but when you really know your SLR, you can compose and shoot much much faster with more options. Aperture, shutter speed, even ISO, and you can create art.

On a phone it’s all kinda pre-canned. And you have to paw at the stupid thing like a monkey.

You might have an equally sharp or whatever JPG, but it’s the difference between watercolor and crayons.

[astrange]

SLRs don't take "better" photos, they take more detailed photos. The best photo is the one you actually took because you had the camera on you and didn't miss the shot.

And if you want the most detailed photo, SLRs are not the highest quality cameras either when you could rent a Fujifilm GFX 100.

[WWLink]

> SLRs don't take "better" photos, they take more detailed photos. The best photo is the one you actually took because you had the camera on you and didn't miss the shot.

At this point I want to go back to using a pocket camera. I can turn it on and take a picture without having to look at the screen. There's no automatic cloud uploads. I don't have to worry about someone logging metrics or scanning the pictures or AI doing weird things like filling in moon textures. I take picture. I get picture. That's it. I don't have to worry about cloud subscriptions or "ecosystems" (GAH!) or whatever. I stick the SD card in my computer and there's the fucking pictures. Done.

[stanski]

Not to mention that almost all photo consumption happens on a phone as well.

Only when you open a phone photo on a big screen and compared to one taken by a real lens do you realize the big difference. Despite all the incredible technology in phone cameras, there is no substitute for proper optics.

[jjav]

> Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade.

Exactly. I can't identify at all with comments saying phone cameras are good. Convenient, yes I get it (although personally I keep my phone in my backpack so pulling it out takes only slightly less effort than pulling out the camera, only because the phone is smaller, but I realize most people keep their phone glued to their hand).

But even my 15+ year old DSLR (a low-end Nikon D40) takes better photos than my 2022 smartphone. I have large (4ft wide) cropped prints on the wall from that camera which have great quality, the <1yr old smartphone camera can't do that.

And my newer DSLRs are even better than that.

[asdff]

Its enough of a boom for a small company like fujifilm to justify producing more cameras and lenses and even start up and grow a medium format mirrorless ecosystem. Fujifilm in particular struggles to keep up with demand which is probably not easy given global shortages, but it goes to show there is a market. It's not the market it was in 1995 or 2005, but its a market no less because there's always a demand for the best image technolgy can do.

Phone cameras will always look worse than their contemporary full size counterparts just due to physics, so the pros and prosumers will always be in demand of a dedicated rig even if their iphone looks like a spider on the back. Not to mention even today just from an OS standpoint, no phone has feature parity with even the first dslr released since phone manufacturers "childproof" camera features that pro camera manufacturers assume you don't need your hand held to use. Usually you have to resort to a third party app if you want to set a manual exposure, you know, something any photographer since 1860 could do that we now deem to be "too advanced" for modern humans.

[bydo]

Fujifilm is a twenty billion dollar company. Imaging is just a hobby for them.

Though I agree that if it were truly hemorrhaging them money, they'd have sold it (like Minolta or Pentax) or spun it out into its own entity (like Olympus).

[arghwhat]

The point-and-shoot market collapsed, but the dslr market is not nearly as dramatically affected with 2010 numbers not too far off 2018 numbers based on statista charts[1].

On the other hand, mirrorless is starting to show growth[2].

Looking at the overall camera-sales are misleading, especially considering that it largely shuffled numbers around within big companies: A Samsung point-and-shoot with a Samsung sensor became a Samsung smartphone with a Samsung sensor, selling even more units with the camera still being a primary selling point.

---

[1]: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4242091-why-nikon-and-canon...

[2]: https://petapixel.com/2023/02/15/2022-was-officially-the-yea... (using CIPA data)

[dukeyukey]

I'm kinda curious why though, and I'm speaking as someone who bought a mirrorless camera (I think my first camera ever?) about a year ago.

[asdff]

Also, certain camera brands are less affected than others. Fuji is probably doing better than its ever done these days and has trouble keeping inventory in stock from demand, whereas nikon is at a historic low.

[gsich]

And with good reason. While I like shooting with DSLM some software and hardware parts are just bad.

No GPS. The cheapest Android phone from 5 years ago has this. I don't want to use the shitty app to get geoinformation. Yes, battery lifetime - no need to enable it by default.

No embedded storage. With SSD prices cheap as now, add some 64 or 128GB storage. Keep the card slot.

More computational stuff, no need for enabling it by default, but stuff like taking 10 pictures, then selecting the best one automatically (or whatever the camera thinks is best). Additional: enable better tethering. On my Nikon Z7 I still can't set everything from the computer. Some settings depend on the mode (P,A,S,M) - why? Nobody knows.

If no flash, at least have some light.

[Lammy]

They exist! My YN455 interchangeable-lens Android camera has all of those things. It uses the same 20MP MFT sensor as my PEN-F and I love it a lot: https://www.yongnuomall.com/product/detail/16254

[outofpaper]

Does that have a cell modem? An m4/3 camera with wifi and cell data sounds amazing?

[Lammy]

Yes, I use it on Mint (T-Mobile). Some screenshots I took just now: https://imgur.com/a/x8TU7o3

It's picky about certain zooms, but it is fantastic with all of my primes (Lumix 20mm F1.7 ASPH and SIGMA 56mm F1.4 DC DN being my favs) and with any of my cine lenses. It's fine for stills as long as I can stand the e-shutter, but I love it for video. Unfortunately I can't seem to share an accurate video sample because Youtube's recompression is adding a ton of horrible choppiness that isn't in the actual camera output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCbnbKvNZlg (Shot on LAOWA 6mm T2.1 Zero-D Cine. Warning: loud!!)

[noncoml]

Definitely not a boom, but there is still a sizable niche community that I would thought to be big enough to support a good website.

For example there is no boom of home audio systems anymore, but there are enough audiophiles to support a number of sites and magazines

[JenrHywy]

And yet, popular cameras like the Fujifilm X100V are selling for above retail because demand is outstripping supply.

[cozzyd]

10% camera sales or 10% ILC sales? The point and click market is obviously irrelevant for a mirrorless boom.

[klodolph]

Point and shoot peaked in 2010, I think. Camera sales have dropped by something like 90% since 2010, if you exclude smartphones. Any “boom” is just consumers shuffling around within a collapsing market.

[Zak]

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

[citrin_ru]

There is one more use case not covered by smartphones but actually covered by fixed-lens cameras - taking photos in rainy weather (which in some parts of the world is hard to avoid) or underwater. While there are waterproof smartphones, capacitive touchscreen becomes unusable as soon as it catches even a few drops of rain or water from wet fingers. A camera like Fujifilm XP140 works well in rain as long as there are no drops on the lens and under water if you want to make a shot of marine life.

And while there are gloves which allows to use touchscreen using it in the snow is not the best experience either - pressing a physical button is easier.

I expect many smartphones to have quality better then this camera but in some conditions it's hard/impossible to use a smartphone. And quality is enough to capture some moments from a family vocation.

[heipei]

The iPhone is waterproof and you can take a photo with the physical volume up/down key. I've used it underwater a couple of times, none of my other proper cameras would be able to do that. My two cents.

[xarope]

I've used my olympus TG4 underwater at a depth of 15m (best I could do without scuba), and had it trailing on a lanyard on my wrist whilst swimming in the ocean. I'd like to think nobody would subject any current smartphone to these sorts of conditions, and expect them to survive, nor believe the marketing rhetoric.

One other thing I do like about the TG4, nice big buttons, and I've had plenty of opportunities to use it in rather adverse conditions.

[nibbleshifter]

Which model? And does it survive saltwater? How deep?

Asking for a me who doesn't want to fuck up a thousand euro phone trying something stupid next time I'm at the seaside :)

[giobox]

Pretty much all iPhones have been for some time (since iPhone 7) to various degrees, but Apple themselves make no promises it will always work:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207043

"Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear. Liquid damage is not covered under warranty, but you might have rights under consumer law."

I think of it more as good to have for an accidental drop, rather than a specification to rely upon for regular underwater photography, although the more recent phones do reach ever higher Ingress Protection (IP67, IP68 etc) water/splash/dust ratings.

[brk]

Anecdata but I’ve jumped in saltwater to get ahold of my stupid dog that fell off our dock with my iPhone 12 in my pocket. I am typing this response on said phone :)

[justincormack]

I got mine wet in the sea and it barely worked after (probably an 11 I think)

[Panzer04]

Took my 12 mini on a day of kayaking, water got into the lenses and broke the faceID camera. The water in the lens eventually evaporated, but the faceID cam seems permenantly broken.

They are water resistant, but I wouldn't use it in water as a matter of course. Maybe if its in pristine/as new condition, at best - I've dropped mine a few times, which probably didn't help.

[nradov]

Smartphones don't really work for underwater photography. Even the water resistant models have very limited depth ratings so to take them scuba diving you need a strong housing, just as with any other camera. There are underwater housings available for a few smartphone models but controlling anything through the touch screen is problematic, the small lenses and sensors don't work well in dim light, and there isn't a good way to trigger external strobes.

[tlavoie]

Any thoughts on the various action cameras for underwater? I've got an inexpensive (not GoPro) one that I've taken diving. It's just in looping video mode, cutting a new clip every few minutes, and could certainly use additional lighting. If I want stills, I just grab them from a freeze frame.

While I'm starting to get more into diving, I don't want to just throw money at other goodies before I know what they'll do for me.

[op00to]

I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

[antisthenes]

If you honestly think your phone camera is a valid replacement for medium/large format film, then you were never serious about photography in the first place.

For all their improvements, smartphones are still extremely limited by sensor size and the size of optics. Those are terrible, compared to even the entry level DSLRs.

I'm glad it works for your use case (although I can't imagine what that is), but any decent photographer will be able to tell a smartphone picture from a picture taken with good optics and a DSLR. It's just that the market for those photos has also shrunk and the masses are happy with their instagram filter drivel.

[silisili]

The vast, vast, vast majority of pictures are viewed on a 6ish inch screen. You'll have real trouble telling much difference there.

Now if you're blowing things up into a poster, it becomes much more apparent, granted, but it's not a common use case.

[modzu]

not only that, but Google magic eraser made my holiday photos appear like i had my own private island and yacht and i was always happy and smiling and looking at the camera and the sunset and skies, oh my! it just lights up my instas. i don't get what real cameras even do, they have something to do with reality?

seriously though, not all the kids will be coopted into this, and will find cameras are still instruments for artistic expression. but for that we hardly need dpreview and its obsession with optical sharpness and perpetually reviewing every camera in existence as "almost good enough"

[Kye]

You might have it mixed up with DXOMark. DPReview is more "you can sort of tell the difference side by side, but who does that outside a review? They're both good"

[snapetom]

If the use case was a 6ish inch screen, that was overkill for medium/large format, which is parent's point.

[yieldcrv]

and film photographers weren't as serious as daguerreotype photographers in the 1840s.

the market shrunk because gatekeeping photographers were insufferable and tone deaf and everyone ignored them because they had an accessible solution that was good enough.

if you want to pursue a convoluted process for self fulfillment, the choice is yours, but almost nobody else will care about the output of your photos or your fine tuned process.

[foldr]

This is my standard for serious photography: https://petapixel.com/2022/05/22/photographer-builds-giant-c...

If you aren't shooting giant format wet plates in your own custom-modified darkroom bus, then you're just an amateur like the rest of us.

[acyou]

The best camera is the one you have ready.

[Zak]

That's an interesting transition. Why were you choosing those formats over digital ILCs at that time? Most people I hear from choosing film within the past decade, especially larger formats are as interested in the process as the result.

[jjav]

> I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

Only you can judge what is "everything I want", but that's a surprising statement.

Phone cameras can't come close to the quality of even a full frame DSLR, anything medium or large format is light years ahead of phone quality.

So I can only think that quality wasn't what you needed/wanted, but then why would you have been shooting large format film?

[foldr]

>Phone cameras can't come close to the quality of even a full frame DSLR, anything medium or large format is light years ahead of phone quality.

This is true for medium format if you're doing a drum scan of the medium format negative. Realistically, however, most medium format negatives are never going to be drum scanned.

If you're scanning with a flatbed or via a DLSR, then the difference in quality vs. a modern cell phone camera is not huge. With a typical flatbed you'll get less resolution than a modern cell phone camera; if you scan with a DSLR and macro lens you'll get a bit more (but it's laborious, especially for color negatives).

It's possibly a bit counterintuitive just how bad a job flatbed scanners do in the case of medium format negatives. Years ago I was very excited to make my first scans of some 6x6 negatives with a consumer Epson flatbed scanner. The resulting photos showed about the same amount of detail as roughly equivalent photos taken using my iPhone 4S. There was far more detail on the negatives, as I easily confirmed with a loupe. Extracting that detail via practical scanning methods is far from trivial.

The other point to consider is exposure, color and dynamic range. Modern phones do a fantastic job here.

[adamredwoods]

That's a strange comparison, but if all you want is a photo to post to Instagram, I guess you really doesn't need medium format film, and any "phone camera" will do.

[vvrm]

> another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones

It's not just the pace of improvement, but also the marketing spin. I find the strengths of smartphone camera and ILCs pretty complementary. Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions. Coincidentally it is also easier to find your ILC indoors at home when you need it, rather than lugging it around on a hike. When we didn't have kids, we used to spend more time outdoors and so most of our memorable pictures are from a phone. Now that we have restless young kids and are spending more time indoors, almost all of the memorable photos are from a mirrorless camera. But the marketing spin makes it seem like ILCs are completely redundant.

[akho]

> Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

I find the opposite. Proper cameras are much more flexible and plain better when there's enough light. Inside, without a flash, you'll not get a great photo anyway, so might as well benefit from “computational” fakery.

[radicaldreamer]

Lots of software tricks make it easy to take low light photos on phones today but require quite a bit of manual tweaking on a DSLR.

[digitallyfree]

The thing about this is that the manual tweaking allows you to take the picture you're envisioning. Whereas the processing on the phone provides a clear picture in poor conditions, but it's not necessarily the picture I want.

For instance a phone can do a great job in a backlit scenario by intelligently cutting the highlights and boosting the shadows. The resulting image shows both the subject and background clearly but it doesn't represent the real-word lighting conditions. As a result it's great for a quick snapshot but is less useful in an artistic sense.

[midoridensha]

>For instance a phone can do a great job in a backlit scenario by intelligently cutting the highlights and boosting the shadows. The resulting image shows both the subject and background clearly but it doesn't represent the real-word lighting conditions. As a result it's great for a quick snapshot but is less useful in an artistic sense.

This seems completely backwards to me. Artistic photography isn't about representing real-world lighting conditions as perceived by humans. Just putting a polarizing filter on a camera changes how the image looks from the way the scene actually appears to humans. Artistic photography routinely does very bizarre stuff with colors to achieve an artistic effect. Even Ansel Adams experimented with solarization, one of the earliest photographic effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarization_(photography)

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that photography has never been about accurately showing real-world lighting conditions, but rather either an artistic or at least idealized version of a scene or subject.

[digitallyfree]

I guess I didn't really word this clearly, my intent was to state that the manual camera generally captures real-world conditions as a baseline. Then the photographer could in camera or in post manipulate the image to fulfill his artistic vision. While there are certain cameras which have inherent distortion for artistic purposes (e.g. Lomo camera) the majority of them are designed to realistically capture the scene in front of them.

In contrast the phone produces a specific artistic decision influence by the software. For instance in the backlit scenario the phone purposely boosts the highlights and cuts the shadows to create what it perceives as a more balanced image.

[grogenaut]

Sure, if you have the camera correctly setup and can remember all of cryptic settings, which using it infrequently I never could. I got once where i knew how to setup the my canon rebel after taking a class. But I just set it to automatic 99% of the time I used it. Any time it was manual it would 20% chance mess up and I'd miss the shot. I took mostly action stuff.

The setup on a phoen is so much simpler and easier esp where it makes suggestions. Phone is bad menus, no touch, dial wheel, ok buttons.

[Clamchop]

A camera with a swiveling flash (almost always a separate unit) can yield stunning photos in dim indoor conditions. If you have a white wall or ceiling, bam, tons of diffuse light without any more props.

Only available on a traditional camera.

But even fewer people will bother with all that.

[chrismorgan]

You can manually rotate the built-in flash in Sony’s α6000-series cameras: it uses two spring-loaded hinges, and still operates if you push/pull it backwards. This gives a range of motion from full-forwards to full-upwards to somewhat-backwards.

[jollyllama]

For 'proper cameras', it depends on the size of the sensor and lens, largely.

[lambdasquirrel]

I think the reality is that most people who were doing photography don’t need what ILCs offer. I was talking to a sweet old lady on one of the last days I was in California. She was showing me some of her work, and TBH, small-aperture landscape / portrait photos that are to be viewed on a smartphone don’t need to be taken on an ILC. Even bokeh can be hacked for a base class of photos.

To put it in another way, ILCs were bought because saw people had to buy them, back in the day. If you wanted anything that wasn’t potato-quality, you needed an ILC.

A lot of photography was enjoyed as an accessible art. It was about being able to capture things. You don’t strictly need an ILC for that, and I think photography will evolve and adapt in that regard. There will still be a market for folks who e.g. need aperture or shutter control, simply because of market segmentation reasons. As an art-art, photography will be about being able to see things differently, and for that reason, there will be people drawn back to the knobs, switches, and lenses that ILCs offer. Some folks will say it’s about the bokeh, or the low-light, or whatever, but it was always about being able to see differently than what other cameras could see, or even what the human eye can “see.”

To which end, the marketing spin is just that. We shouldn’t discount creative folks being able to see differently with a smartphone. It’s just that there are shots that you won’t get be able to take with a small-aperture fixed lens on a smartphone sensor.

(This, and of course, applications where the bleeding edge of image quality matters.)

[twoWhlsGud]

I used to think that, but the more I take pictures with my phone the more I disagree. My iPhone is very very good at taking iPhone pictures. That is to say all the places and people I take pictures of with my phone look the same. It's a lovely seductive sameness, don't get me wrong. But my phone "knows" what pictures it wants to take and takes them. It needs me less and less.

I don't think we're all that far away from having some sort of always on camera that cuts us as directors out of the "picture" entirely.

Eventually, your phone equivalent will tell you and your friends where to stand, what to do and what to say to get the most out of the location, people and activities you have at your disposal. You won't have any choice (unless you are in that small group that is effectively allowed to self direct your own videos for Tikstagram) if you want to be competitive at projecting a successful image.

Great for the folks shoveling content around, but maybe not what you want if you are trying to develop an individual vision.

That said for a quick snap where I'm just trying to document something my iPhone is awfully handy ; )

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

I actually think cameras in general take photos that look the same.

Painting on the other hand, that has individuality. The different pigments and brushes and brush strokes in the painting, that gives a sense of uniqueness.

In addition, you are more free to position people in paintings than with photographs.

Cameras are great for the folks shoveling content around, but maybe not what you want if you are trying to develop an individual vision.

[kevstev]

Whats the most recent phone you have tried to use in low light? The last two years of Pixels and Iphones (and maybe others, these are just the ones I have seen firsthand) are amazing in low light for a typical use case. I mean sure if you have a tripod and do a long exposure, its a different story, but thats a very different user.

I beat the crap out of my Canon Rebel T3i, I literally wore out the shutter after about 150k pulls on it, and replaced it with a Sony A7 III with a "G" lens, and while the pandemic was a large reason for it collecting dust, I am going on a "big" trip to a scenic place for the first time since prepandemic in a few months, and I am not sure its going to find a place in my bag. For the space and weight, my P6 Pro does a fantastic job.

The overlap in quality is enough that I see myself rarely using an ILC in the future, and the A7 III is likely the last one I will own unless they make some leaps forward to compete with smartphones.

[matmatmatmat]

It so happens I recently took a Pixel 6 Pro and a Canon 80D on a trip abroad. I used a rebuild of the stock camera app that does away with the automatic over-sharpening that the stock camera app has, and with the 80D, I used the EF-S 15-85 mm lens that (I believe) used to be the kit lens for the 7D. I also used the EF 70-300 mm non-L lens.

There is, in my opinion, no question that the 80D takes sharper pictures in daylight. It's just hard to beat a sensor that's that much bigger. The lenses, also, just have way, way more light gathering power.

Now, in dark places, at night, I used the P6P more, and that worked better than the 80D. But I'm glad I had the 80D for the big landscape shots and for the tight shots of people's faces.

The A7 III is way lighter and smaller than the 80D, and takes way better pictures. I would suggest considering finding a space for it in your bag. At least take a few pictures with both the P6P and the A7 III and view them at 100% to see if you're happy with the results.

[max51]

If you're willing to post process your images, the 80D will look way better for night pictures.

The problem is that there is no built-in function for it and you have to manually process each pictures. You might even need more than one tool if you want to take advantage of the same type of AI fakery that phone have.

[ajolly]

One thing I love about my A7S is the ability to tilt the screen and take candid photos of people while we're having a conversation. Also that thing pretty much shoots in the dark so I find that magic.

[max51]

I regret not buying a Sony when I got my Canon 6D. Almost all of the lenses I use now are old/vintage and it sucks not having image stabilization for the extra 2 stops and a digital viewfinder to properly focus the lens. I almost resold my 6D many times in the past but I got too attached to it to ever pull the trigger.

[kelnos]

Respectfully, I think you're still in the minority. The vast majority of people I know with young kids don't even own a dedicated camera, or rarely pull it out. Their phone camera is more than sufficient and much more convenient to use for them.

[egman_ekki]

> Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

I was sightseeing in the night and had my Nikon D7100 (crop sensor) with a good lens (up to f/1.8 iirc) and Samsung Galaxy S8+. After the first few shots, I put the dslr back to my backpack, the photos from the phone were much better. And that’s a pretty old smartphone!

I know newer Sonys have crazy ISO, also own a fullframe, but it’s just so easy to mess some setting up and end up with crappy photo from a dslr in those challenging conditions, and I’m no beginner when it comes to dslrs.

[coldtea]

>DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

That's exactly the area where smartphones have been killing DSLR and mirroless for years now.

That's because of internal DSP processing, combining multiple frames, machine learning AI, etc, but to the consumer it doesn't matter: they get a clearer, more stable picture than what comes out of the DSLR/mirroless and with way less effort.

[75dvtwin]

Some DSLRs have function of combining of multiple frames together as well (I think Nikon D500 and latest Olympuses as examples).

This is often called HDR.

The issue with combining images together is that it works for static objects well, but if things move -- it does not. So low-noise digital sensors still seem to offer much better results.

And certainly, startup-time (or app selection time) + focusing speed, is simply unmatched by phones compared to DSLRs or mirrorless with phase focus detection

I do think that Denoising images with AI/ML will be common place even in open source Image processing tools like Rawtherapee.

So DLSRs having APS-C or full frame sensors with lower megapixel count will do well if images are post-processed (or in camera processed) wit these AI tools.

In fact, I was thinking that buying a used DSLR from 2012 circa for 150$ bucks -- will yield similar results as a 2K camera or a 1k smart phone.

Phones are easier to transport/carry. That's has been their reason to take over the lens+camera systems.

But I think camera makers can make photo gear fashionable again :-). I am working on some ideas in that area :-)

[coldtea]

>The issue with combining images together is that it works for static objects well, but if things move -- it does not. So low-noise digital sensors still seem to offer much better results

The problem is mirroless/dslrs have much bigger sensors with slower readout, and much worse DSP capability than say an iPhone. They also use it much more conservative that a mobile phone marker too (which just cares to get a nice looking image to the casual user, not for fidelity and ultimate control).

So, mobile phones for low light can still get better post-processing results for moving subjects compared to any mirrorless/dslr "HDR" mode, through quicker intermediate shots taken and combined, and more DSP resources to devote to the task.

(Samsung, Google, and Apple also have much more money than Sony and Canon to spend on state of the art AI/ML applied research and DSP developers).

[pjc50]

Gloomy prediction: based on Samsung Moongate, the next logical step after the smartphone camera replacing the DSLR is AI replacing the smartphone camera. Or at least substituting for underlying camera quality. Take a 10MP image and have the AI fill in the detail. Or remove detail (see the google advert for editing people out of your holiday photos). Or put in some detail that wasn't there.

[layer8]

Smartphone photos are already heavily ML-processed, with actual details and colors being replaced by what the model thinks looks best. The moon thing was just the most blatant example.

[foldr]

I haven’t noticed any invented details or colors in smartphone photos that I’ve taken myself. Most of the claims of this that I’ve seen online are not very convincing. Of course you sometimes get artifacts from sharpening and de-Bayering, but those can occur with any digital camera.

[astrange]

No kind of camera sees "actual colors", and neither do your eyes; the actual colors are the same day or night but that doesn't mean you can see them at night.

When there is light, the colors you see depend on how well you're adapted to its white point.

[dylan604]

new from Samsung. it's a black box perfectly square just to make Jobs turn over in his grave. there are no lenses, but it's the most incredible camera you've ever seen. it has a microphone where you tell it the image you want...

"I want to see a picture with me at the Grand Canyon with nobody else in the shot at sunset after storm has just passed with a rainbow in the background"

waits a few seconds, boom. post to social, get lots of envious comments about my cool vacation.

[asdff]

I can't decide if in the future we will be bloblike sloths in chairs like in Wall-E, or maybe it will be like The Matrix but you are plugged into a peleton bike.

[dylan604]

where did you get the peleton reference from The Matrix? even the machines realized that was wasted. you spend your entire life cycle in a sensory deprivation tank with the computer telling you how much of a good time you are having. wasting energy on actually moving muscles is absurd! that's not thinking like a machine

[asdff]

I figured the peloton would be the method of entry for the machine. Start off with the rich people doing it for working out to make it seem sexy and cool (done), get everyone else on it (in progress), get your boss to buy pelotons for remote zoom calls (probably has happened), start buying energy from peleton users pedaling (will be pitched soon), offer drug to allow sleeping while pedaling and making energy, change formulation to prevent consciousness entirely while pedaling and remain pedaling until your knees explode and you are replaced on the bike by the machines with another drugged up biological generator.

[ChiefOBrien]

Watch the episode called 15 Million Merits from Black Mirror.

[mrandish]

While I agree that ML-based image-enhancement and photography/videography assist at capture time will continue to offer highly useful capabilities, I don't agree when that argument is used to support the separate contention that mobile imaging will make larger format ILC/DSLR imaging irrelevant. The reason is that ML (and computational photography in general) is fundamental tech that can improve all categories of imaging. It's a metaphorical tide that lifts all boats equally from pro battleships and tankers to hobbyist racing sloops and yachts to consumer speedboats and jet skis.

(note: I'm setting aside the current misguided one-click "make it better" AI features as a temporary aberration that the marketplace of consumer tastes will correct. There's already backlash emerging around over-enhanced AI images on social media.)

[constantlm]

This is already the case with cameras in consumer phones.

[asdff]

"subscribe to android photos plus to have all the ai applied billboards removed from your photos"

[jollyllama]

Too bad we can't get the opposite: a DSLR controlled by an AI that manipulates the camera parameters just as a human would, or an AI driven interface, that captures what you're seeing without an AI hallucinating or ML touching up the photo. Panasonic can't even get autofocus right.

[Kaijo]

Check out this AI camera control module: https://witharsenal.com/

It's not something I'd use, I usually want as much creative control as possible over all the settings and RAW conversion. There are too many permutations of parameters that "correctly" capture the scene according to different aesthetic aims. The reviews of the version 2 seem to agree, that it's useful, but not for experienced photographers with their own creative vision. But how then would the inexperienced ever develop a personal vision, using this?

[spockz]

Aren’t things like the focus stacking and better HDR already part of MagicLantern? The new things seem to be the deep colour and the crowd removal.

[jollyllama]

Oh, nice, that's pretty cool

[ghaff]

I still use my Fujifilm XE-3 from time to time but use my Canon DSLR rarely--mostly for situations that benefit from very wide angle or telephoto lenses. And, yeah, if I'm going on a trip where I'm mostly only going to take some snaps, much less a local hike, I'll almost certainly just take my smartphone. And this is someone who still has a Flickr Pro subscription and used to spend many many hours in the darkroom.

I can imagine buying a new Fujifilm body but not sure I can imagine getting a new Canon at least so long as my current one works.

[visarga]

Hey there, been reading the same page around the same time. The 300D was the last DSLR I bought not because it was bad, but because it was so good. Even 15 years later phones could not compare.

[taude]

Yeup, I used to be a regular at dpreview a long time ago, certainly before I bought my first DSR the Canon 20d. But even before that when I was still buying point-and-shoots.

I probably haven't been back since about 2014, though, when I upgraded to a Fuji XT mirrorless system, which I haven't even used in five or six years now....

[hulitu]

> another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones

The only think which improved on smartphones was the marketing. Cameras on smartphones are still crap. (see Samsung moon shots).

[novok]

What I don't get is why not spin off vs. just close?

[RobotToaster]

I would've thought with everyone wanting to be youtubers camera sales would've picked up.

[enlyth]

Faking the image quality through software is becoming more powerful than actually taking a good image, and people don't seem to care if the pixels on the screen are really what the optics saw.

They just want to take a pretty photo, and look at a pretty photo.

[Aeolun]

Not sure, I bought my camera from Amazon a few months ago as a result of dpreviews.