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"I thInk we are up agaInst the laws "...no one wants to spend another thousand
of physIcs." dollars on a new computer that offers an
incremental improvement in performace
that is negligable."
presence. There were a number of vendors in the Virtual black and white, etcetera. Realistically, how many of these
Reality sector, nearly as many as their were selling Drones. features are every really used? Would you purchase a new
I believe the preponderance of drones and VR devices re- camera because you can make an image look like a water
flects the radical uncertainty in the industry. The industry color in the camera? Not likely.
is struggling to find an identity or sense of purpose - trying This has created another problem as well. An increasing
to determine the next viable, commercial, technology. number of photographers really do not understand imag-
Seamus: So, there is little evidence that the new products ing, or the technology of the camera. And so we now have
are pointing the photography industry to a new horizon. the fantasy that anyone can be a quality photographer.
There's no real sense of direction. Rather than continuing to create real value and an under-
eS Falcon: Exactly. First, I think that we are really up against standing of the art, they created an accessible, but short
term, industry success.
the Laws of Physics, and secondly, about a decade ago, the
d the Scen and technical improvements. were sold yearly. At the height of the digital revolution, that
Prior to the "digital revolution," some 8 million cameras
industry made some unrealistic assumptions about value
number reached 24 million. It isn't logical to assume that
Let me explain by starting with the second point. The per-
number would increase indefinitely.
sonal computer industry has experienced a substantial
decline in sales, and most attribute it to smartphones and
The second point follows similar logic. The reality of imag-
tablets, but the decline started long before those two tech-
ing today is that pixels sell cameras, and more pixels are
Behin nologies entered the market. Personal computer compa- above: camellia (2015) perceived to make a better camera. More pixels isn't the
answer. In fact, as J. D. discovered a few years ago,
nies stopped making substantial product improvements,
after 20 pixels, even with professional grade camer-
and relied upon custom finishes, color and convenience to
generate growth, so there were fewer compelling reasons
to upgrade. In concrete terms, no one wants to spend an- PHOTO BY Falcon sensor as, image quality diminishes. For example, while the
effective range for aperture in a 16 megapixel camera
other thousand dollars on a new computer that offers an is 8 to 14, in a 50 megapixel camera, like the new Can-
incremental improvement in performance that is negligi- sIze on and Sony ones, that drops to an aperture of 7. At
ble. 120 megapixels, the rumored size of a future Canon
The camera industry fell prey to this same problem after It's not as Important as you thInk. camera, that drops to 3.2. So, you either put up with
the digital conversion. Manufacturers added many op- an exceptionally shallow depth of field, or, you lose
tions and automatic settings for DSLR’s, point and shoot image quality. Not much of a trade-off as far as I am concerned. I'll take 20 megapixels.
cameras, built-in zooms, in-camera finishes like sepia and So, past this point, more pixels are bells and whistles to be marketed to get people to
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