I remember how insanely excited I was to go to one of my first Photo Plus Expos and how vibrant of a show it was back then, at least to me — the millennial a year away from graduating college. The camera industry had so many more players: Samsung, Casio, HP, Epson, and more. But the big bad smartphone came with and smited the camera industry into the quietest caves to lick its wounds. It did the same to the watch industry — which took quite a while for it to heal on top of efforts from beyond just Switzerland. And today, the camera industry is doing the same thing. For the first time in my career, I feel like the camera industry is finally on its way back up.
Let me be very honest here: tariffs in America haven’t stopped people from buying cameras. Instead, folks are so annoyed at their phones and staring at screens that they’re looking to use other devices.
And when you look at the cameras mostly designed for photographers first and foremost, we’re back to how it was back then. Today’s Canon 5D Mk II is the Canon EOS R5 II: and that’s designed to be versatile though it doesn’t have nearly as many innovations. The Sony a900 from back then is mostly met by both the Sony a7r V and the Sony a1 II. And the Nikon D700 from back then is met by the Nikon Z8: and it still has the best high ISO output around.
All of the Japanese companies that long exited the camera space are now being replaced by Chinese companies.
For the first time in a very long time, I feel the camera industry is stable. And that ultimately means that something nuts is about to happen.
With that said, I really wonder if it’s going to be generative AI taking such a step forward that people don’t realize what a real camera can do vs AI. I mean, younger folks already turn to Looksmaxxing, which tends to involve a lot of AI.
I really just hope that the Japanese camera manufacturers get it together and start being even more unique instead of all of them creating the same iteration of the same type of camera.
After all, they’ve had over a decade to learn this.