Several years ago, even before the pandemic, I was asking where all the cameras were that were just designed for still photography. And I remember being on a press trip with a bunch of influencers and journalists from magazines who would give the billion-dollar camera manufacturers the benefit of the doubt. I, however, never did. Lots of work was done on myself to not tell myself little lies and to instead always question everything. Most recently, I’ve been questioning what the camera brands have been doing.
Fujifilm, the other day, sent a press release out to their mailing list talking about their Eterna camera. It clearly stated that it was the first purpose-built camera that Fujifilm designed for digital cinema.
And this is something that I’ve been seeing so much more often. I mean, Sony has released a few cameras that don’t shoot still photographs at all.
So, to that, I’ve been wondering where the cameras are for purpose-built still photographers. If you think that we don’t exist, I can tell you that you’re wrong.
But seriously: where are all the purpose-built cameras for still imagery? The days of the Canon 5D Mk II are gone, and multimedia journalists often need gear specifically for video and specifically for stills. Those are two completely different mindsets and require completely different pieces of gear.
The only cameras on the market that are really purpose-built for stills are made by Hasselblad and Leica. Those cameras only shoot stills and don’t do video at all.
I know that I’m not alone or even a small minority when I say this: I don’t care about video. Videographers often don’t care about shooting stills. And those who work with high-end production rigs don’t care about stills either.
Instead, the camera manufacturers are too busy creating cameras that are jacks-of-all-trades but masters of none. And it’s one of the reasons why so many photographers are diving back into the past to buy older camera gear instead.
It is also surely one of the reasons why everyone got into film and how film photography made a major comeback during the pandemic. In the hands of good photographers, those purpose-built cameras can create even better images than we thought possible before.
Here are my thoughts in easy to digest bullet-format on what needs to happen:
- The camera manufacturers need to stop relying on Sony for sensors and being transparent about where they’re getting sensors from. Also, in how they designed them differently from the others.
- There needs to be stark and vast differences
- Why not a return to the CCD sensor?
- Improve the autofocus of cameras without using scene detection or AI. Those are all processor-based, and that’s evident in that there are no scene detection pixels or AI pixels on an imaging sensor. But there are phase-detection pixels on a sensor.
- If you’re not going to raise the megapixel count, increase the high ISO output, the low ISO output, the dynamic range, and the color depth.
- Build flash control into the camera via radio. Years ago, cameras literally had GPS built into them without WiFi. If they can do that with point-and-shoot cameras, they can do that with radio transmission.
- Improve the weather resistance so much so that you stand behind your product and offer repairs on them for 20 years. Leica does this with cameras that are even older than that.
- Bring darkroom techniques to the cameras that can be done internally. I’m talking about RAW files with multiple exposure, smoke coming across images during the print-making process, in-camera composites (like Live Composite), painting onto photographs using the touchscreen, etc. Give photographers a reason to ditch Adobe products.
I don’t believe for a moment that none of this is possible. It surely is. The technology for this exists, and the brands just have to do it.