This is a great article that puts into perspective the current and future of the DSLR. The bold text is my
emphasis not his.
Enjoy,
John
By Kirk Tuck – He was in the Samsung Booth at PhotoPlus Expo.
I can profile the average camera buyer in the U.S. right now without looking at the numbers. The people
driving the market are predominately over 50 years old and at least 90% of them are men. We’re the
ones at whom the retro design of the OMD series camera are aimed. We’re the ones who remember
when battleship Nikons and Canons were actually needed to get great shots and we’re the ones who
believe in the primacy of the still image as a wonderful means of communication and even art. But
we’re a small part of the consumer economy now and we’re walking one path while the generations
that are coming behind us are walking another path. And it’s one we’re willfully trying not to understand
because we never want to admit that what we thought of as the “golden age of photography” is coming
to an end as surely as the kingdom of Middle Earth fades away in the last book of the Lord of the Rings
trilogy.
At this Expo we worshiped at the altar of the same basic roster of speakers and presenters who’ve
been speaking and presenting for the last ten years. We’ve closed the loop and the choice offered to
younger photographers is to sit and listen to people old enough to be their grandmothers or
grandfathers wax on about how we used to do it in the old days or to not come at all.
When I listen to lectures about how the market has changed what I hear from my generation is how to
take the tools we programmed ourselves to love and try to apply them to our ideas of what might be
popular with end users today. So we buy D4’s and 1DSmkIV’s to shoot video on giant Red Rock Micro
rigs and we rush to buy Zeiss cinema lenses because we want the control and the idea of ultimate
quality in our offerings while the stuff that the current generation is thinking about is more concerned
with intimacy, immediacy and verisimilitude rather than “production value.” To the new generations the
idea of veracity and authenticity always trumps metrics of low noise or high resolution. And that need
for perfection is our disconnection from the creative process, not theirs.
Our generation’s fight with digital, early on, was to tame the high noise, the weird colors, the slow
buffers and the old technology which saddled us with wildly inaccurate and tiny viewfinders and
batteries that barely lasted through a sneeze. We pride ourselves on the mastery but the market moved
on and now those parameters are taken for granted. Like turning on a television and assuming it will
work. We are still staring at the technical landscape which rigidly disconnects us from the emotional
interface of the craft. If we don’t jump that shark then we’re relegated to being like the photographer
who makes those precious black and white landscapes which utilize every ounce of his PhotoShop skills
but which, in the end, become works that are devoid of any emotional context. In fact, they are just
endless revisions of work that Ansel Adams did better, and with more soul, fifty years ago. Technique as
schtick. Mastery for mastery’s sake with no hook to pull in a new generation. Of course we like
technically difficult work. It was hard for us to master all the processes a decade ago. Now it’s a canned
commodity, a pervasive reality, and what the market of smart and wired in kids are looking for is an
emotional connection with their images that goes beyond the mechanical construct.
It’s no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It’s no longer good
enough to fix all the “flaws” in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative,
the story, the “why” and not the “how.” The love, not the schematic.
So, what does this mean for the camera industry? It means that incremental improvements in quality no
longer mean shit to a huge and restless younger market. They don’t care if the image is 99% perfect if
the content is exhilarating and captivating. No one cared if the Hobbit was available at 48 fps as long as
the story was strong in 24 fps. No one cares if a landscape is perfect if there’s a reason for the image of a
landscape to exist. No one cares if a model is perfect if the model is beguiling.
What it really means for the camera industry is that the tools they offer the new generation must be
more intuitively integrated and less about “ultimate.” In this world a powerful camera that’s small
enough and light enough to go with you anywhere (phone or small camera) trumps the huge camera
that may generate better billboards but the quality of which is irrelevant for web use and social media.
The accessible camera trumps the one that needs a sherpa for transport and a banker for acquisition.
I look at the video industry and I see our generation drawn toward the ultimate production cameras.
Cameras like the Red Epic or the Alexa. But I see the next generation making more intimate and
compelling work with GH3’s and Canon 5D2’s and 3’s. Or even cameras with less pedigrees. The cheaper
cameras mean that today’s younger film makers can pull the trigger on projects now instead of waiting
for all the right stuff to line up.
If I ran one of the big camera companies I would forget the traditional practitioners and rush headlong
toward the youth culture with offerings that allowed them to get to work now with the budgets they
have. Ready to go out and shoot landscapes? Will a Nikon D800 really knock everyone’s socks off
compared to an Olympus OMD when you look at the images side by side on the web? No? Well, that’s
the litmus test. It’s no longer the 16×20 gallery print because we don’t support physical galleries any
more.
So, there we were at the trade show and the majority of the attendees were guys wearing their photo
jackets with a camera bag over one shoulder and a big “iron” on a strap over the other shoulder. And
they had their most impressive lenses attached. And they walked through the crowd with pride because
they were packing cool gear. And the pecking order of the old-cognescenti was: film Leica’s, then digital
Leica M’s, followed by Mamiya 6 or 7 rangefinders, followed by Fuji Pro-1’s, followed by big, pro Nikons
or Canons and so on. While the few young people there zipped through the exhibits and took notes of
interesting products with their phones.
Yes, some people will still use “ultimate” cameras to create “ultimately sharp and detailed” landscapes,
cityscapes and artsy assemblages but their audiences will be constrained to other groups of aging
practitioners. Art is a moving target. To understand the target requires a constant re-computation of the
factors involved.
Cameras are and will get smaller and lighter. The lenses will get smaller and lighter and easier to carry
around. The gear will get easier and easier to use. And why shouldn’t it? The gear will get more and
more connected. Maybe the cameras don’t need to master the entire internet on their own but it will
get easier and easier to move images from camera to phone or camera to tablet. And why shouldn’t it
get easier?