More closures

Recently I read about the closure of the DPReview website. This does not surprise me in the slightest. Ever since smartphones came out with ever larger megapixel counts and ever better image quality fewer people have been buying stand-alone cameras. 

In the world of photography, convenience is everything. A camera that can upload images straight to social media for instant display is a winner. The camera companies were far too slow to recognise this. Thus, ever fewer compact cameras were sold and why should they when people could get an adequate if not excellent photograph from a cellphone for which they paid just $50 or less. A compact camera offered zoom but cost four times that and images could not be uploaded without a computer.

The above image was taken with a cellphone and is a crop of the cellphone image. Certainly it's slightly blurry but it shows everything needed for this particular I2C board. This is not an artsy image but rather a utilitarian image. Many of the photography activists decried utilitarian imaging but that's because they had their craniums firmly inserted up their rectums. All images are utilitarian and for many utilitarian uses quality is secondary or not even a factor.

This is yet another utilitarian usage of photography. It's a photo I sent to my job after testing positive for Covid in August last year. 

I never did a lot of fancy fru-fru stuff with photography. It was all photography for a purpose. Many people lack that purpose. I record neat scenes, holidays and day trips then I document accidents and make YouTube videos with my cellphone. 

To be blunt, I have a DSLR that has not been used in several years. I have a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses and that too has not been used in a couple of years. I just opt for the camera on my phone most of the time. It's always there and ready for use. The image quality is super.

So, a website on cameras closing down when people are just not buying cameras any more does not surprise me at all. I am rather impressed that they kept going for so long. 

I did have a huge amount of camera gear which I should have offloaded far before I did. I got a pittance over what I paid but on the other hand I got something. I could still offload my old Canon XT but since I can buy the same camera for $25 on eBay there's no reason to try to sell it. When I had it new, I paid something like $800 for it. Now it's not worth even 5% of its original value. I've even seen one with two lenses going for $60 on eBay. I can rest pretty well assured that even the more modern camera would not fetch much but I'm very glad I bought it secondhand. I'm glad also that I reduced my "professional" level of kit to an occasional amateur level. I can't say that more than one camera and one lens is at all practical. Switching lenses mid hike is just an annoyance. 

I used to believe that I needed every lens possible on a hike and carried ludicrous weights of gear. There was no enjoyment of the hike but the pictures were good. Now I take something minimal and take a lot of pictures and enjoy the hike. If I can't zoom in close enough on the one thing then I have dozens if not hundreds of photos of other equally good things.

Now that cellphones are so good, I question whether I need to bring a camera when I go places. Most of the time I do not as the camera batteries are always flat. Always having a cellphone with a good camera changes a lot of perspectives.

As for the camera companies, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax and Minolta:

Nikon - still producing some film cameras but concentrating on mirrorless compacts

Canon - No film cameras but plenty DSLR and mirrorless compacts

Olympus - Left the room

Pentax - No film cameras but plenty DSLRs

Minolta - Bought by Sony, producing mirrorless compacts.

Nikon and Canon seem to be providing compacts for the growing trend of YouTube video making. Having said that I make 4K videos for my YouTube channel with my cellphone. I honestly cannot see the camera companies continuing ad infinitum. Indeed, the quotation I read about the Olympus exit from photography was this: the"extremely severe digital camera market" was no longer profitable.

Further contraction of the camera market is a certainty, not a possibility. As for camera review websites - fewer buyers mean fewer readers. Fewer readers mean less income from advertising. Less income means lower profits and lower profits mean fewer staff until such a point as it all becomes uneconomical as with many of the now gone review sites.

General camera companies are now circling the drain.