Death Spiral of Serious Photography

Death Spiral of Serious Photography
Facts and Observations for 1998
by Robert Monaghan

Related Links:
Statistics of the Photo Industry
Economics of Third Party Lens Introductions (max in late 70s)
Turning Semipro (low pro photographer wage statistics)
was at http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/portfolio/ir/2000/00fb_e04.pdf
Nikon and worldwide SLR sales data (see note) [11/2000]
[Ed. note: link reports not found (error 404) as of 2/2003 link checks]

To understand the future of serious photography, consider these figures:

Number of serious amateur and professional photographers:
1981 1/2 million
1993 1/2 million
rate of growth = zero

Number of cameras sold in U.S.:
SLR cameras:
1981 2.6 million
1993 725k*
rate of decline = 146k less per year ==> Is 1998 the year of the last SLR?

Point and Shoot (camera + fixed lens)
1981 800k
1993 13 million

Disposable cameras:
1981 -
1993 22 million USA
1993 62 million Japan

35mm film market - color print film = 96% slides, B&W, etc. = 4%

Source: Popular Photography, Sept. 1993 p. 14, Keppler's SLR column
*Popular Photography, Jan. 1995 p. 18, Keppler's SLR column
(originally projected 850k in Sept. 1993, sold only 725k SLRs)

Updated Sales Figures for Japan - 1999

33.9 million 35mm cameras (-6%) [includes single use, compact 35mm..]
1.5 million APS cameras (-2%)
766 thousand 35mm SLRs (+3.6%)
25 thousand medium format cameras (-9%)
Digital:
1.7 million digital cameras (+41%)
[value of digital cameras in 1999 was 3 times more than 35mm SLRs total!]
[est. for 2000, at 300K/month digital camera sales is 3.5 million!]

Source: Leica Mailing List Posting by Erwin Puts

Updated Sales Figures for Japan - 1999
33.9 million 35mm cameras (-6%) [includes single use, compact 35mm..] 1.5 million APS cameras (-2%) 766 thousand 35mm SLRs (+3.6%) 25 thousand medium format cameras (-9%) Digital: 1.7 million digital cameras (+41%) [value of digital cameras in 1999 was 3 times more than 35mm SLRs total!] [est. for 2000, at 300K/month digital camera sales is 3.5 million!]
Source: Leica Mailing List Posting by Erwin Puts

These figures don't bode well for the future of serious photography in the U.S. Here are some observations based on the above figures.

There has been no growth in the number of serious amateur and professional photographer numbers between 1981 and 1993. At best, we are barely replacing those folks who drop out or die off. Otherwise, we would have real growth. Actually, since the population is growing through legal and illegal immigration, our lack of growth suggests we are really declining and not reaching these pools of new immigrant groups too.

If you project the 146k per year decline in SLR sales observed from 1981 through 1993 to 1998, you would conclude that SLR sales should drop to zero by year's end (i.e., 725k - (5*146k) => 0). Obviously, I don't think that is true. But the current 75% or so decline in sales has negative consequences for serious photographers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Despite a 1,625% increase in the number of point and shoot (camera, shutter, fixed lens cameras), we have had no growth in serious photographer numbers during this thirteen year period. To me, this means that point and shoot photographers don't go on to become serious photographers in any noticeable number. That means 99% of the reusable camera buyers are not likely to become serious photographers after their point and shoot experiences.

The 22 million disposable camera sales didn't help to boost serious photographer numbers either. The Pop.Photo. articles suggested to me that the reverse is true, with the 62 million disposables sold in Japan (half the U.S. population size) cannabalizing not only SLR sales but even P&S sales! If so, then Japan's experience reflects photography's future in the U.S. towards a disposable camera majority.

I suggest that some of the nearly 2 million annual lost SLR sales can be attributed to the loss of camera store outlets to drugstore and film processing labs. These outlets don't have the trained sales staff or space to properly promote and sell serious photography equipment. Others may also blame mail order sales, discounting, or the switch to camcorders. Without a flux of SLR and serious photography buyers each year, camera stores and related commercial resources must decline precipitiously (and have!).

The good news from those 13 million P&S sales is that you can get film developed anywhere, albeit often badly and only as long as it is color print film (96% of the market per PopPhoto). Don't expect professional development, or even quality enlargements. Forget about black and white processing and color slides, which are now only 4% of the market. Since slides are usually associated with professional and serious amateur photography, this decline shouldn't be surprising in light of the above factoids. If you shoot black and white, you are in the 1% minority.

How often does the serious amateur photographer buy a new SLR camera on the average? If you say every five years, then one-fifth of the half million serious amateurs equates to 100,000 SLR camera sales per year. The rest must be coming from newbies. For 1993, we had 725k SLR sales, with perhaps 100k sold to the existing pool of experienced photographers. This suggests that in 1993, we had perhaps 625k new buyers of SLRs. However you look at it, most of the SLR buyers must be first timers.

But the number of serious amateurs didn't grow during the 1981 through 1993 period, right? So virtually all of these newbies who bought SLRs must have dropped out of photography. Those few who stayed in and became serious amateur and semi-professional photographers were nearly exactly balanced by those serious photographers who dropped out or died off. It can't be otherwise, given that the numbers of serious photographers has been constant over the observed 13 year period.

Any way I look at it, I am forced to conclude that at least 95% of the new SLR buyers are not going on to become serious amateurs. What's wrong with photography that this is so, and why aren't the manufacturers, clubs, magazines, and the rest of the industry working on doing something to keep these folks active in photography?

Let us look at some of the negative consequences of these trends. First, there are fewer SLR sales and fewer camera stores, and by extension, fewer local camera repair sites too. Getting color slides developed is a much slower process, while black and white processing is either unavailable or only from professional labs. Even quality print processing requires either mailout or longer trips to a professional processor. If you can't get high quality enlargements or color slides, how can you be a serious amateur with muddy processing of 4x5 color prints from your SLR camera?

Maybe you have noticed that SLR costs are rising a lot faster than inflation? In the past, those millions of SLR buyers made it easier for the mfgers to absorb the cost of developing professional cameras and the odd or fast lens versions favored and needed by professionals. I suggest that the manufacturers can no longer do so in today's smaller marketplace, so these costs come more directly out of the high end buyer's pockets. The cost of developing the constantly changing features and lens mounts has to be recovered from fewer buyers, and over less time now too. This observation suggests why prices have spiraled upward and why they will continue to do so as costs increase and sales decline.

Actually, I think it is worse than that, with new features of modest or questionable utility being developed in order to rapidly obsolete high end cameras and lenses. This forces some buyers to purchase the latest versions, generating more sales and profits for their manufacturers. But is the high end professional camera really worth seven times the price of the entry level SLR with similar features and using the same lenses? Do you really understand, let alone know how to intelligently use, all those new features?

Paradoxically, you also have more choices because electronics has made it possible to differentiate cameras by features while using similar bodies and production facilities to make the various versions. In the past, you bought a nikkormat, or you bought a nikon F2. Today, you have a lot of choices, but that means the serious amateurs don't have to pay for the top of the line model. Only those with the monies or those much fewer professionals can justify today's top of the line camera costs, especially with the rapid obsolescence of bodies and lens mounts.

While this is good news for some buyers, it means a much more complex marketplace of SLR cameras and features. That means it is harder to sell and to buy the right camera today, especially given the decline in camera stores and trained sales people. Am I the only one who is confused by all the current models of cameras? You would think SLR sales had increased 400%, instead of declining 75%. How many of those top-of-the-line features do you really think you would use, and how often would they make a difference in your pictures? Again, is it worth seven times as much to you to have those features and a bit more rugged camera over the entry level SLRs? Are all those features so confusing to use that you are better off with a simpler camera, or even an all-mechanical one?

Years ago, I think you also got better quality and performance from prime mfgers lenses than the much less expensive third party lenses. Today, that seems less and less true. For one thing, the same folks may be making both lenses now, and the same lens is sold under a dozen labels. Even if you think the slightly better optical performance is worth multiples of the third party lens prices, can you get that performance onto your prints or slides from your developer? As for the sharpness mania, do you realize that most autofocus lenses deliver far less critical sharpness in practice than a carefully focused manual lens (again, per PopPhoto and other tests)? If you are a serious amateur photographer, why are you paying three to ten times more for autofocus lenses that are far worse in practice than your older manual focus lenses? Duh?

Even the OEM camera bodies are being made in countries not know for their quality movements, in an effort to reduce labor costs and raise profits. But if the same camera made by the same folks is available for even less under a no-name label, what does that do to the value of the OEM's stamp of approval on their imported third world cameras? Does putting the big name on the third world imported camera make it just as good as their own cameras? Who are they fooling, if it isn't you and me?

Many buyers are using these third party lenses in order to save major dollars over the much higher priced similar OEM lenses. But lenses and add-ons constitute a major profit center for the manufacturers, and the loss of these sales further hurts the manufacturers. I call this process the death spiral, as their prices spiral upwards, causing sales to decline, which causes prices to go up more to recover fixed R&D and other costs, so sales go down, and so on.

Another factor is at work that also slows high end sales besides the higher price. Today's much more costly cameras are also higher quality. By analogy to cars, PepBoys annual report noted that increased car quality had reduced demand for parts by 5% a year, so rather than permitting them to grow they were facing declines. I suggest that the same is happening in the camera industry. Better quality cameras means longer times before purchasing a second SLR at an even higher price.

Repair sites have fewer high end cameras to work on, explaining in part why CLA of even simple professional SLR cameras has exploded upwards in price. Adding expensive custom electronics test equipment and computer skills to mechanical and optical skills means fewer more highly paid camera repair folks to me. Maintaining parts for all these models is surely a costly nightmare too. But OEM camera repairs in or out of warranty are a cost center, not a profit center, for most manufacturers.

At the low end, it is often cheaper to buy a new body in warranty than to get an old one fixed. The diffusion of quality is found in all the SLR cameras, not just the high end ones. That suggests that the cameras will last at least as long as the average owner's interest in photography. Why pay seven times as much for a hyper quality camera that will be obsolete in three years? And if there are fewer breakdowns, won't there be fewer people buying new SLRs?

Remember those 2.6 million SLR sales from 1981? Those cameras are mostly either gone or gathering dust in millions of closets. But a fair number must have ended up on the used market, powering the budget minded entry into SLR photography for many people in the 1980s, myself included. But fast-forward to 1993. Now we only sold 725K SLR cameras. Future used equipment buyers will have far fewer cameras to buy, and in many more shorter lived models, with fewer lenses, at much higher prices. Not a very good climate to get students or others on limited budgets into photography, is it?

Changes in lens mount with automation changes means far fewer lenses will be available for use on any given body. After the FTC mandated 7 year period, many parts will no longer be available too. So cameras will become unrepairable with those fancy electronic circuits now turning into the camera's Achille's heel. And you have probably noticed that the electronics seems to be the weakest link on many of today's models, right?

Now combine the higher purchase costs with the more frequent model and lens mount changes, difficulty in repairs, and presumed scarcity of lens and add-ons due to lower sales and faster model changes. Don't expect high end used camera prices to remain low as current model prices climb into the stratosphere either. I infer that the used camera market will become much less of a bargain resource, especially as today's advanced features migrate downward onto lower end and cheaper cameras over time. Today's fancy auto-lenses will become tomorrow's surplus, only useful on a relative handful of obsolete camera bodies for sale at higher prices.

What about non-U.S. market cameras? Won't these third world markets support overall camera sales, thereby providing the funds for maintaining high end cameras and features for the U.S. market without our having to pay for them? Sorry, but the third world doesn't buy a lot of Nikon F5s. They may get a chance to buy some low end models with stripped features that manufacturers are loathe to import into the U.S. due to the low profit. Look at it from their viewpoint. Wouldn't you rather sell a $750 camera than a $250 camera body, given you are only going to make one sale?

On the other hand, expect to see more lower cost lenses from the major manufacturers to try and compete with lower cost third party lenses (e.g., the nikon E series). The big sacrifice here is in ruggedness and quality, trading longevity for lower initial cost. But how else can the mfgers compete with the third party lens makers who have far less diverse manufacturing setups and lower overheads?

My guess is that the trend towards zoom lenses is going to kill off the sales of prime lenses, aided by the low quality of most developing labs. Many cameras now come with zoom lenses as a replacement for prime normal lens. But I suggest this trend means further profit losses for the manufacturers, plus greater competition from third party sellers.

If the big name manufacturers don't make as much money off the lenses, or from the bodies, where will they make their money? Don't forget that they can go out of business, with Pentacon being a recent example. At the end, the Prakticas that cost $165 were costing over $650 to make, and it was cheaper for the German government to pay the workers to stay home than to make cameras! Are Japan's manufacturers too far down the sunset industry path to recover? Will the current 1997 year-end financial crises in Asia make your camera an orphan too?

Based on the figures at the start of this article, I suggest that serious photography is in trouble as we head into 1998. The numbers of serious photographers hasn't increased significantly. Far fewer SLRs are being sold. More people may be taking photographs, but they are using disposable and point and shoot cameras rather than SLRs. Very few of them are becoming serious amateur or professional photographers. That means that the costs for the rest of us have to go up to make up for those lost sales and profits. With fewer new cameras, at higher prices, and with more models, there will be fewer used cameras and they will cost more too.

The great decline in SLR sales from 2.6 million to 725k documented above suggests that we are already well down on the death spiral path of declining sales and rising costs. The solution lies in finding out why 95% of all new SLR buyers are not going on to become serious amateur photographers but are dropping out instead. Unless the SLR photography industry can identify and retain some of these people, I believe that serious photography will quickly become a much more difficulty and expensive hobby and profession to pursue.

--Source:

From [email protected] Wed Dec 31 21:03:59 CST 1997
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.misc,rec.photo.equipment.35mm
Subject: Death Spiral of Serious Amateur Photography - Facts & Observations]

Third Party New Lens Introduction - Highlighting Oil Shocks, Recessions, and SLR Photography's Peak Year (1977) using dates of introducing 1600+ new lenses...

Summary of Responses

From: [email protected] (Robert Monaghan)
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.35mm
Subject: Re: Death Spiral of Serious Amateur Photography - Facts & Observations
Date: 2 Jan 1998 23:56:41 -0600

Thanks to one and all, and especially a number of direct emailers with most useful and interesting commentary on my initial posting. I hope to collect some of these comments and create a home page for this thread so as to preserve some of the better ideas and criticisms of my original posting

I want to point out that the term ''serious amateur photographer'' is not limited to 35mm SLR owners, despite my posting this in rec.photo..35mm ;-)

I wouldn't want to leave out those with $2,000+ point and shoot titanium ultra-cameras nor those who also use medium format or 4x5 and larger (as I do too ;-) from the ranks of serious amateur photographers. But however measured, the ranks of serious photographers doesn't seem to be growing...

One reply noted that the numbers of new medium format and especially large format buyers had declined so steeply that these were endangered species, with some brands (horseman etc.) being hardly able to advertise while others (hassy..) having to recover these costs by higher and higher prices. As I suggested in my original postings, this is my "death spiral" view of photography's future, unless we all do something to reverse it...

I think the Internet does offer some great positive opportunities to promote serious photography. For one thing, lots of us are isolated in our hobbies, having no local friends who are either interested or able to discuss this hobby either intelligently or passionately. The Internet offers us that opportunity, but we need to work harder on making it an inclusionary experience and a positive one.

Several posters noted that photography is numerically an older (over 55 per one poster) centered hobby - which suggests we need to do a lot more to involve and recruit younger recruits. One simple example might be a program to solicit tax deductible camera donations from no longer interested photo dropouts, and recycle them to younger users. Is there any 501(C3) or similar charity which is doing this, and if not, can't we create one? Maybe the donated collectible cameras could be sold (reducing high prices of today's market?) and turned into needed accessories and film and processing for these new student recruits? Others might be able to donate some time teaching a few how-to-do-it sessions etc? A high school oriented program might be just the thing to get us growing again?

I think the computer offers an extension and new capability to serious amateur photography, specifically in manipulating images, but that the image has to come first. A great deal of the original quality and info is lost today in compromises to make reasonable download times possible.

On the other hand, there is sooo much great photography already being shared by individuals on the internet, with two more listings offered for freebies by individuals just today on this rec.photo forum, that we have a really great opportunity here if we will take or make it. We really need a way to locate these quality images, categorize them, an image based search engine, by category (nature photo etc.). Any suggestions?

Great idea to check and identify the best local processing places (ask your local newspaper in modest sized towns, local prof. photogr. in cities) Most one hour labs are bad, but we can demand better and patronize those who are offering the best quality and service in our local areas. We can also share positive experiences with labs that do mail order business too.

I think we are already revising business operations at many savvy camera stores, who are beginning to learn the power of the Internet to share info on negative and positive experiences with them - right? ;-)

A minor innovation of my own to this end is online at my bronica used and for sale wanted to buy site at http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/bronused.html This site gathers dozens of dealer listings from multiple sources for 6x6 bronica related cameras, lenses, and accessories and manuals into one site. One stop shopping for those looking for this particular camera or accessories I also have four entire camera manuals online plus lots of articles etc. Now others have done similar sites for a given brand too, but imagine what we could do if we could coordinate more such sites and info for us all..

Since the projections are that we will soon jump from ten to thirty to more than one hundred million folks on line, we can expect to have a huge number of both newbies and more experienced folks joining us. Whether they elect to stay active will depend a lot on how we receive them in rec.photo and what benefits they bring and get out of the WWW online photography experience.

We also need to do a lot more to welcome foreign and non-English language folks into these goings on, but I don't know how, and I am open to any suggestions on what we can do to welcome them and include them in. Some of the most interesting photo sites I have seen last year were online from Singapore and other foreign sites. I also think the possibility to locate rare items, hard to find film sources (e.g., 127 film for me ;-), and even buy used photo items at bargain prices worldwide will be *really* interesting for many of us online ;-)

So I just wanted to pass on some of these hopeful notes, and suggest that we need to continue to expand our sharing of photo ideas and experiences online, as these may help fill a void that increasing our numbers alone won't fill...

again, happy 1998 to all - regards - bob monaghan

An Update:

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999
To: [email protected]
Newsgroups: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
Followup-To: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
Subject: Death Spiral Update (long diatribe ;-)

re: http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/brondeath.html Death Spiral of Amat. Photogr.

Sadly, I find that the death spiral seems to be accelerating, viz.:

Serious amateur photography doesn't exist in isolation. You have to have various photographic resources to do photography. People have to come into the hobby to replace those who leave and die off, if there is to be a viable photoindustry over the long-term. The two are symbiotic - you can't do photography without film and paper and photogear, and you can't sell much photogear to people who aren't seriously interested in photography.

Last month, we lost a long-time supplier of film and papers in Europe (Fotochemika/Adox..). This month, Agfa film products got spun out on its own largely because it was a money losing business. Neither is a good sign.

Consumers in the USA buy 96% color print film, splitting the remaining 4% between color slides, black and white, and all specialty films (Polaroid, IR..). Now you understand why there are still no slide films for APS users! We continue to lose much-loved classic films such as Ektar 25 and VPS this last quarter alone. I could also talk about the on-going losses of rich high silver content darkroom papers too.

If you use a 620 or 127 format camera, you have lost most film emulsions and sources in the last year or so too. Ditto 126 cartridge, disc cameras, and all but a few 110 camera films, also all in the last year or so. Is APS next?

A Shutterbug review of the recent major European photoindustry show concluded that there were few new camera introductions, and most of these were niche cameras (panoramics..). I suggest that the manufacturers are avoiding investing in new current technology cameras until they see how the digital revolution is going to impact them.

Most current 35mm SLR and MF/LF cameras are "mature technology", from which you take profits as you wear out the tooling. R&D investments are obviously going more towards a digital future. Everybody is waiting for the next generation of imaging chips to get the density up and the costs down to where photo-quality images are available in a consumer price range.

Should we be worried about the consumer masses going digital?

Optimists will predict the explosion of computerized digital cameras and online image creation will leave many digital photo users wanting more quality, and upgrading to real film and SLR cameras. Surely some users will make this transition, but will it be enough to sustain the photoindustry and our hobby?

As I noted in my "Death Spiral" article, 13 million point and shoot camera sales didn't seem to increase the numbers of serious amateur photographers. Why would non-film based digital technology do so when it didn't happen with film based P+S users?

Pessimists will argue that most users will be happy with the quality of a megapixel image from their $149 digital camera that can be posted directly on the WWW. Those who want a print will simply have their $300+ Epson photo-quality color computer printers print one out. Thanks to simple software, they can crop and color correct, even sharpen the photo on their home computer before printing it out. Instead of mailing out prints, they simply send the photo as an email attachment to their relatives. For those without a computer, they can simply dump the digital photos at their local minilab and select which ones they want to print on the store's Epson color printer or store images on disk or the WWW.

Based on what I have seen this last year, I am firmly in the pessimists camp. The cheapy mini-lab prints have accustomed folks to accepting a low quality print, often soft-focused to hide scratches that the lab's poor processing has put on the negatives. A nice 300 dpi or better 24 bit color print is quite acceptable, maybe even a step up for most consumers. Given the huge cost savings of no film and no processing costs, plus no delays and instant gratification, who can doubt that digital is the wave of the future for many consumers?

If you are in the photo-industry, this is a disconcerting view. Intel makes the chips. The lenses are tiny, fixed, low cost optics. Zeiss quality isn't needed. The printers and computers are unrelated to our photo-technology, as is the software used. What strengths can the current photo-industry players sell us in a future digital photography world? Not film or paper or processing. Not lenses. Surely not software or chips, right? Are they dinosaurs? Hmmm?

This thread started out asking whether Rollei or Hasselblad will be with us in 5-7 years? My argument is that they are already gone, as I think of them.

Rollei has gone through a number of virtual bankruptcies, most recently being bought out by a Korean company whose bean-counters are less impressed by past Germanic glories than by present profit performance, understandable given their moribund economy. The Hasselblad family also read the tea-leaves, and reportedly have sold out control of Hasselblad to a number of private investors (Swiss..).

In my opinion, both of these companies have already lost touch with their historical roots through these trans-national sales. Consider the use of Rollei's prestigious names on Korean made consumer cameras and lenses, or the Hasselblad Xpan which looks a whole lot like a certain Fuji camera under a Hasselblad logo. The old Rollei and Hasselblad companies would never have done that, don't you agree?

The older cameras will be produced so long as the tooling holds out, possibly with minimal improvements, if only to maximize the value and profits from these resources. The names and trademarks will be exploited until they no longer mean what they once did, meaning the names live on long after the cameras that gave them prestige have been dropped. So to me, Hasselblad and Rollei are already gone in spirit, if not in steel and plastic and marketing ads.

Japan has marked their photography industry as a "sunset" industry, which was hollowed out (moved offshore) and starved for investment and talented staff. Big names in cameras (Canon, Ricoh..) now mostly make office photocopier machines etc. rather than get their profits from camera divisions. Third party lenses by Tamron, Tokina, and Sigma are now often better than the OEM lenses they compete against, a far cry from the past!

In Germany, the last Pentacon plant was shut down in former East Germany when the Prakticas that sold for $165 new were found to cost $650 to produce. As noted above, Rollei was sold out too. Who's left making cameras in Germany? Who's the next industry domino to fall?

Who is to blame for the current state of photography - the photoindustry or the serious amateur photographers?

My personal view is that the photoindustry is mainly to blame for the present precarious state of the hobby. For years, the photo-industry has pursued a series of changes designed to force you and I to constantly upgrade our cameras and lenses and photogear. The reason was simply because they needed to generate more sales from a constantly declining market, as 35mm SLR sales slipped from 2.6 million sold in 1981 to 725,000+ sold in 1993.

These changes raised short term profits, at the expense of the long-term loss of amateur photographers and hobbyists with each forced upgrade/change.

We have had a number of lens mount shifts which obsoleted tens of millions of dollars worth of our hobbyist investments in lenses and cameras. The rise of autofocus may not have solved many problems for some of us, but it sure helped sell a lot of expensive new cameras and lenses. That helped solve the industry's problems, but at what cost in users?

At the high end, we saw many camera prices rise up to three times as fast as the rate of inflation, year in and year out, for decades. Hasselblad is one example I have documented elsewhere, but not the only one. Given the minor nature of the improvements in their classic camera bodies and lenses, how do they really justify the huge increases in cost, even in constant dollar terms? On a positive note, the shift to a Rollei controlled USA importer and distributor has cut their prices, and helped cap medium format prices from some competitors such as Hasselblad. Is it too little, too late?

At the other end, the photoindustry's new consumer APS format managed to reduce the size of the film image while substantially raising film costs. Few APS cameras take full advantage of major APS features (e.g., data recording capability). Many mini-labs refused to invest in new APS processing machines, retarding the spread and acceptance of the format. You still can't buy slide film in APS formats etc., despite over a year of empty promises. Lots of ads on TV seems to be where the money went...

While APS cameras are small, many 35mm cameras are similar in size and nearly as easy to use with autoloading and DX coding. You can crop panoramics from 35mm film too, and get higher quality at lower cost. I suggest that the problems which APS solved were mainly those of the photo-industry, and not those of you and I as consumers. Agree or disagree?

What about the charges that people today don't have the time for hobbies? I think that's partly true, but photography is not that time intensive, is it? You can take pictures nearly anywhere, and I carry a camera around and shoot some film almost every day. How much time does it take to shoot a handful of rolls of film a month for the average photographer? The cost of cameras has declined in real terms, so economic barriers aren't the reason photography is in decline as a hobby.

Demographically, there aren't many kids and twenty-somethings out there in the current generation, compared to the baby boomers aging numbers. Amateur photographer's average age is reportedly in the late 40s or early 50s, depending on the source, and getting older with every survery (meaning fewer new young incoming users). In my mf/photostats.html page, I note that the average household/family is spending less than 75 cents a week on photography or under $38 per year. You can't buy many SLRs and lenses and shoot much film on that, can you? ;-)

Personally, I think photography is about making pictures, which means thinking about photographs and controlling the process. That creative and technical challenge is what interests me. Paradoxically, the more the camera does for me, the easier it seems to be to get a snapshot instead of making a real picture. I find my medium format photos are better precisely because I take more care in composing them and think through what I am doing than with my more automatic 35mm cameras.

The current auto-everything cameras are aimed at tyros, not photographers. Loading the film is automated, setting the film speed is automatic, even focusing and exposure are done for you. What's left for the photographer to do? Why should the camera have all the fun?

The lack of popularity of photography also saddens me personally, since I know that many folks in our culture don't have a really creative or artistic outlet. I can't paint or make sculpture, but I can make creative photos, and so can most people with study and application. Photography could be the kind of creative and artistic outlet many people yearn for, but haven't found.

Today we have folks shooting their weddings with six-packs of disposable cameras, thanks to promotions of the photo-industry. Others use home video cameras, unaware of future archival storage issues of video tape. How many mini-labs process their prints so they won't fade away after a few years in the sun? My best underwater photography slides are already starting to fade. How about your negatives and slides? If photography is about keeping memories, as the ads go, shouldn't the film and prints last at least a generation, let alone a lifetime? By the time the lawsuits start flying, it will be too late!

Another issue I have addressed is the intentional obsolescence of current high technology cameras by limited life LCD panels and chip components. LCD display panels don't last forever; many have lives of 10 years or so. That's 10 calendar years, whether on or off, so spare parts go bad just sitting around too. If a custom chip fails in your camera, and it is no longer supported, you have a high tech paperweight too. While you and I like to think of high end cameras as investments, the photoindustry benefits more if they become obsolete and unrepairable, thereby forcing us to upgrade to new ones, right? Are you starting to see a pattern here?

Some of us also wonder why we didn't hear more about the plans to obsolete all our mercury battery using photogear by making mercury batteries illegal to make in the USA. Not just classic cameras, but light meters and other gear suddenly became obsolete paperweights for most consumers. Now they'll have to buy new ones and upgrade all those lenses too, right? Do you wonder why the photoindustry didn't publicize this more and ask for consumers to fight for a waiver or alternative plan?

Given the high levels of pollution from many home darkrooms, anybody still using a darkroom want to make a bet on how much longer all these hazardous chemicals are going to be available for sale? Duh? Think the photoindustry will warn us about that before or after it is too late? Will the mini-labs be able to reach E.P.A. limits on effluents, go out of business, or switch to digital? Maybe they'll mail out the film to Mexico?

How about those new killer Xray machines at the airports. Did the photo industry staff who "reviewed" these machines blow it? How many folks will find out about the killer xrays by having their once in a lifetime trip films ruined? Maybe you heard about it on the Internet, but months went by before anything showed up in the photomagazines. Now there's a new super xray machine called L-3 coming, but you don't want to hear more bad news now, I'm sure.

I see these screw-ups as proof that there isn't any dark coordinated photoindustry conspiracy. I'm thinking more in terms of the gang that couldn't shoot straight here. If they had a clear view of the future, and a gameplan for growing marketshare while bringing along the masses of current users and serious amateur photographers, I would feel better about all this. But clearly they don't. Instead, they seem happy to burn many thousands of current users with obsolescence and format changes, without any clear plan on where to find serious photography users to replace us.

Maybe it is just me, but the photoindustry doesn't even seem terribly good at listening to their remaining customers, do they? A lot of the current autofocus consumer cameras are obviously the design of marketing committees, not someone who actually shoots film for fun or a living. Limited resources seem to be squandered on solutions to problems most of us don't have (the Arcbody or Flexbody comes to mind here). Who comes up with these AF camera control interfaces and button locations, anyway? Duh?

I personally doubt that ANY of the current photoindustry players will be major players some ten years into the future of digital photography. None of them seem to have the "fire in their bellies" needed to succeed in making such a huge transition. It is all a faceless bureaucracy, with all that implies. Nor do they have the right technology to lead either. Too bad, like many users, I kind of like the cameras and their makers by extension for past glories and efforts, but they haven't done much for us lately, but everything for themselves it often seems. Agree or disagree?

Somebody with that "fire" is going to come in and make a crusade out of digital photography, but it isn't going to be a player in the current industry, I'd bet. And cameras and lenses are going to be the smallest part of the equation too. That won't leave much "photo" for the photoindustry to play up their strengths and technology.

In short, I think the death spiral of serious amateur photography continues at an every increasing pace. In the last year and a half since posting the original article, we have seen the abandonment of many films and papers, along with such formats as 620, 127, 126, disc, and 110 all going obsolete or endangered species.

More importantly, after seeing the quality possible with the new Epson color printers, I'm convinced film and paper faces huge marketshare losses soon. If film and paper sales collapse, what's left of the industry?

Why should consumers use medium format cameras and lenses, or 35mm Nikons.., if they can get such surprising quality from a low cost computer printer and wallet sized digital camera? Why pay big bucks for high quality lenses where the differences won't show up in the photos online? Who needs Tiffen filters with photoshop software? See the photoindustry's problem here?

When the marginal amateur photographers switch to digital cameras and Epson prints, will there be enough of us left to keep the film and paper and conventional cameras and lenses in production? I doubt it, don't you? We have mostly already dropped out due to high costs, or obsoleting of our gear, or the high cost of keeping up with every new change they can think of. Only now, the demographics are against them being able to recruit enough new buyers to replace us. Digital photography is going to grab most of those new and younger users, leaving the conventional photoindustry with very little of value to sell in a digital dominated world.

That's why I call it a death spiral.... ;-)

------- The End!

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