Hi Subscriber First Name,

Om Malik wrote a piece about cameras a few weeks ago that I found interesting (link below). I don't agree with his conclusion: that SD card failure probably had nothing to do with his Ricoh GR. Then again, had the Ricoh not relied on a card to begin with…

But it's the line he draws between the once thriving server business and today's camera makers that I find difficult to dismiss. Especially after watching this week's Wonderlust and X Summit events:

The camera industry is no different. Although sales are declining, revenues for camera companies are climbing. They are shifting their focus to selling premium models, a strategy reminiscent of old tech giants before they waned. Sun Microsystems springs to mind.

The GFX100 II and accompanying lenses are truly impressive. I love the GFX system. But this was a pretty clear illustration of the premium strategy Malik is describing [1]. And then there's the Apple event. Look, I thought it was incredibly boring. The new iPhones are fine, the new Watch gesture is smart, USB-C was inevitable, and bravo for environmental initiatives [2]. Welcome to the Iteration Phase. But while it's increasingly hard to feel excitement, year after year, about the best camera system we've ever shipped, we can't dismiss the truth of computational photography, for both motion AND stills. The pace of innovation and advancement is stratospheric.

To the point where we're now faced with (forgive the pun) apples and oranges. The limitations of a phone camera still exist, but 1) they ARE going away and 2) the ubiquity of these devices is probably altering our expectations of how an image should look and, ultimately, how it should be captured.

Or viewed.

Vision Pro isn't about to take the world by storm, but it IS the destination. That concept is inevitable. I'm convinced desktop displays will eventually join landlines and inkwells, the limits of our canvas expanding beyond the bounds of a 27-inch frame. The shift will be profound.

Will Spatial Photography be the new 3D TV? Maybe. Or maybe it'll become the default, leaving traditional cameras even further behind, to toil in the gathering dust.[3]

The scene during the iPhone Pro unveiling where a photographer is shooting tethered through Capture One, with the iPhone on a tripod; the argument of having the equivalent of seven focal lengths at the ready; the control over those computational layers through ProRAW… none of it is inconsequential.

The history of the server industry serves as a reminder that when scale, affordability, and connectivity converge, they can disrupt the established order. We’ve seen this with mobile phones, media, and taxi services. And it is gradually unfolding in the camera business. Smartphone cameras offer scale, affordability, and connectivity, leading to a continuous cycle of innovation and change.

Change—it's the one constant.

…………..

1. I know Fujifilm offers more affordable cameras…And yes, this is a specific niche.

2. The Mother Nature sketch could've been downright uncomfortable to watch, but it was actually kinda funny. 

3. The fact that Apple is already adding it to iPhones is telling. That, plus addressing the universal cringe reaction at the dad-with-helmet-filming kids-in-the-living-room segment during the Vision Pro intro.