Source: Imaging & Sensing Solutions Segment, Sony

OK, assuming Sony is correct, will smartphones then indeed kill off the DLSR or ICL any time soon? My take: there’s much more to it than improvements in optics, processors and AI, but let me make just a few points here:

Complementing today's ICLs is a whole ecosystem of accessories, most importantly various types of lenses and lighting solutions that give advanced hobbyists and pro photographers a level of extra creative control that’s not available to smartphone camera users. High-end tele, wide-angle, fisheye, panoramic, macro or other specialized lenses don’t work with smartphones. The same counts for high-end flashes – although that might be changing. Profoto, our 2020 Visual 1st Best of Show Award winner which positions itself as a “light shaping” company, now enables some of its pro flashes to be used with iPhones.

If smartphone image capture quality is indeed going to rival or even eclipse that of ICLs, this doesn’t mean that the ICL market is about to be killed off. Yes, going forward it might become less likely that smartphone photographers who want to take photos at the next level will buy an ICL (as we keep hearing anecdotally from photo dealers to be the case, such as from Jennifer Waicukauski of Looking Glass Photo at Visual 1st in the past).

With fewer new buyers, the ICL market is likely to increasingly become a replacement market. At some point your ICL becomes outdated or breaks down, and you'll buy a new one. But that “at some point” gets more and more pushed into the future, as the camera upgrade cycles have gotten longer. Why is that? Not only has the camera innovation slowed down (fewer “I must have it now” features being introduced), the industry has also chosen to increase its camera prices to make up for their decreased volume.

Even if ICL photographers delay or forego buying their next camera, this doesn’t mean they’ve actually stopped using ICLs. Yes, many consumers now take all their photos with their smartphones, leaving their ICLs (or compact cameras) to collect dust. But that’s not the case for pro and advanced hobbyist photographers. In our Pro Photographers and their Camera Use report we found that 64% of the pro photographer respondents took all their professional photos with their ICLs, another 21% took more than three quarters of their pro photos with their ICLs. And yes, the mix of ICL and smartphone camera use for personal photos was much more even.

In other words: while (semi)-pros might not buy new cameras as frequently as in the past, the majority of them very much still use them, at least for their professional photos. If nothing else, because these photographers are vested in add-on hardware and software provided by a true-and-proven ICL-centered ecosystem.

Still – the writing is on the wall. And Sony just rubbed that in.

Gooten & Fujifilm. Budding relationship. On demand technology provider Gooten and photo print product manufacturer Fujifilm announce a strategic partnership, which includes combining Gooten’s on-demand fulfillment network with Fujifilm’s products and global footprint. The collaboration will initially launch with a focus on North American small businesses this summer, with plans to expand globally.

Leica & Panasonic. Taking their relationship to the next level. From long term dating to giving it a name: their partnership is now called “L² Technology” (L squared Technology), which symbolically uses the two "L" of "Leica” and "LUMIX" in their marketing activities going forward. Leica is not exclusively betting on legacy camera vendors though – in our last issue we mentioned their budding partnership with Xiaomi. The bottom line: Leica is actively pushing a B2B route.

vAIsual & Microsoft Bing. Synthetic media & ethics white paper. White paper from Michael Osterrieder (CEO – vAIsual, winners of last year’s Visual 1st Special Recognition Award) and Ashish Jaiman (Director of Product – Microsoft Bing). Main point: many AI shortcomings/biases are not directly perceivable by humans – but AI-created synthetic media are, so these shortcomings and biases are extra urgent to be eliminated!

Bria. Image search intent. Synthetic imaging developer and last year’s Visual 1st panelist, Bria unveils its new image search intent technology. Search results are based on natural language, with no labels. That means, a search for "I love you baby" won’t return visuals with a baby, it should celebrate our love. "Under the weather" does not refer to the weather, but to being sick.

WWDC. As we’ve gotten used to, the public announcements at WWDC are very much incremental and covering an-ever growing spectrum of use cases – Apple last unveiled a new product category, wearables, in 2014 when it introduced the Apple Watch, as the NYT dryly commented. It sounds we need to keep waiting for the details on their AR headsets. Still, two announcements jumped out for me:

iCloud Shared Photos Library. Up to 6 users can now collaborate on a shared album, choosing to share photos from their existing albums, or toggling to instantly share photos from the camera app. Apple’s AI will also recommend photos to share to the collaborative library based on who is in your pictures.

Continuity Camera. Yah, in the category of “I could have thought of that”: finally, a fabulous webcam for your Mac! This new Mac OS feature simply takes the rear camera feed from your existing iPhone and converts it into a webcam that can be used in macOS apps. Continuity Camera includes Center Stage and Portrait Mode support, so there are plenty of video modes for a variety of Zoom or other calls.

VIEWBUG. Going NFT. Photo sharing, community and marketplace vendor VIEWBUG partners with MetaFrames to enable its 3.5M members to sell NFTs. The partnership will enable VIEWBUG users to create their own virtual galleries on the MetaFrames platform, and curate and tailor their own 3D and VR spaces. VIEWBUG’s users will be given access to MetaFrames’ creator tools, as well as IP protection, premium licences with leading consumer and entertainment brands, and have the opportunity to earn from their creations with sales and royalties.

ImagingExecutives@PHOTOPIA. Save the date. The 2nd edition of the ImagingExecutives@PHOTOPIA summit will be held October 13, 2022, the first day of the PHOTOPIA 2022 Hamburg photography tradeshow. This year’s theme for the summit is ”Intelligent Progress.” The summit is organized in cooperation between PHOTOPIA and the imaging+foto-contact and INTERNATIONAL CONTACT photo trade journals.

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