Future of A mount

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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

There are some great deals out there, even as a former "always buys new" user. Those days are likely gone for me, and a lot of others. It's just bad value to buy new. I had a bit of a shock looking through some old photo magazines from 2005-2009. Whilst prices on budget bodies hasn't really gone up, one thing stood out. You got hefty discounts even 5-6 months after a camera came out, also some big reductions in lens prices - depending on the time/lens.

Just no value nowadays, and the lens prices today are beyond reasonable - even third party ones have shot up. Makers keep selling much older bodies at inflated prices - not my idea of a bargain. Look at how many models Sony have on E Mount, A7, A7II, A7III, A7s, A7sII, A7R 1-4, A9. That's 10 I count for full frame alone. Why they keep older ones in production, I have no idea the earlier gen bodies are not worth buying, bad AF, weedy battery - even at cheaper prices. I suspect they are trying to keep prices higher on more recent cameras. Looks to me like it's a general trend, that peak design tripod $479 is a steal is it? Normal price $599!
Wow what days we live it, sad thing is some folks are dumb enough to fall for it!
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pakodominguez
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Re: Future of A mount

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classiccameras wrote:I think Sony have scored an own goal with the E mount system, the market is shrinking for E mount because of cost...
The market is shrinking. Period. Canon and Nikon are not doing better.
Cellphones are "good enough" for what most people need.
More resolution is always good, but 61 MP is not "that thing" that will make people buy a new camera.
I don;t know what "that thing" is. Apparently the manufacturers don't know either.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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That thing is never going to happen. Reality bites, and that is clear to see. Again I was out the weekend, and not a single camera in sight (another big tourist location). The dedicated camera will only appeal in future to either working shooters, or enthusiasts. It's a much much smaller market than a decade ago. Time warp back even 5-6 years cameras were common place -now they are rare to see in the wild.

It's not features, or specs or new swanky technology/innovation that will grab buyers. Nothing they can do will reverse what has happened. As I said before they're over saturated the market; plenty of deals around for buyers who don't want to pay "modern prices" on gear, a lot of people have "good enough" stuff. They won't be re-buying gear any time soon.
Hence the reason I stay put - don't need animal eye AF, I don't care about 61 megapixels or pixel shift. What I have does the job

If I were not heavily into photography would I buy a camera or a phone? If I am honest I would buy a phone and just use that. Looking at the latest RX100VII - I can safely say the industry has lost all sanity - £1100 for a 1" sensor camera. And they say they are fighting back against phones, it's almost funny.
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bakubo
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by bakubo »

We are pretty much back to the way things were 20 years ago before digital took off. Professionals and enthusiasts mostly use dedicated cameras and everyone else uses simple to use, less flexible, inexpensive cameras because they do enough of what they want to do. I say that smartphone cameras are inexpensive because most people these days have a smartphone anyway for other reasons and the camera feels like a free add-on for most of them.

Yes, the Sony RX100VII and VI are priced way, way up there. Not interested.

I bought the wonderful Panasonic TX1 (ZS100, TZ100 outside Japan) in January in Hiroshima for $419. It has a great 1" Sony 20mp BSI sensor, Leica 25-250mm f2.8-5.9 lens, EVF, is fast to turn on, fast AF, doesn't have an EVF hump, has a built-in flash, and is very satisfying to use. The TX1 is actually a bit lighter and the size is very similar to the Canon G16. The TX1 has lots of configuration choices which I like. Overall I am very pleased with it. I have the rear dial set to do exposure compensation and the front dial around the lens sets the aperture when using A mode and does program shift when using P mode. By the way, when I shoot jpegs I set noise reduction to the minimum -5. This has become my current carry-everywhere camera.

TX1: 312g, 110 x 65 x 47 mm
G16: 356g, 109 x 76 x 40 mm

I also have the Canon S95 and Sony RX100. I bought the RX100 last year new for $380 and it has firmware 2.0. The latest version you can download from Sony is 1.1. The 2.0 is different than the 2.0 for the RX100III, etc. though. This post is from someone who found what is different in the menus and speculates that the current RX100 has an updated BIONZ processor that uses 2.0, but older RX100s can't use the new firmware because they have an older BIONZ processor.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55937310

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/61429424
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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I was semi interested in the RX100's, sort of. Then I found out the tripod thread was right next to the battery/card door, so I passed.
I still have the X10, but when it dies I probably won't be replacing it. I've sort of gone full on normal size camera, then phone for other times. Perhaps it's just me; I really don't use the Fuji much bar for videos I make and photos where I don't need huge files

Fuji almost got it right, almost. The nailed the mechanical zoom (shame they put the power switch in it), the viewfinder which is of limited use still it's there, and a hotshoe. Granted it's not the smallest compact out there by any means. I'm good with the focal range 28mm starting off is fine, lens is fairly fast. It's a crying shame they didn't push the design more - go with a larger sensor, iron out the weak points. That is a camera I might consider. On the RX ones, bar a crazy deal I see - probably not on the interest list.

Maybe people are more likely to get a budget ILC, don't know probably looks better value when compared to the latest very expensive models. I could see some deep video folks maybe considering them, for stills I find them a lot less exciting. With the phone thing, most get them on a contract and pay not much - so there isn't a lot of reason for them to buy a camera on it's own.

BTW both Canon and Sony dropped pretty heavily on unit sales and value in their last figures. I'm fairly sure it's going to bomb even more.
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by classiccameras »

it seems M/4/3 is not having such a bad time as other brands
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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classiccameras wrote:it seems M/4/3 is not having such a bad time as other brands
I think they're all doing pretty bad as far as camera sales go
Olympus has its fingers in a fairly good medical division - that does pretty well. When Hoya sold the Pentax name to Ricoh, they kept the medical part, ie the bit that did make money!

I can't see things changing. I read Thom Hogan's camera thoughts and I disagree, and I have to say no matter what they did or do (ie connectivity/facebook/instagram etc), not going to change. Most people don't need a separate camera, it's in their phone. They're not suddenly going to start buying them - more pixels, more buzzwords like "AI" and "computational photography". That isn't going to bring them back, they don't want to buy cameras the mass market. So it leaves the serious users/paid shooters left, with higher prices. End result most don't buy anything, and a lot go bargain hunting on eBay.
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ValeryD
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Re: Future of A mount

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bfitzgerald wrote: ..................

I can't see things changing. I read Thom Hogan's camera thoughts and I disagree, and I have to say no matter what they did or do (ie connectivity/facebook/instagram etc), not going to change. Most people don't need a separate camera, it's in their phone. They're not suddenly going to start buying them - more pixels, more buzzwords like "AI" and "computational photography". That isn't going to bring them back, they don't want to buy cameras the mass market. So it leaves the serious users/paid shooters left, with higher prices. End result most don't buy anything, and a lot go bargain hunting on eBay.
Right! Most people don't need separate camares, the cellphone perfectly fit for what they need. Even me, I start using the phone for some work too. 20PM and dual camera on it does job very well. :)
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pakodominguez
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Re: Future of A mount

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bfitzgerald wrote:That thing is never going to happen.
That thing was digital.

The Zeiss ZX1 is a really interesting concept, but too big and I'm not sold on the all-cloud solution (there is a discussion about it here, right?). I saw the prototype last October, I think it still needed a lot of work -that's probably why it is not in the market yet.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

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The phones are getting good, much better even the mid priced ones. I tried a Xiaomi budget phone, cameras are decent for the price (ie good enough for what people want them for). There are, and always will be limitations to them, they're not great for flash photography, they tend to be poor for action stuff; clever processing can make them not bad at all for low light. Still they are improving them and adding the tele lenses. I've seen some decent results from them.

Yes that thing was digital, with at the time huge growth. Seems those days are over. Even with Sony's big push (A7III being popular) sales still slid significantly. Canon and Nikon and Sony are going to reduce their range significantly. Sony have 10 E mount FF bodies, that makes no sense.

Interesting thing is Fuji have done well with Instax - proving a niche can do well for itself. Digital stand alone cameras are the new niche. The Zeiss is unusual, not sure I'd be happy with a 35mm fixed focal length, it's the one focal length I just find unappealing.
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by classiccameras »

I have to agree about the phones, but being old school, it just not sit well with my idea of photography with a camera/lenses, I also think all those Sony E mount bodies is crazy, what are they playing at, its also tiresome to see cameras each year come out with Mk 2, Mk 3, Mk 4 etc. and people up grade for each new model, but that's what the manufacturers want you to do
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by bfitzgerald »

I think Sony are just throwing out as much stuff as possible to try to boost market share. Mix in the usual "influencer" marketing/hype and hope for the best. Clearly there is a reason; they are using the same body design to save costs. I bet the manufacturing cost for these bodies is way lower than people imagine.
Unless they come out with a better LEA5 adapter, which has better AF and drop the fps crippling - I'm not really that interested in E mount Alpha. Just not going to add anything that I can't do at the moment. Certainly not even slightly interested in re-buying lenses I've bought over the years, cost would astronomical for native lenses. Sony show no signs of departing from the small cramped body style, that's another bug bear. There is no incentive to move to E mount for most A mount shooters - something you would have thought Sony might have considered

A friend of mine picked up a D800 minty on eBay for £600 - there are plenty of deals out there on all the mounts if look around. Bodies and lenses - if you know what to look for ;-) Buying new gear seems like a waste
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by classiccameras »

Being a bit of a Jpeg freak, I have always had an interest in Fuji, some good prices on E Bay, but to my knowledge, no third party lenses or are there. The size of the XT-10 is bigger than the Olympus EM-10 and less fiddly to use up at the eye.
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Re: Future of A mount

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If you go back to the film cameras, we observed the same stagnation of the market. What was required for a normal photography? Just a reliable camera with a minimum of automation and good optics with two, three removable lenses. I had at that time a very old Praktica FX2. The FX2 Praktica with a native Zeiss 50 mm, 85 mm portrait and MTO 500 telephoto. The charm of this camera was in unkillable reliability and fully metal gears. Even the thought was not to buy something new with automation. I had as well very old 6x9 Zeiss camera and some others too.
 And now, I absolutely do not see any sense in acquiring the E format. Practically everything that is necessary is already in A format. Camera's size - this is very doubtful, all comparisons have already been shown, with the E format plus optics with the same optics even bigger or the same. (I tried a7** + adapter + telezoom). Since I’m shooting a lot from 24-70 and 80-200, I’m not surely want a small camera with such large lenses.
I'm more and more looking for some phones with Leiсa lenses (HUAWEI P30 or P20 pro) or Zeiss (NOKIA 9), but so far I have nice Xiaomi phone with very good camera. :)
Last edited by ValeryD on Sun Aug 04, 2019 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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classiccameras
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Re: Future of A mount

Unread post by classiccameras »

I have no interest in E mount, As Barry said, Sony have swamped the market with too many A7 bodies, I tried a A6000 for a while but the balance and handling were pretty awful when fitted with a big zoom or tele, As one cryptic comment was made on a a photographic site, Fit a big zoom or tele to the 6000 body and it looks like a Visa Debit card glued to the end of a beer can, so I got rid of the that pretty quick and went back to my trusted A-37. Now the only Sony I have is the Sony HS90 V compact which I use on holidays
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