Is Digital Camera / DSLR dead ?

puns

puns

Staff member
Super Mod
I have been travelling this last 1 year ( India & Abroad ) and noticed that people arent using physical cameras anymore. I remember couple of years back, if I am at a popular location, many would be having them in their hands, compact ones or dslr's with lenses.
But not any more.
I know the mobile phone cameras have improved a lot and the chinese phones are also decent for day photography.

Another one bites the dust or am I wrong ?
 
surely it wont be fully dead. there will be photography enthusiasts who still use pro cams, just the overall numbers will be dwindling.
 
Yeah I meant overall numbers. I hardly see people with it thesedays. Too much effort I guess compared to mobile phone. Obviouslly no comparison, but surprised how quickly it went away.
 
Compact P&S cams are surely on their death beds, except may be the niche high end ones. DSLRs on the other hand are quite popular. I can find that the DSLRs have become much more common nowadays, now that they are in the affordable range. Any weddings or functions, you can definitely see at least 4 or 5 amateur photographers with DSLRs. Maybe people find it cumbersome to carry around a lot, but it is definitely there and in fact thriving.
 
puns said:
Yeah I meant overall numbers. I hardly see people with it thesedays. Too much effort I guess compared to mobile phone. Obviouslly no comparison, but surprised how quickly it went away.
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In fact people are now shifting to DSLRs may be a new fad or the awareness towards real photography. They now want true colors real outputs. But yes phone cameras have improved a lot and the major most important feature is about compactness. Way easy to carry, low maintenance no hurry worry factor.
 
There are several factors in this scenario. Quite may people would click pictures to post them on social media which is mainly accessed from smartphones with 5-6" screen. Even when going through pics previously taken say from a trip or day out with family, viewing them over phone is very common and convenient. This set somewhat lower standard for sharpness/details in photo as people will not pixel peep every photo. Such standard is almost met with camera on phones where sensor size is nearly there (1/2.55" on Pixel 3) or better (1/1.7" on Mate 20 Pro) than that of typical P&S (1/2.3"). This warrants guaranteed death of market for P&S.

Coming to DSLRs, they are being replaced with mirrorless cameras which have sensor size same as DSLR but body size reduced to P&S. Sony is very popular and sort of leader with fitting full frame sensors in compact bodies. In near past, Nikon and Canon also jumped in this bandwagon of fitting full frame sensor in compact bodies with Nikon Z6/7 and Canon EOS R.

However, looking at trend of improving pictures with software on phone, I believe smartphones are going to eat more and more chunk of digital camera business though there would be one small bunch of folks who would stick to digital cameras.
 
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