Hope for the Future of Cameras

[Papa Tango]

We often wonder about what will be next in our cameras and lenses. For the most part, it seems like there is even more software. I love my XT because it resembles an old manual camera, but can go full HAL if needed.

The actual mechanical thing is what is left. Whatever could be done there? I have great hope for the future because bored engineers are doing real innovations that could be applied to things like bugs.

Sadly though, not the bugs in my last firmware update from Fuji:

 

[Mark Keefer]

My hope is that well built cameras that will last years and have professional capabilities will be sold at a price in the $2000 range. It seems cameras and lenses today are getting too expensive. And plastic prosumer cameras that will have failures in a few years, have moved up in price. I am thinking Canon here, for me to consider the modern equivalent of my 5D MKIV that sold for around $3200 years ago, today would be the R5 MKII. Today at B&H that camera with a kit lens is $5,400. Isn't that what Canons top of the line flagship used to sell for? Greedflation. Sorry I am not Daddy Warbucks.

Paying that is not happening. Of course, they still the 5D MKIV DSLR body for $1999. It is still a good camera and works with all my lenses. , My 5D MK IV has a lot of miles, I bought it when they first came out. It has traveled from Key West, Florida to Denali, Alaska and Maine to San Diego, crossed the USA over a dozen time in jets, cars, RVs and trains. I have photographed through 44 states and Canada. I can't imagine the shutter count. In the last year it has shown some wear. The sensor needs a good cleaning since dog beach in San Diego last year. A couple months ago the rubber ports cover fell off and last week the top of the Mode select knob broke while I was loading it in the car at my brothers. (My fault, carrying to much stuff on my shoulder with straps trying to open the car door. The mode is stuck on Manual, which is where it has been for years. I use no shutter priority or apertures priority and never full automatic, I am a photographer, not the camera. So, I make the decisions.

I am a full frame user, not saying crop sensors are bad, I used them for years. I did pick up a Sony A7RIII years ago selling off my old 7D and 40D and 6D and some old lenses. That with some money I made doing some shoots got the camera body and a Metabones Canon lens to Sony Body adaptor. That camera while small and is a serious learning curve with complicated menus and learning what works and what doesn't, depending on what features you have toggled on or off, can take amazing photos.

The A7RIII does have drawbacks. I have never own a camera that is so prone to dust on the sensor. And you really don't know there is dust there until you download the images in post sometimes.

So my Canon is my go to rig. My options now, is to send it back to Canon for a professional cleaning, repair the dial and a sticky button, ok stiff shutter dial, replace the port cover and I probably should have a new shutter as the one on there is high mileage. Not sure what all that would run, but I am guessing over $500.

I do sometimes look at other brands, but being at my age, I am not ready to start over. Maybe a new 5D Mark IV.

For the future of cameras, i would like to see well built, well performing cameras built to handle daily use in all environments like extreme cold to extreme hot, able to survive a war zone, with all the pro features for hooking up flashes, computers, multiple cards...and I want it to be full frame, at least 40-60 megapixel and cost $2000 or less. Oh, and the ability to go manual on aperture setting would be nice. Autofocus, with lots of full cross focus point, eye tracking and face tracking would be nice. One more thing, be resistant to dust on the sensor.

All this and not have to go into the poorhouse to acquire that, and new lenses and batteries, and grips and filters and flashes....
Do the manufacturers consider perhaps professional camera sales have slumped in the decades possibly because they made the hobby something only rich people and well paid photographers can afford?

And no I am not buying a cheap plastic prosumer camera that will start having issues in 3 years and need you to toggle through menus to select features that should have a button on the camera to handle.

Am I asking a lot. Perhaps something that will not happen. I know. But that is where I would like the direction to go. Make a quality product that will last a life time and make it affordable.

 

[Ken Katz]

My hope is that well built cameras that will last years and have professional capabilities will be sold at a price in the $2000 range. It seems cameras and lenses today are getting too expensive. And plastic prosumer cameras that will have failures in a few years, have moved up in price. I am thinking Canon here, for me to consider the modern equivalent of my 5D MKIV that sold for around $3200 years ago, today would be the R5 MKII. Today at B&H that camera with a kit lens is $5,400. Isn't that what Canons top of the line flagship used to sell for? Greedflation. Sorry I am not Daddy Warbucks.

Paying that is not happening. Of course, they still the 5D MKIV DSLR body for $1999. It is still a good camera and works with all my lenses. , My 5D MK IV has a lot of miles, I bought it when they first came out. It has traveled from Key West, Florida to Denali, Alaska and Maine to San Diego, crossed the USA over a dozen time in jets, cars, RVs and trains. I have photographed through 44 states and Canada. I can't imagine the shutter count. In the last year it has shown some wear. The sensor needs a good cleaning since dog beach in San Diego last year. A couple months ago the rubber ports cover fell off and last week the top of the Mode select knob broke while I was loading it in the car at my brothers. (My fault, carrying to much stuff on my shoulder with straps trying to open the car door. The mode is stuck on Manual, which is where it has been for years. I use no shutter priority or apertures priority and never full automatic, I am a photographer, not the camera. So, I make the decisions.

I am a full frame user, not saying crop sensors are bad, I used them for years. I did pick up a Sony A7RIII years ago selling off my old 7D and 40D and 6D and some old lenses. That with some money I made doing some shoots got the camera body and a Metabones Canon lens to Sony Body adaptor. That camera while small and is a serious learning curve with complicated menus and learning what works and what doesn't, depending on what features you have toggled on or off, can take amazing photos.

The A7RIII does have drawbacks. I have never own a camera that is so prone to dust on the sensor. And you really don't know there is dust there until you download the images in post sometimes.

So my Canon is my go to rig. My options now, is to send it back to Canon for a professional cleaning, repair the dial and a sticky button, ok stiff shutter dial, replace the port cover and I probably should have a new shutter as the one on there is high mileage. Not sure what all that would run, but I am guessing over $500.

I do sometimes look at other brands, but being at my age, I am not ready to start over. Maybe a new 5D Mark IV.

For the future of cameras, i would like to see well built, well performing cameras built to handle daily use in all environments like extreme cold to extreme hot, able to survive a war zone, with all the pro features for hooking up flashes, computers, multiple cards...and I want it to be full frame, at least 40-60 megapixel and cost $2000 or less. Oh, and the ability to go manual on aperture setting would be nice. Autofocus, with lots of full cross focus point, eye tracking and face tracking would be nice. One more thing, be resistant to dust on the sensor.

All this and not have to go into the poorhouse to acquire that, and new lenses and batteries, and grips and filters and flashes....
Do the manufacturers consider perhaps professional camera sales have slumped in the decades possibly because they made the hobby something only rich people and well paid photographers can afford?

And no I am not buying a cheap plastic prosumer camera that will start having issues in 3 years and need you to toggle through menus to select features that should have a button on the camera to handle.

Am I asking a lot. Perhaps something that will not happen. I know. But that is where I would like the direction to go. Make a quality product that will last a life time and make it affordable.

Your 5D iv and EF lenses still have a whole lot of milage remaining, but I don't believe the current R5ii launch price represents greed, but is certainly at a price to generate a good ROI. According to Wikipedia (who is never wrong of course), the 5Div launch price in 2016 was $3,499, so with accumulative inflation of 31%, at todays prices that would be about $4,585, which is somewhat higher than the R5ii launch price of $4,299. It is more about $900 more than the Nikon Z8 which is its closest competitor, which was launched over a year ago at a price around $4,000. Used and refurbished R5's seems to be priced in $2,200 - 2,400 range, so given its capabilities, it seems to hit your requirements. FF users have absolutely great options available, with 4+ companies that make really good stuff, but no one is currently making anything with a mirror. Us poor crop sensor users get the short end of the stick from the big 3 camera companies, with Fuji the only option with a stable future, and who knows where M43 is going.

 

[Papa Tango]

There is nothing quite like the feel of an all-metal camera. The only exception to this for me was my brick of an Argus C3...

IIRC, Minolta started going to plastics beginning with the Maxxum series in the 80s. It was a nice camera, but felt really cheap. And the lens was really cheap. Konica vomited out something very Hong Kong toy horrid, and Canon followed up with plastic EOS/Rebel iterations. Add ergonomics to it, and one has a plastic blimp... The attractiveness of the Fuji XT offerings has been the opposite, as with other mirrorless brands. With Fuji it's a return to classic lines and knobs. Otherwise, it's pretty much electronics and software like every other offering.

Shutters have been a huge transition over the years. From cloth curtains to blades, rolling shutters, and now Nikon offers a new system. If one looks at the gamut of physical forms, there is not much left. More of that ergo stuff I suppose. After all these years, I am still trying to figure out who this 'average' person is that all of the hubbub is about. Much of it has not been what I consider friendly or very useful. YMMV...

I cannot speak for FF bodies. My experience is all APS-C. I find that a majority of the mirrorless brands today are metal, utilitarian, and unless the firmware belches or a tiny tiny SMC chinamart capacitor fails--these bodies will last a long time. However, I certainly do not expect them to outlast my Canon A-1s.

$2000 is not too far off the mark, and for something besides a basic OEM kit lens or a third-party lens will cost another $500 at the very least. And because virtually none of them have built-in flash units, add the cost of a dedicated flash. Expensive? I know people who spend $1500 or more each year upgrading their phones...

 

[Mark Keefer]

I do like a metal camera. Interesting I have a Canon Camera from the mid 1960's that still works. 60 years old. I wonder how well my 5D MKIV and A7R3 will be working in the year 2077. Well possibly better than I will be unless I find the fountain of youth. And the price of a pro camera by then with inflation of 32% every 8 years, so over 60 years that will be 240% so a 2077 the R5 MK IIX camera will run about $12,000. lol. Oh I hope Social Security and my IRA returns can keep up. Trying not to wear my grumpy old man hat today.