CIPA November 2024: The Rise of the Compact

[OldDudePhotog]

You’re saying that in California no- one can buy any model of ICE car and those owning them already can’t buy any sort of insurance for them so have to send them to the scrap heap as of their next insurance renewal date? I find that hard to believe.

By 2035 all new cars sold in california must be zero-emissions vehicles. This is only the first step in their overall plans, I am confident the remaining changes that you've described to more or less be rolled out by 2045. You can read about it here. While they do not specifically describe not being able to insure them, they are talking about banning the operations of them, to which blocking insuring them is a likely enforcement mechanism. You can read about it here.

Governor Newsom Announces California Will Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Cars & Drastically Reduce Demand for Fossil Fuel in California’s Fight Against Climate Change | Governor of California

Executive order directs state to require that, by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero-emission vehicles Transportation currently accounts for more than 50 percent of…

www.gov.ca.gov

I do think we should refrain from straying too far off topic however.

 

[Richard CN]

You’re saying that in California no- one can buy any model of ICE car and those owning them already can’t buy any sort of insurance for them so have to send them to the scrap heap as of their next insurance renewal date? I find that hard to believe.

Major derail, but most of the world is going away from ICE cars, so sooner or later, the USA will too, by nature of wanting their auto industry to compete on the world stage, assuming they ever get over their fear of BYD and friends. In the late 2030's there's no country in the world that will want an exported ICE car anymore.

I believe one tech giant once said, adapt or die.

 

[Richard CN]

They are producing things new. Problem is the company that manufactures the most and has the largest market share refuses to manufacture a compact humpless camera. Yep they goofed up. Canon for once completely misread the market. All the noise about "It has no EVF" drowned out reality. The M6mk II. Never got replaced. Sony's has been allowed to go uncontested and their prices are, well, typical of Sony.

it's a weird flub. I think there has to be politics involved somehow in this, more than just a market misread. they went hard into the camera - as a - life style - item, only to totally move away from that with the RF system.

 

[CJaurelius]

The "rise" of the digital compact is mostly a trend which is why manufactures who aren't currently making them are hesitant to jump in for fear the trend will be over by the time they reach the market with sufficent supply.

I would lump these compacts into two groups. The first group is the Fuji X100 craze where you have essentially a decent mirrorless camera with a built in lens and retro styleing. You can easily get the same or better quality from another camera but the ease up use and cool factor of the retro stying are the main appeal.

The other group are cheap compacts that are essentially outdated and give a retro look to the image as an alternative to the younger generation that has grown up with ultra processed smartphone pics.

In both cases they are fads in that the goal is either a retro look to the camera or a retro look to the image.

Panasonic tried to chase the latter market with the S9 with its lut capabilities, which is essentiall a rebranding of Fuji's film simulations, which is essentially a rebranding of a filter.

Also keep in mind we aren't exclusively talking about "compact" cameras. Cipa tracks mirrorless, dslr and "fixed lens" cameras. The fuji X100VI is a mirrorless camera with a fixed lens so it fits in this categor but it's larger than Canon/Sony mirrorless cameras with lenses you can change. That would be like putting a pancake lens on an R100 and calling it a "compact" instead of a mirrorless.

If you moved the sales of just that one camera from fixed lens (compact) to mirrorless where it belongs then sales of this category would likely be flat.

 

[CJaurelius]

By 2035 all new cars sold in california must be zero-emissions vehicles. This is only the first step in their overall plans, I am confident the remaining changes that you've described to more or less be rolled out by 2045. You can read about it here. While they do not specifically describe not being able to insure them, they are talking about banning the operations of them, to which blocking insuring them is a likely enforcement mechanism. You can read about it here.

Governor Newsom Announces California Will Phase Out Gasoline-Powered Cars & Drastically Reduce Demand for Fossil Fuel in California’s Fight Against Climate Change | Governor of California

Executive order directs state to require that, by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero-emission vehicles Transportation currently accounts for more than 50 percent of…

www.gov.ca.gov

I do think we should refrain from straying too far off topic however.

The problem here is that you are putting the government of one state on an equal footing as needs/wants of the market. The government in California passed these laws because they believe they are signaling to what their voters want. The whims of the government can change on a dime. What happens in 10 years if the winds are blowing in the other direction. They can simply change the laws. You posted a link to an article that essentially references an "executive order'". Any new Governor came simply reverse this executive order with a new executive order.

The push behind EV's in California is to signal to voters about climate change. Political positions aren't always factual ones. In a country like America the advantage of EV's on the environment aren't as advantagous. For one you have the production of the lithium batters which is clearly bad for the environment. EV's make up for this disadvantage by generating less omissions during the lifecylcle of the vehicle. However they still need to charge. So in America where our grid is primarily powered by fossil fuels, EV's here are essentially still being powered by fossil fuels and accounting for tons of omissions. In a country like Norway where they power their grid mostly from hydropower the calculation is different. But California isn't in Norway.

And California is known for power outages. Now imagine what happens if every ICE is replaced with an EV that needs that same blackout prone powergrid to charge.

EV's are about 6% of all new vehicles sold and less than 1% of all registered vehicles. They no doubt will increase in sales but they aren't going to be a majority of vehicles in Amearica anytime soon. And when it does happen it will likely be dictated by the market and not the government. If gas was $10/gal we'd see a lot more EV's real fast. If gas drops to $2/gal the appetite for EV's will dwindle.

 

[alFR]

By 2035 all new cars sold in california must be zero-emissions vehicles. This is only the first step in their overall plans, I am confident the remaining changes that you've described to more or less be rolled out by 2045. You can read about it here. While they do not specifically describe not being able to insure them, they are talking about banning the operations of them, to which blocking insuring them is a likely enforcement mechanism.

I wouldn't call phasing ICE out by 2045 "soon" (which is what GMC was suggesting) and aiming to prevent operation of ICE cars by 10 years after the last one was sold is a bit different to banning them with immediate effect.

Major derail, but most of the world is going away from ICE cars, so sooner or later, the USA will too, by nature of wanting their auto industry to compete on the world stage, assuming they ever get over their fear of BYD and friends. In the late 2030's there's no country in the world that will want an exported ICE car anymore.

I believe one tech giant once said, adapt or die.

Agreed. It's 100% not going to happen overnight though, there is too much rolling stock of ICE cars out there for that to happen.


Anyway, back to the cameras.

 

[Juppeck]

Good luck with that, any government that brought that in would be summarily voted out at the next election. It'll be decades until the last ICE cars are off the road.

But this is not valid for the DSLR. The Vendor has decide to drop DSLR as soon as possible because they don't wont to spend development capacity into them.
An hand on your heart, if you have a choice , who would you decide for? DSLM or DSLR?
For me personaly, the DSLM with an EVF is that i need and i don't want to miss them for macro photos. But i don't had payed for RF-Optics yet. All my lenses are premium EF-L or Sigma Art. They do a very good job at an R / R5 with the canon adapter. Especialy Canon has decide to be an expensive vendor. They had closed the technology gap between the competitioners like Nikon or Sony.
Some people are gets sleepless if they don't own the newest model. I am sure that they are the one who boost the buesiness of Canon (and others).
Back to the compakt's. I don't want to have such device. I also don't knwo anyone who is interessting in that. I thing that the japanese customers are different in her interessts and behavior. They are not comparable with europeans or nord americans. Japanese like it if a device comes with a lot of toys who blinks and got a bunch of knobs where they can play with it. They taste and play with such things.
I don't want to have more elements on a device as it required for the job. I like the comfort of the body size and weight. Why should i am interessting in a smaller system? I had payed a lot of money to get the FF Systems. I would not pay for a downscale like the compact systems. The EOS R is a fine and very tiny body. With a 16-35 or 50mm lense it is very compact and light weight. Don't need any other...

 

[neuroanatomist]

An hand on your heart, if you have a choice , who would you decide for? DSLM or DSLR?
For me personaly, the DSLM with an EVF is that i need and i don't want to miss them for macro photos.

Hand on wallet, which would you decide? MILC with an average selling cost of $760, or DLSR with an average selling cost of $300?

For me personally, I have plenty of money and have several mirrorless cameras (FF and APS-C) and native lenses for them. But for many people, a DLSR remains a much more affordable option. That's why ~15% of cameras shipped last year were DSLRs.

 

[rombe3jr]

What do we always want more of from a camera? Smaller + More zoom range + Better low light + Convenience. The package doesn't really matter. It is interesting how well APSC cameras have been selling in Japan. It is telling that people will sacrifice some low light capability (of full frame) for more compact (APSC). Maybe toss in some cost savings as well. But the point and shoot wave reinforces that people are prioritizing smaller size and convenience (it is rather inconvenient to change lenses). And its also interesting that there's a market for point and shoot when cell phone cameras are getting so good. But that probably comes down to zoom range, because a long focal length is basically the only thing that cell phones suck at and probably will for some time. The ultimate invention is a compact zoom with a low constant aperture. What all the big camera brands should be learning from this is that they need to miniaturize their best lenses. People don't really care about "full frame" vs "crop sensor" if the images are good. But people care about size.

 

[CJaurelius]

Hand on wallet, which would you decide? MILC with an average selling cost of $760, or DLSR with an average selling cost of $300?

That's not a fair comparison. They make more high end MILC's which is why the average is higher. If you narrown down specs prices for similar specs aran't that drastically different.

For me personally, I have plenty of money and have several mirrorless cameras (FF and APS-C) and native lenses for them. But for many people, a DLSR remains a much more affordable option. That's why ~15% of cameras shipped last year were DSLRs.

They wre 15% of sales in 2023, but they were 23% of sales in 2022 and 27% of sales in 2021. They'll probably be around 13% of sales in 2024. It seems likely they'll be all but gone in a few years.

 

[CJaurelius]

Back to the compakt's. I don't want to have such device. I also don't knwo anyone who is interessting in that. I thing that the japanese customers are different in her interessts and behavior. They are not comparable with europeans or nord americans. Japanese like it if a device comes with a lot of toys who blinks and got a bunch of knobs where they can play with it. They taste and play with such things.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. The European market buys just as many compact cameras as the Japanese market. In fact in the Cipa's latest numbers there were more compacts shipped to Europe than Japan.

I don't want to have more elements on a device as it required for the job. I like the comfort of the body size and weight. Why should i am interessting in a smaller system? I had payed a lot of money to get the FF Systems. I would not pay for a downscale like the compact systems. The EOS R is a fine and very tiny body. With a 16-35 or 50mm lense it is very compact and light weight. Don't need any other...

As I mentioned before the goal of these cameras isn't image quality.

 

[CJaurelius]

What do we always want more of from a camera? Smaller + More zoom range + Better low light + Convenience. The package doesn't really matter. It is interesting how well APSC cameras have been selling in Japan. It is telling that people will sacrifice some low light capability (of full frame) for more compact (APSC). Maybe toss in some cost savings as well.

Most of the people I know who shoot apsc do so because of price. You can get full frame cameras that are the same size as apsc's these days.

But the point and shoot wave reinforces that people are prioritizing smaller size and convenience (it is rather inconvenient to change lenses). And its also interesting that there's a market for point and shoot when cell phone cameras are getting so good. But that probably comes down to zoom range, because a long focal length is basically the only thing that cell phones suck at and probably will for some time. The ultimate invention is a compact zoom with a low constant aperture. What all the big camera brands should be learning from this is that they need to miniaturize their best lenses. People don't really care about "full frame" vs "crop sensor" if the images are good. But people care about size.

Again, on of the best sellers is the Fuji X100VI and it's not compact, it just has a fixed lens. It's selling point is the cool facter of being the "it" retro camera and the film simulations (aka baked in filters).

Younger people aren't buying these cameras because they're small. You can find tons of apsc cameras that are just as small. They're buying them because they want to take pictures that look old and retro and not like the ultra processed smartphone pics that they've grown up with.

These kids aren't photographers and they don't want to be. They don't want to have to buy a camera that has great image quality and then have to go through extra steps to make it look old. They want to just snap the pic and it have the look they want.

The experienced photography folks like the ones on this forum are not the consumers for these cameras. People who are concerened about low light, constant aperture, etc aren't the ones buying these cameras.

 

[rombe3jr]

Most of the people I know who shoot apsc do so because of price. You can get full frame cameras that are the same size as apsc's these days.



Again, on of the best sellers is the Fuji X100VI and it's not compact, it just has a fixed lens. It's selling point is the cool facter of being the "it" retro camera and the film simulations (aka baked in filters).

Younger people aren't buying these cameras because they're small. You can find tons of apsc cameras that are just as small. They're buying them because they want to take pictures that look old and retro and not like the ultra processed smartphone pics that they've grown up with.

These kids aren't photographers and they don't want to be. They don't want to have to buy a camera that has great image quality and then have to go through extra steps to make it look old. They want to just snap the pic and it have the look they want.

The experienced photography folks like the ones on this forum are not the consumers for these cameras. People who are concerened about low light, constant aperture, etc aren't the ones buying these cameras.

Interesting phenomenon happening with the "young folk." I wonder if this trend of wanting Fujifilm image quality baked in without editing will change again... perhaps to some different "look?"

 

[EOS 4 Life]

You can get full frame cameras that are the same size as apsc's these days.

Not quite.
APS-C lenses are also much smaller.
Since I already have full-frame, the only thing attracting me to APS-C is size.