From Thom's camera-predictive article:
"2009 was also the year where DSLRs became video cameras for no particularly good reason. That's not to say that they aren't good video cameras--some of them are quite good at video. No, we're finally getting the impact of the newspaper craze of several years ago. You see, newspapers and news organizations buy large quantities of cameras at a time, which gets the makers interest. Back around the D2 generation, all those organizations thought that they needed to capture video, too. The goal was to send one person out into the field equipped with a camera, and that person would write the news story, take the still pictures, and capture video and interviews for the Web site. Call it Dreams of Productivity. Well, the makers listened. The engineers said it could be done, so it got the green light. And...well, the news organizations that asked for the capability are in deep financial difficulty and are finally starting to realize that it's a rare person that can do a quality written story, plus shoot quality stills and video all at once."
(Bolded by me.) Yes. I would be surprised if there are more than ten people on the planet who can do all those things really well. And such a talent is probably not very interested in working in a steady job as a journalist.
"What I'm not seeing from any major camera maker is a clarity of vision. They're busy grabbing at anything that looks like it might allow them to raise market share or product margin or both. Some of those things they grab at will turn out to be faux paths."
Faux paths! Hah! Beautiful.
5 comments:
Interesting article. He talks about cell phone cameras displacing point and shoot cameras in the market. I agree this is happening, but I have yet to see a good 5MP cell phone camera. One or two of the 3MP cell phone cameras are OK.
I think Canon or Nikon could make some money supplying decent camera assemblies to cell phone manufacturers. Wouldn't you rather have a cell phone with a Nikon camera?
I doubt this will happen, but I wish somebody would raise the quality of cell phone cameras somehow. I don't want optical zoom, just a lens and sensor that perform decently. Autofocus and white balance are important as well.
"Faux paths! Hah! Beautiful."
[heh] Yes, the French aren't the only ones who can mush their language -or another- something surrealistic by trying too hard to talk "hip".
You do realize he did it on purpose, næse pah?
Excellent pun.
Oh. Right.
Sorry, I tripped on that faux path.
Blame the weed, mon. I wasn't trippin' on purpose, honest!
I doubt there's ever been anyone who excelled to the same degree in more than one thing. Any great genius really has only one area where they display genius, even though they might have great ability in other areas.
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