DPReview, the soon to be shuttered photography website has an in-depth interview with Sigma CEO Kazoo Tamaki. In this interview he talks about the need for special lenses, importance of cameras and what makes his company so special. What caught my eye were his observations about the impact of computational photography and the rise of camera phones.
The technology that has impressed me the most is computational photography. The image quality from smartphones has improved drastically over the past several years, mainly due to computational photography. I’m amazed. This might change imaging technology. Camera and lens manufacturers need to learn something from it. Of course, we shouldn’t just copy the technology because we have much better hardware: bigger and better sensors, and better optics. But that kind of software is very powerful.
I believe they [the camera manufacturers] recognize the importance of computational photography. Still, as a camera and lens manufacturer, I feel we need to satisfy the very serious photographers and the history of photography culture. We don’t need to satisfy customers who just want to play with images or want a cartoon look. We have to follow the tradition of photography. People have been pursuing better picture quality in photography for over 150 years, right? So we have to respect the photo culture. But if there’s technology we can use to enhance picture quality that can also contribute to photography culture, why not? We should use it.
My takeaway from his comments was pretty simple: the camera industry is caught in the classic innovator’s dilemma. If they were smart, and if they could move faster, as an industry, they could try and embrace the change. They have bigger devices, historical knowledge, and the ability to combine the old with the new. But will they be able to? I don’t think so — the reason is simple: they just don’t have the money. The phone guys keep pouring so much money into their camera technologies — it is one of the few reasons why people really upgrade their phones — that traditional camera guys just can’t keep up.
As I wrote earlier:
The big four camera makers — Canon, Nikon, Fuji, and Sony — will be left fighting over scraps. Of the lot, Sony seems to be the best prepared to navigate the choppy waters. And it won’t be because of its camera sales — it is because of its photography focussed component business. Sony makes sensors for everyone, including the standalone camera’s biggest nemesis: the smartphone (and specifically, the iPhone).
The camera industry is going to become an industry of niches. The likes of Leica, Hasselblad, and PhaseOne will have a lucrative, albeit the smaller, higher end of the market made up of brand loyalists and those in need of specialized devices. Others will depend on working professionals — wedding, sports, and event photographers — to keep the home fires burning. And that isn’t that big a market. It will be a bruising battle for the enthusiasts who like landscape, urban, and wildlife photography.
It is getting tighter for the high-end niche as well. Hasselblad can’t keep up with Fuji and is said to be on a slippery slope. PhaseOne, now with a new private equity owner, is focusing on more lucrative non-consumer markets and has spun out its software business as a separate company called Capture One. Leica remains — because it has a loyal audience and a very determined majority owner.
The reality is today, a camera is no longer a camera. On smartphones, it is a lot more than that. Tamaki himself knows that, as he hints later in the interview.
Internet and social media, and of course, digital imaging. These technologies have changed the way we enjoy photography and share images. As a result of these technologies, we started using images for communication. During the film era, we used photography for things like recording family events, history, or art. In the past 25 years, we’ve started using photos and videos for communication.
Even as a purist photographer who lugs around his Leica, I think the future of photography is more than just a photo. In 2018, I pointed out that:
In ten years, even the art prints will be digital, locked down by blockchain, and displayed on screens of different sizes. I have two Aura frames at home, and they show all sort of photos of family, friends and of moments that matter. Look around, and even in the real world, the screens are getting digital. The advertisements are digital and are on displays. That’s the new photo workflow and ecosystem. Peer into the future, it wouldn’t be long we are co-existing with augmented reality and world where screens and images have an entirely new meaning.
That said, it would be fun to interview Tamaki-san.
March 27, 2023. San Francisco
Previously:
- Standalone Camera Shot dead by the iPhone. March 2015
- Standalone camera losing its fight with the smartphone. September 2016
- Camera sales are falling rapidly. September 2019
- iPhone vs Camera: no contest: February 2021
Lots to unpack.
Photography as more than just a photo, but as a medium for communication. When I worked at IG this was something that was implicitly understood and explicitly incorporated into design decisions. Image based communication, while subject to misinterpretation (as is text or audio) transcends language and culture in ways that other mediums can’t. Memes are one example, TikTok dances another, and more subtly replicable (and replicated) types of photos, often tagged, i.e. #followmeto #lookinguparchitecture
The crossroads that camera makers find themselves at is a road that they’ve been on for some time. The point made by Tamaki-san about how to incorporate computational photography into cameras, and the reluctance by manufacturers to do so, is in equal measures understandable and baffling. Given the results yielded by combining computational photography with the limited optical capabilities of phones (OK, one of the main reasons is to account for those limitations) it’s tempting to think about what the combination of high-end optics, large sensors and computational photography would deliver.
Also understandable, but something of a shame, is the dearth of exploration by camera manufacturers of combining phones with cameras. Samsung did this with their Galaxy Camera and Galaxy NX, before they exited the dedicated camera business. Nikon made a half-hearted attempt with the Coolpix S800c. Panasonic had the CM1. Sony was perhaps the most experimental, with their QX line, which were “lens cameras” that combined large sensors with high-end lenses that communicated wirelessly with phones.
Sony still participates in the space with phones like the Xperia PRO-I. Lastly, and perhaps most intriguingly, was the Leica T (followed by the TL and TL-2), which is now also abandoned as Leica exited the APS-C segment. The Leica T and its successors were physically very slim, had a large sensor, and were built around a touchscreen interface, with limited physical controls (which could be customized) and were designed to work with both L-mount and M-mount lenses (they lacked good tools for manual focus, however). There were other notable attempts, including the Light L16 and the ill-fated Zeiss ZX1.
On the one hand, it feels like there’s the opportunity for camera makers to resume this type of experimentation, on the other they’re mostly facing harsh business realities that make it hard to do so and most importantly, there’s the (lack of) a consumer use-case (vs. phones) that hampered these experiments in the past.
Phones do many things well to very well and some things uniquely, while being more than good enough cameras for almost everyone, and skilled photographers can push them to create great photos.
Cameras, increasingly, are designed to cater to the needs of a shrinking group of people who buy standalone cameras, which means investment by camera makers into features that differentiate cameras from phones, catering to photography use-cases that phones can’t (yet).
Paradoxically, this makes cameras less general purpose and thus further shrinks their addressable market, compounding the already tough situation.
In my life as an investor, I met two companies that had each individually come-up with a proper solution – chipset, embedded OS with all sorts of connectivity and ability to interoperate with iOS, and Android. They got no traction with the camera makers even though it was start of the decline.
Interestingly, Leica tried to go for it with Model T and they didn’t really quite understand what a magical device they had on their hands. It was literally the perfect camera. With UWB and Bluetooth 5.0 it would have been a perfect connected camera. They could have used this as a springboard for a new camera experience. I argued with Leica folks quite a bit about it.
PS: I still have a QX in my hardware drawer.
That’s a shame re the companies you refer to, perhaps that little bit too early…
Agree re Leica T series. I owned a TL-2 on three different occasions – it was the first Leica I ever bought actually – for exactly this reason; so close…yet so far away. Also a shame that they’ve given up on it.
Also have a QX-100 floating around somewhere!
I still use TL2 as my travel camera. It is way easier to carry it as a backup camera and not have to deal with weight and big lenses. They did a really good job with it.
I am not quite sure that we all quite understand that photography is less about gear and technology. Instead it is all about the very action and experience itself.
Hi Om,
Couldn’t agree more. Manufacturers are barely beginning to scratch the surface of computational photography. And yes, innovator’s dilemna has hit them hard. They have been fighting a performance war for so long that they forgot that 95% of the market does not care about camera performance but is in photography for the enjoyment of a creative hobby. Payback has been very harsh, but deserved.
I see computational photography taking three directions :
(1) More performance, from the mainstream brands. We are seeing this in the transition from AF, to face-detect, to eye-detect, to animal-eye detect, to bird-eye-detect and probably a lot more to come in the same vein. Improving multishot stabilization comes to mind. This has been hugely beneficial to a type of photographer, and will continue to be, though only to a minority.
(2) Done for you photography. Already, we are seeing Samsung phones replacing a burnt out moon with a simulated moon, and post-processing apps that replace skies in a couple of clicks. This will no doubt come to cameras and will be very popular on Instagram.
(3) I would bet the third improvement will be more artistic. Here I’m thinking of creative profiling, such as what Pixii has done with the Monochrome mode, taken even further to capture the resurgence of analogue love without leaving the digital domain. I see a large market opening up here, for those who cannot be persuaded to go back to film, scanning, darkrooms … but want a much more involving experience than what phones and mainstream cameras offer.
There is a fourth, but I think most manufacturers have caught on to it : phone apps that allow to interface the camera with the smartphone ecosystem. Interestingly, this seems to be the domain of small, high quality cameras. Leica and Hasselbald both have such apps, and even small Pixii, again, are on the way. But I’m not sure this is worth talking about in the future tense, as I’d be surprised if all manufacturers didn’t have a great app in the near future.
Thanks for the very interesting post! Looking forward to more 🙂
Pascal
There is a lot of opportunity for companies like Pixii here as they need to go more on computational photography and less on the traditional stuff that camera people do. As I mention above, UWB/Bluetooth LE 5 and better/lower power WiFi means, the symbiosis of camera and phone can go quite far. Sadly, camera people don’t know how to think in “software” terms.
So true. We are witnessing a new shift. Mirrorless caused a major transformation in the industry. I believe AI and connectivity will cause another, too. Good for us, the consumers 🙂
Actually, I believe option n°3 corresponds to what Kazoo Tamaki refers to when he says “We don’t need to satisfy customers who just want to play with images or want a cartoon look. We have to follow the tradition of photography.”
Cheers
I think even people who play with images for a cartoon look start with a normal image 🙂