Point-and-shoot cameras had their obituary written a long time back. Today, the really capable camera phones have ensured that no one misses the point-and-shoot cameras.
So, is the camera market dead? Have mobiles taken over the habit of shooting pictures and now videos? Social media doesn’t need high resolution pictures or videos anyway, and that is where everyone shares their pictures.
Today, mobile phone cameras boast 50 megapixels resolution and the best standalone cameras are under 30 megapixels. So, logically as a consumer, there is no reason to buy a camera separately.
CAMERAS FIGHT BACK
But you cannot be more off the mark than this. The cameras have fought back, and it is the stuff that has the makings of a legendary fight-back. Today, what is the most expensive personal device that an individual owns? For a large set of people, it is a phone, but increasingly that device is a high-end DSLR camera.
A flagship highest-end mobile phone is upwards of a hundred thousand rupees. The flagship highest-end DSLR costs upwards of four hundred thousand rupees - that is almost four times the price of the best mobile phones, and there are no kidney jokes around the ownership of DSLRs.
Today, the DSLR market in India is a $ 1 billion market, growing at 6%. It is neither a small market nor is the growth any smaller. That the market has very few brands and lesser choices is helping the enthusiast make easier purchase choices.
So, what has made this possible?
Just two big reasons - one, driven by external factors and two, from smart understanding of opportunity by the brands. Pictures and videos are the best way to create memories. The advent of social media meant that people could get their small moments of fame recorded and shared on these social platforms.
The more people did that with the phone camera, more was the realization that the moment could have been captured better. They consumed the content from others and every time they saw better shot pictures or videos, the feeling of having missed the moment became sharper.
The trigger for exploring the category was not created by Canon or Nikon or Sony, the trigger was created by someone who had a DSLR. And this is when the output from these cameras do not carry a default picture branding, something that almost all phones hardcode into the images.
BRANDS SEE OPPORTUNITY
Camera brands were clever in using this desire and pushed the category. The very social media that may have had a negative impact on the ownership of cameras, became the trigger for the brands. The rising desire to explore wildlife and natural beauty, or take perfect food pictures, have made people want to own DSLRs.
There is a whole flock of tiger enthusiasts, bird photographers, nature explorers and Milky Way riders who are everyday making people seek out a DSLR camera. There are a lot of people out there who discuss RAM, processor and memory, and an equally large number who discuss full-frame and zoom capacity. Owning an inter-changeable lens DSLR is becoming cooler than owning that highest-end mobile handset.
(The author is Co-founder and CSO, Bang in the Middle)
