Roger's Corner

Disruption and Innovation

Published February 9, 2014

This is a long article, meant to be read at your leisure. 

You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.       Bob Dylan

Technology changes tend to be of two types: incremental improvements or disruptive innovations. Incremental improvements allow one manufacturer to take market share from another and give fanboys fuel for internet forums. Disruptive innovations may create a million new customers. Or make a million potential customers leave for some new hobby or way of doing things.

People love incremental improvements but often dislike disruptive innovations at first. Disruption causes major changes and can be threatening. It may be several generations before the new technology is clearly superior to what already exists. But eventually the disruptive innovation has a huge effect on the market. It causes some existing manufacturers to fail, others to flourish, and creates brand new manufacturers nearly overnight. 

 

A decade ago, some of these manufacturers were imaging mainstream, some were just about like they are today, and some didn’t even make cameras.

 

By my definitions, the D800 is a good example of a strong incremental innovation. Some photographers changed (or added) brands to shoot the D800. Nikon increased their high-end SLR sales for a while. But the SLR market as a whole didn’t change because of it. Nikon did a little better for a while, other manufacturers did a little worse, but there weren’t any massive changes.

Cell phone cameras and social media were certainly a disruptive innovation. Depending upon your point of view, they’ve either cut the photography market severely or increased it amazingly. If you are a point-and-shoot manufacturer, the photography market is disappearing. If you own Instagram or Facebook, it’s growing phenomenally.

For over a decade, now, the photography market has had one incremental improvement after another: increased pixel density, better high ISO performance, improved autofocus, and sharper lenses. But I think there’s more disruption going on right now than simply cell phone cameras.

Most people, though, don’t realize what a disruptive innovation first looks like. They expect a burning bush of technological triumph that is instantly recognized as the next great thing. Historically, that’s not what a new disruptive innovation looks like at all.

What Disruptive Technology Looks Like

It’s Often the Tortoise, not the Hare

A new technology developed and introduced by company A often makes a fortune two years later for company B. The first home video recorder was introduced by the Nottingham Electric Valve Company in 1963. Avco introduced Cartivision, the video recorder that first allowed you to rent major motion pictures to play in your home, way back in 1972. 

But it was Sony and JVC that became hugely successful with home video recorders, and Blockbuster that made a fortune renting videos. This pattern, that the company introducing the technology is often not the one that makes it successful is fairly frequent. Looking back, though, we don’t notice it. Most people think of the early days of video recorders as a battle between Beta and VHS. 

 

Nottingham’s Telcan set-top video recorder. Original source unknown.

 

Disruption Doesn’t Occur Immediately

There’s often a long delay between the introduction of a disruptive technology and it’s wide acceptance. In the example above, JVC and Sony made a fortune with video recorders, but not until a full decade after the Telcan was introduced. Blockbuster rented its first videos a decade after Avco’s Cartivision.

Often this is because the new technology comes in an unacceptable package. Nottingham Electric’s Telcan was a reel-to-reel system that recorded only 15 to 20 minutes of black-and-white video. Avco’s rentals took several days to arrive and the cartridges were rewind-disabled – you got to view the movie once, and only once. Can you believe a manufacturer would go to the trouble of disabling a feature to try to increase sales?

 The pattern is repeated frequently. Xerox originated the computer mouse and graphical user interface and used it on its Alto computers and Star workstations in the 1970s. Apple turned it into the successful McIntosh nearly a decade later. Microsoft turned that into the more successful Windows.

Disruption Isn’t Recognized at First

A disruptive technology, being different, less polished, and geared towards a new marketplace is often disregarded at first. Those invested in the status quo often ridicule it. When graphical-user-interface computers were introduced, existing computer users laughed at them. Who in the world would want a computer you couldn’t program yourself? The people buying them shouldn’t be allowed to have a computer. They didn’t even know how to operate a command-line interface.

When George Eastman mass produced dry plate film in 1878, most photographers thought it useless. Any photographer worth his lens made his own wet plates, developed them, and printed them. When Lewis Carroll first saw dry plates, he spoke for most professional photographers when he said, “Here comes the rabble.” Within a decade, film dominated photography, not because existing professionals flocked to it, but because so many new photographers entered the field that a wet-plate photographer couldn’t compete.

My point is that when looking at innovative and disruptive technologies, we should realize three things: The introduction doesn’t always shake up the market. That usually comes later. The introducing company isn’t always the one that succeeds with the new technology. Many people invested in the market’s status quo either don’t recognize a disruptive technology, or despise it.

Disruptive Photography Innovations

The collodion process, dry-plate film, roll film, 35mm film, rangefinders, SLRs and a dozen other disruptive innovations all rocked the market place. Each increased the number of people who considered themselves photographers. During each innovation, existing photographers dismissed the new innovations as ruining their art. Some companies thrived with change while others missed the boat completely.

Autofocus is a fairly recent example that followed the usual pattern. Leica originally developed phase-detection autofocus in the 1960s (1). They didn’t see much use for it and sold it to Honeywell. Minolta used it on a point-and-shoot camera in 1977. During the 1970s a number of alternative autofocus methods, including sonar and infrared detection were tried. Pentax came out with the first camera to use a separate autofocus sensor illuminated by a sub mirror, the ME-F, in 1981. It was slow and inaccurate and never caught on.

 

Pentax ME-F with autofocus 35-70mm zoom lens. The bulge below the lens held the AA batteries that drove the AF motor. Image credit ZanderZ via Creative Commons.

 

Nikon released the F3AF with phase detection autofocus in 1983. While the manual focus F3 was a smashing success, the F3AF was not. If you can find one at a garage sale you’ll do very well on eBay.

 

Nikon F3AF. Image Frank Gosebruch through creative commons share.

 

Real photographers laughed at all of this the clumsy technology in the early 1980s. It was obvious that autofocus would never be fast enough for something like sports, where the subject was moving. Only manual focus and a skilled photographer could possibly capture action images.

The first camera to hugely succeed with phase detection autofocus was the Minolta Maxxum 7000 released in 1985. For a short time, Minolta was king, but Nikon, Canon, and Pentax followed with phase detection autofocus cameras in the mid and late 1980s. By the 1990s companies who made 35mm cameras without phase detection were mostly going bankrupt. 

Digital is another good example. You probably know Kodak developed the first digital camera and released the first digital SLR, the DCS 100, back in 1991. Based on a Nikon F3 body with a Kodak external storage unit, it sold for $13,000 and provided a whopping 1.3 megapixel image. It wasn’t a huge success.

 

Kodak DCS100 system. Image courtesy Frank Gosebruch via Creative Commons.

 

Minolta also introduced the first portable digital SLR back in 1995. The RD 175 used 3 CCDs and interpolated the images in-camera to yield a 1.75-megapixel image. Canon and Nikon introduced the first really successful digital cameras a few years later, a full decade after the Kodak DCS was introduced.

 

Minolta RD 175. Image distributed freely under CeCILL.

 

Photographers of the late 1990s, of course, talked loudly and often about how digital images could never replace the performance and resolution of film. Those digital things might be fine for vacation snapshots, but not for a professional photographer or serious amateur.

The transition to digital was truly disruptive. Some manufacturers thrived during the digital transition. Minolta, despite releasing the first good autofocus SLR and the first portable digital SLR, wasn’t one of them. Bronica, Contax, Kodak, and Polaroid were also left behind. Canon and Nikon did very well. A few companies, like Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony entered the market for the first time.

Today’s Disruptive Photography Innovations

SLR shooters who started photography after 2000 haven’t noticed much in the way of disruptive innovations. CaNikon has steadily brought out enough incremental improvements to keep them dominant. Sure, there have been a number of technologies that were leaps rather than simple improvements: mirrorless cameras, foveon sensors, micro 4/3s format, fixed-lens, large sensor cameras, and others. None of them has really disrupted the marketplace — yet.

The Obvious Disruptive Innovation

I don’t think anyone will argue that cell phone cameras and social media disrupted the photography market. They came from outside the mainstream photography world, and attracted a new set of consumers to a new market.  Let’s call them picture-takers since most of us don’t consider them photographers. Call them whatever you want, but there are a lot of companies in the image hosting and online-printing worlds that call them a huge customer base.

The effect on the existing photography marketplace was mostly negative. Many point-and-shoot companies exited the imaging business. Others, like Fuji, Olympus, and Sony had to migrate to the more serious camera market. The disruption also affected Canon and Nikon. They can no longer get customers to buy their point and shoot cameras today, hoping they’ll migrate up to SLRs in a few years. Only one SLR manufacturer today is attracting a huge number of entry-level customers it might move up to serious cameras. That would be Samsung. 

Other Disruptive Innovations

If your first thought when you read one of these is ‘but it’s not as good as existing technology’, remember the examples above. Photographers laughed at autofocus because it was too slow and inaccurate. They laughed at digital because it could never resolve as well as film. They’re still laughing at cell phone cameras as useless toys — and then set down their SLR to take a cell phone picture they can upload immediately. 

Mirrorless technology

I know. Mirrorless isn’t growing in most of the world. Lens selection is still rather limited. Neither Canon nor Nikon are pushing their way in very hard. The initial reason for mirrorless, smaller more portable systems, appeals to only a subset of photographers.

I think that the disruptive effects on the marketplace are still in the future. I think it’s disruptive because a mirrorless camera is far simpler than an SLR camera. Simpler eventually means less expensive, more reliable, and quicker to change.

Compare a teardown of a mirrorless camera with an SLR.

  • The SLR has a complex electromechanical mirrorbox assembly. 
  • The SLR has a secondary mirror that must be perfectly aligned with the phase detection AF assembly.
  • The phase detection AF assembly must be electronically calibrated and mechanically aligned to the sensor, mirror and viewfinder. 

The mirrorbox assembly has a lot of mechanical, moving parts that a mirrorless camera doesn’t have. Mechanical, moving parts sometimes fail. The manufacturer has to include the cost of warranty repairs when they determine what price a camera should sell at.

As an added thought, once electronic shutters become adequate, a mirrorless camera would have no moving parts except for buttons and dials. Electronic shutters aren’t quite ready for prime time on CMOS sensors, but they are getting close.

Simpler design makes things easier to change and modify. When I disassembled the Sony A7r and saw the grip is held on by a single large screw, my first thought was how simple it would be to put the screw on the front of the grip, offer 3 grip sizes, and let the owner change grips to better fit their hand.

Most current mirrorless cameras have a short backfocus distance (the distance between the lens mount and the sensor), but that’s not necessary (the Pentax K-01 mirrorless camera had the same backfocus distance as their SLR cameras, and used the same lenses). Nikon or Canon could make a full-frame mirrorless camera with the same backfocus distance as their SLRs, which would let them use the entire existing lens lineup. 

I know that mirrorless technology hasn’t been disruptive yet, but I think it will become disruptive with further incremental improvements in two other technologies.

Improved Autofocus Technology

Autofocus technology has been incrementally improving for several years. Many of these autofocus improvements, like on-sensor phase detection, contrast-phase detection hybrid autofocus and improved contrast detection algorithms are steadily eliminating one of the major detractions from mirrorless cameras – that the autofocus is slow. 

Phase detection is also being improved, though, and that may keep SLR autofocus superior in some ways. Will contrast detection AF ever be as good as phase detection for sports or birds-in-flight? Perhaps not. But its definitely getting better and clearly is simpler, more accurate, more reliable, and less expensive.

It may be we’ll see ‘action photography’ cameras with 10 frames-per-second and phase detection AF as separate from ‘general-purpose’ cameras with 5 FPS, contrast or hybrid autofocus, and focus peaking for manual focus lenses. Some photographers will prefer one, some the other. Assuming the cameras use the same lens mount, a lot of people might own both.

Electronic Viewfinders

Electronic viewfinders aren’t quite up to optical viewfinder standards yet. But they are electronic devices that are improving noticeably with every generation. I assume they’ll be getting less expensive over time, too. Electronic devices do that. EVFs still have some disadvantages over optical, but they have some advantages, too, and the disadvantages are decreasing.

Third-party lenses

A second disruptive innovation, in my opinion, started around 2005 when Zeiss started marketing their very good lenses in SLR mounts. It may not seem like this was a big deal. After all, manual focus prime lenses aren’t the mainstay of many photographers’ kit. But it was a big deal. The very best lens at certain focal lengths were no longer always the manufacturer’s own lens. Now, Sigma, Tamron, Voigtlander, and Samyang, among others, make lenses that are nearly as good, and sometimes better, than the manufacturer’s lenses, and sell them at a lower price.

You may think ‘that’s not disruptive’. I think it is because it affects the existing SLR business model. Manufacturers didn’t mind selling SLRs at near-break even because they made money selling lenses. Now the camera companies are getting hit from both sides. They can’t attract young customers to their point-and-shoots because of cell phones. Their existing customers are less likely to by the manufacturer’s lenses.

You may not be buying them, but a lot of people are. I recently bought a Pentax K3 outfit. The only Pentax lens I bought along with it was the 300mm f/4. My other 3 Pentax mount lenses are third party. For my Canon 6D I have 3 Canon and 2 third-party lenses. It’s not just me, a recent poll on one of the major camera forums showed more Canon owners shot the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 than the Canon 35mm f/1.4.

A Couple of Other Changes

There are two more things that I think are going to change the camera market over the next couple of years. I’m not sure it’s appropriate to call them disruptive technologies. Maybe they’re disruptive techniques.

Modularity

This is a trend I’ve been noticing with certain brands. If you want to get a comparison with modular versus non-modular lenses, you can look at this teardown comparison of 24-70 f/2.8 lenses. For a look at a really modular camera, here’s a teardown of the Sony A7r. Basically a modular device quickly breaks down into a few major components, each of which can be further separated into individual parts. A non-modular device separates into lots of individual parts.

Why does it matter? For one thing it makes repairs amazingly simpler. The repair center, rather than stocking hundreds of parts for each lens and camera, may just stock a few modules and a few other parts. Inventory control for 1,000 spare shutter modules is a lot simpler (pronounced cheaper) than it would be to keep 200 to 1,000 each of the 22 parts that make up the shutter module.

Sure, the shutter module in the A7r costs more than the individual gear or capacitor that may be broken, but replacing the module takes 30 minutes compared to 2 hours to replace the gear and recalibrate the shutter. The labor and inventory savings more than offset the increased price of the module compared to the part.

Modularity can make upgrades and improvements easier and faster, and may allow some customization for cameras. Since I used the A7r as an example, lets pretend that some people don’t like the shutter. That probably means they will wait 18 months or two years to see if the next version of the camera has a better shutter. But with a modular design like this Sony could just call Copal, who makes the shutter module, get them to design a new shutter that fits in the existing space, and release an A7rS (for smoother, slower shutter) in a few months.

Or maybe some entrepreneur will figure out a way to put some shock-absorbing mounts on that shutter (its mounts are metal-to-metal now). Getting to that area in such a modular camera would be much simpler than in a standard SLR, so such a modification could be cost-effective. A new viewfinder, body shell, different grip, or different sensor would require only a new module, not a complete redesign.

Not everyone is going modular, at least not yet. Sony cameras particularly, and mirrorless cameras in general are getting more modular. SLRs are not. Newer Canon and Zeiss lenses are modular. Tamron and Sigma lenses are to a lesser degree. If anyone else’s lenses are more modular I haven’t noticed it.

Service and Repair

Factory service has changed a lot over the last two years. I deal with several thousand repairs per year so I notice these changes. Some of the changes I despise: forcing independent repair shops to close, refusing to sell parts, and finding excuses to not honor warranties. for example. Thirty-day turnaround times are awful, too.

But to every action, there’s a reaction. A number of companies decided that offering good service was a way to attract customers. Tamron, for example, offers a refurbished lens if they can’t fix your lens within 3 days. Sony has recently offered brand-new items as replacements when a part is on backorder.

There is one recent repair trend that I think is going to become more common: exchange repairs. You send the lens or camera in for repair. The company charges for the repair, but sends you a new or refurbished item in place of your broken one. The broken item gets sent to a central service center where it is either refurbished or broken down to component parts. Rokinon and Zeiss in the USA already do this for (as best I know) all repairs. Several other companies have started doing it for certain repairs. 

Exchange repair allows smaller companies to offer service as good or better as the huge companies. Canon and Nikon each have several factory service centers in the U. S. and dozens of other centers across the world. A smaller company can’t compete with that, but they can put an exchange center in every country and build one large service center to salvage parts and refurbish items.  Exchange is quick and simple and most people I’ve talked to prefer it. 

Conclusion

History suggests two things pretty strongly. The first is that when change comes, people invested in the status quo (that would be us photographers when discussing the photography market) have a strong desire to deny it. Things have never been better. There is no need for change. And this is a stupid change that nobody would ever want. Well, nobody who is serious about photography would want it. 

For example, you may think the Sony A7r is a horrible camera: there are few available lenses, the shutter problem may be an issue, you might hate that it’s so small, or maybe hate the viewfinder. So, you dismiss it. Just like people dismissed phased detection AF on the first Pentax SLR, or digital imaging on the RD 175. Whether the A7r is successful or not has no more meaning than whether the Minolta RD175 was successful or not. Digital cameras took over anyway.

The second thing history suggests is that there’s no accurate way to guess which companies are going to thrive and which will fail during a time of disruption. If being first were a huge advantage, we’d all be shooting Minolta digital SLRs. If being the biggest or most profitable were a huge advantage, we’d all be shooting Kodak or Polaroid. Sometimes biggest is really a disadvantage. As they say, it takes a long time to turn a battleship. 

When the changes start rolling, though, they roll fast. Ask the video guys how many were shooting RED or Blackmagic cameras back in 2006. (The answer is none; there were no RED or Blackmagic cameras in 2006. Now they are everywhere.)

Is there a reason I use video cameras as an example in a photography article? Sure there is. Those two video cameras don’t need mirrorboxes, don’t use phase detection autofocus, are very modular, and can be purchased with different lens mounts. Which fits in nicely with my speculation. 

My Speculation

Full-frame mirrorless cameras are here, so that part isn’t speculation. The death of point-and-shoot cameras is already happening, so that’s not speculation, either. Let me speculate the following things also occur (a big assumption, but not a ridiculous one.)

  1. Either on-sensor phase detection or contrast detection autofocus becomes fast enough for most photographers (seems very likely).
  2. Modular designs become widespread (maybe, maybe not). 
  3. Electronic viewfinders become good enough for most photographers (seems very likely).
  4. Electronic shutters become a viable reality (likely, but maybe a few years away).
  5. Modularity and ‘exchange repairs’ make good service possible for even a startup company (it can if they want to). 
  6. Third-party lens manufacturers continue to make excellent optics at lower prices (seems certain). 

A sensor with contrast detection autofocus and an electronic shutter is very nearly a camera-on-a-chip. The sensor manufacturer could sell it to a dozen companies who each design their own camera around it. New camera brands might appear overnight.

A camera might be offered in various option packages. Different housings, an additional mechanical shutter for those that need it, an electronic viewfinder if you want it, or no viewfinder if you always shoot tethered in the studio. I order my computers online with a number of different options and get them 3 days later. I wouldn’t mind doing the same thing with my next camera.

If the AF system is contrast detection, then a manufacturer doesn’t have to worry about hundreds of phase detection AF algorithms for various lenses. Contrast detection is lens agnostic. Joe’s camera company might make the same camera available in Nikon F mount, Canon EOS mount, or Sony FE mount.

You can already do that with a RED camera. I serve as a lens consultant for a few well known photographers who shoot magazine spreads on RED Epics and Dragons for the simple reason that they can shoot Leica, Canon, or Nikon lenses with a simple mount change done in the field. They want to use the different lenses. They don’t want to remember the controls or have to match color differences on 3 different cameras.

Third-party lens makers seem to be in a very good position right now. It’s become apparent that they are making very high-quality glass at a price well below the major camera manufacturers. If part of that price difference is because the camera manufacturers have to price their lenses to support their camera sales, then the manufacturers have a major problem.

Two factors have historically held back enthusiasm about third-party lenses: inaccurate autofocus and poor service or quality control. Third-party service is now at least as good as the major manufacturers, if not better. A contrast detection based autofocus system is just as accurate with a third-party lens as it is with a manufacturer’s lens.

I certainly don’t know who will thrive and who will fail as things change. And I sure wouldn’t rush out and change brands over it. Everything we shoot with today will still be working fine in a few years. Sure, Joe’s cameras may release something you just have to have, but I’ll bet it mounts some existing lenses. I expect most of the third-party lens makers will follow Sigma’s lead and be willing to change your lens mounts for you.

That’s the nice thing about disruptive technology. It always gives the consumer more choice. Most consumers will embrace it, eventually, like they did with autofocus and digital cameras. A few will sit around and talk about how it was back in the good old days, when men were made of iron and ships of wood.

 

Roger Cicala

Lensrentals.com

February, 2014

 

Author: Roger Cicala

I’m Roger and I am the founder of Lensrentals.com. Hailed as one of the optic nerds here, I enjoy shooting collimated light through 30X microscope objectives in my spare time. When I do take real pictures I like using something different: a Medium format, or Pentax K1, or a Sony RX1R.

Posted in Roger's Corner
  • Gosh1

    Just stumbled upon this after reading your more recent articles, all excellent as per standard.

    It certainly is interesting to end up reading about FX MILC and adapting lenses… two arenas that MILC mounts are about to change rapidly. This will accelerate with Smart-Adapters by at least 2 mechanisms.

    1. Rvs engineering that was at first simple with AIP type chips into a MF lens. AF and all the software in modern propriety lenses is harder. And firmware will keep throwing up gremlins. Yet Sigma copes with both Caonon and nikon’s new FW, including via the FTZ adapter. But Techart have already linked Sony E into the Z-mount, and with Canon EF to follow (prototype announced this months from Fringer)

    2. Consortiums eg L Alliance in which Sigma is pivotal and has already released Smart adapters that are linking in Canon EF

    The Z-Mount holds the most strategic position in this emerging landscapes of adapting propreity and 3rd party optics to ione’s camera of choice. It can theoretically attach almost any lens within reason. But there is an achilles heel for some: Z Nikkors will work only on Z-Nikons

  • Ziggy

    Fascinating. Thank you.

  • Peter

    Missed one: Lightfield photography. It will allow us to edit photos more quickly, and to make lenses sharper by digitally correcting almost all aberrations. f/1.4 zooms will enter the realm of practicality.

  • Zak McKracken

    I’m quite sceptic about the modularity thing as well, since it would mean that the large camera makers would have to open themselves to competitors. I bet they’d pay good money to make it impossible to use 3rd party lenses on their bodies, as well, if they didn’t think people wold hate them for it.

    I was super-happy back then when Canon offered inkjet printers with individual colour cartridges and a fixed print head since I could just buy 3rd party ink and that made printing so much cheaper! Well, after Canon had become market leader because of this, they just closed the system up again. As long as any manufacturer thinks they’ll get away with non-modular non-interoperable products, they will do so. It’s cheaper, too, if you don’t have to worry about keeping anything compatible to stuff outside your own company.

    That said: Re-using modules within your own product range is always a benefit. Airbus has done it for aircraft, most car manufacturers are doing it for most cars (sharing engines, machanical parts, whole chassis across different cars), but it’s still not possible to just swap the engine of your car for a 3rd party one … if anything, it’s become more difficult to adapt them.

    So: Internally modular product ranges: certainly, especially under economic pressure. open modular platforms: Only from niche manufacturers, only at a premium (it’s just more expensive to make) and only in slightly larger packages, thus with less mass appeal. Which really leaves it to professionals who are willing to spend loads of money on a system that requires modularity.

  • Randy

    Fascinating comments. Having some experience, when I think of disruption, it’s in people’s lives. It’s probably true that the D800 created a few jobs since people had to go out and buy new computers. But without even counting redundant camera brands, this amazing technology has delivered a significant net loss in employment. Film, paper, chemicals, processing, processing equipment, photo labs, a whole infrastructure. Not to mention camera stores.

    The stock answer is time moves on and get with the program. People who say this have never walked into a Kodak facility at 2am, seen 250 people at work and returned the place a month later, deserted. But Kodak and Minolta were just the tip of the iceberg.

  • Branko Collin

    In the late 1990s I was an editor for a computer magazine and I remember one day a story landing on my desk about IBM having invented the 1-inch hard drive. I remember thinking what a remarkable feat of engineering that was, but I also remember wondering what somebody would use such a small hard drive for. I assumed IBM had some sort of industrial use in mind. A couple of years later, everybody was walking around with iPods (which used a slightly larger drive).

    The story of personal audio players (PAPs) is one of immense disruption. The invention of the record player about 100 years earlier was of a similar magnitude because it separated space and time. Before that, if you wanted to listen to your favourite artist you had to go to a specific place to hear that artist perform. With gramophones you could stay in and listen to the artist whenever you wanted.

    The PAP took this a step further and liberated you from your own house. You could carry almost your entire music collection with you wherever you wanted.

    Ironically the PAP and the miniature hard drive soon parted. Having helped ignite the personal audio revolution, the miniature hard drive was soon replaced by flash memory—admittedly the first digital PAP, the Diamond Rio, already used flash but at the time you couldn’t store an entire record collection on it. Then people started using their phones to keep their record collections on *and* to take pictures with.

  • I started a Photojournalism career 1n the early 1980s with a Canon A1 and a bag full of lenses. That camera now sits on a shelf above my home computer. Technology has and will keep changing. I have not seen a time where it has leap beyond the ability of the consumer or professional market to catch up with. I don’t think we need to fear change. Changes will come but only the practical ones will last.

  • Tom Conte

    Roger, it’s “Macintosh” not “McIntosh,” just FYI.

    I enjoyed your article quite a lot.

  • inohuri

    Judging by what is happening with CHDK and Magic Lantern and
    Canon’s absence of any response or assistance to them I think a breakthrough could come from outside the industry.
    With 3D printing and a growing knowledge of how things work and
    crowdfunding to purchase existing components a modular, programmable camera system could happen. Perhaps some insider
    engineers will break away, do something sensible and stop holding back.

  • Speed

    How Instagram took over New York Fashion Week
    http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/15/5413012/how-instagram-took-over-new-york-fashion-week

    Racked took a look into how Instagram has changed the culture at Fashion Week, speaking to the likes of Kenneth Cole and Paper Magazine Editorial Director Mickey Boardman to get a sense of the shift. What’s clear is that fashion is only just beginning to figure out how to make good use of this technology. But they’re getting better at it. In any case, you can expect more photos and an even bigger photo wall come Fall Fashion Week. And perhaps a better sense of what to wear next year.

    Pretty disruptive.

  • Nice article. About your checklist, points 1 and 3 are ALREADY checked – you said “for most photographers”, and they are good enough for everyone it is not a sport photographer. And in 2012, professional (as in “paid for”) sport photography accounted for around 5% of the U.S. market – I don’t think the rest of the world market is very different in this regard…
    Last, regarding CaNikon not pushing very hard in the mirrorless field, THEY will be disrupted at the end – it is the CaNikon camera buyer that is still repeating that “smaller sensors are useless to real pros”…

  • Roger Cicala

    Hi Doug,

    I bought a K3 before the A7r came out, but largely because I keep it in my kitchen with the 300 f/4 mounted: I live near a pond with woods right up to my back yard so I have a lot of opportunity to shoot wildlife. The A7r wouldn’t fit that need, but I do like shooting adapted lenses on it as more of a general purpose camera. The resolution is spectacular.

    Roger

  • Doug Dunlap

    Hi Roger,

    I very interesting article. Relative to your December 22 article, “A Little Bit of A7R Sanity”, you are apparently in the “useful tool” stage of your regard for the A7R. In that article you wrote, “ I may even (gasp) buy one for myself.” In this article you said you bought a Pentax K-3 for yourself. I was all set to buy an A7R myself and then the reports of slow autofocus started to trickle in. Is that what changed your mind also? I enough spent time in Amsterdam trying to focus on bicyclers whizzing past with an NEX 7 to convince me contrast autofocus was too slow.

    Before the days of the internet, that comment about buying a A7R, may have slipped past, but nowadays everything is recorded and can be read back. Politicians don’t seem to have caught on to that, especially Canadian ones with names that rhyme with Ford.

    But like you pointed out the A7R is modular enough so that maybe Sony can put in on chip phase detection and an electronic first curtain shutter, call it the Mark II and Canon will be dead before they have figured it out. Say, I thought Pentax was dead. Canon may have some tricks up their sleeves. Remember the Canon AE-1. At the time everyone had Vivitar 283 flashes which produced like several hundred volts across the contacts. The Canons were lower voltage units, like 5 volts, so everyone was blowing out their Canons. I’m sure Canon is thinking up ways right now to prevent autofocus from being fully implemented by third parties.

    I still intend to rent an A7R from you with the 24-70 Zeiss lens when you have them. Zeiss doesn’t have the cache for me like it used to, but it should be a well matched pair.

    Cordially,

    Doug

  • bruce bender

    Another great article from the emerging philosopher-king of imaging. Meaning you, Roger. Write a book. Go on a book tour. Oh, wait, that’s what is happening here, eh? Sorry. But I tell ya, dude, if you are not careful you will be invited to make presentations at the Big Innovation Conclaves at Davos and in the Colorado Rockies.

    Seriously, on the modularity front, I wonder if easy self-diagnostics will be a market factor. I am thinking of the somewhat parallel advance of self diagnostics in the auto industry. Starting maybe 15 years ago some Japanese brands allowed owners to read diagnostic codes themselves, whereas some German brands required you to go to a dealer to have your car hooked up to a proprietary computer to read codes. This included some really silly things like turning off the change oil light, or the check engine light if the gas cap was loose (or suspected to be loose by silly sensors and chips). So independent shops could work on some brands much more easily than others, giving consumers a choice. And who has the quality reputation today, eh?

    Perhaps the disruptive aspect will be when modular electronics can be repaired by one’s self (if so inclined) with easily available modular parts from several competing manufacturers. (To continue the analogy, like going to your nearby auto parts store.) Or for the none-DIY majority, perhaps modules will be replaced by your friendly local Electronic Gizmo Repair Shop, where virtually all electronic doo-dads of a certain value can get modules swapped in and out. Cameras, of course, being just one of the array of valuable electronic doo-dad. (Then, of course, the franchise chain store folks will slowly drive the heroic friendly local electronic module swapping stores out of business, but therein lies another tale.)

  • Andrew

    The full-frame mirrorless camera taking existing lenses, but adding modern video and real live-view with EVF has been here for a while now. Yes, the Sony A99 (and APS-C A77) have a mirror, but they lack the complex mechanisms to move that mirror while retaining all of the benefits of traditional DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. What is the down side? Half a stop of light.

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