Compact camera sales are plummeting

Sales of compact cameras is plummeting.

This is because many people are satisfied with using their smartphone cameras for taking snaps of pets, family and friends, and anything else when they go on trips. The fact that a $100 compact camera takes a far better picture than the best mobile phone camera matters little. It is a classic case of “the best camera is the camera you have with you when you want it” and for most people now that is their smartphone camera.

I picked the demise of the compact camera happening 12 months ago back in October 2011. See my posting here.

With sales falling so badly over the last 12 months you will now start to see many of the compact camera manufacturers cutting back on models, and the models they retain will start to have features added to try and keep sales. You will begin to see features like wireless network connectivity being added to compact cameras. Maybe also more in-camera picture editing capabilities. But this will only slightly slow the demise of the low- to mid-range compact cameras.

It won’t be long before we begin to hear of some compact camera manufacturers abandoning the market.

High-end compacts and DSLR calls cameras still have a reasonable life because they do things that smartphones can’t hope to do due to their physical size. You can’t get a half-frame or full-frame sensor into a smartphone and you can’t click on special purpose lenses. Because of this, and some other reasons, you can’t possibly hope to achieve the quality needed for publishing or commercial use from a smartphone.

So when it comes to pictures to be used for purposes other than posting on the Web on Facebook or Instagram you must move up to a high end compact or a DSLR class camera.

The sad reality is that about 99 percent of smartphone pictures when viewed at 1:1 (one pixel taken is one pixel viewed) are blurred, out of focus, full of digital noise, or all three. But when viewed super-compressed on a 4.5” smartphone screen or in a 600 pixel window on Facebook they sort of look okay—most times. But try printing them as a photograph at A4 size and they start to look crappy. Print them at A3 size and they look crappier. And don’t even consider printing them at A2 size to use as a poster.