End of the compact camera—good for the half-frame market?

It was bound to happen. It was only a matter of time. I notice that a number of camera sites, including the well respected DP Review site, are now writing about the end of the compact camera.

I have done a couple of posts in the past about how camera phones were gradually taking over the market space of the compact camera. I posted “Compact camera sales are plummeting” (here) and “Is this the end of the compact camera” (here).

Well it seems like mid-2014 will be written into the annals as the official death of the compact camera. The big camera manufacturers are all cutting back on their compact camera ranges and there have been no significant new model releases in twelve months.

Camera technology advances in mobile phone cameras like the amazing Nokia 1020 PureView, theNokia 930 PureView, the Samsung S5, the LG G3, the Samsung K-zoom (the only mobile phone with an optical zoom lens camera built in), and possibly the new Apple iPhone 6 Plus—although we are yet to see if this camera is a good as the Apple hype.

So what do camera manufacturers do when a whole camera sales market segment dies?

They shift their focus to areas where the serious takers of pictures will still spend extra money to take better photographs—the half-frame market.

My prediction is that we will start to see more innovation and a lowering of prices in the half-frame/APS-C market segment as Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Ricoh/Pentax, Olympus, and others try to chisel of more of this market for themselves to offset the loss of sales in the compact market.