The members of the Photokina company presented these forecast slides at an event in Tokyo (Source: DC.watch). As you can see the overall camera market is shrinking. The good news is that mirrorless is expected to have a small growth while DSLR sales will remain stable. The compact camera market will keep shrinking while the major surprise is the big increase of the premium compact camera market!
Also interesting is the expected growth of non pure camera devices:
The camera world is deeply changing. I am wondering how the photography market will be in 5 years from now!
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Nobody can deny DSLRs are much bulkier (thick specially), heavier and with a lot more pieces than mirrorless cameras. Yes, I admit that pro DSLRs are now the best performing cameras, but in a few years this probably is no longer to be true. I think we all must be prepared for a massive change to short flange lenses and smaller cameras from here to 5 years. Existing DSLR lenses will then be used in mirrorless cameras via adaptors.
Smaller cameras … of big benefit to even the smallest DSLR is that they are large enough to hold and use without having to buy an assortment of heavy grips and accessories.
In 5 years time, looking at that small slice which is Mirrorless, I only wonder which of these many manufactures will no longer exist.
Lots of them are “large enough to hold”. The point isn’t “can you make a bigger camera”. The answer to that question is always “yes”, about anything. You can make a foam brick as big as a DSLR. The point you’re missing (or ignoring) is “is it still necessary to have a flappy mirror in a camera, or wouldn’t that space and weight be better used for something that actually improves image quality or has some direct relationship to actually taking a picture?” We’re getting to a point now where the answer is emphatically “no” to the mirror being a better use of space or weight for many applications, all else being equal.
Of course, consumer choice always lags the market by 5-10 years on new technologies, product categories, etc, and I’d say it’s been more like 1-3 year that the image quality has actually been there in the mirrorless cameras to really match SLRs. I wouldn’t expect take-up to be any faster than it currently is, and there’s an inevitability about smaller things that can do just as much eventually superseding their larger ancestors. It’s already happened with compact cameras which have been almost completely replaced by smartphones. And it’s going to happen with system cameras too.
Then by that token the black swan is that smartphones will take the place of mirrorless cameras as they move upstream.
That’s a non total non-sequitur. If phones do attain the image quality of DSLRs, it may have some validity. However mirrorless cameras certainly have already attained that level of quality, so I’m more than justified in saying that they can stand in for a DSLR and may replace them because of the other advantages.
Notice I didn’t say large sensors or large fast lenses are optional. That’s because they aren’t. That alone makes professional quality smart phone cameras unlikely.
Some of them already do. Sony’s selling cameras with the best full frame sensors on the market now.
This is the myth that only mirrorless cameras will change, and DSLRs will just stand still.
As though the mere viewing system is the main point of a camera.
Well, if the viewing system is not “the main point of a camera”, at least is the main difference between mirrorless and DSLRs…
Interesting, but what is their track record for this sort of predictions? In other words, if for every one of the last four years they’ve predicted similar great success for the following year, but been completely incorrect every time, why should we believe them now?