Photographic Tribalism
By its very nature, photography can be extremely tribalistic. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a debate about what was the most appropriate film format for professional use. In the 1980’s and 1990’s photographers debated the different merits of autofocus systems. Though I was not around for most of this, let alone focused on what was going on in the camera world, things kicked into an even higher gear when everybody switched to digital. The switch to digital was clearly the most momentous shift in photography since the advent of film. Digital photography completely changed photographic workflows and shifted the cost equation for photography. By my estimation, this transition from a fully mature film camera environment, to a fully mature digital environment has actually taken longer than one might otherwise think. In fact I believe it has only been recently, i.e. in the last 2 or so years, that digital photography has truly evolved past the framework setup by film photography into a format which is entirely its own.
Digital cameras have been good for a long time. Depending on who you ask it happened at different points, I tend to believe that by about 2008 when Nikon released the D90 and Canon released the 50D, digital photography reached a tipping point of affordability and quality for the average enthusiast that it has continued to improve upon. However, the DSLR layout became increasingly anachronistic. With technological advancement, digital photography evolved to what I believe to be a pretty steady state in terms of camera layout and technology, digital mirrorless cameras with mounts specifically designed to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by digital cameras. There are several companies with competitive and successful mirrorless systems including the “Big 3” of Canon, Sony, and Nikon. For a brief period some were saying that Nikon was going to be left behind and drop out of competitiveness in the digital market. Of course these people were wrong and the digital playing field is incredibly even right now, furthermore, it does not seem like there are going to be any truly groundbreaking advancements in camera technology for a while.
The digital photography community has been extremely toxic pretty much since its inception. Owing to the high cost of acquiring a digital camera compared with a film camera, people naturally became more jealous and protective of their investments in their respective systems, always nervous that they might get left behind after a technological leap forward from the other company and their equipment will lose its value. This seems to no longer be such a worry as the Big 3 all have fully fleshed out mirrorless systems, each with their relative merits. So what? So maybe the photographic community can become a little less toxic and appreciate that there are plenty of viable cameras available today; that you needn’t be so insecure about your gear. Maybe moving forward, people can worry more about the actual photography they are making rather than the gear that was used to shoot it.
At some point cameras became tech products and photography has suffered for it. I think the disposability of cameras is going to follow the pattern set by cell phones. Back in the day, people replaced their cell phones at a shocking pace. The phone upgrades generally were not overly expensive save for a handful of premium devices. The iPhone started to change this as the iPhone was considerably more expensive than other phones. However, the leap in technology afforded by the iPhone was substantial so people could stomach the upgrade. This also held true for the first few upgrades made to the iPhone for 3G and 4G service, to get bigger better screens, etc. However, at some point, the improvements that Apple could make to the phone just were not substantial enough. Phones reached a logical hand held size that people liked, phone cameras became good enough, and people generally liked their phones. When you like something, you hold on to it for longer, and when the upgrade is just as expensive as it was before, if not even more expensive than it had been, people decide to simply hold onto their phones for longer. The same thing might happen with cameras. Though they were never as disposable as cell phones, cameras were being bought and sold at a much more rapid pace than ever before in the first decade of the 21st century. This trend has been cooling off for some time though and moving forward, once the camera market reaches a more steady state as people move to mirrorless over the next decade, people might return to holding onto cameras as long as they continue to function rather than until the next improved model comes out. One can only hope.
