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April 29, 2005
We're old hat, already
Looks like DPExpert has climbed on board the digital camera locomotive at precisely the moment it's starting to run out of steam. According to research firm IDC, the market has reached maturity long before anyone thought it would, and the growth rates are about to slow.
"Digital cameras won't become as ubiquitous as film because manufacturers became obsessed with features instead of the unmet market," says Chris Chute, digital imaging analyst with IDC, in one of those quotes that we tend to file under "What The Hell Does This Mean?"
Mr Chute [what an apt name. We presume his nickname is "Down The"] is convinced that digital camera manufacturers have missed the opportunity to replace film cameras as the predominant method of taking photos, apparently because they thought customers wanted cameras with features, rather than ... umm, something else. Instead the market will be made up of "a more diverse range of devices with photo capturing abilities, such as cell phones and other combination devices".
If so, this may be because customers are hopelessly confused. IDC says the digital camera is still viewed as a PC peripheral. Like a printer, for instance, presumably because the most common method for downloading the images involved plugging the camera into a PC.
We have to wonder how accurate this is now, however, what with the development of technologies like PictBridge and Kodak's EasyShare system, to say nothing of digital photo labs which are doing an increasing amount of business.
On the other hand, the announcement of Nokia's new N90 camera, and Kodak's decision to sell mobile phones, indicates the digital photography market is becoming increasingly, umm, blurred.
The N90 looks interesting enough, with 2-megapixel resolution and Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and 20x digital zoom [we suggest you don't bother with that], integrated flash, macro mode for sharp close-ups, and high-quality video capture with on-phone editing capabilities, but we can imagine a lot of situations in which it won't live up to Nokia's claim that it will deliver "high-quality images". Although that depends of course, on how one defines "high quality".
There's no doubting, however, that it's an ingenious little thing. There are two ergonomic modes for instant photo and video capture. You twist the rotating camera barrel, and it's ready to shoot. The cover display turns into a viewfinder (128 x 128 pixels), and there's a "dedicated capture key".
Unfold and twist the main display (352 x 416 pixels), and the Nokia N90 is ready to shoot "high-quality" video in MP4 format using the high-resolution (352 x 416 pixels) 262,144-color landscape display as a viewfinder. Dedicated record and zoom keys, including up to 8x digital zoom for video capture, allow "one-hand operation". We're tempted to say that expression might also describe this survey.
Posted by cw at April 29, 2005 04:01 PM
