Traditional photography is here to stay!

This is may be the real one good news for all the specialized photo equipment manufacturers. But it won't prevent drastic changed in term of how the product will be definite in the future. Some may ask why all these camera makers cannot be wise to apply some basic standards to the industry such as a unique image sensor format or simply an universal camera lens mount like we have seen in the past with the domination of the 35mm analog film or even the popularity of the 42mm screw-in lens mount? Partly because standards cannot last forever du of the different technological advancements or simply because of the changes of the consumer market needs.

If the industrial assents for pro-universal standards are never certain, the traditional photo equipment market stays strong with thousands of products that are still bought by photo enthusiasms around the world. It never really stops although we have seen sales contractions time to time that moderate an over-extensive manufacturer offer. As an ex-economist, I can testify that the demand is very reluctant to change its consumer habits. For example, the smartphone rising never try to substitute the traditional photo equipment market which is a niche one but instead has replaced the compact "instamatic" camera photographic mass market and that specific mass market is reckoned to be very fluctuated (remember the Brownies, the 126 and 110 film formats, the disks and APS film attempts).

The mass-market temptations have been over the commercial market history one of the greatest and always renewable lure challenge of all the private manufacturers. It means for certain the pinnacle of the success. But homogenize mass markets does not exist and there are, in fact, the summation of a momentary trend that many different smaller markets which agree to follow on a temporarily base. It works for a time but eventually collapse by themself. It is the nature of the mass market. So, manufacturers that have a more long-term view of their own future have to be aware of it and prepare themselves to re-adapt or re-shape their organization and structures to face the inevitable changes of the mass market behavior.

What all this mean for the traditional photo enthusiasms of this world is that we are not alone and these thousands of us have to be properly served by a specific commercial industry that will fulfill our needs. Names of the manufacturer and product configurations can be different over time, but this photo equipment-oriented market is here to stay as for others different but specialized products. Production numbers can be lower but there are still very significant in term of profit and desirability.

No, I am not afraid of the future, traditional photography won’t disappear and many of us know already that fact. For others, we leave the catastrophic stories.