What if you were a digital camera vendor?

[Scroll down for And a few more things... industry news highlights]

We’ve all seen variations of this chart:

Camera sales are declining and form only a minuscule fraction of the smartphone sales. It is not because people have stopped using digital cameras altogether – they still use them, but use them less often. In addition, the camera upgrade cycles are getting longer with no revolutionary technology innovations enticing photographers to buy the next generation of models (even the introduction of mirrorless appears to have had more of a cannibalization than a market-expansion effect).

As a result, quite a few smaller camera companies have closed doors or they (or their cameras) were sold at rock bottom prices, including DxO One (an iPhone-connected camera), Giroptic, Panono, and Bublcam (360 cameras), Lytro (a light-field photo camera), and KeyMission 360 (Nikon’s late entry into the 360/action cam business; the product was discontinued a mere 1.5 years after it launched).

Still, it is not only gloom in camera land – some camera makers are doing quite all right. As we reported in our previous issue, last year’s Visual 1st Awards winner Insta360 keeps cranking out innovative cameras, has been profitable since 2017 and just raised $30M. Fujifilm’s Instax cameras shipped as many units in the 9-month period that ended December 31 as all compact cameras combined in the entire year (and Canon is aiming to follow suit, see our “And a few more things” section below). Light has reinvented itself as an OEM, now licensing its technology to Nokia device maker HMD, Chinese handset company Xiamoi and Sony. Rather than fighting the world of smartphones, Zeiss and Leica OEM their products to smartphone vendors.

Last week I had the chance to sit down with Eran Steinberg, industry friend, entrepreneur, inventor and investor, and we ended up brainstorming about the options today’s camera vendors have at their disposal. (Eran is also the chairman of EyeQ, a new imaging company that just acquired previous Visual 1st presenter, Athentech, see “And a few more things” section below).

Like any vendor in a maturing industry, camera companies could, in theory, opt to:

• Lower their prices to attract the masses
• Raise their prices, at the expense of selling fewer and fewer products to their core customers
• Consolidate by merging/acquiring/being acquired, often in combination with cutting expenses
• Expand their product portfolio by offering variations of their products at different price points
• Enter adjacent markets

Or simply put: Adapt themselves to the changing user behavior, interface and experience.

Sounds pretty straight forward, but, in reality, it may not be the case.

Eran stressed that it’s often not a lack of innovative technologies that’s holding back camera companies. Rather, he sees a lack of an innovative mindset and insufficient intelligent funding as the most common culprits. In particular, he points out that the larger established camera companies are now taking a more defensive position, relying on their (shrinking) installed base, in some cases even falling back on nostalgia cameras (e.g. “retro cameras”). Moreover, these companies might also suffer from a self-admission of defeat against smartphones as the default photo taking device (as shown by recent comments by Canon president Fujio Mitarai).

He has experienced these challenges first-hand with his last company, mPerpetuo (Eran has successfully started, bought and sold numerous companies and he is an inventor on more than 250 granted imaging-related US patents), which closed its doors while still in stealth mode. mPerpetuo’s mission was to develop a fully connected, Android-based camera with UI/UX aimed at youngsters who might have never bought a digital camera before. The company did receive enough funding for prototyping its mission. However, the funds to take such a product into commercialization were not sufficient and the industry backers got cold feet.

What is left from the company, besides an unfulfilled dream and needs, is a patent portfolio that Eran hopes will be picked up by innovation-minded imaging companies – rather than going to waste.

While developing the camera, mPerpetuo applied 3 key technology inventions for which he now seeks new owners. Check them out!

9,800,975 Audio system for a digital camera

Describing a high-end audio configuration for surround recording of audio, supporting multiple device orientations

A digital camera, comprising:

….. at least three spaced-apart microphones aligned with the optical assembly for capturing audio during image capture, …. along two directional axes for capturing stereo audio in at least two camera orientations, …

9,838,607 Passive optical electronic camera viewfinder apparatus

Magnifier Eyepiece Viewfinder using the back display

A digital camera, comprising:

…. a viewfinder coupled to the housing including a magnifying lens, wherein the viewfinder is movable between a stowed position and an active position for viewing a subset of display screen pixels with magnification, wherein the viewfinder is rotatable between the stowed and active positions.

10,122,914 Method of controlling a camera using a touch slider

Smart touch Screen User interface based on finger movement

A digital camera, comprising:

…. a touch slider configured for sensing a relative movement of a finger, thumb or stylus or other tool of a user, or combinations thereof, and adjusting a value of an imaging parameter based on said relative movement; an ergonomic camera grip at one end of the camera housing, and wherein said grip includes a transparent rear volume for viewing a portion of the display screen that the grip overlaps.

Anyone interested in acquiring the patents? Drop Eran an email at [email protected] for more info.

And a few more things...

EyeQ & Athentech. EyeQ announces the acquisition of Athentech, makers of Perfectly Clear? and previous presenters at Visual 1st. Athentech, and now EyeQ, offers consumer as well as B2B solutions. It is used by print service providers around the world and automatically corrects 11 billion photos each year.

Canon. Canon takes on Fuji with new instant-print CLIQ cameras. Strange enough: the Canon instant print cameras are called the IVY CLIQ and CLIQ+ in the US, while across the pond they’re named Zoemini C and I.

Curved Camera Sensors. The Next Big Thing in Digital Photography: Curved Camera Sensors. Sony patented the first curved medium format sensor in 2017. Nikon followed suit by patenting the first curved full-frame sensor. Canon and Microsoft have their own in the works, too. The benefits? Sharper, more consistent, and better low-light images.

Profoto. Profoto announces Profoto Connect: a button-free flash, making taking photos with flash much simpler. The auto mode is simply TTL point-and-shoot flash photography — the correct flash exposure is automatically calculated when you press your camera’s shutter. The manual mode can be accessed through the Profoto mobile app, which connects your smartphone to the flash on your digital camera.

Broadly. Broadly launches a gender-inclusive stock photo library. The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library of over 180 images of 15 trans and non-binary models, shot by artist and photographer Zackary Drucker, and made available to the public for free. Broadly’s Gender Spectrum Collection aims to help media better represent trans and non-binary people who are not necessarily defined by their gender identities, but rather as human beings with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and internal lives—people you see at the office, at school, in your home.

Huawei. Are we sort of done now pushing the smartphone cameras in the direction of DSLR quality? No way, says Huawei (if you pronounce Huawei correctly, which few people do, this rhymes). The just announced Huawei P30 Pro is pushing the envelope big time. It comes with 3 rear cameras plus a time-of-flight sensor for depth measurement and high-end portrait mode. Besides the 40 MP primary camera, it also features a tele and super-wide camera – plus the increasingly usual computational photography gymnastics to combine the various sensor data into superb imagery.

Glossy Finish. In partnership with CaptureLife, Glossy Finish (the company that was acquired and subsequently divested by Lifetouch, announces GF Crew, a service for gig photographers to sell sports photos. GF Crew will be covered in our upcoming Gig Photography research report. 

Visual 1st. Invite to demo. We welcome proposals for first-time Show & Tell demos of innovative imaging solutions. Early Bird selection by May 1. Contact us. Visual 1st, October 3-4, 2019, San Francisco.

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Best,

Hans Hartman