The key to any successful business is to get you spending – and, once hooked, to keep you spending. It’s far easier to keep an existing customer than win new ones.
Camera companies have had it easy in this respect. Once we’ve bought into their system, compatibility issues largely restrict us to their own manufactured lenses and accessories to go with it.
But nowadays I’m spending less than I ever have on kit. And it’s not just down to lack of affordability – or the fact I feel I already own all the essentials.
The truth is that, aside from AI-enabled performance tweaks here and there, I think innovation has slowed of late when it comes to standalone digital cameras.
Gaps between entirely new models or minor updates of existing gear remind me of the extended delays witnessed during the pandemic. Then it was disrupted manufacturer-retailer supply chains to blame – but what's the excuse now?
While I wouldn’t go as far as suggesting that our favorite camera manufacturers have run out of ideas – and sure, there are still exceptional products being released – I’m just not seeing much that feels like a must-have. That makes it all too easy to break the gear junkie habit.
Additionally, I feel that we reached the point where digital image capture and creation was ‘good enough’ for the vast majority quite some time ago. If I’m honest, that was practically two decades back.
Some of the stagnation in the stills photography camera market is down to manufacturers shifting focus to video instead, in seeking to get the ever-expanding content creator market on side. The algorithms of social media platforms – the place where images, if they do leave our camera roll or hard drive, most likely end up – now prioritize video over stills.
So it makes business sense for manufacturers to take note and focus on ways to capture, tweak and share video, further raising the benchmark for traditional stills cameras.
With my existing kit being perfectly acceptable, when or if a new photo-first camera is released, I now find myself filing it under "nice to have". I’ve wised up to the fact that it’s not something that will in any way help me to take better, more interesting photos, or develop my skill set as a photographer.
As a gear junkie, you can never satisfy your craving to get everything. Once you realize that, it makes more sense to focus on and fully explore what you already have.
Nowadays, when I’m taking pictures, I’m not actually thinking about the gear any more. That level of mastery is what, in itself, might actually make me a better photographer!
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