Is the DSLR going extinct?

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19508787
Omg, LPs are back too, but just as a niche and they occupy one shelf at Walmart. That doesn’t mean that segment of music is alive and well.

I had no idea but checking just now, one of our local appliance stores (JBHi-fi) has 16 models of turntable for sale - 16!!!

have a feeling that if there was no demand, then these wouldn't exist. [on the other hand, doesn't mean that the segment of music is alive & well, just that sales of Turntables is... )

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19508787
Omg, LPs are back too, but just as a niche and they occupy one shelf at Walmart. That doesn’t mean that segment of music is alive and well.

Just over 41 million vinyl records were sold in 2022, to the tune of $1.2bn. Only 33 million CDs were sold, amounting to $483m. It was the 16th consecutive year of growth for record sales. Must be a big shelf.

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Even before the "revival" of records and turntables about 10 / 15 years ago, they were far from extinct. . There were literally, yes literally, millions of them all round the world. . I would see stacks and stacks of records at indoor flea markets, yard sales, in people's basements and closets, even in one of my own cabinets.

It is and will be the same way with DSLRs. . Whether new ones are being made or not will have nothing to do with whether they completely cease to exist or not. . We can still rummage up a VHS player and play old VHS tapes. . We can still find old tech, plug it in, and use floppy discs. . None of that stuff is by any means extinct. . So why would anyone think that DSLRs are going extinct?

As Team Speed said recently,

"Let’s try to have some sort of sensibility with this, shall we?"

And that means using words according to what they actually mean, and not giving them new meanings just to be sensational and cause unwarranted hype over things. . There really is no need to exaggerate, ever, and using the term "extinct" in this context is most certainly an exaggeration.

Even the OP admits in the first post that the title of the article is clickbait. . And clickbait is certainly not representative of sensibility.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #19508812
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Even before the "revival" of records and turntables about 10 / 15 years ago, they were far from extinct.

It is and will be the same way with DSLRs.

I completely agree Tom, and that was my point.

And as a biological technicality, dinosaurs as a class of animals never became extinct either. They evolved into birds.

Clearly "going extinct" or "extinct" is a trigger word for some. Maybe we need a better phrase that doesn't trigger argument. How about

Technological dead end,
technologically abandon,
old tech,
photographic gramophone or photographic 8-track,
photographic dead horse,
expired,
antiquated,
neolithic,
antediluvian,
obsolete

Any of those work? convey that the technology has reached it's EOL?

Pippan wrote in post #19508802
Just over 41 million vinyl records were sold in 2022, to the tune of $1.2bn. Only 33 million CDs were sold, amounting to $483m. It was the 16th consecutive year of growth for record sales. Must be a big shelf.

CDs will come back too Just give them time... (joking)

Thank goodness the 8track didn't come back. I don't want my motorcycle to have another one of those mounted, nor do I want the return of the cassette to 8track adapter...

A part of the LP revival recently is because people are using those to rip LPs into MP3s. All LPs players on the mainstream shelves are digital players, meaning they feed the output via USB to a computer with software to create MP3s. People have found these sound so much "better" than the CD versions and definitely better than the streaming version. My own LP player has a CD port, cassette port, LP player, and can then feed all of this to a computer. I just have the audio going to a small amp feeding Sony speakers currently. We don't source our LPs from new store shelf stock however, we hit a myriad of antique malls and dig through the piles found there, with an average cost of about $5 an LP. Those are not flying off the shelves though.

The other part of the equation is that streaming music services charge more and more, and people are looking for alternative sources and are rebelling against the continued push that "consumers own nothing, they must perpetually pay for everything".

I am unsure where DSLRs would make the same kind of comeback because they offer something not found in new gear, unless it is some sort of color science from the sensor, or features that used to be part of the camera become paid features. Also, I am now starting to see DSLRs at antique malls interestingly enough. Up to this point, it has been nothing but old film cameras. I can now say that the 30D is an antique!

gjl711 wrote in post #19508872
Clearly "going extinct" or "extinct" is a trigger word for some. Maybe we need a better phrase that doesn't trigger argument. How about

Technological dead end,
technologically abandon,
old tech,
photographic gramophone or photographic 8-track,
photographic dead horse,
expired,
antiquated,
neolithic,
antediluvian,
obsolete

Any of those work? convey that the technology has reached it's EOL?

From a manufacturing standpoint, EOL is actually the term used. EOS is also used, but that won't be too confusing when discussing Canon, lol. There are a couple other other related acronyms there too.

I think Canon is at EOSL (end of sales life) or very near that at this point with their DSLR offerings.

Pippan wrote in post #19508802
Just over 41 million vinyl records were sold in 2022, to the tune of $1.2bn. Only 33 million CDs were sold, amounting to $483m. It was the 16th consecutive year of growth for record sales. Must be a big shelf.

To put that into perspective however, in 2022, billions of songs are streamed, each week... So 14M records x maybe 10 songs average = 140M songs on LP annually vs 3B+ per week streaming. So just because there are large numbers, it doesn't signify anything without looking at more of the picture.

The same will occur with DSLR vs mirrorless in the coming years, x% of sales will be DSLR and it will be tiny compared to the overall camera sales.

Pippan wrote in post #19508816
I completely agree Tom, and that was my point.

And as a biological technicality, dinosaurs as a class of animals never became extinct either. They evolved into birds.

Whatever happened to that stegosaurus bird anyways... Too bad, I would love to see one. Might be scary to see a crow with plates running down its back though, brrrr.

gjl711 wrote in post #19508872
Clearly "going extinct" or "extinct" is a trigger word for some. Maybe we need a better phrase that doesn't trigger argument. How about

Technological dead end,
technologically abandon,
old tech,
photographic gramophone or photographic 8-track,
photographic dead horse,
expired,
antiquated,
neolithic,
antediluvian,
obsolete

Any of those work? convey that the technology has reached it's EOL?

Any of those are less ambiguous than the misguided re-definition of 'extinct' as used in the article linked in the OP. it is unfortunate how folks are now so driven by internet to totally redefine words and distort their definition to something not the original classic definition

starting before internet:

• macro = 1:2 or greater magnification, became macro = anything closer focus than about [0.8 * FL]
  

• [prime vs. convertor/supplemental​] and [fixed FL length vs zoom] lens has evolved into [[prime vs. zoom]
  
• bokeh has evolved from [characteristic quality of the out-of-focus] into [anything that is outside DOF zone]
  

• 'woke' evolved from the recognized 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" or 'socially aware and senstive to injustices', but now 'woke' has been harnessed it as something that must be stopped – and a blanket term for everything they dislike about the other political side.
  

Decent article from Imaging Resource, but a bit old now, it would be interesting if they did a followup editorial. I like the perspectives from the different age groups in the article.
https://www.imaging-resource.com …-cameras-coming-to-an-end

My thoughts on this from a personal point of view only is that rather than going extinct, they are endangered. I have no idea whether Nikon and Canon are actually still manufacturing any DSLR's, but my guess is that they are. As to new models, personally again, I doubt that we see new models, but don't see a problem with that anyway as they were mature years ago.
There should be enough of them in existence to last a good many years yet, and I'm old, so it's not something I even consider a problem. And I believe that I have enough to last me through the rest of my years so I should not be contributing to further reduction in the world's population of available DSLR's. Although it's tempting to pick up a couple more just in case I live longer than expected.

It only depends on how long the ones left in existence will last before they go from endangered to extinct.

Rob L wrote in post #19509338
My thoughts on this from a personal point of view only is that rather than going extinct, they are endangered. I have no idea whether Nikon and Canon are actually still manufacturing any DSLR's, but my guess is that they are. As to new models, personally again, I doubt that we see new models, but don't see a problem with that anyway as they were mature years ago.
There should be enough of them in existence to last a good many years yet, and I'm old, so it's not something I even consider a problem. And I believe that I have enough to last me through the rest of my years so I should not be contributing to further reduction in the world's population of available DSLR's. Although it's tempting to pick up a couple more just in case I live longer than expected.

It only depends on how long the ones left in existence will last before they go from endangered to extinct.

This is where CIPA data shines. All manufacturers together manufacture 142,900 SLR type cameras in Jan and Feb combined. Unfortunately CIPA does not break down data per manufacturer but one can guess that as Canon has about %50 of the camera market, you can apply it to this as well. So extrapolation, Canon is making somewhere between 30 and 35k SLR cameras a month. If you look at their shipping data, 65k of those went to Europe and 34k to the Americas (It includes North, Central, and South). It's clearly declining.
https://www.cipa.jp …ocuments/e/d-202302_e.pdf

If we put consumerism apart, those are very healthy numbers for over saturated by extremely reliable and very capable used DSLRs market.

Just to bring it down to Earth , Leica M4-2 is regular camera, total numbers made is 15K.
And famous M3 total numbers are 225K.
I don't know total film M numbers made up to date, I doubt it is much more than all DSLR been sold in last few years.
Yet, film M Leicas are not rare on the streets.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #19508907
CDs will come back too Just give them time... (joking)

Thank goodness the 8track didn't come back. I don't want my motorcycle to have another one of those mounted, nor do I want the return of the cassette to 8track adapter...

A part of the LP revival recently is because people are using those to rip LPs into MP3s. All LPs players on the mainstream shelves are digital players, meaning they feed the output via USB to a computer with software to create MP3s. People have found these sound so much "better" than the CD versions and definitely better than the streaming version. My own LP player has a CD port, cassette port, LP player, and can then feed all of this to a computer. I just have the audio going to a small amp feeding Sony speakers currently. We don't source our LPs from new store shelf stock however, we hit a myriad of antique malls and dig through the piles found there, with an average cost of about $5 an LP. Those are not flying off the shelves though.

The other part of the equation is that streaming music services charge more and more, and people are looking for alternative sources and are rebelling against the continued push that "consumers own nothing, they must perpetually pay for everything".

I am unsure where DSLRs would make the same kind of comeback because they offer something not found in new gear, unless it is some sort of color science from the sensor, or features that used to be part of the camera become paid features. Also, I am now starting to see DSLRs at antique malls interestingly enough. Up to this point, it has been nothing but old film cameras. I can now say that the 30D is an antique!

To add: The survival of vinyl records is comparable to the survival of film, not DSLRs. There can continue to be an argument that analog recordings sound better (or at least different) and anlog imaging looks better (or at least different) from digital. DSLR users can't make that claim.

Agreed and film has picked up again as well, almost in lockstep with audio. It is a cycle where younger generations find it cool to be retro, and older generations want to go back to the things they once loved, but over time the cyclic magnitudes shrink.

I don’t see anyone thinking DSLRs are cool and retro since the DSLR and mirrorless are both digital, and having a mirror/OVF just isn’t different enough to warrant that feeling of reminiscence. I am likely wrong though?

Interestingly I went to the fred Miranda sell forum, and it is VERY difficult to find any old DSLR for sale unless it is a 5D or 1D series. All others xxD, rebels, etc, nothing….