Consumer Camera Market

With the advent of the consumer digital camera, along came a tidal wave of interest in personal photography. People immediately saw the benefits and began to take advantage. In 2004, 22 million digital cameras were sold in North America. 37 million were sold in 2007 and 40 million were sold in 2008. In 2005, there was a noticeable difference in the make-up of the buyer. Prior to that year, the vast majority of buyers were first timers. However in 2005, we began to see that many repeat buyers entered the market.

The proliferation of the digital camera coincided with the proliferation of the cell phone. The two technologies have been combined giving consumers a quick easy way to share photos instantly across the globe. Twenty years ago, if one had entered a college classroom and asked how many students were carrying a camera with them, you might have found one or two. But today, almost every student has a camera on their cell phone and many others will have a digital camera in their purse or backpack.

The first digital cameras produced such low resolution or were so heavy and bulky that they really weren’t usable by the average consumer. It wasn’t until 1999 that the first two megapixel camera was manufactured that was light-weight enough and produced the resolution necessary to interest consumers. Since then, consumers have been the beneficiaries of megapixel envy amongst manufacturers. We quickly realized that the more megapixels in a camera, the better the picture. Manufacturers have pushed their engineers fast and furious to produce higher and higher resolution cameras. Today, one can find several cameras at local stores that flaunt 12-14 megapixel resolution and sell for under $200.

The megapixel war is now coming to an end. This is because the average person cannot tell the difference between an 8 megapixel photo printed at 8x10 inches versus a14 megapixel photo printed the same size. Where one would begin seeing the difference between these resolutions would be when they print enlargements of the photos. An 8 megapixel photo can produce a nice quality photo at 16x20 inches but starts to noticeably diminish in quality with larger prints. A 10 megapixel photo can produce nice quality in a 17x22 inch print. I typically print 8x10 inch or smaller prints so I don’t notice the difference between the two. I think that most people are similar to me in this respect.

Since the megapixel war is winding down, what are manufacturers doing to attract buyers? Features, features, and more features. Digital imagery is ideal for combining with computing technology. That is exactly what is being done. After the camera’s sensor measures the scene it sees, software inside the camera process it in many ways. The very basic adjustments are to remove imperfections (noise) created by the electronics, and color and exposure adjustments based on the settings the user selected on the camera. Beyond that, manufacturers are getting creative and trying to make it easier and easier for the average person to take flawless photos.
Image stabilization allows the camera to adjust for shaky hands. Sometimes when taking long exposures or with high zoom, slight movement of the camera causes blurring. Cameras can reduce these affects through hardware or software.

Face recognition is a feature that allows the camera to automatically focus on and adjust exposure settings for any human faces that it detects. Some cameras allow the photographer to select a face from a group as the primary subject. The camera follows that individual and keeps him/her in focus and at proper exposure.

Red-eye prevention is another popular feature. Often when using flash, the eyes of people in the photograph turn bright red as the flash lights up their retinas. Many of today’s cameras have a setting that will cause the flash to give very brief short burst or two of light just before the main flash and the picture is taken. This causes the pupils of the subject to close, this minimizing the amount of red that can reflect from their retinas.

Smile detection allows the user to let the camera take the picture automatically as soon as it detects a smile. Some cameras even allow you to adjust its sensitivity so that you don’t get belly laughs or small smirks.

The blink detection feature tells the camera to take two pictures in rapid succession. The software in the camera then examines the pictures and picks the one where the eyes are most open. This all happens so fast that the subjects don’t have time to do anything but open their eyes between pictures.