The days of the digital SLR are far from over, but the landscape around them is changing rapidly.
Some manufacturers are already exploring hybrid devices that combine traditional camera hardware with smartphone-style software, and it’s impossible to ignore how much mobile phone cameras have improved in recent years.
As a recent buyer of a DSLR—a Nikon D5100—I’ve become truly captivated by photography. A smartphone will never fully match the versatility and control of a dedicated camera, but my previous device was an iPhone 4, so the advantages of a DSLR were immediately obvious.
If I had upgraded to an HTC One with its “UltraPixel” sensor, I might have been satisfied and never sought out the Nikon. Still, the 4-megapixel sensor on the HTC isn’t comparable to the 16.2-megapixel sensor on the Nikon, especially when you want to crop heavily or make large prints.
It’s true that megapixels aren’t decisive for every use—if your pictures only go to social media, resolution matters less—but when you want to print a photo large enough to fill a wall, resolution becomes important.
One of the biggest threats to DSLR sales among everyday consumers is devices like the Nokia Lumia 1020, which pairs advanced image processing with a 41-megapixel sensor. While a phone won’t offer the same depth of manual focus control, interchangeable lenses, or optical flexibility as a DSLR, it can deliver impressive results for many users.
With a phone like that in hand, some photographers—myself included—might not be drawn toward the more traditional, “pure” approach to photography. Many long-time photographers may still judge mobile snaps, but what ultimately matters is whether you’re happy with the photo, and modern camera phones are increasingly capable of producing images that satisfy.
As consumers, we should welcome photography becoming more accessible. For DSLR makers, the challenge is to monitor these trends and evolve so they remain relevant, or risk a noticeable decline in sales over the coming years.
Nikon is well aware of this shift. Company president Makoto Kimura told Bloomberg that the rapid spread of mobile devices is changing the business environment the company faces, and that Nikon’s task is to find an answer to that change.
The current movement points toward Android-powered cameras—Samsung’s Galaxy NX, for example, has been a notable effort in that direction. Nikon was an early entrant into connected cameras with the Coolpix S800C, but that model was criticized for sluggish performance partly because it ran an older version of Android.
Kimura remains optimistic: “We want to create a product that will change the concept of cameras.” How Nikon and other manufacturers respond could reshape photography.
Whatever direction major players choose, enthusiasts can only hope the innovation is as exciting as past breakthroughs—such as Sigma’s introduction of a zoom lens with a constant f/1.8 aperture—which changed expectations about what lenses could do.
What do you think about the competition between dedicated DSLRs and modern mobile photography? Is the convergence of camera and phone technology a threat, an opportunity, or both?