EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE IS ALWAYS A RISK, IN PHOTOGRAPHY NO LESS THAN OTHER TREND-FUELED ARTS, to make predictions about the next big thing, or even certain elements of What’s Happening Now, only to wind up eating a huge helping of crow further down the road. Simply stated, the prediction racket is largely a sucker bet, and anyone who goes into print saying they know what’s coming next ought to check to see if someone’s slipping something into their coffee.
That said..
As I write this, in July of 2026, the photo world is experiencing a bit of a time warp, as the presumed-dead compact camera is staging what can only be called a comeback, years after it seemed headed for the scrap heap at the hands of the smartphone. Sales figures tell a convincing story, with year-over-year sales of compacts up nearly 30%, even as sales of DSLR’s, a tech that was already in decline, continuing to slide and sales of mirrorless models basically stagnant. This means that the new crop of compacts is robbing customers from chiefly one place, and that’s cells.
Now, while most people, globally, will almost certainly continue to take most of their photos on a phone of some kind going forward, the fact that any of these users, who have long trumpeted the portability and ease of shooting on a cell, are deliberately choosing a camera-only device says something about changing attitudes; not only toward cameras, but also toward all the other junk that a phone brings along for the ride, including broken attention spans, unwelcome alerts, a less tactile experience, etc. There are already measurable micro-trends, seen primarily amongst the young, toward at least a partial un-plugging, with some purchasing apps to police their screen time, a rise in the purchase of “dumb phones” that only take and send calls, and other signs of a partial rollback of this very addictive form of tech.
The new surge toward compacts also represents a change in the performance levels of such cameras, many of which now deliver a high percentage of the tricks that were, just a few years back, solely the province of so-called “semi-pro”-level cameras. The new compacts also have a temporary cachet of cool based solely on their under-availability, since most manufacturers’ models are currently selling out (scarcity amplifies desire). Another ingredient in the recipe; the desire for a level of more participatory photography, or a “hands-on”, higher-control experience than even the best phone cameras can deliver. Finally, factor in the number of pitches on Tik Tok for “digicams” as yester-cool, and the deliberate retro-baiting done by designers to echo classic exterior features of vintage models (Look! Dials and switche, just like Gramps used to have!) and it’s not hard to account for the compact time warp.
As we said earlier, cell phones, and their cameras, are not going anywhere. What we’re seeing here looks a bit like the return to vinyl records; a niche, but not a tsunami. Still, anything that makes a goodly number of photographers ask, why am I doing this? or why do I want to do it this way? is healthy, and keeps the art form breathing.
SIZE (STILL) ISN’T EVERYTHING
In photography, as in so many other things, one man’s luxury is another man’s bulky nuisance….
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY IS AT LEAST PARTIALLY ABOUT barriers to good picture-making, and how they were overcome. This means that, when a solution to a longstanding problem is introduced, let’s say a technical or ease-of-use breakthrough, the new way of doing things is celebrated by someone saying that the old ways are now “dead”. Digital imaging? Oh, it’s the death of film. Better sensors? Well, that’s the death of lo-fi images. And cellphone cameras? Well, that’s obviously curtains for the compact camera.
On that last one….
Camera phones were an amazing bend in the road, redefining the traditional appeal of point-and-shoot with even more size convenience and eliminating the need for a separate, dedicated camera. The impact of cels was so huge that, initially, it even allowed us to overlook just how technically primitive the first generations of them were. The shock wave was most measurable in the shipment figures for compact cameras, which were nearly cut in half between 2010 and 2020, when the decline began to slow, and then partially reverse. An entirely new class of compacts, smaller in size but more expensive than their predecessors, began to lure customers back by boasting more fine-tuned control than point-and-shoots of previous years and specs and performance that rivaled DSLRs and even full-frame models. The tide was further turned by two simple words: Tik. Tok.
Again, the actual user universe makes the final decision on what photographic format or system is “alive” or “dead”, with Tik-Tok’s immense social media platform beginning new dialogues on whether cels or new compacts produced better pictures, along with a comparison on the experience in shooting this way or that. Shooters could go on TT and see side-by-side views of pictures of the same subjects taken with cels or one of the new compact superstars like, say, the Canon PowerShot G7 X and post their impressions. Will the pricey, sexy new compacts spell the “death” of iPhone photography? Not bloody likely, no more than the highly touted rise of cels spelled “death” for older compacts.
There will always be mega-millions who opt for a cel’s ease of use, which, paired with its rapidly advancing technical prowess, spells convenience that a separate camera often can’t deliver. But at least we can agree that greeting a new development in the art of photography doesn’t automatically render everything that went before it obsolete. No craft rooted in creativity can afford to be that close-minded, and we’ve seen far too many cases in which, in our very individual pursuit of pictures, we declare everything old to be new again.
thenormaleye 