In the field of cameras, the competition between different manufacturers is as fierce as in the field of smartphones. Even users are discussing which product is the best choice on the market. From professional photographers, amateurs to ordinary users, they all seem to be more concerned about how the entire camera field will develop in the new year of 2015.

First, let's take a look at a set of latest statistics from IDC. In 2009, the sales volume of cameras in the US market was 35 million units, and this number will reach 9.4 million in 2014. In 2015, the agency predicts that the sales volume of cameras in the US market will continue to decline to about 7 million, of which 4.5 million are compact cameras and 2.3 million are cameras with interchangeable lenses (including SLR and micro single).

The reason for this rapid decline in sales is undoubtedly the impact of smartphones, which has also led to many manufacturers still struggling to support. Professional camera manufacturers are constantly innovating their product technology and launching new concept products in order to be able to surpass smartphones in terms of image quality.

Point-and-shoot cameras are dying

It is not surprising that in this "cheap" era, the once famous point-and-shoot cameras are almost gone. Although a small number of products will be unveiled at the upcoming CES 2015 Consumer Electronics Show and the CP+ Show in February, almost no one is willing to carry a product that is specifically used for taking pictures but the effect is not satisfactory. After all, all of this can be replaced by smartphones.

Chris Chute, vice president and professional analyst of IDC Global Imaging Business, said that he did not see a new point-and-shoot camera on display at the 2014 Photokina exhibition in Germany, and such products will become increasingly rare. Although you will still see them on the market, their fate is already determined. The only ones left on the market will be those with large sensors such as the Sony RX100 series, telephoto products such as the Canon PowerShot SX60 HS, and various three-proof cameras. Apart from these, there is almost no room for other products to survive. Chris Chute is more optimistic about full-frame micro single products with APS-C sensors, which support Wi-Fi connection and 4K ultra-high-definition video recording.

Upgrading to 4K

Given that the entire consumer electronics industry is very enthusiastic about the concept of 4K, and many TVs and display devices have already upgraded to 4K resolution, this trend will also permeate into new cameras and camcorders in the future. The good news is that in 2015, the price of products that support 4K will continue to drop, just like the TV industry. In addition, 4K video shooting and saving has become simple, you only need an external hard drive or save directly to an SD card. For example, Samsung recently launched a new NX1 micro single, which supports 4K UHD video shooting and has attracted a lot of attention.

More and faster connections

Now almost all new products have begun to support Wi-Fi and NFC connections. At present, the entire camera industry has begun to realize how important it is to support wireless connections due to the influence of smartphones. We hope to see more and more cameras support 802.11ac Wi-Fi connections, after all, it is much faster than the common b/g/n. Samsung is undoubtedly a pioneer in this field. Its products not only support 802.11ac Wi-Fi and NFC, but also include Bluetooth.

In addition, the addition of USB 3.0 makes the transmission speed faster, but it is currently limited to high-end SLR models. How to make the new USB technology popular in the entire camera field is also a big challenge for engineers.

Wi-Fi has been popularized, but the cooperation with apps has yet to be "opened up"

Although new products have continuously improved the connection performance, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the cooperation and pairing with applications. Although the camera app is mentioned in almost all reviews, it is not yet at the best level. We believe that in 2015, many companies will continue to add new features and functions and simplify the pairing process.

After all, this feature will bring great convenience in the process of sharing photos between cameras and smartphones, and applications should also provide more photo editing and filter functions. And the attributes of editing and filtering should continue to be popularized. After all, photo social applications such as Instagram have 300 million users worldwide.

Smartphone cameras are constantly improving

In fact, smartphones should now be considered as commonly used photo devices. After all, not everyone is willing to carry a bulky camera when going out. We hope that smartphones will also have higher pixels, support 4K shooting, larger sensors, and high dynamic range original film capture. In addition, we hope that the configuration of smartphones will continue to improve in terms of lens components, which will completely beat most of the compact cameras currently on the market.

At present, almost all mainstream camera manufacturers have clearly realized this reality, that is, all non-professionals are very satisfied with the photography effects of smartphones, so manufacturers have concentrated on using a few models to satisfy professional users who are more concerned about image and video quality. In addition, as for the price, $1,000 (about RMB 6,100) is basically the price standard between professional users and enthusiasts, and in the camera field in 2015, there will undoubtedly be a large number of ILC mirrorless cameras that will reduce the price to this range.