It’s not a great article and probably AI translated, but it made me wonder how DJI can disrupt the market if it is releasing a mirrorless ILC camera as rumoured.
If this article is to be trusted, it will be a full-frame camera and will probably lean into DJI’s expertise in stabilization and Hasselblad’s colour science.
But I’m still struggling to see how it can truly disrupt the sector. What kind of technology can it bring that isn’t already available or in the works (e.g. global shutter)?
The only way I feel it can truly disrupt is if it brings the same quality as other manufacturers but at a much more affordable price point. And if there’s anything Hasselblad about it, can it really be more affordable?
Thoughts, opinions?
Would you buy a DJI camera?
Considering it’s a Chinese company, will it even bother with the North American market in this economic climate?
Other cameras, even my GR III, already has this. I don’t view it as a positve though, it adds cost, SD cards are cheap and replaceable.
Firstly, there are camera menus.
The menus in the hasselblad are already quite minimal, so they’d mostly just copy that idea? Probably good, but hardly “game changing”
as Sony Alpha Rumors has speculated, DJI could theoretically add an e-SIM
I hope it has a huge battery, as connectivity will absolutely make current sized batteries last about 15 minutes
Lastly, a more realistic shake-up for mirrorless cameras from a new DJI player would be lenses. … [the ronin 4d] has an interchangeable mount that works not only with DJI’s DL lenses but also with L-Mount, E-mount, and M-mount glass. If a DJI mirrorless camera could do the same for a much lower price, it could be a versatile new player.
OK so it’ll work with existing lenses, that’s good.
But photography is all about glass. Bodies come and go. I’m sure cellular connection would be good for some things, but… none of this sounds like a huge game changer. It’ll need a huge battery with those features, which will make it heavy and bulk.
I agree, none of it sounds like a huge game changer. Versatility in mounts sounds cool and may pique the interest of newcomers, but I doubt existing users will care enough to move systems. And heavy/bulky sounds like a real turn off.
I also don’t care about video solutions, so its hybrid chops will mostly be wasted on someone like me. I welcome new players and increased competition, but I’m mostly interested in more compact and more affordable solutions.
This rumour’s been kicking around since at least last year, with Huawei sometimes mentioned as a jv partner.
DJI revolutionised and now dominates the consumer drone market. The U.S.’s Skydio couldn’t compete with DJI’s low-cost supply chain for brushless motors.
DJI’s Osmo Pocket vlogging cameras seem to have also innovated beyond the main camera brands’ efforts.
So maybe it’s a combination of finding a key innovation, or making existing tech more consumer friendly, then using China’s preeminent supply chain manufacturing system to beat off the competition.
You make a valid point, but a new entrant could still target a significant market share of enthusiast photographers with lenses that are decent, but not necessarily outstanding either in terms of specs or optical design. Very few people need the flagship f/1.2 primes or the fast wildlife zooms that cost as much as a new car.
I would go for the APS-C market though. Only Fujifilm (and, to a smaller extent, Sony) are taking it seriously, but both companies target a premium price point. Nikon and Canon crop format lens lineups are still very limited, they clearly want customers to go for the full frame option.
That said, the myth that everyone needs a full frame sensor is very persistent, and it could make sense from a marketing perspective.
These things are tried from time to time. Remember the Yi Micro 4/3 camera? It usually turns out that experience in other sectors does not translate well to cameras, so products that have impressive specs on paper struggle in practice.
Yes, I wonder if the low cost of capital and banks that aren’t really market or credit quality focused, as well as competition between regions, means many Chinese companies just randomly try things out and abandon them rather than having a long-term strategy. There seems to be an element of herding, like the reported 500+ EV companies that popped up, only to fall to 100 or 300, depending who you ask, a few years later. Yi was part of Xiaomi, also now making cars along with Huawei and the rest of them. My impression, but nothing more, was that DJI was a little more focused.
Sure, but that isn’t the “game chainger” that’s predicted in the article, nor is it a strategy to get people hyped about a new manufacturer. And in fact that segment is already covered by both Chinese and Japanese 3rd party lens makers.
Yes, but no one expects it to be. Photography has been remarkably free of major changes; a contemporary of Ansel Adams would learn to handle a modern MILC in a few hours.
“Game changer” here just means that their PR campaign is well done
It will only be a true game changer if they undercut the entire market whilst providing the same or more features than their peers. It’s not hard to believe as China has been doing this in a lot of markets. But photographers are weird and are too attached to certain brands. Chinese manufacturing isn’t what it used to be as well, a lot of it is on par with any in the west, sometimes even better.
Yes, hard to believe that Made in Japan (and later Taiwan) used to be the stamp of cheap copycat products for Western consumers not that many decades ago.
China feels a bit like a giant startup economy (including the dotcom bust phase) to me but with funds coming via the state in a sometimes crude industrial policy fashion. Infrastructure is built long before there’s underlying demand, which is fine as long as your economy is developing fast enough and you build in the right place.
The giant Shougang Park development near where my wife’s family lives in west Beijing has turned a massive steel making complex into an enormous retail and office space. Although new businesses have opened up there over the years that we’ve been visiting it, the vacancy rate seems still extremely high. It’s basically dead in the week. Yet they’ve already moved onto the next phases of the project and are building another enormous number of office and retail buildings at the moment at rapid pace. That’s with the economy pretty weak and an ongoing property bust. I guess that wouldn’t get funding in the U.K., where anchor tenants must be found before investors will be willing to risk their money. The Kings Cross project in London is the biggest redevelopment in Europe (though dwarfed I would guess by Shougang) and it’s retail spaces opened very rapidly after completing each building and it sold residential off plan.
This is all just based on impressions of walking around these places so take with handful of salt
I may be in the minority in the photography world, but I also think the APS-C segment would be a good fit for a newcomer. I know there are endless arguments about where the sweet spot is for sensor size, but I really think APS-C is it. It can be used in truly compact bodies like the Ricoh GR and Fuji XM-5, while still getting very close to full frame quality.
Projected image size has been shrinking constantly ever since the invention of photography. Initially, chemical film was <10 ISO, so people shot really large film and 8x10" was for amateurs. Then, in the middle of the 20th century, 4x5" was for enthusiast shooting. Then came various formats, and finally 135 film, but in color the sensitivity was still not so high, which meant that you had to use fast lenses except in broad daylight.
Now 1" or even smaller sensors are broadly where film used to be before the digital era (which was ISO 400 for most cases in practice for color). 1" sensors are suitable from dawn to dusk with a fast (f/1.7) prime or zoom, and micro 4/3 or APS-C will work just fine with most f/2.8 lenses. I agree that this is where the sweet spot is (the two are not significantly different); going smaller does not decrease lens or camera body size appreciably. But at the same time going full frame is not a large difference either unless you want very fast or very long lenses.
btw could we all stop kidding ourselfs? none of the camera companies comes actually close to what the real photography tool of the present is:
Smartphones.
We are a very small minority.
TBH personally I wonder why DJI would like to enter that market. too many parts bought for cinema cameras and not enough demand so they want to reuse them?
I believe nobody argues with that, and they are definitely the most common tool out there for taking images, but it can’t be argued that it’s not even close to the best tool on ergonomics alone
Maybe there’s a market for 1" cameras. A whole system with a dedicated mount, like Pentax Q, coupled with extremely capable bodies when it comes to processing power to take advantage of computational photography.
A smartphone alone without accessories is never going to be ergonomic to anyone who wants to take certain kinds of photos.
