For Position Only: Look Who’s Using Digital Cameras
At first blush, it might not seem that astounding: A new market research report from TrendWatch Graphic Arts shows that creative professionals are having a love affair with digital cameras. But read past the headlines and there are some interesting — and sometimes surprising — findings.
For Starters…
Contrary to popular belief — or rather, stereotype — commercial photographers are not stuck in the 1980s, clinging to film and analog processes. They’re the biggest market for digital cameras, far outpacing other print creative pros (such as ad agencies and graphic designers), print publishers, Web designers and developers, and (not surprisingly) prepress and printing firms in their adoption of the technology. The TrendWatch Graphic Arts report, entitled “Digital Photography: How Creative Professionals are Buying and Using Digital Cameras,” indicates that 48 percent of commercial photographers plan to buy digital cameras for print production in the next year, almost twice as many as other print and Web creative markets. The next biggest markets, for what it’s worth, are catalog publishers and ad agencies. In all, 82 percent of all commercial photographers reportedly now use a digital camera, as do 76 percent of all creative professionals.
I was surprised to read that Web designers and developers are relatively lukewarm when it comes to buying and using digital cameras. I would have thought that digital cameras are a natural component of their workflows, which are younger than print production workflows.
“Young,” of course, translates as “hip,” and we all know that “hip” means “digital,” right? It would certainly seem logical to me that Web designers and developers would have that mythical all-digital workflow all worked out, with digital photography a fundamental part of the workflow’s on-ramp. But as it turns out, they’ve been busy digitizing and using legacy content, rather than capturing original digital photography. I guess the Internet bubble burst before they got that far. I wonder if their use of digital photography will grow when the economy picks up in the next few years.
And Did You Know…?
And while it’s not an earth-shattering revelation that affordable but highly capable “prosumer” digital cameras exploded onto the market in the last few years, you might be surprised to learn what creative professionals are doing with these mid-range devices. They’re not just using the cameras to capture digital Polaroids or low-res images for placement in print layouts. The good news is that they’re using prosumer digital cameras for high-resolution print layouts and output — this is the Number 1 application of their digital cameras. The wording of the application in the report is “final high-resolution images for print advertising,” but that’s a broad description that can mean different things to different markets. For ad agencies, it would mean everything from publication ads to point-of-purchase displays. For catalog publishers, it would mean catalogs — that’s how they advertise their company’s products.
According to the report, 50 percent of print creative professionals and 56 percent of print publishers are using digital cameras to capture such high-resolution images. Significant percentages of photographers are using digital cameras — albeit their preferred one-shot devices — for even more impressive applications, such as portrait and art photography, and of course, to create and sell stock photography.
Speaking of Stock Photography…
One other finding that I think is particularly intriguing is that while the rise in digital camera investments correlates to a decline in color scanner investments, it doesn’t correlate to a decline in stock photography purchases. It appears that for many creative pros and publishers, scanners have lived a useful life as a mechanism for digitizing content. But while it’s much easier now, and much more common, to capture photos digitally, it’s still often much easier, and much more affordable, to purchase digital stock photography rather than pay for and arrange a photo shoot. It appears that these two technologies — digital cameras and digital stock photos — have a synergistic relationship rather than a competitive one.
Where does all this leave you?
The report is chock full of statistics to back up these findings and others — including sales opportunities and production challenges that accompany the rise of digital photography among creative professionals, as well as specifics about rates of adoption and more. Vince Naselli, director of TrendWatch Graphic Arts, sums up the findings this way: “Digital camera technology is now mature and robust…. Creative professionals have recognized this and are using it for many high-end applications. More and more [creative pros] are learning how the technology works, and are now making it work for them.”
What about you? Are you reaping the benefits of digital photography? If not, it appears you’re soon to be in the minority. Perhaps you hadn’t realized how highly capable and useful digital cameras have become. If that’s the case, carpe diem.
This article was last modified on January 3, 2023
This article was first published on November 21, 2002
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They are being phazed out. I always had a problem with them that when you tried to get a close up there was red in the eyes. and if you got frther away, the subject was so small. I have taken several old poloroid photos and scanned them and enlarged and cropped and copied to get better pictures. They are good sometimes to get a quick picture. But I realy don’t like them too much.
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