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If we look at the currently offered cameras, we see a wide range of sensor sizes, as seen in the table below as a multiple of the smartphone sensor size.

If we look at these numbers, we immediately see why sales of compacts are collapsing: they do not offer a sufficient improvement in quality compared to smartphones, especially when we consider that the typical phone has a fast fixed lens. And whatever little extra in quality compacts can provide is more than compensated for by the easier sharing available from a phone, and the much more intuitive interface provided on the phone.

This leaves only the enthusiast market for the dedicated camera makers, for models from the RX100 upwards. The opening they have come from these improvements:

• Better low light sensitivity, as the phones become quite grainy with sunset, let alone typical indoor lightning

• More choice than a fixed focal length

• Higher image quality thanks to inherent advantage of larger optics and shallower depth of field

• Better focussing speed

The good news for camera makers is that, apart from speed, these are inherent advantages from making larger cameras, and that smartphones would become too clunky were they to follow this road. The bad news is that the smartphone is good enough for display on a Retina iPad when the image was taken in sunlight. On the other hand the improved tablet screens will make the quality deficits of a smartphone camera more visible, and so increase demand.

Jobs Still Available To Dedicated Cameras

So which jobs regarding image capture cannot be sufficiently done by the smartphone?

• The always with you camera that will give good quality even in bad light

  This is what the RX100 excels in, with the X100s and RX1 as options with more weight in return for more quality.

• The travel camera

  This is one of the most important reasons people want a better camera. Here weight plays an important role and makes M4/3 a very good option, for example with a 14-140 zoom and a f/2.0 or faster pancake, when you need something better than the RX100.

• The kids/sports camera

  Both demand quick focus to follow the action. This is the one area where the phase detection in mirror cameras still is an advantage. But with them slowly moving onto the sensor as well, this advantage will remain short lived. The Nikon 1 already has amazingly fast autofocus.

• The reporter

  As far as quality is concerned, a well served market. What can be improved is the speed with which images can be processed and forwarded. This mainly calls for fast and frictionless transmission of images, where there is still quite some room for improvement (background download of images onto the iPad/iPhone, for example).

• The exhibition camera

  Here people have time to compose their shots, and they want the best technical quality, e.g., for product shots. This is where you go larger and larger until you no longer can handle the mass efficiently. This is where the best image quality is still analog, from a large format with the film scanned. But it is also a niche that is very difficult to serve, as 36 MPixel at 200 dpi are already 45×30" (112x75cm).

The UX Trap

The greatest problem facing all camera makers at the moment is that they do not really understand how to create easy to use software. There is still an immense potential in using displays to make cameras easier to use, to better integrate with phones to make sharing images easier (and maybe even move advanced settings over to their larger screens), to rethink camera operations like Camera+ on the iPhone did, to leverage the iPad as an advanced remote trigger with live view, e.g., for macro photos.

There are so many obvious points to improve upon, for example:

• Why do DSLRs still use a primitive LCD display in their finders, when they could use a Retina class color display? It would require a custom cut, but with a roughly a million units annually this should be possible to get. And it would make it so much easier to display all relevant information in them, making us more productive.

• Why is Wifi/Bluetooth 4.0 not standard, downloading small jpegs in the background to your phone so that they are immediately available for sharing? Why can’t we use the iPad to browse and process raw images, before sending them on, without requiring us to move a card?

• Why do cameras still have so many image processing functions on board when these can be done much better on a phone or tablet with their larger screens? Why do we not have any help with filtering our photos for the good shots?