Sunday, June 9, 2019

Browsing for cameras

Technology advances at a rapid pace, particularly in the realm of consumer electronics.  If something you want is too expensive, just a couple of years.  The new latest cutting-edge thing will be out, and the thing you actually want will be marked down considerably.

Unfortunately, this trend doesn't seem to be holding with respect to camcorders.

One would think that 4k camcorders with optical zoom would be plentiful and affordable.  Browsing Amazon gives a different impression.  Lots of digital zoom; not so much optical zoom.  Lots of no-name brands I've never heard of.

My theory: smart phones are to blame.  People use their phones now for everything photo- or video-related, which means the market for dedicated cameras and camcorders has stagnated.  I think this is unfortunate for several reasons.  One, you're putting your stuff on the cloud instead of on a memory card, which means Big Brother sees your pics and vids before you do.  Two, in addition to Big Brother, there's the matter of hackers.  Three, you can only pack so much into a smart phone's case, so the technology will always be inferior to that of a dedicated camera.

On the other hand, thinking about WiFi and smart phones and the cloud and all this other stuff has given me some story ideas.  Silver lining, right?

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