I keep coming back to this site for news on what watered down newly released spec-d camera can I buy with my $1000 budget and the majority of the posts are all on the cadillacs. I understand there are people who make their living needing the very best equipment. I am in a different category - average guy who needs a reason to ditch the IPhone and pick up a camera that costs just as much as the IPhone but gives me good pics and 4K video. No such thing from Canon besides maybe the M6 mark II. I have an M5 and my iPhone does just as well for the majority of the shots and gives me 4K video. I don’t want to carry a brick just to get marginally better results. Like having something that fits in a pocket. I think I am probably done owning a stand alone camera. I think I am the majority but this site caters to the pro’s who can’t make that choice for obvius reasons - which is why this site will have a hard time growing.
Smartphones are really good for most needs to shoot images and videos. So, if you were the typical user of cheaper ILC cameras with one kit zoom that you never changed, it really makes sense to say good-bye. Interchangeable lens cameras nowadays are mostly an interesting option for people with more special needs which forces them to use special lenses.
One example are tele lenses. Smartphone cameras are limited to a maximum focal lenghts that would be about 100mm in FF equivalent, (1) because of the small space available in a smartphone, and (2) because longer focal lenghts result in even smaller sensors in those mini-cameras. So, if you need a longer tele for your photography, you will always need a bigger system. Another area is shooting with very fast lenses to get a shallow depth-of field to isolate e.g. a portrait from background an get a nice bokeh. Today's better smartphones imitate this effect with their multi-cameras, time-of-flight laser sensors for precise distance metering, plus massive algorithms. But those algorithms produce errors and artifacts, e.g. by smearing out contours of haircuts, you may know this effect in a very stark pronounced way from video chats in which your partner has activated a virtual background. Good smartphones are much better already, but on a bigger print you'd see those artifacts.
All this sums up to the fact, that it is logical for camera makers to concentrate on a smaller, more premium market for enthusiasts and pros. The classical point & shoot market is mostly eaten by smartphones, which represent a disruptive tech. The great thing about a smartphone is that you always have it in your pocket. Plus, if you use it in the street, nobody gets paranoid about it, because everyone is offender by her- or himself, using frequently their own smartphones. But if you today use a classical camera for street photography, even a vintage analogue one with not any connection to social networks, you easily attract aggression.
