Camera prices, like most other prices, are going up. Part of this has been manufacturers focusing on high-end users, because they tend to buy the higher-margin products. But even attempts at making more accessible cameras can seem wildly expensive, compared to the prices we remember paying.

And that’s not a question of manufacturers being foolish or greedy. Whether we like it or not, we are living through a period of higher inflation than we’re used to.

This is the first of a two-part series looking at why the perspective on cameras’ prices in our reviews can seem out-of-step with other people’s initial reactions, on the day of launch.

Many of us lived through a more than twenty-year period of relatively low inflation. Prices of most things rose by around 2% per year, the cost of electronics fell, partly with the outsourcing of manufacture and through increased efficiencies and economies of scale. Wages typically kept pace with inflation, so things didn’t feel more expensive. Large sensor digital cameras got cheaper at first, then settled into a pattern of improving while maintaining their existing price.

Richard Butler

Sadly, that’s no longer the world we live in. It’s impossible to enumerate all the factors that got us to here without spiraling off into discussions of politics, but there have been a host of inflationary pressures over the past few years. Whether it’s supply-chain shocks, tariffs, wars putting pressure on oil and gas prices or out-of-control demand for processors and RAM, there’s more pushing prices up than encouraging them to drop.

Manufacturer’s materials and energy costs have gone up. Their component prices have become erratic. Their wages have gone up. Their logistics costs have increased. They cannot make cameras for the prices we used to pay. And, because of the way inflation works, the $1000 you had planned for your next purchase simply isn’t worth as much as that figure have been, five or six years ago.

I suspect it’s not just me who finds myself marveling at articles or footage from the 70’s showing a pint of beer priced in pennies or a gallon of ‘gas’ in cents. To a more modern ear, that just seems unimaginable, and it’s hard to see how we got from there to where we are. For most of my adult life, the changes have been incremental enough that I didn’t notice the jump. But thinking back to when I was at college, a pint in my favorite pub was £1.36. I visited the same pub this summer, and it was £5.30. Those little changes have ramped up into big ones in the past few years, and now the prices of my own yesteryears are beginning to seem impossibly distant. 

The same thing is happening with cameras, and just about all manufactured products: the value of money is dropping faster than any reduction in the cost of electronics (and a lot of key components are being bought for AI, before it can get anywhere near consumer products). Also, there’s every chance that it’s been some time since you last bought a new camera, and that precisely remembered reference point is no longer realistic.

None of which is to say that we have to like it. I’m not trying to defend it, or suggesting you should (or even can) just decide it doesn’t matter. But getting frustrated about it or insisting that the latest camera should cost what your last one did, pre-pandemic, isn’t going to change things. None of us enjoys it, but pretending inflation doesn’t exist or that rising prices are down to manufacturer misjudgment or greed doesn’t get you anywhere useful.

Every photographer has a first moment when they realize their time behind the camera is something they truly care about. For some, the spark comes from a chance encounter with a unique camera in a shop window or from the skills of a beloved relative who’s also into photography. For others, it stems from a childhood TV hero, or perhaps an interest to document family life.

Last week, we asked our community what set their photography journey in motion, and the replies were as varied as the photographers themselves. Read on to see what sparked the DPReview community into photo-taking action.

lumigraphics: I was in the Navy when Queen Elizabeth made an official state visit to my ship (USS Ranger in San Diego, 1983). I only had a little 110 camera and wanted better results, so I bought a Canon AE-1 Program from the ship’s store, and the rest is history. 43 years later, I’m a working pro. Might be the only person around who is a photographer because of the Queen.

Dimpsey: Early morning trips to buy bread rolls for breakfast. The bakery often wasn’t open, but the chemists across the road had cameras in their window. One was all shiny silver knobs and a gleaming top plate. It was utterly irresistible, and I wanted it. That was over 60 years ago, and I’m still taking the camera(s) out today!

SGA

SGA: As a kid, I wanted to be Jimmy Olsen, Cub Reporter. I loved watching him on the original Superman TV show, running around Metropolis with his old folding camera. But all my parents got me was a Kodak Brownie, which used 127 film.

NorCalPhotonFoundry: My grandfather was a lifelong photography enthusiast, and when I was 6 or 7 years old, he gave me a cheap little plastic point-and-shoot camera for Christmas. For me, the “spark” was the magic of being able to capture, keep and share a moment or perspective; something which still brings me joy to this day. I still have and use my childhood QL17, and am grateful to my grandpa for giving me that first plastic point-and-shoot.

Alun Thomas: My interest was kindled by my cycle touring interest. I would go on forums to read others’ trip reports and wonder why my photos were so rubbish compared to theirs. So I bought a Sony A5100, then soon started buying different lenses. I eventually switched to full-frame, and now the hobby is more prominent for me than cycling.

GWKilgore: I grew up hunting. I was in my 30s when I went out to Oregon in 1975 to hunt mule deer. Right after sunrise, I bagged a nice buck. I was worn out and told my hunting companions this was too much work. I said that I would trade my rifle for a camera.

GatoAmarillo

Gato Amarillo: I think it might have started here (see photo above). That’s me in about 1952 with my father and sister at the Tri-State Fair in Amarillo. The photographer was from one of the local newspapers, and I still vaguely remember being fascinated by the big camera. It was another 20 years or so before I started serious photography myself, but I suspect that experience was the spark.

Edgar_in_Indy: When we started having kids in the early 2000’s, my wife and I would go to one of the franchised photography studios at the mall. It would kill us to see the screen fill up with dozens of great pictures of our child, but only be able to pick a handful due to the cost of each picture.

I ended up buying an early DSLR and a couple of old studio strobes and never had to visit those mall studios again. I’m not sure we actually saved any money in the long run, given my camera collection, but we have so many great family photos from over the years.

GeoInSD: When I was a child, my family used cheapie cameras, like Kodak Brownies and Instamatics. I remember seeing my granduncle having an SLR system that I thought was pretty cool. My interest in photography started when I took a photography class in high school. I was stunned by the vastly superior image quality of a 35mm SLR compared to Kodak Brownies and Instamatics.

I was not an early adopter of digital. I held off until shutter lag was comparable to film AND the DSLR body was under $1000 US. The Nikon D70 was the first DSLR that met those criteria in my book.

There are many other stories from our community. We would love for you to join in on the discussion!