Three million cameras and counting

Special Feature: Camera Revolution

One in four Australian households now own a digital camera and that doesn’t include camera phones.

While a sizeable number of people are taking pictures with their camera phones and are getting them printed, camera phones appear to have only heightened people’s interest in taking photos and buying a dedicated camera for the purpose.

Annual sales of cameras in 2009 will approach the three million mark, according to new research conducted by the Photo Imaging Council of Australia in association with PMA.

The interest has lead to a huge boom in the sale of top-end digital single lens reflex cameras. Last year, a record 178,000 digital single lens reflexes were sold and this year the figure is expected to be well in excess of 200,000 cameras.

“In the first half of this year, digital SLR sales have soared by nearly 50%,” according to Photo Information Council spokesperson Paul Curtis.

“We believe it is the cheaper low-end cameras and camera phones which became available over the last couple of years that inspired people into the joys of taking better photos,” he said. “However, an SLR camera allows a photographer to be more expressive, versatile and creative in their picture taking.”

According to the PMA/Photo Imaging Council research, 20% of Australian households are predicting they will buy a new digital camera in the next twelve months. The talk of recession has had minimal effect with only around 5% of prospective camera buyers reporting they are delaying their purchase due to the current economic situation.

And the once male-dominated world of camera buying has been broken as 52% of new cameras are now purchased by women.

The average young family takes more than 800 photos a year, 80% of which are saved and more than a quarter are printed.

The percentage of households that own a digital camera increased from 62% in 2007 to to 69% in 2008, according to the latest survey.

Interestingly, the number of people with camera phones increased from 42% to 66% but slightly fewer people are using the camera function.

The survey found that one-third of respondents who took a photo with a camera phone said they would have rather taken a picture with their regular camera if they had it with them at the time.