A wierd thought

[jbylake]

I was thinking, and that's a dangerous thing for me...but here goes; just wan't to gather other's thoughts on this.

Film photography, while pretty much outdated, but still around, hasn't changed a lot over the last 40 years or so.

But technology has changed, and is continuing to change expotentially, every year or two, sometimes less.

Point in case, I remember asking a fellow photographer, in the mid to late 90's, if he thought that digital camera's would ever take over where film camera's were at the time. He thought I was nut's and swore that digital would never equal the resolution of film and a good lens.

Well, we know that was wrong. But, now we are moving from digital and IC base technology into the field of nano technology. So it took the PC since the late 70's to early 80's to get where we are now. As technology advances, it's rate of advancement is accellerating, expotentially, almost every day.

Where film camera's were around for years, could the NEW digital camera's, the one's that can be bought today, be outdated, with newer technology, at an astounding rate, as the rest of technology is? Will digital camera's, as we know it today, right now, be the floppy disks of tomorrow?

Get where I'm going here. I guess anything would just be conjecture, but I just thought it might be interesting to hear if others are thinking the same way....

J.:mrgreen:

 

[Josh66]

Well, we know that was wrong.

Was it? I don't think we're quite there yet, but it will happen. I give it 2 more years...maybe 3.

Will digital camera's, as we know it today, right now, be the floppy disks of tomorrow?

Yes. The shape may not change much, but the technology will.




I don't think we're there yet, but it's close. It's on the horizon.

 

[Overread]

I don't think we're there yet, but it's close. It's on the horizon.

And just like the horizon we will never actually make it there - there will always be another horizon to cross when we reach the one we can see now. Though that does not garantee that we will reach that horizon of course.


Also as for the floppy disk part - already the first digital cameras are falling away like floppy disks - the early digital cameras are already dropped from production and most are uneconomical to have repaired/serviced and so have no official support there. Granted what we have now is miles better, but in 10 years the same will be true again I suspect (based on the current advance of technology).

Lens wise things move slower, far slower and I suspect that lenses will oneday be the major slowing factor in the advance of photography - something that will cause a slowdown in the advance of digital bodies so that they do not end up showing too much of the errors in lenses (otherwise the overall quality of the final product - the photo - will diminish).

 

[Josh66]

I agree. Eventually, lenses will be the limiting factor in all photography.

Resolution is limited by the lens (for now) - it's just that at the moment, our sensors can't match the resolution of our lenses. Right now, the sensor is the limiting factor. As sensors get better, they will eventually equal, then surpass, the resolution of available lenses.

Then we will have to wait for the lens engineers to design new, higher resolution lenses.
Then we will be limited by the sensor again... Are you noticing a cycle?

 

[jbylake]

I don't think we're there yet, but it's close. It's on the horizon.

Granted what we have now is miles better, but in 10 years the same will be true again I suspect (based on the current advance of technology).

Here is where I'm going. There is a hypothisis, I can't remember his name, by an individual, that is generally accepted as correct, and has proven itself to be correct so far, that as fast as technology is being advanced, there is an expotential correlation in how fast the prior technology is being produced. For example, it took many years to get to the state of art of computing, that we were..say from the old Commodore Computers, but his hypotheses says that will half, then half again and again, as we progress.

Years ago I bought several Canon bodies, and a bunch of glass. Most would consider them "obsolete" by todays standards, but this class of Canon's, Nikons' etc...had a pretty good run, in years. In fact I still shoot them on a regular basis.

However, in the digital realm, I don't think these camera's will have the life span. By that I mean new technologies will require new interfaces, more complex software, and who knows what, and these newer cameras, where bodies can easily go 3 grand will have a much more limited life span than my old film bodies do or did. And it will half again, and again. See where I'm going with this. Futuristic fantasy? Maybe. Fact? Maybe. There is already fundemental working chips that are on the nano scale, which I believe is on the atomic scale. That is one particle of one atom able to to hold one bit of data. It's crazy, really, at the pace that this is accelerating.

Two years from now, if I buy a state of the art body, will it stay state of art for 10 years or 10 months...or????

J:mrgreen:

 

[Josh66]

I think it's like that for any technology.

Aviation for example. We didn't fly till 1903. Less than 60 years later we were in space.
Two years after that we built the fastest craft (still) to ever take to the air.

Zero to mach 3+ in sixty years. Hot air balloons to lunar modules in sixty years.

All we need is that one breakthrough to open the door. Once it's open - it's wide open.

 

[Tiberius47]

Hot air balloons to lunar modules in sixty years.

Sorry to be picky, but we had hot air balloons long before that.,...

 

[Gabriel]

Two years from now, if I buy a state of the art body, will it stay state of art for 10 years or 10 months...or????

J:mrgreen:

I think the newest, most advanced body with the highest resolution out in a couple of years will, 10 years later, be as obsolete as the first digital camera, from 1975: Digital camera turns 30 — sort of - Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com

 

[Garbz]

Ultimately I see a big problem with the advancement of technology on digital cameras. Ultimately that problem is the capture of light. Good digital SLRs are not in any way limited to the size of their components. They were definitely when they first came out. *Man 1mpx cameras were just crap weren't they?* However we now have reached 12mpx and way beyond and the finding is that we're hitting almost a bit of plateau in future expansion.

The reason being that unlike microchips which themselves are still several years from hitting limits of physics, the digital camera manufacturers are hitting limits of physics relating to light capture and noise. Ultimately a lot of the noise in cameras are due to fundamental physical limits, resistance, temperature, shot noise in transimpedance amplifiers, quantum noise and other problems. Space agencies have long known how to make noise free cameras, but their criteria does not include 12mpx and must be handheld.

One of the most telling examples of what I am talking about is that one of the greatest jumps in quality we've had recently in digital SLRs were to do with the inclusion of microlenses on the sensors. The sensor technology really hasn't changed much in the last several years.

No doubt each hurdle will be overcome, but I do not at all predict a exponential rise in quality of digital cameras, such as the computer industry experienced. (I went from a 486dx-33, dx2-66, pentium200 mmx, athlon 800, core2duo 1.6ghz, core2quad 2.4ghz). However I personally would predict more of a change inline with the old film technology. Just like colour came out overnight and represented a leap change in the industry, just like I think microlensing the sensors to improve signal-to-noise, I see the significant future of the digitals to come in step changes, with maybe some light refinement in resolution, features and models in between.

Just my guestimated opinion though.

 

[DennyCrane]

I think for a long time to come, the changes will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. I believe within 10 years the everyday DSLR you'll buy at the mall will have sensors larger than 35mm (full frame) and be in the 30-50mp range. Processing will continue to grow in power and ability. HD video will be standard and of higher quality than anything out now. And who knows... maybe auto focus will work in video after it starts... naw, that's just science fiction.

 

[Dwig]

Any one individual dgital camera will, without any question, become "obsolete" in a substantially shorter period of time than the typical film camra.

The primary reason is that film cameras were just cameras, camera+lightmeter combinations, or camera+lightmeter+flash combos. The light sensitive media (note the plural noun, many are/were available) were independent from the camera. As an example, my Leica 111a, which was introduced on the market before Kodachrome was marketed can be "upgraded" to modern Kodachrome (for a few more months) by simply loading the new film. I'm not limited to the film technology of the early '30s.

Digital cameras, on the other hand, bind the camera with the light sensitive medium (note the singular noun). Advances in sensor technology, by far the most significant and fastest changing piece in the chain, can't be retrofitted into older digital cameras. Even today, a five year old digital camera, even a former top of the line model, is quite outdated and bordering on obsolete.

You can see the effect in used camera prices. My 50 year old Leica M3 is worth a little over 1/10 the price of the current MP model new. A less than 10 year old (less than a 1/5th the age of my Leica M3) Nikon D1 is lucky to bring 1/30th the price of its current replacement, the D3x, new. The D1 is pretty much obsolete, its images can't compete with entry level models despite its excellent mechanical construction. My M3 will match the images produced by the current Leica film models.

 

[random2]

I'm sure one day there will be something we can't even imagine right now. Satelight's being involved etc. lol.. The only limit to man is our minds. And I believe where there is a will there is a way, somewhere, someone is working on something that will change everything eventually. It might take hundreds of years or decades. I never thought I would live to see Optimus Prime transform On a damn movie. LOL.. He's the SH#%% by the way. lol..
I think todays cameras will be like the 67 camaro's of the future. They allways will bee nice to have and fun to use, there will just be some super technology hardly anyone wants to afford except those who have to have it.

 

[Josh66]

Hot air balloons to lunar modules in sixty years.

Sorry to be picky, but we had hot air balloons long before that.,...

Yeah, I know. Before heavier than air aviation, that's all we had.

We went from floating around in a balloon to landing on the moon in about 60 years.

 

[jbylake]

This is really an interesting conversation, and all of you make very valid points.

One underlying theme here, is that, of course, the equipment of today will become obsolete. I think we can all agree to that. Hell, my two year old car, in some ways, is now becoming obsolete. I mean it still starts, gets me where I'm going, and does that just as well as it did two years ago.

I think the one thing that we are all missing here, is the "unwordly" rate that technology is evolving. So where is the rate that we hit the wall? Where our new cameras are going to be five years old before they will be obsolete, then two years, then one year, then what? My state of the art laptop, (approx 1 year old now) is being eclipsed by leaps and bounds, already.

Some mentioned lens technology, as being the "bottle neck" in the advance of digital photography.

A couple of points there. While I do not claim Phd. level expertise on the subject, before I finally retired for good, I had a lot of experience in laser technology. Lens quality, manufacturing, etc..does have a lot of correlation with lens quality used by camera's. In the 10 or so years that I was working with lasers, in an industrial setting, the technology superceding the previous "state of the art" tech, was astounding. I would suspect that if I were to go back to work tommorrow, I'd be amazed at what has been accomplished in just a couple of years.

I followed a thread that led to a review of Lecia lenses, and they already market a lens, which they (Leicia) claim is far more sensitive to incoming light, than the human eye. I believe that Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and whatever, will only improve on this technology, and the prices will reach down to the consumer market (eventually). Therefore, even if lens technology will be the "bottle neck" in consumer market, it will not be that far behind. Caveat here: I don't think Hassleblad and Lecia are for the "consumer" market, but a select few that need this stuff, and can afford a camera that costs as much as a 28 foot decked out sailboat.

When you can use nano technology, in the sensor field, e.g. sub atomic particles being used for capturing data bits, I believe that same technology will be affecting the manufacture and sale in the lens market.

This all may seem far off in the horizon, I believe it will be the driving force into technologies that will change drastically on the order of months rather than years. Scientists are already working on "nano bot's", or devices that will be .00000000001 (yes that should be 11 zero's) the size of a human hair, that, themselves will serve as "bots" or miniature robots that will be used to manufacture even smaller technologies.

30 years ago, that would be something a science fiction lover would like to fantasize about. Now it's quickly becoming "science fact".

All in all, if this comes to fruition, this will not only effect photography, but all manner of technilogical inginuity.

Remember, I don't know if they still make them, the cheap throw away camera's you could buy at Wal-Mart, to use in case you left your camera at home? Just shoot, and drop it back off at Wal-Mart, they crack it open, develop yor prints and toss the rest?

How far off in the future, will today's technology in DSLR, be hanging off the bargain bin, waiting to be Sh#t canned, after 1 use. And at that point, what will the Pro's be using?

I forsee it in the very near future. Will I be proven right, in my hunch, or will I be reminded (if I live that long), how much of a ding-dong, my futuristic meanderings made me look.

J.:mrgreen: