When will medium format digital go mainstream?

[petrochemist]

If I recall from the 80's-90's, medium format film was never "mainstream", the 35mm market was?

Not in the 80s & 90s but it was in the 30s,40s & 50s.
If you got a camera in that time period it was most likely to take 120 or 220 film. Later 35mm came along and offered a smaller camera that could now give reasonable IQ.
Looking though the history of Photography the sensor/film size of mainstream cameras the size has steadily reduced. Before 120 film it was half plate & quarter plate (5x4 & 10x8)

It's only enthusiasts & professionally who want/need extra quality that really benefit from even APSC let alone 'full frame' & medium format. Without some very significant extra capability the extra bulk will keep digital medium format a niche product, even if price was equivalent to a DSLR.

 

[unpopular]

I doubt it will ever go mainstream. The costs are high due to the large sensors and the demand is very low. That's about as much as my knowledge takes me though unfortunately.

No. It has to. The physical limitations of the sensor does not permit indefinite development.

My guess, in 5-10 years most Phones will be 3/4"-1" formats, point and shoots will be APS-C, most of what we consider DSLR-like today will be 35mm full frame and there will be professional, main stream systems like todays 1D and D4 that will be larger than 35mm (but likely in a Sony A1-like or Mamiya7-like package with optical and/or electronic viewfinders).

In fact, Fuji is rumored to be working on something like this now.

However, also in that time I think there will be certain developments, such as avalanche diode arrays at photographic resolution.

 

[runnah]

Of course it will. Camera makers need something to make FX users wanting more.

 

[Derrel]

I doubt it will ever go mainstream. The costs are high due to the large sensors and the demand is very low. That's about as much as my knowledge takes me though unfortunately.

No. It has to. The physical limitations of the sensor does not permit indefinite development.

My guess, in 5-10 years most Phones will be 3/4"-1" formats, point and shoots will be APS-C, most of what we consider DSLR-like today will be 35mm full frame and there will be professional, main stream systems like todays 1D and D4 that will be larger than 35mm (but likely in a Sony A1-like or Mamiya7-like package with optical and/or electronic viewfinders).

In fact, Fuji is rumored to be working on something like this now.

However, also in that time I think there will be certain developments, such as avalanche diode arrays at photographic resolution.

Ummmmm...aren't you forgetting something critical, regarding the KIND of pictures one is able to easily make with smaller sensors? Or put another way, aren't you forgetting the MAIN problem with actually using medium format and larger sensors?

Phone cameras are so wildly successful precisely because they require only very rudimentary focusing systems to produce perfectly focused images, with deeeeeep depth of field, such as from arm's length away [literally] and allllll the way to the back of the restaurant/banquet room/airport terminal/etc.. Kodak literally INVENTED a brand-new format, the disc camera format, precisely to allow snapshooters to get hyperfocal focusing , so they would ALWAYS have everything in-focus. The disc format is right around the size of the small 1 and 2/3 compact camera sensor, as I recall, so that a very short lens length is the normal lens, and even at WIDE aperture, such as the iPhone's f/2.4 or f/2.8 depending on model, one gets huuuuuge depth of field. For many years, being able to get deeeeeeeep depth of field was a sort of Holy Grail. For casual use, and scenic and landscape photography, the bigger, heavier, beefier lenses that go with medium format cameras are absolutely undesired by the majority of potential consumers. You want to pack a Hassle-Blad, and "hassle" the huge 50mm wide-angle, the huge 65-mm-ish semi-wide, and the massive 150mm short tele? Or would you rather carry a small Olympus m4/3 with small,light, high-precision lenses? No...medium format in no way "has to" move toward the mainstream; it has steadily over the past 60 years fallen more and more and more by the wayside, and into disuse.

The bigger the sensor, the bigger the hassle factor in many types of photographic work. What a full-frame d-slr user needs a focus stacking operation for, an iPhone user can snap on one, single exposure. Moving even to APS-C fundamentally RUINS the ease of use and the creative freedom that hyperfocal depth of field brings to the devices that sue the smallest imaging sensors. So I fundamentally think your idea is wrong. As sensor tech grows better and better, I think things might very well go the opposite direction of what you predict.

 

[unpopular]

I see what you're saying. I agree. I don't think that 35mm format will ever go away, even for professionals. But at the same time I think that consumers do want DOF, it's kind of what gives it the "professional" look. Fancy Pants AE will help with the rest.

Besides, a phone with a 8mm to 16mm sensor I don't think is that much of a leap, especially talking about low light.

 

[photoguy99]

There are basic problems with making large sensors cheap. They're just whacking great chunks of silicon and that sort of thing has not been getting cheaper. Integrated circuits get cheaper when they get smaller. Medium format sensors don't get smaller. That's sort the point after all.

 

[Light Guru]

My guess, in 5-10 years most Phones will be 3/4"-1" formats

NOPE not going to happen. While lenses for those size sensors are relatively small compared to a full frame dslr lens, they are still much bigger then what people are willing to carry around on their phone.

 

[Light Guru]

The bigger the sensor, the bigger the hassle factor in many types of photographic work.

Very true, but at the same time if more hassle is involved more effort will be put toward the final image. When I started shooting 4x5 film about 4 years ago I found that the percentage of quality images I was making was immensely higher then when I was shooting digital.

Sometimes more hassle has it's benefits.

 

[runnah]

I see what you're saying. I agree. I don't think that 35mm format will ever go away, even for professionals. But at the same time I think that consumers do want DOF, it's kind of what gives it the "professional" look. Fancy Pants AE will help with the rest. Besides, a phone with a 8mm to 16mm sensor I don't think is that much of a leap, especially talking about low light.

Naw son, the new android phone has a built in "dof" effect button that as in a blur in post. Not perfect but close enough for most folks.

At the end of the day things like software trickery will trump analog effects such as Dof. Heck photoshop has a built in one button tilt shift effects that does pretty damn close to the real thing so why bother with a real lens?

 

[photoguy99]

If they start doing some sort of depth mapping tech in to phones, all that DoF business and tilt shift stuff gets easier to fake convincingly.

 

[unpopular]

^^ if they use lightfield, then the blur wouldn't need to be faked.

 

[Derrel]

Some VERY good points have been brought up in the most recent posts! AS runnah mentioned, faked DOF and also miniature effects processing has gotten better. And the more hassle/better images issue Light Guru brought uop was covered pretty thoroughly in the Luminous Landscape article I referred to, the Pentax 645Z review; they discussed how the Hasselblad high-end digital is a ral PITA to work with, requiring tripod-mounting, and exacting technique, but that it gives good results. But they also point out that, basically, what was at ONE TIME medium format image quality, is now available in high-resolution d-slr bodies like the D800 and D810 type cameras, along with more lenses and more accessories and so on, at much lower price, which is where cgw kind of came to the point that the Pentax645Z might end up being a tombstone camera in that category; it's a little too little, for a LOT too much money, now that Nikon and Sony have moved to 36MP, and are set to hit 54 MP soon.

I just do not se medium format "system" cameras becoming mainstream, for a number of reasons. One is the Sigma Foveon sensor "Merrill" series of compact P&S cameras; the Luminous Landscape gurus rave that those give medium-format-like images, yet are pocketable size cameras (with utter garbage software and no real support from Adobe, so workflow is very tiresome). I AM wondering though about maybe a medium format type "folder", or a medium format "box" camera...something smallish, maybe something more like a Mamiya 6, or the new Cosina-made 6x6-6x7 combination folding camera...like a modern-day Plaubel Makina...THAT might be an interesting way to lower the weight and size of medium format cameras, by reducting complexity (eliminating the mirror and all its geartrain and counter-balancing issues, and also elminating lens change stuff like a bayonet mount, and also eliminating the whole "digital back" aspect in favor of a fixed lens and fixed sensor in a lightweight, pretty simple box.

 

[cgw]

I AM wondering though about maybe a medium format type "folder", or a medium format "box" camera...something smallish, maybe something more like a Mamiya 6, or the new Cosina-made 6x6-6x7 combination folding camera...like a modern-day Plaubel Makina...THAT might be an interesting way to lower the weight and size of medium format cameras, by reducting complexity (eliminating the mirror and all its geartrain and counter-balancing issues, and also elminating lens change stuff like a bayonet mount, and also eliminating the whole "digital back" aspect in favor of a fixed lens and fixed sensor in a lightweight, pretty simple box.

Could happen and Fuji just might do it. The X100s is much loved(and deservedly so)for its high synch speed, flexibility, and size. The Fuji X-T1 is literally the size of an old Nikon FG. A bigger-than-full-frame fixed-lens mirrorless, built along the lines of a plus-size X100s, doesn't seem all that far-fetched. In reality, I do think something like this will probably debut Fuji's first FF X-Trans sensor long before anything bigger surfaces.