Camera ideas for years in the future and in the past

[shoeytennis]

I was just curious as to what everyone was doing camera wise like 5 10 20 years ago?
and what they think cameras will be like 5 10 20 years in the future.
well about 6 years ago i got my new hp digital camera with a whopping 1.1 mp.a year later i got the new 2.1 hp megapixel one along with a high 32mb cf card.
before that i was using cheap throw away cameras.

i think in about 10 years theres going to be some new type of digital camera sortof like an hd type camera.
anyone elses thoughts?

[mattdm]

You've chosen the hardest timeframe to accurately predict. :) It's easy to guess at a year or two from now, and one can speculate on the far future.

(For example, 50-100 years in the future, digital cameras won't have lenses. A lens, after all, is basically an analog computer which transforms incoming light in a certain way. So instead, just one big 3"x2" sensor covered by a thin protective screen. Light hits it and is recorded, and then later in software you decide if you want your final image to be as if you had a 12mm lens or a 900mm one, what you want the aperture to be, and how long of an exposure you want to save.)

But 10 years from now, who knows?

One pretty decent guess is that RGB will be replaced by a wider color space that covers more of the human vision range -- probaby xvYCC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XvYCC), but maybe something else will show up and beat that.

[Razr]

You've chosen the hardest timeframe to accurately predict. :) It's easy to guess at a year or two from now, and one can speculate on the far future.

(For example, 50-100 years in the future, digital cameras won't have lenses. A lens, after all, is basically an analog computer which transforms incoming light in a certain way. So instead, just one big 3"x2" sensor covered by a thin protective screen. Light hits it and is recorded, and then later in software you decide if you want your final image to be as if you had a 12mm lens or a 900mm one, what you want the aperture to be, and how long of an exposure you want to save.)

You forgot that a lens, to be a lens, has to have glass to be able to focus, and a (flat) sensor cannot; focus that is.

[Riley]

a non lens lens isnt as wild an idea as all that
if your pinhole camera had what to us would be unlimited resolution, vhr
it would be possible to digitally zoom whatever angle of view required
being that the pinhole view was innitially ultra-wide

this would forgive us the burden of a suite of lenses, and all that entails
and might require a resolution that approaches/exceeds the accuity of the eye
but some compromises would be acceptable :)

[mattdm]

You forgot that a lens, to be a lens, has to have glass to be able to focus, and a (flat) sensor cannot; focus that is.

I didn't forget. Focusing is just a mathematical transform of the incoming light -- all the information you need is there hitting any flat surface. You just need to process it properly to get a sharp result. A lens is effectively an analog computer for doing this. However, with the right information from the sensor and the right algorithms, you could do the same thing purely in software -- and better, since you wouldn't have to worry about the physical realities of glass.

[Rhys]

I was just curious as to what everyone was doing camera wise like 5 10 20 years ago?
and what they think cameras will be like 5 10 20 years in the future.
well about 6 years ago i got my new hp digital camera with a whopping 1.1 mp.a year later i got the new 2.1 hp megapixel one along with a high 32mb cf card.
before that i was using cheap throw away cameras.

i think in about 10 years theres going to be some new type of digital camera sortof like an hd type camera.
anyone elses thoughts?

5 Years ago I was using an Olympus C200 Zoom.
10 years ago I was using (when I travelled abroad a lot) an Olympus XA.
20 years ago I was using a Rollei 35LED having upgraded from a Kodak Instamatic 126.
Meanwhile I have since 1984 been using SLRs although the systems changed several times during this period.

In about 10 years time? It's always hard to predict the future but I recall a programmer predicting (in 1990) that in 10 years time hard drives would be the size of a postage stamp and a lot larger in capacity. I think the microdrive did that quite well! I also think CF fits the bill well too.

As to the future of cameras? I can imagine that the current phase of PDA/camera/phone will probably continue. It could go back to simple phones but I doubt it. I imagine that PDAs will lose their stylus entry systems and gain voice recognition. Compact digitals will probably become very cheap and nasty as manufacturers concentrate on higher-priced items. There might even be digital compacts falling out of boxes of cornflakes.

Storage will develop at a frenetic pace. I imagine that all storage will be solid state in about 10-15 years with hard drives being in the minority. Lenses will improve as will sensors. Perhaps we'll end up with very small sensors such as those currently on digital compacts becoming the norm. Perhaps the day of the SLR could be drawing to a close with compacts becoming available with 12-500 zoom lenses and which are the size of a pack of playing cards.

[Riley]

ha
I had forgotten but I had an XA for some time
it was a nice camera and could perform well, but i tragicly moved to Ricoh SLRs, I had about 3 before I realised how cheap they were, good learning tools, thats about all. Moved to Olympus SLRs, had an OM1n and later an OM4Ti, a camera I much regret selling.

As to the immediate future
Manufacturers are caught between two paradigms
that of the older generation, who prefer traditional approaches
and that of the coming photographer, who hold few of those ideals dear
brands are about to consolidate and compete on price, but that will end when non traditional manufacturers begin to make ground with inovative cameras, and one hit wonders.

miniaturisation is a coming phase, as Rhys alluded

[mjsneddon]

In January of 1968, I forked over $106 at a PX in Vietnam and purchased my first SLR - a Yashica TL Super with a 50mm f1.4 lens. I was ecstatic. It was a completely manual camera but it did have through the lens light metering - all you had to do was select an appropriate shutter speed and f-stop to center the needle for a correct exposure. In the event that your subject was back-lit, you merely made the needle rest higher - it was a guess but you got good at guessing after a bit.

I still own this camera; it takes excellent pictures but I have not really used it in several years. I have owned a few film SLRs since but don't use them any more either (I have sold all but the Yashica and a Canon Elan 7E). I went digital first in my darkroom by purchasing a film scanner and continuing to shoot with my Canon SLRs for a while.

The birth of our first grandchild in 2003 was the impetus to acquire our first digital camera. And now after a series of them (Canon S230, G5, 20D, SD300, SD500, 5D and Panasonic LX2), I am firmly in the digital era. Digital imaging is just so much of an improvement that, for me, I will probably never go back to film.