The Future of Photography -

Diabhal_Glas

Heres a bit of a way out there article I read a while ago, thought I'd share it. Some of you might find it interesting to see where this whole photography thing might be heading in the next 40 years

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

sNarah

Sounds very futuristic, sort of the idea of flying cars people had about 2000 back in 1950. But then again, digital camera's seemed impossible in the early 90ies so we might be suprised once more.

I do agree with the writer on the 3D aspect and that images are going to be more created rather than captured. Other than that, I still don't know if I find it too futuristic or realistic and it kinda scares me a wee bit!

Morrisseeee

I would love to see a BIG advance in sensors, and this article mentions a spherical sensor, very interesting !!







/ I'm just imagining my sibling's siblings looking back at this and saying, "...how old fashioned were they!!"

Diabhal_Glas

Morrisseeee wrote: »

I would love to see a BIG advance in sensors, and this article mentions a spherical sensor, very interesting !!

I know crazy stuff, and just one Universal lens taking away all that heavy glass

This is what It might look like, and that article is a year and a half old.

Im not too sure I like all the other stuff that might be going on in 40 years, a bit overwhelming looking at it from 2010!

FoxT

I think SLRs will be around for a long time, but we will see things like

- An increase in available processing power will enable the camera to compensate for lens flaws like LoCAs, pincushion/barrel, & other distortions. It will do this AUTOMATICALLY!
- As well as processing power you could in principle at least have vastly improved image processing algorithms that could do things like
+ Simulate shallow DOF effects so your f/5.6 lens acts like it is f/1.4
+ 'live panorama' ie you take a cam with a 50 mm lens & swing it round - pix collected & stitched by the cam in real time so the FOV is say equivalent to 10mm
+ etc.

+ Much, much faster sensors. Think of ISO's in the few million range. These will be coupled with vastly superior AF systems to match.


Ultimately I think this will kill the DSLR as it will mean that there will no longer be a need to have interchangeable lenses. Only question is when....
Well, the camera sensor was invented about 40 years ago, and it is only in the last 5 - 10 years that SLR image quality can truly compete with film in terms of resolution for high quality photos. So, we have a while to go yet, grasshoppers!

Sleepy

Look at the prices photogs still pay for old Leica M3's.

There'll still be a market for dslr's 20 years from now imho.

sprinkles

Morrisseeee wrote: »

/ I'm just imagining my sibling's siblings looking back at this and saying, "...how old fashioned were they!!"

would they not be your siblings then too...??

Morrisseeee

would they not be your siblings then too...??

....no they'd be my sibling's

/back on topic......

Fenster

Almost every tech prediction I've seen has been rendered hopelessly obsolete or outright laughable within fifteen years.

FoxT

But, it can be fun to speculate. And, in time, perhaps, to have a laugh over with the siblings of the progenitors of my progeny!

charybdis

FoxT wrote: »

I think SLRs will be around for a long time, but we will see things like

- An increase in available processing power will enable the camera to compensate for lens flaws like LoCAs, pincushion/barrel, & other distortions. It will do this AUTOMATICALLY!
- As well as processing power you could in principle at least have vastly improved image processing algorithms that could do things like
+ Simulate shallow DOF effects so your f/5.6 lens acts like it is f/1.4
+ 'live panorama' ie you take a cam with a 50 mm lens & swing it round - pix collected & stitched by the cam in real time so the FOV is say equivalent to 10mm
+ etc.

+ Much, much faster sensors. Think of ISO's in the few million range. These will be coupled with vastly superior AF systems to match.


Ultimately I think this will kill the DSLR as it will mean that there will no longer be a need to have interchangeable lenses. Only question is when....
Well, the camera sensor was invented about 40 years ago, and it is only in the last 5 - 10 years that SLR image quality can truly compete with film in terms of resolution for high quality photos. So, we have a while to go yet, grasshoppers!

I doubt much of this will happen, or at least I certainly don't hope that they try to do so.

You can't really correct for chromatic aberrations and (to a lesser effect) geometric lens distortions. You can reduce the appearance of them, but not correct them. Also, this doesn't really need to be done in-camera; anything that can be done in-camera can be done in post, and probably done better.

Again, you can simulate the effect of a shallower depth-of-field with processing (there is software currently available that will do this) but they really only bear a superficial resemblance to what the image would actually be like with a shallower depth-of-field. It might be possible to better ape the effect by having multiple lenses collecting stereo information about the scene and generating the degree of blur for different elements by how far they fall from the plane of focus but that would still probably only provide a very sterilised appearance; much of what people like about photography was originally the result of technical compromise and I think people are more likely to prefer a particular lens design's characterful rendering over a simulation of it.

Stitching in this manner can be quite difficult as you would be constantly changing the plane of focus which would make the final image very difficult to composite. Again though, you can effectively do this at the moment with some more considered camera movements.

I agree that usable ISO levels would continue to increase, although I hope it would be due to better and larger sensor design.

I don't think interchangeable lens cameras will go away, quite the opposite in fact. I'd like to see a situation where we have access to a DSLR or maybe Hasselblad 500c/m sized body with a medium-format or larger sensor with an electronic viewfinder and an adaptable mount with very small registration distance and all kinds of cool microlens technology so that you can basically mount any lens on it, from 35mm rangefinder lenses to medium format SLR lenses. Hopefully, much of the technological development of cameras will trend towards making the fabrication of physically larger sensors cheaper and can make these kind of possibilities for photographers a reality.

While I think much of what the article suggests is generally unavoidable, I think it is describing the reality for consumer photographers -- the demographic that currently buys fully automatic point & shoot cameras -- as opposed to photography enthusiasts.

charybdis

Fenster wrote: »

Almost every tech prediction I've seen has been rendered hopelessly obsolete or outright laughable within fifteen years.

You've been looking in the wrong places.