Prediction: What will be the future of photography?

Thanks for a very well-written post.

At my end, retired now, I'm enjoying the luxury of discovering that film cameras I never could afford, back when, are now very, very inexpensive. For me, they are a joy to use. I'm not in a hurry these days, so waiting for prints or scans isn't a bother at all.

So I can't comment on whether DSLRs will go mirrorless or not, except to note that this sort of thing may have been pioneered by the 35mm Canon Pellix, circa 1965. And, business being business, if the new gadget does the same thing as the old one but is cheaper to produce, the DSLR future would seem to be obvious.

As for the future of photography... on the film side, I'll be paying more over the next 20 years, as it becomes a steady niche market. Within 10 years, let's say by 2020, there will be no more new professional film cameras. On the digital side, there will be wild evolution at the consumer level... maybe 25 MP headband cameras that do still or video with instant 5G uploads to your cloud service. Or, the Lytro concept may take flower -- synched to a PC eye-tracking camera that detects where you are looking at on the screen, and then instantly brings that area into focus.

Anyway, it's good to be an old man, and walk around with my Nikon FM, and have younger people ask me what it is, and where the screen is, and why would anyone want to take a picture if you couldn't see it first, and how long the batteries last... what's M90 mean? Fun!

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Jonathon Donahue -- Olympus XZ-1 tips at http://jon404.com