Prediction: What will be the future of photography?

How many years until Canon/Nikon make a viable and credible DSLR that is mirrorless but perhaps keeping to the same form factor and ergonomics and traditional full frame DSLR these days?

Moore's Law has a limit and domain, exponential progress is of course mathematically unsustainable... there are certain limitations to the underlying laws of physics and thus this implies technological progress is not scale invariant nor time invariant. I'm not holding out for Quantum computing or Star Trek tech, so unless we are living in the matrix, 8nm is as close as we can ever get to max silicon architecture before quantum effects come into play.. Besides, reality isn't like the real number system, at some point plank length, time, come into play...

Many markets have matured or are maturing. Look at the aviation industry. From 1903 to 1945 think of how airplane tech went in leaps and bounds... We went from first Wright brothers flight to jet propulsion in that short period of time... Nowadays other than a glass cockpit and some fly by wire enhancements, airplanes haven't really changed or fundamentally improved for the past 60 years... first Boeing 747-100 came out in 1960's before man landed on the moon... guess what Boeing 747 (400 and 8 variants) are still going strong and the 747-8 still in production. Airbus aside (I am in US, not EU or that side of the pond) 737 is most popular airliner jet ever made in history... it has served us for over 50 years and still going strong... with the newest 737-MAX about to debut in 2017, the 737 line will last another 40+ years.... just think, one airplane that lasts for about one hundred years..... Where are the hypersonic airliners popular science was hyping about a decade ago? Instead we went backwards, Concorde got canned and so did the space shuttle program. And we haven't been back to the moon since, and as for Mars, we sent a probe or two...

On the computer side, it is fair to say that desktop PC (full tower) has matured... Desktop will never die, but it is being largely supplanted by smaller form factor, cheaper commodity hardware that "does the job".... even laptops and net-books are being cannalizbied by tablets and mobile computing.... basically we have crossed a "computing threshold" where once past that threshold it makes little sense to keep arguing about who has the best graphics card, fastest processor, etc etc... technology matures, simplies, and then it is commodized and dumbed down to the lowest common denominoator. Instead of builiding our own rig for PC gaming, we buy an xbox or ps3 and get consoled by console instead...

The undeniable trend is obvious... we are going increasingly "social", "mobile", "portable", "cloud", etc at the expense of privacy, customization, ownership, control, robustness, etc all for the sake of "convenience" ... across the board even games are getting more and more casual....we are trading Angry Birds for Crytek Engine and Samsung SIII camera for a Full frame DSLR....

Just look at the art of letter writing or penpaling... Who still spends the time to write out a well thought letter anymore these days when teenagers are growing up with txt and fb, twitter and even Gmail tries to get rid of conventional email in favor of a "txt" version of the "COMPOSE"...

Language is also not scale invariant... yes there is an art of being "simple"... but a lot of nuance is lost when you have to cram everything to under 160 character bites.... some of the flavor and nuances and tones of lingustic communication can only be conveyed through a much more lengthly and involved structured and format... but the prevalent methods of communication that we are accustomed to using these days (txt, short email on mobile) are not conducive to support this...

Lets face it, you aren't going to be typing some awesome love letter on your mobile phone... for that you require a keyboard and respectual monitor/screen size and time without distractions.... that's difficult to come by in this day and age of always on the go and doing everything on your phone... mobile and casual and social and cloud and all that great stuff...

This is not a technology problem, it is a societal shift.... and as to WHY, well I have some theories, but what's important is I realized I'm not one of the common masses and I don't like to way this trend is going....

But back to photography... seeing the bigger picture... is the future going to be video replacing still images? Certainty there is a shift and a trend... but I'm not too worried about it... Its just a hunch but I don't think video will ever replace the need and demand for still images/ still photography... regardless of how fast technology changes or what possibly breakthroughs are on the horizon...

What about the fate of DSLR as we know it to be? Form factor will never go away... just like you aren't going to be doing photoeditting on your cell phone or doing complicated excel formulations on your ipad mini or tablet, there are some applications that inherently require the keyboard and larger screen size... Size matters and professionals (and aspiring amateurs  will always have a need to have that traditional DSLR ergonomic form factor....

I see a bifurcation  On the smaller end, mobile form factor devices (cell phones, google glasses, etc) will soon replace all traditional P&S altogether... no question about it... A P&S will become redundant, just like who still carries around a pager or beeper these days? Or a dedicated PDA or Pocket PC device? Or a pocket calculator? Its all on the mobile .

On the high end the need for professional cameras will never go away... sure some day cell phone cameras might cross that "threshold" of "good enough" where for 99% of the people a cell phone camera will "suffice" 99% of the time.... leaving a niche market for the professional cameras.... but in any given size the larger form factor always wins at the long end of the tail...

What I mean is, people may not want to play state of the art PC games anymore and rather just settle for their consoles.... but a full tower desktop will ALWAYS have better performance than a smaller form factor computing device, regardless of technology... this is basic laws of physics... same way regardless of technology, a larger camera will always be better than what can be crammed on a mobile device... always....

Once we cross that uncanney valley of mobile phone being "good enough" threshold for general photography... I predict less and less people will want to purchase a "pro" DSLR camera (or whatever equivalent) even when prices continue to drop all across the board...

This is not because of money or technology... it is refection of changing tastes.... for how much does it cost to sit down and compose a well thought out letter or message? Zero... its free... but people don't' want to do it anymore... writing a message with pen and paper is as low tech as it gets, we've been doing it for thousands of years, but nowadays people rather do things over txt and casual hi wazup m8 h r u

So even when/if DSLR ever approach "commodity prices" (which I don't think will ever happen) you aren't going to see the market flooded with these or everyone and their dog carrying one around all the time.... back in film days the pro photographers were always complaining that digital lowered the barriers of entry and devalued their work by making it too easy for anyone to come along and shot great photos and then charge lower and price them out.... Ironically I see the trend going in reverse as far as DSLR userbase adoption....

The old phrase that it is better to have any camera (or the camera that you will actually use) than no camera at all (leaving bulky camera at home) is not always true...

The masses have been conditioned to accept mediocrisy. A decent P&S cost next to nothing these days and are within reach of everyone... yet vast majority of people use only their cell phone cam will still give a much more compromised experience and reduced result.... ironically technology have improved but expeirences are degrading... by overrelyings on mobile being the end all be all of it all, we forfeit the excellence that can be had by doing something dedicated... like the pleasures of writing a real letter.... we have all this facebook, twitter, cloud, social, internet crap and yet actual quality of communication has not improved and in fact has gone in reverse..... camera technology keeps improving and yet the actual quality (not quantity) of photos taken these days (by the majority of common people) are worse than they were ten years ago! Oh the irony of it all...

There will always be a need for "pro" cameras and DSLR type cameras just like there will always be a need for full tower desktop computers... but increasingly that is becoming more and more of a niche.... dedicated devices for dedicated people who don't want to settle for average or common or second best... which, in the end, may not actually turn out to be that bad of a thing.... because its not for everyone and its not for all purposes...

I'm pretty sure the DSLR is here the stay, at least from the form factor /size perspective... for one thing, menu systems will never replace real buttons.... human nature doesn't change... we are tactile creatures and evolution won't catch up with technology.... real buttons always triumph digital menus when it matters the most... at the elite end for special tailored purposes size and weight matters, whoever says otherwise is lying or being dishonest with themselves...

Having said all of that, my question is..... realistically, how many more years until we see "mirrorless" "DSLR" being prevalent and replacing the mirrored brethren in the likes of the current 1D and 5D, etc?

That depends in part on how fast mirrorless technology improves and also how fast mirrored versions continue to improve.... personally I'm not that optimistic about mirrorless tech/trend improving in leaps and bounds... I think it will plateau at some point and probably cross a "threshold" where most pro photographers will settle for it.... but the actual gap at the high end will always exists.....

What are your opinions?

None at all, you can buy one now.

The future is here, all you have to do is drop the brand prejudice.

The question really is, why am I so afraid of the opinions of my peers that I can't go out and enjoy a better tool.

Fundamentally and philosophically I don't see it as being a money/price or technology/progress issue... it is a cultural and societal issue... and this has broader impact than just in photography... all across the board we the everyday people (by "we" I mean generally) tend to accept mediocrazy and "good enough" for the sake of convenience. Whether or not this is a good trend is debatable. Certainty in many areas of our lives there has been a reduction in quality by going mobile, casual, 'social', etc... If photography is the art of visual aesthetics then certainty you'd agree writing is the art of linguistic communication... and while this form of communication is both free and mature (it cost practically nothing to write a letter and the technology has been here since recorded history) you would agree that the prevalence of casual convenience communication technologies today is not structurally conducive to fostering that kind of quality of art... in fact the converse is true... txting, mobile, social, cloud has greatly reduced the quality of written communication to the point where Apple's CEO was quoted saying "people just don't read anymore"... Likewise, while increasing capabilities of small form factor phones keep improving, they only mitigate this disturbing trend to a certain degree. Technological changes don't happen in a vacuum... when adjusted for technological differences between time periods, the trend is that more and more people will be shooting photos at qualities poorer than they have even been... not because the technology doesn't exists, but because of the prevalent mentality of trying to get by with less, doing it casually, cutting corners and sacrificing excellence for personal convenience..

Lens are the big obstacle. No matter the type of body, you need good tubes to grab the light...

Not so many years from now (couple decades) they will have shrunk the whole DSLR camera to a cell phone size. It should look real strange when they attach these ultra tiny cameras to something like a future Canon 600mm f/4.0 L or any Super telephoto lens as these lens will probably be of similar size to the current versions. Cheers

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'Curiouser and curiouser' said Alice

To me the photography market lies somewhat between your two examples of aviation and computers.

The latter of those two is obviously the most rapidly devolping area of technology post WW2 and really shows little sign of getting near its limates. Aviation on the other hand as you say has not advanced massively in many key areas for decades, often because its dealing with technology pushing up agenst physical limates.

The sensor side of photography seems somewhat closer to a PC benefiting for the ever greater performance and miniturisation but it does seem to be pushing up agensgt physical limates more in terms of light collection. The optics side is clearly pushing up agenst these limates even more with size limates on lenses and resolution limates for a certain sensor size.

Combined I suspect those issues mean that larger sensors are likely here to stay and that the lenses these sensors will need are likely to remain large aswell. That to me also makes it seem likely that the DLR form factor to support thse lenses(larger zooms anyway) will also survive and if you've got the form factor my question would be why lose the mirror? The progression I'd like to see would be a move towards some kind of hybrid viewfinder ala Fuji giving potentially the best of both worlds.

At the higher end the more obvious move towards mirrorless for me actually seems to be medium format, your dealing with a market where cameras are very large and one that does not tend to focus on zooms or longer lenses aswell as having less focus on quick AF performance. When it comes to film non SLR MF cameras faired far better than 35mm film ones with rangefinders taking up much of the market for I'd guess those reasons.

With all due respect, but that will never happen. Unless by that time, cell phone size means something twice as large as the current Galaxy Note.

I actually don't have a cell phone, so they may appear larger on my plasma screen than in real life
Something a bit smaller than the Leica or the new Sony DSC-RX1but with the capabilities of the Nikon D4 will be attained within 20 years. Lens however are going to be a lot trickier, unless they come up with a new and paradigm shifting technology to replace SLR and RF type lens all together. Cheers

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'Curiouser and curiouser' said Alice

Good point. I guess the root issue of my post is that I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Playing "catch up" is not just a financial thing but more importantly it takes an emotional toll... Maybe some people like myself just tend to be nostalgic or consider it a "time" investment in getting to really know a system and adapt and get used to it just to see it become outdated and antiquated again. I guess I was trying to make a case for having a mirror when eventually someday probably everything will go mirrorless... it just feels wrong ... like a part of the camera has been lost or died without the mirror. I didn't grow up during film days so probably most film photographers felt the same pains during that period.

I'm not a photographer but I like photography technology. I don't even consider myself a hobbyist  I'm more in love with camera tech than the art of actually taking photos so I find top of the line DSLR cameras and technology very interesting... part of me feels (perhaps irrationally) that losing the "mirror" component will have compromised on an essential "essence" of the camera. Its probably more a symbolic thing than anything else, though I really wish for incremental changes rather than revolutionary ones and secretly hope the likes of the 1DX and 5D3 will be around for a long long long time.

And what about sensor? CMOS is reaching its limits.

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StephenG

Photography in the future will take a different route, there will always be high end portable devices that will be smaller and more technologically advanced with connectivity and capable of superior results. There will also be innovations in output, like standing in front of a mirror that will record your image and the capability of transmitting your photos on a variaty of surfaces in your home, like refrigerators or table tops, it may even do movies.

( Ah, they'll never ever reach the moon, at least not the one that we're after - Leonard Cohen)

Predicting the future as extraploated from the present, produces only nostalgia for what could have been. We invariably get it wrong because paradigm shifts come out of the Left filed.  When talking about camera size and image quality you would we wise to remmber that the world as seen through the eye of a mouse is no less detailed than that as seen through the larger eye of a much bigger animal. So it's basically down to scanning and processing power.  Is it not inconceivable that direct information reads from the visual cortex of the viewer might just get shared in information space? It won't require a camera so much as a super duper wi-fi chip with a - for want of a better term - 'artistic talent' enhancement filter.

And mirrorless is already here, as is Sony's SLT technology at the bleeding edge of innovation. It is only because Canon and Nikon are grandfathered into the pro market that there is sufficient peer-press inertia to discourage anyone at that level from wanting to jump ship.  Maybe by 2017 they'll find they can work more efficiently with mirrorless technology.

Until then I'm just going to enjoy my Sony A57 and make even more use of my android smartphone. Sadly for the industry when my last P&S died it did not get replaced by the next iteration.

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John.
Please visit me at:
http://www.pbase.com/johnfr/sony_18135
http://www.pbase.com/johnfr/digital_dartmoor

Have you considered being a bit more succinct?

Considering we already have Quantum computing (and a great deal of Star Trek tech potentially) what effect do you think that will have when it scales down?  Likely it will be to the level where most decisions will be take away from the photographer if current trends continue.  For the most part technology that we have now is sufficient to human needs and the real issue will\has become how aesthetics will expand to the new possibilities.  One gadget more or less is just more noise in the market really.  The issue is what does it do to the users?  Where does it leave us all when the camera can achieve so much without us?  The way things are the art has stagnated in this haze of technical "advancement".

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The one serious conviction one should hold is that nothing should be taken too seriously.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it. -Aristotle
..oh, and I see by the lack of responses that I am right yet again.

"The best of seers is he who guesses well"

Prediction of the future contributes greatly to the future but not the future we predict.

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The one serious conviction one should hold is that nothing should be taken too seriously.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it. -Aristotle
..oh, and I see by the lack of responses that I am right yet again.

All those words to say "I'm not one of those dirty, smelly peasants who use their cellphones to take photos, I want my SLR!".

Just to see how painfully mistaken your entire belief system is, note that both the desktop PCs and SLR cameras you so adore are also the fruit of compromises on technical excellence due to economic and practical factors; what you should really be using if you didn't compromise on anything would be an IBM mainframe running virtualized installations of Linux, and a high-end medium format digital system, respectively. Otherwise, as the joke goes, we're no longer debating about definitions, we're just haggling price.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/Draek

I don't feel the sort of direct qualia injection that you are referring to would be the slightest bit convinceable. Where are our consumer end quantum computers? Jetson flying cars? Hypersonic airliners, teleportation? Camera tech has pasted the peak of its curve and like desktop pc it is matured or maturing and slowing down, not speeding up. Mirror-less may be the future, or it may not be for the very high end... but certainly its going to be a very slow transition... probably like the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit or ipv4 to ipv6... as measured in decades not a mere "three or four years"...

The future is always a matter of opinion, not scientific fact, but sometimes the past can help identify trends.

I find it very interesting looking at old photography equipment catalogs, even those from a century ago or more; things were far more elaborate back in the old days than we might suspect.  I think that features now common on professional level cameras will be lost on even future pro cameras.

At one time, the use of shifts, tilts, and swings on field camera were considered essential tools of the pro and serious amateur photographer, to allow for perspective control and changing of the plane of focus. Nowadays, these are found in only the rare Perspective Control lenses and as a toy effect on Lensbabys: field cameras are now an extremely rare tool of fine arts photography.

Medium and Large format photography was once the tool of choice for pros, and now the smaller, 35 mm “full-frame” cameras are filling that role for most.

Lenses used to have infrared focus marks, and depth-of-field indicators, and aperture settings and focus distance scales were common. Some macro lenses even had magnification scales on them. Many new lenses lack these. Generally, I think that anything than can be replaced by computerization will be replaced.

Older cameras once had a wide variety of interchangeable focus screens, viewfinders, and replaceable pentaprism units. Even high-end Nikons have fewer options such as that these days.

I think that one problem may be that many cameras are directed towards the prosumer market, they need higher quality than consumer camera, but must not be too expensive. Because of the bad economy, there are plenty of folks trying their hand at making money in the arts, and even many pros are downgrading their new equipment purchases to make ends meet. Manufacturers are going to be less inclined to create new system cameras. Also, many people want good quality in a smaller size.

I remember back in the 1970s and very early 1980s, where the economy also tanked, and there was a trend in prosumer SLR cameras, appealing to consumers that wanted pro features but at a reasonable cost and smaller size. Then as now, many amateurs were trying their hand at doing pro work at bargain prices with downgraded equipment.  The Olympus OM-1 and its variants was particularly popular.

An improving economy by the mid-1980s pulled the semi-professionals out of the market, and helped raise the fortunes of pros, who again were interested in top quality equipment and were willing to spend good money on it. Photography companies eventually started investing great sums of money into digital photography, and we a reaping the benefits of this historical investment now in our cameras.

If the economy improves once again, I think there will be less of a market for the low-end DSLRs for the quasi-pro market, while there will be greater investment by companies in truly pro gear. If consumers go back into the job market, making serious money, and their time being consumed by business, there may be less of a demand for inexpensive pro-like cameras, for there will be less time for underemployed professionals to express themselves artistically.

I think that current trends are telling:  there is a great interest in better quality imaging from cell phones, and there is a great interest in very high-quality compact cameras. I also see a lot of complaints by beginners about the size and difficulty of using DSLRs.

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Predicting the future is a fool’s game, but certainly we can all have our opinions as to what features will be desirable in the future.

High megapixel sensors out-resolve most lenses, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can’t afford a 36 MP Nikon D800 and matching lenses, but such a high resolution sensor can be very useful in other matters. Most cameras use three colors of sensors, but this does not lead to precise color rendition, although it is ‘good enough’ for most work. Since we have so many pixels that may not be strictly needed most of the time, I would like to see better color rendition. Having more colors of sensors could both expand the range and accuracy of the color gamut of the camera, and if done well, could extend the dynamic range of the sensor. This could turn ordinary cameras into decent quality multispectral cameras.

More computer integration seems to be the trend also, with the iPhone camera being the best example so far. Camera companies are pretty conservative, which is a good thing, especially since I am using some lenses that are 30-40 years old, but this computer integration is likely to be an important trend.

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http://therefractedlight.blogspot.com

Short version: when would we arrive at a point in time where it is generally agreed upon by professional photographers that a then state-of-the-art top-of-the-line mirrorless camera outbeats it DSLR equivalent in nearly all areas that are of significance and importance across of a broad range of photographic applications. (ie, sports, wildlife, action, and things like AF, Zoom, lenses, etc)

Certainty there are areas that mirrorless already immediately does better than mirrored ever could, like fps, etc... but until mirrorless can catch up and surpass the DSLR in other major categories that it currently has significant shortcomings in... its not going to entirely do away with the DSLR.

As long as there will always exists a DSLR that outperforms a mirrorless in areas of photographical importance (even if they are niche areas) I can't see mirrorless replacing DSLR entirely... it just won't happen. They will continue to coexists (with mirrorless probably taking bigger portions of the pie) until the day (if it ever happens) that mirrorless truly beats mirrored in every real way that matters... then and only then will the switch-over be complete. I don't see that happening within the next 20 years at least. Many would not agree,most probably predict that will happen in three or four years... but I can't see the next flagship DSLR from Nikon or Canon being a mirrorless... and if the next version of 1DX and D4 will still outperform whatever is the best mirrorless at the time (which is a reasonable assumption)... then DSLR will exists in plenty for a least another decade...

Sorry but the iPhone camera is not the apt example to use as the best mobile camera these days.

Mobile is where the converge is... (your phone is basically everything, your TV, your phone, your camera, your calculator, your gps, etc) but then it diverges very rapidly into specialized and dedicated equipment (HDTV, DSLR, etc).... there will be no need (especially if the economy doesn't really improve, and I don't think it will) for all the intermediate mid-sized form factors which are basically compromised on both ends... I have a full tower desktop and a mobile phone for computing, no need for a laptop, a netbook, a notebook, a tablet, a minitablet, etc...

Likewise in the future there will be a market for truly high end pro gear, and then it falls to mobile as camera... I have mobile phone and DSLR to take pics... I don't need anything "in between"... its just superfluous and redundant and I don't like compromising on both ends... ending up in the middle of nowhere.

As long as there will always exists a DSLR that outperforms a mirrorless in areas of photographical importance (even if they are niche areas) I can't see mirrorless replacing DSLR entirely... it just won't happen. They will continue to coexists (with mirrorless probably taking bigger portions of the pie) until the day (if it ever happens) that mirrorless truly beats mirrored in every real way that matters... then and only then will the switch-over be complete. I don't see that happening within the next 20 years at least. Many would not agree,most probably predict that will happen in three or four years... but I can't see the next flagship DSLR from Nikon or Canon in three or so years being a mirrorless... and if the next version of 1DX and D4 will still outperform whatever is the best mirrorless at the time (which is a reasonable assumption)... then DSLR will exists in plenty for a least another decade...this is a reasonable and conservative assertion.