Technology's pace?

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in general. Thanks!

Kevin,

You took too long to make your post. 13 new digicam models came out in the meantime!

1. The DC280 (like all digicams) was obsolete before it hit the dealers.
2. There are about 30 digicam manufacturers coming out with 6-8 models per year.
3. Last year it was 850K pixels, 2 Megapixels this year, 3 Megapixels next year.

4. There's no such thing as waiting until the best model comes out--technolodgy is accelerating, not deaccelerating.

5. Only choice you and everyone has is to buy what you want now, full well knowing that in a year or two there will be models so much better that you will not be able to resist selling your present camera and buying the new.

All above is a technological fazct of life.

Rodger

Kevin Hughes said:

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at
digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm
currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about
digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of
creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a
PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match
film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go
from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find
it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to
different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in
this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year
down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been
able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in
general. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Kevin,

Ya gotta get on the merry go round sometime. (A kid told me that) Roger's right, it's not going to stand still. Even when 10k x 15k chips are available, somebody will come up with a reason to make you want theirs over some other manufacturer's.

At the current size, decent 8 x 10's are possible. That covers a lot of photographic territory. The free film medium of digital photography will do more than save you processing costs. It will free YOU to take more, experience more, learn more and grow faster than any photographic medium could. A friend of mine who has probably shot a two thousand images in his life got a 950 in June and passed the four thousand mark the other day. But the real news is beyond the numbers, he's getting better and better every time he takes the camera out. If you shoot digital, about a month into it the realization sets in that you don't have to worry about photofinishing. Get a big memory card and blast away. These cameras will teach you more than a photography course costing many times as much.

As for obsolete, the camera you choose today will still do the same job in three years, except then it will be your back-up camera.

-iNova

Rodger Carter said:

You took too long to make your post. 13 new digicam models came out in
the meantime!

1. The DC280 (like all digicams) was obsolete before it hit the dealers.
2. There are about 30 digicam manufacturers coming out with 6-8 models
per year.
3. Last year it was 850K pixels, 2 Megapixels this year, 3 Megapixels
next year.
4. There's no such thing as waiting until the best model comes
out--technolodgy is accelerating, not deaccelerating.
5. Only choice you and everyone has is to buy what you want now, full
well knowing that in a year or two there will be models so much better
that you will not be able to resist selling your present camera and
buying the new.

All above is a technological fazct of life.

Rodger

Kevin Hughes said:

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at
digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm
currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about
digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of
creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a
PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match
film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go
from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find
it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to
different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in
this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year
down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been
able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in
general. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

While what is posted here is correct, I would advise you to wait atleast through the month of october before you buy something similar to the kodak dc280

The following cameras similar to the dc280 should be realeased this month:
canon powershot s10
epson photopc 850z
casio qv2000-ux
toshiba pdr m-5

I think that every one of these cameras are not only competitive with the kodak but may have an edge over it.

Kevin Hughes said:

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at
digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm
currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about
digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of
creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a
PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match
film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go
from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find
it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to
different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in
this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year
down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been
able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in
general. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Kevin,

Hello. I too am in the market for a digital camera and have finally decided to order the Kodak DC280. Prior to making my decision, I was researching

many other cameras, specifically the Canon A50/S10 Zoom as well as the Olympus and Nikon lines.

I have read most of the reviews on the Canon and the Kodak cameras. I would have waited for the Canon S10 but looking at what comes with the

Kodak DC280 camera, I pretty much made my decision. And besides what comes with the camera, the image quality and construction will come a
long way from it being obsolete as one has mentioned above.

If all else fails with my decision, I have a 30 day money back gurantee.

That's my .02cen

There is still a long way to go before images made by dgital cameras come close to 35 mm film images. Currently, printroom ( http://www.printroom.com ) suggests a 1600x1200 sized image to print an 8x10. 35mm film frames can print up much, much bigger than that. I'm not sure what resolution would be equivalent to 35mm film, but the bottom line is that there is a long way to go before they will be equivalent. The question is; do the consumers need it to be equivalent? I would say that if the end use of a digital camera is to make a print, then the market will want higher and higher resolutions on cameras. But digital cameras are used quite frequently for viewing on the screen and web use. In either one of these applications, a 1600x1200 resolution camera will do fine.

My point in bringing this up is that it is quite possible that the consumer market won't demand much more than a 1600x1200 camera. In which case the market is going to reach some sort of maturity soon. Ofcourse, assuming 1600x1200 as a target resolution, there are many other developments that will continue to change. We could stand to have bigger zooms, a dominant storage medium, ccd improvements, etc. But if the consumer market decides on a resolution, then these other things will hopefully mature rather quickly.

Kevin Hughes said:

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at
digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm
currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about
digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of
creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a
PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match
film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go
from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find
it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to
different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in
this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year
down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been
able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in
general. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Eric Hickman said:

There is still a long way to go before images made by dgital cameras come
close to 35 mm film images. Currently, printroom
( http://www.printroom.com ) suggests a 1600x1200 sized image to print an
8x10. 35mm film frames can print up much, much bigger than that. I'm
not sure what resolution would be equivalent to 35mm film, but the bottom
line is that there is a long way to go before they will be equivalent.
The question is; do the consumers need it to be equivalent?
My point in bringing this up is that it is quite possible that the
consumer market won't demand much more than a 1600x1200 camera.

Click to expand...

Some numbers may help. Ektachrome 100 has a limit on the number of film "pixels" that can be written on it. E100 tops out at 50 line pairs per mm. Across the short dimension of the 35mm frame that's 24 x 50 = 1200 line PAIRS. Two pixels are the minimum for a pair so this means that when compact digital cameras get to 2400 x 3600 pixels, the show is over for 35mm. Now how long from now will that be? I say two years, three months, four days and 9 hours. (sorry, that's as close as I can get)

Right now, however, almost nobody's camera gets that on any given shot. Why? nearly any image made at less than 1/250th has -some- movement during the shutter. It may be microscopic, but so are these lines that define top performance. It only takes your own pulse being expressed in your fingers to throw a normal lens exposure into half or a third of the theoretical maximum sharpness a 35mm camera can deliver. I saw a test made with a Leica system about Z years ago that showed how almost nobody could hold a camera during a 1/125th shot and acquire a tiny bright speck on superfine grain film. No mirror bounce, no pressure, give it your best shot and the images under a microscope showed little wiggles, not little dots. I think they called it Exposure Excursion or something like that.

Point is, we are sitting at the threshold of high quality images right this second. Any camera that gives it to you in a form that can be tweaked to perfection (or as much as you can finesse) will let you cross the line into all the capabilities that 35 has held so well for the past several decades. It is important to note that in the '50's many people looked at the dinky 35's and said, "too small, not enough picture. It simply won't do."

There are higher resolutions to be had and better technologies to incorporate but as you point out, a satisfying level of image quality has been achieved. It's only going to get better.

-iNova

It would be fine with me if they stopped at 1600x1200 for a while and concentrated on good manual controls (not crude steps) and at least 10x zoom with image stabilization. One CCD for each color would be great.

Eric Hickman said:

My point in bringing this up is that it is quite possible that the
consumer market won't demand much more than a 1600x1200 camera. In which
case the market is going to reach some sort of maturity soon. Ofcourse,
assuming 1600x1200 as a target resolution, there are many other
developments that will continue to change. We could stand to have bigger
zooms, a dominant storage medium, ccd improvements, etc. But if the
consumer market decides on a resolution, then these other things will
hopefully mature rather quickly.

Kevin Hughes said:

I'm pretty much a novice at photography whose found myself looking at
digital cameras since my 35mm camera broke a few months back. I'm
currently thinking about the Kodak DC280, but my question is more about
digital cameras in general; although feel free to comment on the DC280

How fast are digital cameras being replaced by newer models capable of
creating more crisp images? Is the timeline on the same par as say, a
PC? I just keep reading about digital cameras finally starting to match
film's quality and wonder (pretty naively I'm sure) where is there to go
from that? How long after I purchase a camera like the DC280 will I find
it obsolete compared to a newer camera in the same price range?

I realize this is a general question that applies differently to
different users, but I just want to make sure I don't invest too much in
this technology only to have some technological breakthrough occur a year
down the road.

Forgive me if this is a commonly asked question. So far I've only been
able to find comments on particular cameras and not the technology in
general. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Peter iNova said:

Right now, however, almost nobody's camera gets that on any given shot.
Why? nearly any image made at less than 1/250th has -some- movement
during the shutter. It may be microscopic, but so are these lines that
define top performance. It only takes your own pulse being expressed in
your fingers to throw a normal lens exposure into half or a third of the
theoretical maximum sharpness a 35mm camera can deliver. I saw a test
made with a Leica system about Z years ago that showed how almost nobody
could hold a camera during a 1/125th shot and acquire a tiny bright speck
on superfine grain film. No mirror bounce, no pressure, give it your

Click to expand...

I wonder why Leica left production of image stabilized lenses to Canon and Sony. Or did I miss some.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their helpful comments.

For now, I'm going to wait for some reviews on casio 2000x, epson 850z, canon s10, etc.

-Kevin