The New Cameras-cell phones

Roger wrote:

One of these with a Foveon and a zoom 24-90 lens would be great. Why buy a digital camera? The argument for a cell phone and a film camera is getting better all the time. Wonder where we'll be in 5 years? Like when digital started?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16405192/new-google-pixel-2-xl-phone-photos-video-hands-on

Interesting, I still have my SD15 , Q, H, and others.

Just food for thought.

Roger J.

Interesting enough this is Google's second attempt at a smart phone.  The first attempt didn't go well.  Google has kept plugging but for some reason they haven't gotten the right formula to strip away people from Samsung which is probably where they have to come from.  Google does not have the "ecosystem" that Apple has - where iPhone, iPad and Mac computer function as one.

Google also does not have the H/W chops of either Samsung nor Apple.  But it is good to see another entry into the market place.

Smart phones will subsume point and shoot cameras and may at some point chew up to be competitive with lower end compacts.  Interesting enough one of Foveon's first targets to sell their sensor was in the cell phone market.  It was a huge market, Foveon was a three layer CMOS sensor while other competitors were CCD which was power hungry.  Of course that did't work out.  I doubt if it would work out today when Sony owns most of the non-Samsung cell phone market.

For me photography will not be much different in 5 years than it is today. I will still be doing B&W prints. I will still do film and more options in film are coming out all the time.  I will have a digital street camera, today a Fuji Pro2 maybe in a year or two a Leica M10.  I will still be waiting for someone to produce a true color sensor with state of the art noise, ISO and dynamic range to compete with the CFA world.

The Instagram/Facebook market will demand one solution.  The hobbyist/enthusiast/commercial market will demand another solution.