So what about the physically impossible?

[Trevor Carpenter]

From another thread we know how you would like m4/3 to develop this year. But what about the next decade and what about all those things that just can't be done. I'll give some examples:

Back to Jan 1 2010, would you have said OK if I told you that before the end of the decade I would be shooting full size RAW at 60fps. How far can we go? Do we actually want to go any further?

How far can ISO ability improvement. Once again, we have come a long way in 10 years?

Where do EVFs go from here?

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

The big one for me is shooting BIF. In the UK I can very rarely reach my optimum settings of ISO400 (or better) 1/2500, F8. I need to squeeze a bit more light from somewhere. Faster lenses you will say but that means bigger and heavier and my 100-400 is as big as I'm prepared to go. Impossible because of the laws of physics I hear you say, but is it, or have we just not found the way around the rules of physics yet.

How will sensor development overcome current limitations.

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

More questions and some answers gratefully received.

 

[hindesite]

I think all of those suggestions, while useful are only incremental improvements and can be expected in any case.

If the camera market survives the decade.

But what about everything else?

For example, the useless LCD display on the G9. WHY wasn't that an always on e-ink display that continually showed battery level and card capacity, without ever having to turn the camera on? Once glance when you pick the camera up, you know you are good to go.

Why don't we have bluetooth mic and headphone capability? Seems silly to have to plug cables into the camera ports when bluetooth is so much more convenient.

Then there is all the computational imaging that my cheap phone can do, but my camera can't. Its frustrating.

We still have 3" LCDs? Why? Cameras like the G9 have got bigger, why haven't the displays? While we finally have some (rudimentary) editing and image management capabilities on board, the ability to use Snapseed on board would be really welcome.

Why can't we customise our EXIF? Heck, on the G9 there isn't even anyway to synchronise time.

OTOH, I'd settle for Animal Detect that also did eye focus (or anything, really).

 

[john isaacs]

From another thread we know how you would like m4/3 to develop this year. But what about the next decade and what about all those things that just can't be done. I'll give some examples:

Back to Jan 1 2010, would you have said OK if I told you that before the end of the decade I would be shooting full size RAW at 60fps. How far can we go? Do we actually want to go any further?

How far can ISO ability improvement. Once again, we have come a long way in 10 years?

Where do EVFs go from here?

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

The big one for me is shooting BIF. In the UK I can very rarely reach my optimum settings of ISO400 (or better) 1/2500, F8. I need to squeeze a bit more light from somewhere. Faster lenses you will say but that means bigger and heavier and my 100-400 is as big as I'm prepared to go. Impossible because of the laws of physics I hear you say, but is it, or have we just not found the way around the rules of physics yet.

How will sensor development overcome current limitations.

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

More questions and some answers gratefully received.

I think the improvements to come will be on the side of computational photography.

 

[briantrying]

From another thread we know how you would like m4/3 to develop this year. But what about the next decade and what about all those things that just can't be done. I'll give some examples:

Back to Jan 1 2010, would you have said OK if I told you that before the end of the decade I would be shooting full size RAW at 60fps. How far can we go? Do we actually want to go any further?

How far can ISO ability improvement. Once again, we have come a long way in 10 years?

Where do EVFs go from here?

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

The big one for me is shooting BIF. In the UK I can very rarely reach my optimum settings of ISO400 (or better) 1/2500, F8. I need to squeeze a bit more light from somewhere. Faster lenses you will say but that means bigger and heavier and my 100-400 is as big as I'm prepared to go. Impossible because of the laws of physics I hear you say, but is it, or have we just not found the way around the rules of physics yet.

How will sensor development overcome current limitations.

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

More questions and some answers gratefully received.

That you don't actually need anything bigger than micro 4/3? Happy New Year to all (even those with over-sized sensors) .

 

[Wu Jiaqiu]

well you could have been shooting 60fps full 12 bit raw files with a mirrorless camera back in 2011, Nikon has shown that you can make smaller lighter lenses with their phase fresnel designs but with a shrinking market i doubt other companies who haven't already won't bother sinking the money into investing into this technology, which bring me to the final point....any real advancements will be down to how much R&D any company thinks it can get a return on so i would guess that the biggest advancements will be in computational photography rather than actual hardware, hopefully constant improvements via firmware can make cameras continually improve over their lifetime

 

[sbu]

I think all of those suggestions, while useful are only incremental improvements and can be expected in any case.

If the camera market survives the decade.

But what about everything else?

For example, the useless LCD display on the G9. WHY wasn't that an always on e-ink display that continually showed battery level and card capacity, without ever having to turn the camera on? Once glance when you pick the camera up, you know you are good to go.

Why don't we have bluetooth mic and headphone capability? Seems silly to have to plug cables into the camera ports when bluetooth is so much more convenient.

Then there is all the computational imaging that my cheap phone can do, but my camera can't. Its frustrating.

We still have 3" LCDs? Why? Cameras like the G9 have got bigger, why haven't the displays? While we finally have some (rudimentary) editing and image management capabilities on board, the ability to use Snapseed on board would be really welcome.

Why can't we customise our EXIF? Heck, on the G9 there isn't even anyway to synchronise time.

OTOH, I'd settle for Animal Detect that also did eye focus (or anything, really).

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Certainly larger physical size is not the answer. There is room for an E-M1x but only one model. The experiment with the G1/5 seems to have ended in tears. Cross off the Pen-F as well.

If M4/3 users keep on insisting on one large body and many lenses then surely compact FF camera bodies will over-run large M4/3 bodies.

No need to bring up the hoary old argument that 4/3 lenses are smaller. This only works for the “good enough” range of M4/3 lenses. Once the lenses move into more exotic level territory the lens size difference becomes moot anyway.

In the end the 4/3 sensor is something of a sweet spot size but the camera bodies are not reflecting this but becoming me-also goliaths just like the FF versions were once reputed to be.

As long as M4/3 fanciers regard compact camera size as sub-standard they will continue to get largish bodies as that is the only size they are willing to pay proper prices for.

If sales drop far enough there will not be a big enough market to develop further 4/3 sensors at a reasonable price and the cost of up to date sensors FF will drop to meet the cost of more obsolete 4/3 sensors.

Thereby hangs the tale of the end of a wonderful series of M4/3 mount lenses ....

I must go and pat my GM5 with 200/2.8 and 2x teleconverter attached ... No IBIS, no tilting lcd, no fast video, just a sweet little camera that does everything that is necessary to actually take photographs. Like living the rough life of a film photographer of yesteryear who somehow managed to make great photographs with minimal user conveniences.

That such a combination will boggle the brains of many M4/3 users does not mean that the same combination cannot take great images worthy of that exotic high performing lens.

In the end we live an a convenience age where almost all learned skills have become automated so we hardly need to know anything beyond pressing a button. I guess that this is the real attraction of mobile phone cameras.

Do we really want the equivalent of a mobile phone camera ease all wrapped up in a camera body that looks feel-good impressive?

 

[Tom Caldwell]

I think all of those suggestions, while useful are only incremental improvements and can be expected in any case.

If the camera market survives the decade.

But what about everything else?

For example, the useless LCD display on the G9. WHY wasn't that an always on e-ink display that continually showed battery level and card capacity, without ever having to turn the camera on? Once glance when you pick the camera up, you know you are good to go.

Why don't we have bluetooth mic and headphone capability? Seems silly to have to plug cables into the camera ports when bluetooth is so much more convenient.

Then there is all the computational imaging that my cheap phone can do, but my camera can't. Its frustrating.

We still have 3" LCDs? Why? Cameras like the G9 have got bigger, why haven't the displays? While we finally have some (rudimentary) editing and image management capabilities on board, the ability to use Snapseed on board would be really welcome.

Why can't we customise our EXIF? Heck, on the G9 there isn't even anyway to synchronise time.

OTOH, I'd settle for Animal Detect that also did eye focus (or anything, really).

how odd you find the LCD on the g9 useless. I use it all the time.

Maybe he meant the top panel grey lcd readout?

Frankly the G9 could use the double hinged tilt lcd of the S1/S1R to advantage over the present side-hinged lcd.

 

[hindesite]

I think all of those suggestions, while useful are only incremental improvements and can be expected in any case.

If the camera market survives the decade.

But what about everything else?

For example, the useless LCD display on the G9. WHY wasn't that an always on e-ink display that continually showed battery level and card capacity, without ever having to turn the camera on? Once glance when you pick the camera up, you know you are good to go.

Why don't we have bluetooth mic and headphone capability? Seems silly to have to plug cables into the camera ports when bluetooth is so much more convenient.

Then there is all the computational imaging that my cheap phone can do, but my camera can't. Its frustrating.

We still have 3" LCDs? Why? Cameras like the G9 have got bigger, why haven't the displays? While we finally have some (rudimentary) editing and image management capabilities on board, the ability to use Snapseed on board would be really welcome.

Why can't we customise our EXIF? Heck, on the G9 there isn't even anyway to synchronise time.

OTOH, I'd settle for Animal Detect that also did eye focus (or anything, really).

how odd you find the LCD on the g9 useless. I use it all the time.

Maybe he meant the top panel grey lcd readout?

I did. when the camera is switched off, it is completely useless. Even when switched on, it could be doing so much more. Instead, Panasonic have just replicated the DSLR display and added absolutely nothing more.

Frankly the G9 could use the double hinged tilt lcd of the S1/S1R to advantage over the present side-hinged lcd.

No, I'm not going to go into FA vs hinged displays and all their variants, been done to death and will never be resolved (or even discussed reasonably).

In any case I trade the extra space, cost and complexity of the FF designs for a larger rear LCD.

 

[SteveY80]

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

To me AF accuracy and reliability is much more important than speed. I don't really care if an AF system is slightly faster if it often focuses on a busy background rather than the intended subject. I find that Panasonic's DFD is highly prone to doing that, even when using animal AF on the G9.

Personally I'm happy with most of the features of modern cameras. I don't need faster burst speeds, or bigger buffers, or even larger sensors with more pixels. What I would like is simply the current state of the art in a lightweight and compact body.

 

[Astrotripper]

From another thread we know how you would like m4/3 to develop this year. But what about the next decade and what about all those things that just can't be done. I'll give some examples:

Back to Jan 1 2010, would you have said OK if I told you that before the end of the decade I would be shooting full size RAW at 60fps. How far can we go? Do we actually want to go any further?

How far can ISO ability improvement.

Not far. Theoretical limit is less than 1 stop ahead, so there's really not much room there.

Expect camera companies to employ fancy AI algos to denoise the images.

Once again, we have come a long way in 10 years?

If I compare my E-PL1 to my E-M5 III, the gap is huge. But for the next 10 years?

Where do EVFs go from here?

Simple. No blackout live view at more than 60 fps and sub 5ms lag. We're almost there, actually.

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

More automation. More AI powered smart algos.

The big one for me is shooting BIF. In the UK I can very rarely reach my optimum settings of ISO400 (or better) 1/2500, F8. I need to squeeze a bit more light from somewhere. Faster lenses you will say but that means bigger and heavier and my 100-400 is as big as I'm prepared to go. Impossible because of the laws of physics I hear you say, but is it, or have we just not found the way around the rules of physics yet.

How will sensor development overcome current limitations.

It will not.

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

That's already possible with good technique.

More questions and some answers gratefully received.

I think the progress will revolve around "smart" features. But I'm not sure camera companies are well equipped to actually pull it off.

There might not be a traditional camera industry in 10 years. Maybe a few boutique camera makers and bunch of old people clinging to their old legacy gadgets, while the rest of the population will post pictures recorded by their glasses or other smart devices, selected, composed and processed by AI algorithms tuned according to the wishes and style of the "photographer".

 

[LoneTree1]

Sensors peaked five years ago. Everything from then on is processing, pretty soon to be "A.I. image reconstruction" which in the end is all fake anyway.

 

[Wigelii]

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

That's already possible with good technique.

HOW???

 

[LoneTree1]

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

That's already possible with good technique.

HOW???

Really good 5-axis IBIS can counteract (faster than you can blur the image) small movements. They may even have some kind of predictive aspect to it.

 

[hindesite]

I think the progress will revolve around "smart" features. But I'm not sure camera companies are well equipped to actually pull it off.

From what I've seen so far, I know they can't. We're well past peak camera and the opportunities that provided, and squandered that away. All downhill from here.

There might not be a traditional camera industry in 10 years. Maybe a few boutique camera makers and bunch of old people clinging to their old legacy gadgets,

That's hardly a prediction. It is a statement of how things are now, just look at this forum.

 

[Bassam Guy]

In many areas photography technology has reached their plateau.

Even if AF speed is increased tenfold the perceptible difference will be nominal.

Frame rates will probably not increase by much, as they cannot exceed what the shutter mandates. Perhaps niche demand from sports photographers might bring it to 250 FPS - but why not produce video instead? Perhaps the line between stills and video will blur.

We will, however, likely see unprecedented advancements in lenses. A Mexican scientist devised an optical formula that could revolutionize lens design- fewer elements, sharper edges to edge, and faster.

Loading…

www.google.com

 

[cosmicnode]

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

To me AF accuracy and reliability is much more important than speed. I don't really care if an AF system is slightly faster if it often focuses on a busy background rather than the intended subject. I find that Panasonic's DFD is highly prone to doing that, even when using animal AF on the G9.

I think most people consider better AF as being a combination of both speed and accuracy. AF that is highly accurate but takes a long time to achieve focus ending in you losing the shot. is as bad as fast AF that does not quite achieve fine focus resulting in a slightly out of focus shot.

Personally I'm happy with most of the features of modern cameras. I don't need faster burst speeds, or bigger buffers, or even larger sensors with more pixels. What I would like is simply the current state of the art in a lightweight and compact body.

 

[SteveY80]

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

To me AF accuracy and reliability is much more important than speed. I don't really care if an AF system is slightly faster if it often focuses on a busy background rather than the intended subject. I find that Panasonic's DFD is highly prone to doing that, even when using animal AF on the G9.

I think most people consider better AF as being a combination of both speed and accuracy. AF that is highly accurate but takes a long time to achieve focus ending in you losing the shot. is as bad as fast AF that does not quite achieve fine focus resulting in a slightly out of focus shot.

I can't think of any current cameras that are actually slow to focus in normal conditions. In fact, even pre-DFD Panasonics like the old GX7 and GM1 didn't take a long time to achieve focus; that wasn't usually the reason why they missed a shot.

Generally I find that the issue isn't a slightly out of focus shot due to fine focusing errors, it's the camera missing the subject completely and locking focus on the background, e.g. twigs or water ripples behind a bird's head.

Better "AI" detection of the subject should help with that, but features like the G9's animal detection AF aren't there yet.

 

[MrALLCAPS]

I don't see a huge improvement in IBIS, in fact, I just see more camera companies adding this feature, which would diminish Olympus's feature.

Sensor wise is even worse, as I dont think olympus will purchase improved 43 sensors.

Large aperture lenses will bring larger lenses that wont be cost friendly. Smaller bodies, smaller lenses are their only options.

 

[Kung Pao Panda]

From another thread we know how you would like m4/3 to develop this year. But what about the next decade and what about all those things that just can't be done. I'll give some examples:

Back to Jan 1 2010, would you have said OK if I told you that before the end of the decade I would be shooting full size RAW at 60fps. How far can we go? Do we actually want to go any further?

How far can ISO ability improvement. Once again, we have come a long way in 10 years?

Where do EVFs go from here?

Focusing to my slow brain feels as fast as I can imagine? Is there anywhere further to go?

The big one for me is shooting BIF. In the UK I can very rarely reach my optimum settings of ISO400 (or better) 1/2500, F8. I need to squeeze a bit more light from somewhere. Faster lenses you will say but that means bigger and heavier and my 100-400 is as big as I'm prepared to go. Impossible because of the laws of physics I hear you say, but is it, or have we just not found the way around the rules of physics yet.

How will sensor development overcome current limitations.

How far can IS go? Handheld at 10 sec?

More questions and some answers gratefully received.

Some believe compact P&S, and MFT cameras will cease to exist by 2030.
It will be overcome by ever improving mobile phone camera image quality and technology.

Leonidas