# Interesting Bloomberg piece on the future of photography



## brunerww (Sep 20, 2013)

Money quote: "The shift to smartphones could be similar to the transition from film to digital photography, which weeded out companies slow to adapt."

Smartphone Cameras at 41 Megapixels Pressure Canon, Nikon - Bloomberg


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## goodguy (Sep 20, 2013)

Can anyone please explain to me why the heck anybody would want a smartphone that has 41MP camera ?
I thought people already understood there is no connection between MP count and picture quality.
And why would the normal user need 41MP anyways ?


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## Overread (Sep 20, 2013)

goodguy said:


> I thought people already understood there is no connection between MP count and picture quality.
> And why would the normal user need 41MP anyways ?



1) No they don't - more MP has gone hand in hand with increased picture quality for a long while now. Whilst its not strictly true that more MP makes things better, the camera manufacturers have ensured that each time they up the MP they also generally up the quality of the final image (especially with in-camera editing on the JPEGs). 
As a result of that and marketing the average person ends up assuming that MP is part of the rating of quality of the camera, so more is better

2) Most users don't even NEED the camera at all - if they do they don't need a smartphone - heck most of us here don't need a DSLR either. Need isn't important its want and people always want more than what they have now. 

MP is also easy to market - more MP = more quality and bigger photos and more detail and such. That's a pretty easy thing to measure and to compare for the user. Dynamic range scores, pixel pitches, pixel densities etc... are hardly spoken about and the average person doesn't want to bother trying to juggle a dozen or more different variables; they just want something to snap shots at the parties and trips they go on.


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## brunerww (Sep 20, 2013)

Flickr Search: 41mp

Did a search for "41MP" on flickr - some pretty impressive images (alongside a few pictures of those plates of restaurant food that people inexplicably post to Facebook).

My guess is there won't be very many camera-only manufacturers left standing when this is over.


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2013)

It does pixel binning for noise reduction, and also allows "digital zoom" to be pretty darn effective.

There's lots of reasons for throwing megapixels at the problem. Nokia seems to be trying to make some marketing hay out it as well, but there's some superb technology in play here as well.


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## SCraig (Sep 20, 2013)

goodguy said:


> Can anyone please explain to me why the heck anybody would want a smartphone that has 41MP camera ?
> * I thought people already understood there is no connection between MP count and picture quality.*
> And why would the normal user need 41MP anyways ?


As a blanket statement I disagree with this.  If you believe it then take a shot with an old 3mp or 5mp camera and the same thing with your D7100, then print them at, say, 16" X 20" and tell me which looks best.  You won't have to look hard.

I do agree that there is a ceiling above which the law of diminishing returns comes into play, but that ceiling is going to vary depending on use.  Someone who never does anything but post snapshots on Facebook and someone who regularly prints large prints are going to have vastly different needs.  Someone who regularly has to crop their images and someone who never has to crop their images will have different needs.



brunerww said:


> Flickr Search: 41mp
> 
> Did a search for "41MP" on flickr - some pretty impressive images (alongside a few pictures of those plates of restaurant food that people inexplicably post to Facebook).
> 
> * My guess is there won't be very many camera-only manufacturers left standing when this is over.*


There are none now that I can think of.  Every camera manufacturer that I can think of is involved in other areas as well.  Nikon makes a lot of optics for other uses, Olympus is the prime vendor of endoscopes, Canon makes printers, etc.  The days of specializing in a single area are long gone.


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## Braineack (Sep 20, 2013)

Every new iphone has camera improvements for a reason.  People use their smart phones as cameras that can connect to the internet and post to social sites, and sometimes place a phone call.


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## Ilovemycam (Sep 20, 2013)

Beside cutting into cam sales, the digital revolution has cut into my social documentary work. 

Nowadays when I offer free photos to a prospect they tell me they don't want or need any more pix. The people of today are self-sufficient when it comes to photography. They have cell phone cam and a cheap ink jet printer and don't need anything else.

If I had a smart phone I would have a 41mp as well. But they only can do so much. I still prefer a dedicated cam.


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## Braineack (Sep 20, 2013)

Ilovemycam said:


> Beside cutting into cam sales, the digital revolution has cut into my social documentary work.
> 
> Nowadays when I offer free photos to a prospect they tell me they don't want or need any more pix. The people of today are self-sufficient when it comes to photography. They have cell phone cam and a cheap ink jet printer and don't need anything else.
> 
> If I had a smart phone I would have a 41mp as well. But they only can do so much. I still prefer a dedicated cam.



Bring your big boy camera to an event where everyone else only has PNSs and cell phones and you'll get endless emails about where they can download the pics you took.


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## runnah (Sep 20, 2013)

Well this is the future.

I predict cameras in the future will have no moving parts just giant sensors with huge MP counts. Rather than a 400mm lens you just zoom and crop. With a gigapixel sensor it'd be no problem.

Granted this is a series of photos but something like this is very doable with a single image from a phone in the next 10 years.
Gigapixel.com - Vancouver from Fairview at Dusk


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2013)

It is worth noting that digital zoom behaves differently from actual zoom. You get more DoF, all else being equal.

I don't claim to predict the future of camera tech, but what makes _sense_ is a light field camera with a very high pixel count and excellent dynamic range. Then you can handle the focus, the DoF, and to plus or minus a couple stops in post. The masses will use a couple simple controls: 'make THAT and THAT and THAT in focus, darker, lighter, infinite DoF no wait shallow, cool' that are almost instagramlike in simplicity, and anyone else up to and including the highest level of professionals will use more sophisticated controls to produce whatever results they like.

Everything moves to post.


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## Braineack (Sep 20, 2013)

This is why I don't cell phone:


Oh cool, this lady has two cats in the back of her car, let me picture!!!!









vs.


oh cool wrx!


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## runnah (Sep 20, 2013)

amolitor said:


> It is worth noting that digital zoom behaves differently from actual zoom. You get more DoF, all else being equal.
> 
> I don't claim to predict the future of camera tech, but what makes _sense_ is a light field camera with a very high pixel count and excellent dynamic range. Then you can handle the focus, the DoF, and to plus or minus a couple stops in post. The masses will use a couple simple controls: 'make THAT and THAT and THAT in focus, darker, lighter, infinite DoF no wait shallow, cool' that are almost instagramlike in simplicity, and anyone else up to and including the highest level of professionals will use more sophisticated controls to produce whatever results they like.
> 
> Everything moves to post.



It's only a matter of time before this makes it's way to cell phones: Lytro - Light Field Camera

But you are right everything will be in post.


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## Joeywhat (Sep 20, 2013)

Smartphones akin to the film to digital switch? Yeah right.

I don't doubt that cameras in phones will become more and more powerful, and probably replace a lot of low end P&S models in the years to come, I just don't see the technology becoming decent in soon enough time to actually start replacing REAL cameras.

And I HATE the fact that my camera takes HUGE pictures. I would so much rather it just take good pictures at a lower MP then throw more pixels at the problem. Takes forever to upload, and I pretty much HAVE to crop the photo so it doesn't take up 3-4 freakin' MB on my phone. At least give me the option for considerably smaller photos (optimized for for the web).

I can perhaps see the "camera with a phone" concept going somewhere, that I think I've seen a bit already. It was a little bigger then a phone, but supposedly took pretty good pics all things considered. I think it ran Windows, though...gross. I just hope the "photo industry" doesn't go the way music did, with low quality and gimmicks being the main selling point for consumers. This instagram filter BS is already annoying enough...it needs to not catch on any further then it already has.


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2013)

goodguy said:


> Can anyone please explain to me why the heck anybody would want a smartphone that has 41MP camera ?
> I thought people already understood there is no connection between MP count and picture quality.
> And why would the normal user need 41MP anyways ?



I remember a buddy asking me about one of my first Macintosh computers. "Wow--you ordered it with a *ONE-gigabyte* hard drive?? Are you serious? Why would you ever need that much space?"

The 41-MP thing has already been covered: it's a file with a huge amount of information, perfect for a wide-field capture that can later be cropped as much as is needed.

My first digital camera was the Nikon D1 d-slr. It had a 2.7 megapixel 1.5x APS-C sensor in it.

Today's D800 and D800e have 36-megapixel sensors. At one time, we got four TV channels, all over the air...now...500 channels is common.


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2013)

Joeywhat said:


> Smartphones akin to the film to digital switch? Yeah right.



Phones are obliterating the P&S market. They're not 'replacing a lot of low end' they're utterly trashing the market. There's some money to be milked out of it yet, but that segment is over as a cash cow. The market has bifurcated into camera phones and more-or-less high end cameras (interchangeable lens cameras and a niche of very high end fixed lens cameras which seem to exist largely as halo products).

At this point the next market to get eaten is that high end system, and the better phones are definitely nipping at the low end DSLR. Where mom used to buy a Rebel, she's just using her iPhone which takes better pictures in her use cases anyways.

I don't know what will happen to DSLRs, mainly because what happens to markets like this is usually something unforseen. There are so many possibilities, some pundit will get it mostly right by accident and will be hailed as a genius. He's not. And the DSLR market will be decimated by whatever the new strange thing is, and will struggle to reinvent itself in the new image, likely fail, and will shrink down to a niche selling into the tail of a market, praying that the tail is pretty fat. See also film.


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## runnah (Sep 20, 2013)

Rumor has it the next generation of high end prograde cameras will be mirror less. Which only makes sense as it will remover the last mechanical component from the camera. Interchangeable lenses will be around for a while longer but honestly I doubt they last another 10-15 years.

But yeah the ps market is done for. Most folks I see either use phones or an entry level dslr.


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## Tiller (Sep 20, 2013)

runnah said:


> Rumor has it the next generation of high end prograde cameras will be mirror less. Which only makes sense as it will remover the last mechanical component from the camera. Interchangeable lenses will be around for a while longer but honestly I doubt they last another 10-15 years.  But yeah the ps market is done for. Most folks I see either use phones or an entry level dslr.



What form of lenses will take their place? I've read an article somewhere about using water as a lens, which seems incredible.


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## KmH (Sep 20, 2013)

The march continues to making photographs a commodity.

When companies need advertising images they'll just have their minimum wage minions search the photo sharing web sites for what they want and get whoever made the images to let them use it/them for free.

More and more MP on smaller and smaller image sensors means more and more coding has to be done in software so the camera can produce a decent image.


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## vintagesnaps (Sep 20, 2013)

Since early in photography cameras have been intended for everybody to use, and most average people (unless they have the interest in becoming 'photographers') will probably use whatever's the easiest not necessarily the best - that might be left for professionals. The average person used a Brownie, pros used wooden tripods and big wooden view cameras.

In sports at least there are photos on websites by the time a game is done, there isn't time for post, or for going thru a couple of hours of game footage to pull an image out of a stream. There's been the ability already to do that but seems to be too time consuming to be practical. It just depends on how a photo would be used, what the best way is to record an image and make use of it. We may continue to see smaller P&S's or hybrids, better quality phones with cameras, better detachable lenses for phones, or who knows what else. Usage and equipment will likely continue to change. 

So while snapping photos of their meal that looks like the dog's dinner by the time it gets posted on social media pages is apparently fun, it's still new enough that people seem entranced by having everything in their phone and aren't always managing it responsibly (texting and driving). The novelty eventually will wear off. People already seem to be realizing if they're spending a lot of time using their phones constantly texting and snapping pictures of everything, they're missing out on some of just living their life while it happens.


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2013)

runnah said:


> Rumor has it the next generation of high end prograde cameras will be mirror less. Which only makes sense as it will remover the last mechanical component from the camera. Interchangeable lenses will be around for a while longer but honestly I doubt they last another 10-15 years.
> 
> But yeah the ps market is done for. Most folks I see either use phones or an entry level dslr.



I do not believe ANYBODY who says mirrorless cameras will displace conventional d-slr cameras anytime in the near future. People actually prefer d-slr cameras over mirrorless cameras, according to Nikon, and according to the CIPA figures. Here is a June 18,2013 article in USA Today. Mirrorless camera sales don't reflect potential

"The mirrorless segment is gaining huge ground in Japan, where it makes up about 10% of the camera market, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association. Of the *1.8 million cameras shipped in the Americas* (not just the USA) in April, *a measly 38,843 of them were mirrorless *&#8212; 2% of the total."


Yeah...TWO percent mirrorless shipments in the "Americas", meaning Canada, the USA, Mexico and Central America, and South America.


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2013)

Has anyone built a mirrorless DSLR? That is, maintain the form factor, the sensor size, the feature set etc, but use an EVF instead of a mirror? It seems that "mirrorless" has thus far indicated a market segment that boils down to "high end P&S" rather than merely "doesn't have a mirror".


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Has anyone built a mirrorless DSLR? That is, maintain the form factor, the sensor size, the feature set etc, but use an EVF instead of a mirror? It seems that "mirrorless" has thus far indicated a market segment that boils down to "high end P&S" rather than merely "doesn't have a mirror".



Ummmm, in a manner of speaking, Sony "sort of" has...with their SLT technology. They have a mirror that's fixed in position, and allows the image-forming light rays to go right through a mirror, and the finder uses an EVF...but the form factor, and size and weight, is pretty much the same as a "regular" pre-SLT Sony-branded d-slr, and the cameras still use the Minolta Maxxum/aka Sony Alpha lenses. Removing the flipping mirror has really boosted the frames per second rate, but there are still a couple of EVF-centric issues, such as dark EVF image in dimmer shooting conditions, and a slight lag in refresh of the image on fast-moving subjects or when panning rapidly with the camera.

The question is a bit of an odd duck, inasmuch as a mirror-LESS dsl*R *would have no *R*eflex mirror, so maybe my answer isn't 100% what you were expecting.


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## amolitor (Sep 20, 2013)

The half-silvered mirror jobbies always struck me as an OK idea, but nobody liked them because they cost speed and made a dim finder. They used an EVF on some of them to boost the finder image back up to decent levels or something? I hadn't heard of that varient.

It makes sense to me to pull the EVF image right off the sensor and dump the mirror entirely.

That was the answer, and you're right, it wouldn't be an SLR at all, it would be something else. But the idea would be an EVF, no mirror, but otherwise targetting the current DSLR market. Lag does seem to be a problem with the EVFs, which I gotta say is a bit of a mystery to me, but I assume I am missing something about the tech.


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## Derrel (Sep 20, 2013)

Here's a brief article by an influential web photography writer, on why he dislikes EVFs...and keep in mind, he owns and uses the Sony NEX-7 as his "wintertime" camera of choice. I dunno...there are a number of camera designs that could or would be "good", I think...but the real sticking point is "legacy lens systems" versus "buying all-new gear for an unproven system".

Why I Hate EVFs


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## brunerww (Sep 21, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Has anyone built a mirrorless DSLR? That is, maintain the form factor, the sensor size, the feature set etc, but use an EVF instead of a mirror? It seems that "mirrorless" has thus far indicated a market segment that boils down to "high end P&S" rather than merely "doesn't have a mirror".



The first camera with the form factor, APS-C sensor size and feature set of a DSLR was the little-known (and initially overpriced) Samsung NX20.

Sony seems to have give up on the "half silvered mirror" and is taking a shot at a DSLR form factor mirrorless with the entry level A3000, but, to take Derrel's point, it has a crappy EVF.

That said, it is the bestselling Sony on Amazon's DSLR Best Seller List as of today, ahead of every one of their DSLTs.

If Sony follows up with reasonably priced APS-C A5000, A7000 and full frame A9000 mirrorless cameras with OLED EVFs, we may finally have cameras that are real alternatives to the complexity of the mirror box. 

In the meantime, the reflex mirror rules.


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## KmH (Sep 21, 2013)

The Internet is having a huge impact on the future of photography, and that future is pretty bleak. 

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...user-submitted-photos-boost-online-sales.html



> &#8220;It&#8217;s great to have real-life photos,&#8221; said Michael Gilday, Beam&#8217;s multimedia lead for Mini Cooper. &#8220;It&#8217;s like a gold mine."


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## mishele (Sep 21, 2013)

KmH said:


> The Internet is having a huge impact on the future of photography, and that future is pretty bleak.
> 
> http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...user-submitted-photos-boost-online-sales.html
> 
> ...



Scary, isn't it?!!


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## KmH (Sep 21, 2013)

There will still be a market for high quality images.
Albeit a much smaller market, with fierce competition among the few that will survive the trend to using amateur made/grade "real-life photos" that will shrink the commercial photography market.

I think the "It's like a gold mine." is about real-life photos = don't have to pay for them.


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## mishele (Sep 21, 2013)

Marketing genius, really.


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## usayit (Sep 21, 2013)

Oh My God... The Sky Is Falling

:-/



The killing off of dedicated P&S is no different from the killing off of PDA's 10+ years ago.   Remove the useless components and bulk, integrate, and bring more value in a single component.  There will always be a need for high quality images BUT it doesn't mean the notion of creating such images are locked within our current definition or notion of high end equipment.  It may take a while, but I believe the market for an integrated phone/camera with high end features you would expect out of the current high end P&S offerings will eventually appear.  

I also believe the useless bulk of the age old mirror box will eventually come to an end.... you can quote all the stats and articles you want but it simply means that we are not there yet.  There was a long period of time when film dominated digital in sales figures... but eventually technology caught up.  It served to provide TTL viewing for a film plane that has long been replaced with technology that can eventually provide TTL viewing as well.  If you consider mirrorless as a design concept that consists of simply a lens, sensor, display and controls with minimal mechanics, mirrorless dominates DSLR already... in the form of cellphones and P&S.  

Again... remove bulk, integrate technology, and keep doing it until its offerings surpass the old.

Japan is a good indication of future direction future products as their culture seem to be more open minded to new ideas and innovative solutions to old problems and needs.   Its a culture that manages to blend in the modern with the traditional without obsessing over conflicts there in.   But again... to see where we are headed, you must not fixate over the current product offerings and solutions as they are often "a work or idea in progress".  Try to identify the more abstract trends.

One such type of trend that continuously repeats is take two bits of technology in which a large market segment overlap and integrate, integrate, integrate!.  Example.  PDA w/ phone books generally carried by people who need a phone... smartphone!   People who snap photos are generally carried by people who participate in online social sites.... camera smart phone!  People with GPS generally drive a car...  In dash GPS!  etc.   There are many people who carry both a camera and camcorder... Video Capable cameras.  

Another trend that pops up a lot is accessibility to content... ie web content consumption etc...


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## Overread (Sep 21, 2013)

From what I see a lot of people who are buying into the mirrorless m4/3rds market are;

1) those who have a DSLR and want a point and shoot for those times that the DSLR is too big or just not suitable. It's complimenting the market rather than replacing - often as not being an attractive investment for the DSLR owner who has most of what they want/can afford. 

2) Those who have a DSLR, but who might be getting older or have medical factors that mean they have to downsize (or wish to) and are replacing their DSLR when they are really no longer going to be part of the DSLR buying market anyway (ergo its not eating into DSLR sales, and is more eating into high end point and shoot sales).


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## hamlet (Sep 21, 2013)

Its inevitable that dslr's will finally go out of style with the mainstream market, because Convenience will always trump anything. its happened with cassettes, CD's, when you can just as easily download an MP3 from itunes. Almost nobody bothers to go back to film.


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## Derrel (Sep 21, 2013)

from an August, 2013 Reuters article:Nikon cuts full-year profit target as camera sales slump | NDTV Gadgets

_"Nikon Corp cut its full-year profit due to disappointing demand for mirrorless cameras that were once seen as a revolutionary invention that could save the industry from the threat of increasingly advanced smartphone cameras.Nikon executives said that sales were particularly disappointing in the United States and Europe for mirrorless cameras, which are lighter and cheaper than single-lens reflex (SLR) devices and offer higher image quality than other compact models."

"In Europe and the U.S. the ratio of mirrorless to SLRs hasn't grown at all, unlike in Asia, where it's quite popular with women because it's light. We had higher expectations for other regions," said Yasuyuki Okamoto, president of the imaging company. "But people who like cameras tend to just go for SLRs, even though they're very heavy."

"Japanese camera makers were hoping that mirrorless cameras, which work with a sensors, could pick up the slack as compact camera sales continue to slide as consumers are increasingly shifting to high-resolution smartphone cameras. But so far, they have only seen strong mirrorless sales at home, where shipments grew 16.8 percent in the six months to June, while dropping 18.5 percent globally, according to data from the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) of Japan. Compact camera shipments plummeted 48 percent."_

---------so, yeah...Bloomberg is echoing what we've all known for a while now: the compact digital camera market has almost totally been killed off by *better and better smart phones*. Mirrorless cameras are selling well ONLY in Japan, and in the rest of the world, the sales of mirrorless systems are bad. In April of 2013, according to USA Today, about 2%, or around 38,000 cameras shipped to the Americas, out of 1.8 million cameras shipped, were mirrorless cameras. Bloomberg is probably right: there are going to be some camera companies that are forced to leave the camera business.


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## Derrel (Sep 21, 2013)

I keep hearing this same tired prediction: that the mirror will soon be discarded. So, ya know, I typed in a short Google search string, "When was the single lens reflex camera invented?" and the first entry it returned was a Wikipedia article which began thusly: 

"The *history of the single-lens reflex camera* predates the invention of photography in 1826/27 by one and a half centuries with the use of a reflex mirror in a camera obscura first described in 1676. Such SLR devices were popular as drawing aids throughout the 18th century, because an artist could trace over the ground glass image to produce a true-life realistic picture.A British patent was granted in 1861 for the first internal mirror SLR photographic camera, but the first production photographic SLR did not appear until 1884 in the U.S."

It's going to take a while before there's a paradigm shift. If one has ever studied paradigm shifts, there's one thing that underlies the majority of them, and that is that the shift is often caused by a new company or a new entrant to the field...that is to say, the shifts are often brought about by an entity that is utterly unfamiliar with the way things have been done, or how they "ought to be done". The problem we have in today's market is that the "established players" have long-lived legacies behind their companies. Decades, and lifetimes, of experience in "how things have been done." We keep hearing about how the mirror will be ditched, soon. But it's been around since the late 1600's in image-rendering devices...so..any day now, right, the mirror will just "disappear".


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## usayit (Sep 22, 2013)

Derrel said:


> I keep hearing this same tired prediction: that the mirror will soon be discarded.



Derrel, 

You keep pointing out to people how short sighted the question of "Why would anyone need 41 mp in a cell phone?"

But yet

You keep missing how short sighted saying that an decades old mirrorbox design is in no way replaceable?



IMO, when it comes to technology... people who say absolutes in terms of specifics are almost 100% wrong at some point in time.   Recall the film guys a while back that analog film will never be replaced by digital?  You sound just like them.  Again.. look towards the Japanese culture for a hint of things to come.


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## manaheim (Sep 22, 2013)

As I've said before it's reasonbly rare that one thing outright replaces another.  It does happen but it's uncommon. Meanwhile media outlets get a lot of press fanning the flames of controversy.


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## Derrel (Sep 22, 2013)

usayit said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > I keep hearing this same tired prediction: that the mirror will soon be discarded.
> ...



Every single time somebody starts pontificating about how "this will happen in the future," I think back to my boyhood some 40 years ago, reading Popular Science back issues that were already 10 to 15 years old (1950's issues), predicting "*flying cars of the future*".

I'm laughing. It's always the mirrorless camera aficionados, like yourself, that try to convince everybody that ,"That God-awful mirror" will disappear!" Yeah...the mirror that began in 1676, and appeared here in 1884...and reached new heights in 1954, then 1959, and is now the defacto standard for high-end cameras...

Please, pull my flying car around to the air-garage, Mr. Jetson.

Did you happen to notice that out of 1.8 MILLION cameras shipped to the Americas earlier this year, only 38,000 units were mirrorless cameras? As in every two out of every 100 units were mirrorless cameras? Oh, yeah...a virtual wave of demand.

Sign me up for my flying automobile, please. Nikon corp's own executives cannot seem to figure out WHY people prefer d-slr cameras, and why the Nikon 1 series is their WORST performer!!! Look to the Japanese culture as what, did you say? As the only market in the world where mirrorless cameras, which are tiny and cute, are selling,mostly to women, seem like a cute novelty item? Look to the Japanese culture as what? As an isolated culture that refuses to accept western influence, and cannot seem to figure out that the majority of the world want d-slr cameras OR cellphone cameras?


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## usayit (Sep 22, 2013)

I'm not a mirrorless aficionado.   If you actually read my posts, I am the first to say its not for everyone NOR  have I ever said it is a replacement for the DSLR system.  I have ALWAYS said that the current mirror-less systems are a good alternative or complimentary system of the DSLR.  I have always said that its a decent system for the professional photographer looking for something to shoot on personal time while not on the clock.

For each case you bring up (you do pick and choose) I can also show another case in which progress was made (PDA for example).  You ignore stuff I post but continue to hold your cases like its some sort of end all.  Its not.  Just like many debates in which a blank statement like yours is made, it only takes one case to prove the ground you stand on as shaky.  

Why don't you do some research as to why we don't fly around in cars that fly.... it has nothing to do with technology.. the technology EXISTS... It has more to do with logistical issues that have yet to be solved.  

Again..... if you study technology achievements we have made in recent years.. the clear trend is... remove bulk, remove the useless or obsolete, integrate, integrate, integrate, integrate.   The smart phone is a clear indication of that trend.... camera+cell phone+PDA all rendered obsolete via integration into a single unit the smart phone.

  (fyi: each decade you can pin-point a unique trend in technology.  Ads hint towards it.  "Electro"- this "Electro" that.  "Auto" this "Auto" that... etc)

Too short sighted to see the trend because you are too busy googling around for specific cases that you think back you up.  THINK for yourself!  Stop regurgitation of links.  

What issues did the mirrorbox solve back before the SLR design was popular?  
Are those issues still exist?  
Are the newer designs solving the same issues?  
Are they solving it with less bulk and complexity?  
Can those new technologies be integrated?

Common!  you are intelligent enough to see past the superficial present.   You think "mirrorless cameras"  Heck you are stuck on it... you name specifics Micro43, NIkon J, etc..  When I think "mirrorless".. I see a design concept.  This is why you are stuck on sales figures... I'm not....  I am saying as a concept even cell phones are mirrorless in design... a design far more popular in use today than any P&S, DSLR, or ILC.


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## usayit (Sep 22, 2013)

For those interested, we are in a wonderful time of change in terms of design and technology.  We have begun to take a similar path that industrial design already went through decades prior.  We started out with a pure focus on function in which form to secondary... moved into the other end of the spectrum when cheap superficial ornamentals were used to hide distract from the pure function underneath... and now transitioning in which we produce beautiful design concepts that form and function are celebrated in harmony... albeit digital

We no longer look for digital versions of the familiar.... we are moving to achieve new designs that celebrate and leverage what digital has to offer.  

Authentic Design | Smashing Magazine

A camera doesn't have to look like the camera of the past...  a DSLR doesn't have to be simply a SLR design with a digital film plane.  Think out of the box... that's the differentiator in innovation today.  Everything else is simply a continuation of what someone else has already done.  Its ok to start with the concepts behind a SLR but its very important were you take that design.

""Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to." - Jim Jarmusch"


Oh and Derrel, my posts are in no way intended to pick or start arguments with you.  This thread simply peaks my interests.... one that is rooted in DESIGN (past, present and future).  Love it even though I am better as an implementation side of the equation.

More importantly... Don't let "winning the debate" or "argument" get in the way of opening your mind and learning.


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