As the Alpa most vividly, Mamiya and H body design show, Medium Format cameras are basically digital sensors in the back bolted on to conventional film camera designs in front. I would say that even the idea of cards and "developing" the Raw images with an external computer are relics of the film age.
We are seeing the first signs of front-back integration with main-sensor focus -which is a bit like ground glass focus- and tricks like focus stacking and multishot, but we're still a long way from true electronic camera designs in "pro" cameras. 35mm amateur devices have on-sensor stabilisation and video that is in fact feature-film grade, but we still mock them as being toys.
The phones with their ability to stream live video, post to social media, apply filters, edit clips in-camera, retouch, annotate and publish images are very different devices, and one can see how they have eaten the lunch of almost all the cheaper "cameras". I'm not making this up - go and ask Canon or Nikon what happened to their compact and point-and-shoot ranges.
A "Photojournalist" can now be more relevant with an iPhone streaming to Periscope and posting seamlessly from an event than with a pro camera that has at best cumbersome interconnections. It's got to the point where pro equipment gets in the way, rather than help: The citizen journalist cannot be censored, the pro can be.
I do wonder whether we will finally see more invention and integration in the MF and 35mm prosumer cameras, or whether the manufacturers will to the end refuse to incorporate phone-class hardware, displays, and app-programmable communication stacks.
It *is* clear that a Rebel cannot have the image processing abilities or the screen of a $800 iPhone, unfortunately this is presently also true of a $30K MF system.
Edmund
