Where is the photographic market going? (having a look at CIPA reports)

[Ed B]

Haven't really examined image quality in newer or older cameras so I'll take your word on the lack of necessity of having to get the latest greatest (most expensive?) camera no matter if it's on a smartphone, compact, MILC or DSLR.

What I still want and don't see on any camera is the ability to quickly grab a digital camera out of my pocket or hanging from a strap around my neck and within seconds flip a "Night" switch selector button and rattle off several well exposed, reasonably sharp shots of night scenes under street lights of quickly moving objects such as prowlers, animals or stray dogs as a way to gather evidence for identification. And I'm not talking about having a preset created ahead of time at the ready. Camera manufacturers should engineer a functional low light "Night" preset that chooses the right ISO, flash power level and focus & exposure metering that allows taking an emergency shot within seconds with no delay or lag.

A friend of mine has a night vision scope that is pretty amazing. I held my phone cam up to the scope and snapped off a few images. These were lit by campfire and the trees in the background in the shot with the tent were a couple of hundred feet from the fire. I'm not sure how night vision works and it may have to be built into a lens but I'm guessing the tech is already here for what you want if you don't have an issue with the green cast.

[Tim Lookingbill]

A friend of mine has a night vision scope that is pretty amazing. I held my phone cam up to the scope and snapped off a few images. These were lit by campfire and the trees in the background in the shot with the tent were a couple of hundred feet from the fire. I'm not sure how night vision works and it may have to be built into a lens but I'm guessing the tech is already here for what you want if you don't have an issue with the green cast.

Not exactly what I was talking about but nice to know night vision exist in the way you describe how it would work for snap shooting.

The tech is already available in all cameras with flash that can shoot as I described without having to resort to night vision systems. I discussed this with a pro street shooter capturing Ferguson protesters at night but his solution that he used would take too long to implement as he described a complicated procedure involving setting camera flash power level, turning off preflash focus metering, ISO adjust and other metering parameters for focusing and exposure that would be too hard to remember but could be easily engineered by the camera manufacturer into a preset button that we call a "night" picture mode that currently doesn't work as it should on most cameras that I'm aware of.

I'm talking about taking a quick shot at night in low light (under moonlight or street light, not pitch black) that can rattle off a shot within at least 10 seconds from the time the camera is turned on, raised to eye level and the shutter released.

On a side note I just received my K100D from KEH within two days and it's spotless, not a scratch on it. It's like brand new. No dust or dirt seen in the viewfinder like my old one. Works perfect at 9 years old. Wish I could've said that about my Yashica film SLR I bought used at a pawnshop back in the late '80's. It only lasted 5 years before it developed corrosion within the internal electronics. I didn't get as many pictures off that camera as I have with my K100D with far better image quality to boot.

[BernardLanguillier]

We tend to have a West centric view of the world here, but we are mostly irrelevant by now.

The only real question is what camera Chinese and Indians will be buying in the next 5-10 years.

Those are average young buyers for whom compactness is less relevant and status very important.

I am really not sure that the days of DSLR looking cameras are over (the presence/absence of a mirror is anecdotical at best). This is the reason why the Samsung NX1 looks the way it looks btw.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Telecaster]

I am really not sure that the days of DSLR looking cameras are over (the presence/absence of a mirror is anecdotical at best). This is the reason why the Samsung NX1 looks the way it looks btw.

Personally I have zero issues with SLR-like cameras. Just get rid of the damned mirror and give me precision in-VF full screen manual focusing. Thus my fondness for mirrorless cameras.

-Dave-

[BJL]

Personally I have zero issues with SLR-like cameras.

Agreed: since the EVF sits atop the LCD, it actually makes sense for there to be a hump there compared to the rest of the top of the camera, and putting the flash mount atop the VF makes sense too.  Flat-topped EVF cameras are higher than hump-cams over most of their width!

(Flat-topped makes sense for rear-screen-only cameras.)

[Telecaster]

(Flat-topped makes sense for rear-screen-only cameras.)

And rangefinders. 

-Dave-

[Isaac]

if I wasn't printing large I'd be seriously looking at buying a mobile phone with a half decent lens in it. I can understand their popularity.

"Apple Launches Worldwide 'Shot on iPhone 6' Ad Campaign Spanning Magazines, Billboards and More"

(Just happened to drive by one of those billboards yesterday.)

[BJL]

"Apple Launches Worldwide 'Shot on iPhone 6' Ad Campaign Spanning Magazines, Billboards and More"

(Just happened to drive by one of those billboards yesterday.)

That is another wickedly clever campaign, pivoting on the widespread idea that billboards are an extreme example of photography that needs big, high resolution, professional equipment -- when in fact road-side billboard images are typically viewed at small apparent size and rather fleetingly, so that the needs for resolution and such are rather modest.

[Isaac]

I couldn't tell you what the billboard photo showed -- too busy paying attention to the other cars.

I walked past a cycling store last-week, glanced at the 12 foot high x 20 foot wide photo of a Big Sur ocean-side trail with cyclists and couldn't help but notice the red-green CA throughout the image. I was about 10 feet away.

I'm always surprised to see photos that don't seem to have been post-processed to correct CA or at least desaturate fringing.

[Isaac]

What I still want and don't see on any camera is the ability to quickly grab a digital camera out of my pocket or hanging from a strap around my neck and within seconds flip a "Night" switch selector button and rattle off several well exposed, reasonably sharp shots of night scenes under street lights of quickly moving objects such as prowlers, animals or stray dogs as a way to gather evidence for identification. And I'm not talking about having a preset created ahead of time at the ready. Camera manufacturers should engineer a functional low light "Night" preset that chooses the right ISO, flash power level and focus & exposure metering that allows taking an emergency shot within seconds with no delay or lag.

Sony DSC-H9 was announced in May 2007. The attached OoC jpeg was taken inside a walk-in closet with the door closed. I was completely unable to see the box. I didn't wait to see how well my eyes would adjust to the darkness.

pdf Shooting in the dark (Night Shot) (DSC-H9 only) page 34

[Tim Lookingbill]

Sony DSC-H9 was announced in May 2007. The attached OoC jpeg was taken inside a walk-in closet with the door closed. I was completely unable to see the box. I didn't wait to see how well my eyes would adjust to the darkness.

pdf Shooting in the dark (Night Shot) (DSC-H9 only) page 34

Close, but no cigar, Isaac. But I thank you for going to the effort of posting the pdf and the sample pic.

I want to shoot moving subjects that don't blur at night in low light using flash. That Sony night shot setting as indicated on page 34 is using an infrared beam that turns off flash so shutter speed must be pretty low. Not sure since the pdf doesn't indicate exposure results.

Have you tried shooting with that Sony infrared setting on moving subjects like skittish dogs moving about and how blurred was it? I noticed the EXIF data from your sample image shows 1/20's shutter speed. I don't think that's going to produce sharp results on moving subjects.

I'm sticking with my DSLR no matter if a iPhone 6 can nail low dynamic range scenes that make pretty generic looking pictures for even lower DR reproductions on ad campaigns. I even haven't been too happy with the amount of detail captured on 16MP APS-C sensor MILC's. I've never seen so much noise from that size of a sensor.

Can someone point me to a site with Raw sample downloads off the best MILC on the market with regards to detail rendering? The Lumix GX7 Raw format wouldn't open in LR4 or ACR 6.7. Its jpeg samples had such heavy noise reduction. My 9 year old 6MP Pentax K100D captures more noiseless fine detail than what I saw off the Lumix.

[Isaac]

… and rattle off several well exposed, reasonably sharp shots of night scenes under street lights of quickly moving objects such as prowlers, animals or stray dogs as a way to gather evidence for identification. … preset that chooses the right ISO, flash power level and focus & exposure metering that allows taking an emergency shot within seconds with no delay or lag.

afaict the problems are going to be AF, whether the particular camera model requires focus-lock before shutter release and flash cycle-time.

The best approximation on the couple of cameras I've looked at is the scene mode for sports -- iso 1000 + flash @ nominal 1/60th.