A mature market?

[Jonathan Cross]

This year there have been a fair number of new cameras coming on the market. Despite this, I wonder if the market is now becoming quite mature. Mirrorless would seem to be here to stay. A quick look at comments on this site trend towards saving weight, global shutters, competition from smart phones, and questions about pixel numbers and image quality. There has been a shift noted by nearly everybody in this site’s content away from hardware. So what is in the future of camera development?

What do people want? What is the camera going to look like in five years? In my case, apart from global shutter there is little that I think I would want or need extra to or different from my current cameras. If this is a common feeling, what is the future for camera manufacturers?

Any thoughts?

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

What’s that global shutter?

[Jonathan Cross]

Global shutter.  I may be wrong, but I think it is what is in smartphones, i.e. the whole image is captured at once, and as a result there is no rolling shutter effect.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

For starters, classic cameras must start offering computational options, like smartphones.

[rdonson]

For starters, classic cameras must start offering computational options, like smartphones.

Why?  If PS, Lr, Luminar, PixelMator Pro, etc. etc. are offering computational photography for processing why does it need to be in cameras? 

The only need I can initially think of for computational photography in a camera is low/very low light situations.  What other situations can you think of?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Why?  If PS, Lr, Luminar, PixelMator Pro, etc. etc. are offering computational photography ...

They are not.

HDR is the other situation when computational photography in smartphones works.

[BJL]

... A quick look at comments on this site trend towards saving weight, global shutters, competition from smart phones, and questions about pixel numbers and image quality. There has been a shift noted by nearly everybody in this site’s content away from hardware. So what is in the future of camera development?

What do people want? What is the camera going to look like in five years? In my case, apart from global shutter there is little that I think I would want or need extra to or different from my current cameras. ...

Here are some things I would like to happen — I make no predictions as to what we'll actually get!

1) Tight, wireless cooperation between the camera and the powerful computer with high speed radio transceiver and large 6" or so screen that I always have in my pocket (the increasingly misleadingly named "phone"), for things like quick basic editing and online distribution, remote control of the camera, and maybe even working on image combining and other tricks of computational photography. For much of this, I would rather not duplicate the hardware already in my pocket, especially not the far larger screen compared to what there is room for on a non-huge camera. And I would like to be able to upgrade that pocket computer every few years without having to replace the camera body. And to have a user interface designed by Apple or Google or other competent mobile  software developers, not by Olympus or Sony or Nikon or ... !

2) A global shutter that does not sacrifice full well capacity and DR (as all current global shutters do). I have read that at least one company (Panasonic?) is working on one possible way to achieve this, with an electro-optical shutter membrane in front of the sensor, so there is hope.

3) If "X3" sensors (measuring all color info at each location) can finally be developed without the substantial drawbacks of the current Foveon approach, and so significantly improve the resolution/speed trade-offs compared to either Bayer CFA or Foveon sensors, that would be nice. (Sony is rumored to have such a product coming soon, and again Panasonic has been working on this.)

[D Fuller]

Global shutter.  I may be wrong, but I think it is what is in smartphones, i.e. the whole image is captured at once, and as a result there is no rolling shutter effect.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

In my experience, cell phones have terrible rolling shutter effects.

[Jonathan Cross]

I understand the latest iPhones do not exhibit rolling shutter.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[BobShaw]

What do people want?

Nokia probably thought that mobile phones were mature before the iPhone and Sony probably thought that music players were mature with the Walkman before the iPod.
As Steve Jobs said, "people don't know what they want until you give it to them".

[D Fuller]

I understand the latest iPhones do not exhibit rolling shutter.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

Interesting. I’ll have to check that out.

It would be (to use the over-used phrase) a game changer.

[Osprey]

Judging by the incredible shrinking tradeshow (Photo Plus) I just attended, I think the word you're looking for is declining.....

[BJL]

Judging by the incredible shrinking tradeshow (Photo Plus) I just attended, I think the word you're looking for is declining.....

I'd say instead that it is the trade-show industry that is a declining anachronism. And maybe the whole "meet people in person/try products in hand before you buy them" thing.

[chez]

I'd say instead that it is the trade-show industry that is a declining anachronism. And maybe the whole "meet people in person/try products in hand before you buy them" thing.

Trade shows in many industries are on their way out. Outdated concept with today's Internet to get ones product messages out worldwide.

[rdonson]

They are not.

HDR is the other situation when computational photography in smartphones works.

Perhaps we need a definition of computational photography.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Perhaps we need a definition of computational photography.

True. What I think is meant by that is not a photography processing done on a computer (e.g., Photoshop) but processing done in the phone's computer while pressing the shutter and displaying the result. Things like taking several shots and processing them in a HDR fashion (and beyond that). Also using two or three lenses to provide a depth map.

The Night Mode on the iPhone 11 Apple describes like this:

Night mode comes on automatically when needed — say, in a candlelit restaurant. When you tap the shutter, the camera takes multiple images while optical image stabilization steadies the lens.

Then the camera software goes to work. It aligns images to correct for movement. It discards the sections with too much blur and fuses sharper ones. It adjusts contrast so everything stays in balance. It fine-tunes colors so they look natural. Then it intelligently de-noises and enhances details to produce the final image.

Or portrait mode:

Next-generation Smart HDR uses advanced algorithms to finesse highlight and shadow detail in your image. And now it leverages machine learning to recognize faces in your shot and intelligently relight them. That means iPhone 11 Pro can automatically fine-tune detail in both the subject and the background.

Video processing:

Thanks to incredibly fast camera sensors, iPhone 11 Pro is able to produce 120 frames per second, alternating between standard exposure and short exposure frames.

The image signal processor and video encoders analyze each of those frames in the moment to capture as much detail as possible. To take it even further, the Neural Engine uses real-time machine learning to optimize the different components of the scene. For example, it might relight the person in the foreground, while reducing noise and enhancing color in the sky. It all happens instantly and automatically.

[BJL]

Thanks Slobodan. There’s also boring old HDR mode:

HDR (high dynamic range) in Camera  helps you get great shots in high-contrast situations. iPhone takes several photos in rapid succession at different exposures and blends them together to bring more highlight and shadow detail to your photos.

And an auto HDR mode is the default in the iPhone 11 models.

So with IS and no focal plane shutter (or flipping mirror!) shaking things around, the new iPhones routinely take several images, and align and merge to improve DR—at least when there is sufficiently low or no subject motion of course.

Just today I was speculating about adding such an approach to mirrorless cameras for an expanded low exposure index/enhanced dynamic range hand-held mode, once electronic shutters eliminate the last mechanical vibrations. That could eliminate the DR disadvantage of smaller photosites, in the base-ISO speed situations where larger pixels currently have their main DR advantage.

[Alan Klein]

Trade shows in many industries are on their way out. Outdated concept with today's Internet to get ones product messages out worldwide.

But a trade show let's distributors and industry insiders touch and handle the new products, even test them somewhat.  You can't do that over the internet. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

The latest Fuji X-Pro3 has a lot of in camera options for processing, including HDR, multiexposure, grain function, curve function, etc, that can be saved in RAW.

I suppose as processing power is increased, more options are available in cameras.

[chez]

But a trade show let's distributors and industry insiders touch and handle the new products, even test them somewhat.  You can't do that over the internet.

True...but there are billions of people in this world and a trade show provides access to only thousands. The cost of trade shows is getting out of control, especially when you compare to other marketing schemes that address the entire world. Trade shows were great before the Internet...however their time has come and gone.