Direction of Digital Cameras
Discussion
How far are Digital cameras going to evolve? Is it going to be a case like PC's and what is current will not be able to keep up in 2-3 years? Applications need more and more HD space and RAM, I have given away perfectly good computers just because they could not keep up!
Now, I am looking at my poor, old and slow Digital camera. Works fine, battery life is ok, but it is ONLY 1.3 m/pixels. There are cameras now that are 1/4 the size and weight that do that, with better cameras doing 4 time as well, with more features and better battery life.
Does anyone see things settling down like film cameras? You know, a 10 year old body being able to use newer lenses to take more than acceptable pictures?
Making me feel old, wanting to start just using what I've got.
Dave
Now, I am looking at my poor, old and slow Digital camera. Works fine, battery life is ok, but it is ONLY 1.3 m/pixels. There are cameras now that are 1/4 the size and weight that do that, with better cameras doing 4 time as well, with more features and better battery life.
Does anyone see things settling down like film cameras? You know, a 10 year old body being able to use newer lenses to take more than acceptable pictures?
Making me feel old, wanting to start just using what I've got.
Dave
It'll split in 2 directions.
Cheap tech end, prolly almost totaly merge with phones as mp and ram ect advance.
So your camera phone will be 4-8mp and it'll have enough ram and flas/(digital)zoom to replace the bulk of the cheaper small cameras like the cannon ixus etc. Great for snaps n stuff.
And the high end stuff, which still, and will always, rely on quality glass and a decent sensor size plus all the controls you need to take more professional pictures. Doesnt matter how cheap the electronics end up, a solid camera body and desent lenses will still be worth the money.
Cheap tech end, prolly almost totaly merge with phones as mp and ram ect advance.
So your camera phone will be 4-8mp and it'll have enough ram and flas/(digital)zoom to replace the bulk of the cheaper small cameras like the cannon ixus etc. Great for snaps n stuff.
And the high end stuff, which still, and will always, rely on quality glass and a decent sensor size plus all the controls you need to take more professional pictures. Doesnt matter how cheap the electronics end up, a solid camera body and desent lenses will still be worth the money.
The problem I see with camera's is with all these upgrades in MegaPixels comes a massive increase in the size of the pictures themselves.
Take the D70's that everyone is getting, on a 1GB card most people are taking around 100pictures (images about 10Mb a piece), to store them you are looking at needing numerous harddrives, tens of DVDRs... I took 4000 pictures in 2004 and that occupies about 6Gb or so, imagine if I had done that on a D70 - I'd need 40Gb!
I'm hoping a new technology/format is released whereby quality is still very high (as in RAW quality) but the size of the image is greatly reduced. Somehow I can't see it happening on a massive scale mind.
Take the D70's that everyone is getting, on a 1GB card most people are taking around 100pictures (images about 10Mb a piece), to store them you are looking at needing numerous harddrives, tens of DVDRs... I took 4000 pictures in 2004 and that occupies about 6Gb or so, imagine if I had done that on a D70 - I'd need 40Gb!
I'm hoping a new technology/format is released whereby quality is still very high (as in RAW quality) but the size of the image is greatly reduced. Somehow I can't see it happening on a massive scale mind.
docevi1 did you really manage to take 4000 pictures worth keeping? Wow. I only had my point and shot last year, but I tried to get the best out of it, and I'd be lucky to have 400 pictures worth keeping, 30 of those being what I consider really good. Either your a serious serious photographer or I'd suggest your a little more stringent about what you keep and dont keep.
Stefan - the difference is though, the D70 produces large, high quality, 300DPI images - suitable for print. If you want to get your shots printed in magazines etc (and thus make a few bob) you'll need some decent hardware.
Plus, the D70 also produces smaller files - JPG's with a choice of three quality settings. On the basic setting (which still looks very good IMHO) you'll get 1100 images on a 1GB card. The choice, as they say, is yours.
Plus, the D70 also produces smaller files - JPG's with a choice of three quality settings. On the basic setting (which still looks very good IMHO) you'll get 1100 images on a 1GB card. The choice, as they say, is yours.
oh yes, I agree - quality = size (at the moment), but with all the new small cameras coming with 6, 7 or 8 megapixels nowadays it appears to me that something needs to be done re file-size.
New standards of encoding come all the time (look at all the different formats PS/PSP supports) I'm just hoping something new comes along which gives maximum quality (for printing/magazines et al) whilst offering a very small file size
New standards of encoding come all the time (look at all the different formats PS/PSP supports) I'm just hoping something new comes along which gives maximum quality (for printing/magazines et al) whilst offering a very small file size
docevi1 said:
oh yes, I agree - quality = size (at the moment), but with all the new small cameras coming with 6, 7 or 8 megapixels nowadays it appears to me that something needs to be done re file-size.
New standards of encoding come all the time (look at all the different formats PS/PSP supports) I'm just hoping something new comes along which gives maximum quality (for printing/magazines et al) whilst offering a very small file size
Sadly, you can't get something for nothing, the data for all thes pixels has to go somewhere. Maybe quantum computers will be able to work out how to do better lossless compression...
no you can't get something for nothing, but in the same respect look at bitmaps vs Jpegs - massive space saving but with no loss in data (virtually).
Even though I'm a computing science student I have no idea how a jpeg works (no need to find out as yet) but I'm sure someone, somewhere is coming up with a replacement
Even though I'm a computing science student I have no idea how a jpeg works (no need to find out as yet) but I'm sure someone, somewhere is coming up with a replacement
Do we need a camera with more than 8 megapixels?
Even with a little modification and cropping in Photoshop it'll still produce a decent A3 print.
A compact may have more use for bigger megapixel ratings, as without the advantage of a good lens (ie range) you will be able to crop the picture just to show the part of the image you originally wanted and still keep quality.
Even with a little modification and cropping in Photoshop it'll still produce a decent A3 print.
A compact may have more use for bigger megapixel ratings, as without the advantage of a good lens (ie range) you will be able to crop the picture just to show the part of the image you originally wanted and still keep quality.
ehasler said:
Do we need a camera with more than 8 megapixels?
For simple snap shots, no, but if you want to print, for example, A3 size at 300dpi then you will need considerably more than 8MP.
Add to that the fact that many "glossy" style magazines wont accept digital images at all - this includes the 16+ megapixel cameras that are available now.
I suspect that for full page magazine glossy photos, you would require 22 megapixels or more.
Must get myself a Hasselblad H1D...
parrot of doom said:
My phone has a 1.3mp camera.
Get yourself upgraded luddite!
SEE!! SEE!!
THIS is what I'm talking about!!
What I'm waiting for is the equivalent of my Yashica body, 3-4 lenses that are capable of doing my hobby stuff and (digital) Ektachrome.
Will my kids, or my grand-kids see this?
Dave
>> Edited by just dave on Tuesday 11th January 22:39
_dobbo_ said:I've wondered about that....
Add to that the fact that many "glossy" style magazines wont accept digital images at all - this includes the 16+ megapixel cameras that are available now.
Given you can get digital now put onto 35mm and larger trannies, how would they actually know the difference.
Now, I've read all the stuff about it, but my father has been in the print industry for years, and whilst 300dpi x 11" is much more than 8MP, you have to remember that the colour is put onto a mask, and hence that 300dpi is really 75lpi or similar on a normal 4 colour printing mask, which is not far off 8Mp.
So - could you "fool" them, or would they still spot it a mile off?
Not a loaded question, just curious.
Over A4 I'd agree, but up to A4 / magazine size, it seems we aren't far off lately..., apart from we now in work also regularly now use 8-12Mp digital photos on the big 16 sheet tube posters we produce with no noticable real difference, even when you stand close to it and can see the colour mask.
Is this a snob thing, or something more to it?
J
pdV6 said:Actually it's completly different...
Same (or very similar) algorithm as WinZip uses, which is why jpgs don't zip very well, if at all.
JPEG using a thing called a DCT, winzip uses LZW. Chalk and cheese.
The reason a jpeg doesn't zip is that jpeg has already "compressed" the data. If you could compress compressed data, then you could just keep on compressing the output from the compressor until you ended up with a file with just either a 1 or a 0 in it (i.e. 1bit of information).
The problem is that from that 1 or 0, every image, music track, page in the world could be created from it, but you don't know what you wanted.
It's called information theory, and stipulates the absolute minimum amount of info that you need to store for any given input. LZW and DCT get closeish there, but for different input data.
J
joust said:
Over A4 I'd agree, but up to A4 / magazine size, it seems we aren't far off lately..., apart from we now in work also regularly now use 8-12Mp digital photos on the big 16 sheet tube posters we produce with no noticable real difference, even when you stand close to it and can see the colour mask.
Is this a snob thing, or something more to it?
J
So buying a 12mp camera should kept you safe from needing an regular upgrade for a while then? . . . Dslr for lens additions etc of course!
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