What disruptive technology is there on the horizon?

[StewartR]

OK folks, I'd like to hear your out-of-the-box thoughts. Is there any disruptive technology that might be developed within the next 5-10 years which would fundamentally change the DSLR market?

Why am I asking? Here's a bit of background. I've been thinking of starting a lens rental business in the UK. Trouble is, I'm 45 years old and I can't afford to do this on an impulse like I could when I was 25. If I try it and the business fails within 2 years then I can probably go back to transport consultancy. If I try it and the business fails in say 10 years time then I'll be 55, probably unemployable, and waiting 10 years before my pension payments start. Not good.

So I'm starting to mull over what might cause the market to disappear beneath my feet.

Here's one idea for sports shooters. In 10 years time my Canon "90D" will have 24 megapixels and will deliver clean images at ISO 12,800. So if I'm shooting football, why do I need an expensive 300mm f/2.8 lens? Surely I can use something much smaller and make an 8 megapixel crop; and I can maintain a high shutter speed by increasing the ISO rather than going for a faster lens. So something like a 200mm f/5.6 ought to be fine. Does that make sense? If not, why not?

What about birders, wildlife photographers, wedding photographers? How will their equipment needs change in the future?

And what really off-the-wall technologies are there that will completely transform things? Give me your best ideas, folks!

[cosworth]

Lenses are established technology. Optics haven't changed much in the past 100 years other than exotic materials becoming more affordable and of course IS.

I foresee no distuprive technology that will be in the hands of consumers within 10-20 years. What would it be? Liquid or gel optics that can change shape. Even then, if you go by any recent science fiction film you can add a zero those numbers (100-200).

The emerging technology is the imaging part. The body. that won't affect a lens rental too much, if anything, photography is a serious growth business.

Now, will the Canon EF and EF-S mount be around for some time? I cannot see the need for a change within the next 10-20. It would be 40 years old by then, but look at any 40 year old camer and compare it to a recent film camera. Not a BIG difference other than metering and AF etc.

I say go for it.

[tiktaalik]

Exotic materials with a negative index of refraction (http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn10816.html) which "could open the door to a new generation of optical devices such as superlenses able to see details finer then the wavelength of visible light."

Now, I think your lens rental business is safe, however I do think there are some interesting times ahead for optics.

[ajayclicks]

Some amount of research is happening on "liquid lenses" that will enable zoom lenses with high optical quality.

http://www.varioptic.com/en/tech/technology02.php (http://www.varioptic.com/en/tech/technology02.php)

Not very sure, but apparently even Canon is working on the same area

[StewartR]

Lenses are established technology. Optics haven't changed much in the past 100 years other than exotic materials becoming more affordable and of course IS.

I foresee no distuprive technology that will be in the hands of consumers within 10-20 years. What would it be? Liquid or gel optics that can change shape. Even then, if you go by any recent science fiction film you can add a zero those numbers (100-200).

The emerging technology is the imaging part. The body. that won't affect a lens rental too much, if anything, photography is a serious growth business.

Now, will the Canon EF and EF-S mount be around for some time? I cannot see the need for a change within the next 10-20. It would be 40 years old by then, but look at any 40 year old camer and compare it to a recent film camera. Not a BIG difference other than metering and AF etc.

I say go for it.Thanks for the input and the recommendation, cosworth.

I'm not bothered about mounts. I agree that I can't see any need for a change - Canon seem to got it right big time when they designed the EOS system. But even if there were a change, that just means selling EF lenses and buying whatever's new. No big deal. I fact it would probably be beneficial for a rental business.

Body/imaging technology does bother me though. When you've got a 25 megapixel camera that works at ISO 12,800, do you still need a long, fast, heavy, expensive lens? If so, why?

[StewartR]

Exotic materials with a negative index of refraction (http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn10816.html) which "could open the door to a new generation of optical devices such as superlenses able to see details finer then the wavelength of visible light."

Now, I think your lens rental business is safe, however I do think there are some interesting times ahead for optics.Wow, that's interesting. Thanks for sharing it. But I think I'd view that sort of thing as an opportunity rather than a threat, if it had any photographic application at all.

[cosworth]

Body/imaging technology does bother me though. When you've got a 25 megapixel camera that works at ISO 12,800, do you still need a long, fast, heavy, expensive lens? If so, why?

DOF, bokeh. People will still not know their ISO is adjustable even 10 years from now.

"Why is my image soft/blurry? Exif: 1/30th, f/2.8, ISO 100, IS on, focal length 800mm"

[StewartR]

Some amount of research is happening on "liquid lenses" that will enable zoom lenses with high optical quality.

http://www.varioptic.com/en/tech/technology02.php (http://www.varioptic.com/en/tech/technology02.php)

Not very sure, but apparently even Canon is working on the same areaOoh, interesting. Thanks.

Varioptic seem to have these things in production already, but they're very small - for instance the pupils of their lenses seem to be about 3mm across - and they seem to be concentrating on that market. So I can imagine having one of these in my phone. or in my discreet home security system, but I don't see sports shooters or birders using it. I expect that scaling this technology to the equivalent size and quality of a 70-200mm f/2.8 or a 300mm f/2.8 won't be cheap even if it's possible; and if it's not cheap then it's just another opportunity for a rental business!

[StewartR]

DOF, bokeh. People will still not know their ISO is adjustable even 10 years from now.

"Why is my image soft/blurry? Exif: 1/30th, f/2.8, ISO 100, IS on, focal length 800mm"
:D:D:D

[tiktaalik]

Or how about deciding the focus point and DOF after the photo is taken?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825255.000

[slappy sam]

Video scares me. People could just use high res video cameras that capture 6+ MP images and then simply pick and choose frames... that would be pretty lame.

[SkipD]

Lenses are established technology. Optics haven't changed much in the past 100 years other than exotic materials becoming more affordable and of course IS.I wouldn't say that at all....

Look at my Nikon F lenses, for example. They were state-of-the-art in 1967. They have manual focus only, manual aperture adjustment only, and are as rugged as a rock (compared to today's lenses).

Today's lenses almost all have electronically driven apertures, motor-controlled focus, and they break rather easily as compared to yesteryear's products.

[strmrdr]

Video scares me. People could just use high res video cameras that capture 6+ MP images and then simply pick and choose frames... that would be pretty lame.
12.5MP video cameras are out there.
They are around $50k right now but will drop.
That's where the market is headed long term.

[Tixeon]

If possible, I'd keep my pension job as long as possible. In the meantime start the lens rental etc.. business as a sideline & keep it manageable (small) to start with. I'm there now...I know what it's like & it can work. Good luck...

[StewartR]

Or how about deciding the focus point and DOF after the photo is taken?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825255.000Mmm. Another interesting find. Thanks tiktaalik.

The creators of this technology have published a paper (here (http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/lfcamera-150dpi.pdf)) describing it. Their conclusions are interesting:We believe that this imaging methodology expands the space for camera design. For example, the new post-exposure controls reduce the pre-exposure requirements on auto-focus systems. Faster systems might be designed by allowing the camera to focus less accurately before the shutter is released. A similar principle applies to the design of the main lens, which is often the most expensive camera subsystem. Although we have not demonstrated it in this paper, the availability of the light field should allow reduction of lens aberrations by re-sorting the acquired, distorted rays of light to where they should have terminated in a system without aberrations. This capability may allow the use of simpler and cheaper lenses.

Something for me to watch out for, I suspect.

[StewartR]

Video scares me. People could just use high res video cameras that capture 6+ MP images and then simply pick and choose frames... that would be pretty lame.12.5MP video cameras are out there.
They are around $50k right now but will drop.
That's where the market is headed long term.You mean like the Red One (http://www.red.com/cameras)? It's an awesome machine. 12 megapixels at 60 frames per second.

But actually, with the 1D Mk III delivering 10 fps, "still" camera technology and "movie" camera technology are converging already. And it doesn't scare me particularly, because they both need lenses. Take a look at the lens line-up for the Red One here (http://www.red.com/lenses): the 300mm f/2.8 has a similar price to the Canon offering (but it doesn't have IS) and the rest are all pretty expensive. Bring it on!

[DrPablo]

I have a feeling that SLRs are not going to be as dominant in the future as they are now, and some derivative of a rangefinder is going to find its way back. I think SLRs are a fairly imperfect design, and rangefinders have a number of advantages.

[In2Photos]

I have a feeling that SLRs are not going to be as dominant in the future as they are now, and some derivative of a rangefinder is going to find its way back. I think SLRs are a fairly imperfect design, and rangefinders have a number of advantages.
Can you elaborate on that? I am not very familiar with rangefinders and would like to know more about them. How are they better than SLRs? In what situations are they better to use?

[PhotosGuy]

Is there any disruptive technology that might be developed within the next 5-10 years which would fundamentally change the DSLR market? New tech is always disruptive which is why there were probably a lot of going out of business sales among the buggy whip manufactures? I think SLRs are a fairly imperfect design, and rangefinders have a number of advantages. Imperfect, true, but until you can see exactly what you're getting with a RF, SLRs will still rule among the pros.

Start your business, take pics, have fun, & don't sweat the "small stuff".

[DrPablo]

Depends what kind of pro. Henri Cartier-Bresson used a rangefinder and Diane Arbus used a TLR, and they are arguably the two greatest street / candid photographers ever. I wouldn't use a rangefinder for macros or formal portraits, but then again live preview and high res LCDs might give people a better way to judge focus and DOF than any film rangefinder ever made. The two greatest handholdable landscape cameras bar none remain the Hasselblad SWC with its 38mm Biogon, and the Mamiya 7ii with the 43mm lens (a Biogon copy), and they are both rangefinders -- and very portable cameras at that.

Rangefinders may not completely supplant SLRs, but they never have in the past either. The problem now is that most of the camera competition these days is happening within SLRs and within point and shoots, and very few people are looking to older (or newer) camera designs. But some day we're going to see a design that just makes more sense than the SLR -- and that may really change the playing field.

[rhys]

Given that the vast majority of photographers use lenses solely in the range 17-300mm I can well see that uberzoom digital compacts might come along. Already we have 12x zoom digital compacts. They lack at the wide end but they're up to 480mm on the long end. Given a decent wide-angle adaptor on one of those, I can well see that photographers might end up not needing add-on lenses.

One of the things that mystifies me is since we can now have live preview on so many dSLRs and no shutter lag, why digital compacts all have shutter lag. This is not an unsurmountable technical hurdle.

I can see that within 10 years we will have an all-in-one uberzoom compact that might well knock Canon, Nikon and Pentax off their perches. I can see the press leaping at the chance of an all-in-one compact that covered 17-300 and a bit wider or longer with adaptors, that did video with high-quality sound. That plus a 9" laptop and mobile phone/wifi connection would be the perfect press pack.

[DrPablo]

One of the things that mystifies me is since we can now have live preview on so many dSLRs and no shutter lag, why digital compacts all have shutter lag. This is not an unsurmountable technical hurdle.

With no shutter lag and high res, large LCDs, why do we even need a reflex mirror at all? The only rationale of a reflex mirror is to look through the lens -- and given how small current viewfinders are, it's arguably worse than a high res LCD would be. Taking out the reflex mirror would decrease the size, sound, and vibration of these cameras, and probably increase their lifespan as well.

I can see that within 10 years we will have an all-in-one uberzoom compact that might well knock Canon, Nikon and Pentax off their perches. I can see the press leaping at the chance of an all-in-one compact that covered 17-300 and a bit wider or longer with adaptors.

That may be the future of digital medium format. To have a fixed-lens camera with a very highly corrected zoom lens. Then just add a sensor and hardware that can be easily swapped out for upgrades (which Canon should be doing already).

[Croasdail]

I think the single shot camera is a short lived technology. With memory coming down to costing next to nothing, capturing tons of data isn't an issue anymore. I think we will continue to see a convergence between video and single frame photography where in 10 years you will not have two devices, rather then just a hybrid device. Tradition "sports photography" will be gone as grabbing frames off of ultra HD video cameras will take it's place. Video will easily be able to capture 12-15 mpx images at 60 fps. That mpx estimate I believe is probably low too. I also think color depth will dramatically increase. If you have ever seen a MF image color depth as compared to even what the best full frame canon can do, it isn't even close to being a fair playing field. We should be able to see by then 32 bit color depth. That will remarkable improve image quality much greater then sharper lenses will.

Just what I am seeing in my crystal ball.

[DrPablo]

Can you elaborate on that? I am not very familiar with rangefinders and would like to know more about them. How are they better than SLRs? In what situations are they better to use?

Rangefinders have a viewfinder lens (called a rangefinder) that is coupled to the taking lens. This is as opposed to SLRs where there is a reflex mirror that reflects the image through the actual lens up to a ground glass in your viewfinder. So on a rangefinder you compose through a different lens and you're not looking through the taking lens. While it may seem like a disadvantage not to be looking directly through the lens, many SLRs have slight misregistration between the reflex mirror and the sensor/film plane, so what appears in focus in your viewfinder isn't necessarily focused on the sensor. Rangefinders by design engineer very tight coupling between the two (and the ragefinders are very big and bright).

Rangefinders, lacking a mirror, are very small and compact compared with SLRs. Without the reflex mirror the cameras are virtually silent and they don't shake, so they're great for candids and low light shooting (handholdable down to 1/15 or so without any IS). They generally have leaf shutter lenses (as opposed to focal plane shutters), and flash can be synchronized with leaf shutters at any speed -- so you can use fill flash with a 1/4000 shutter speed (as opposed to 1/250 on my DSLR).

And of course rangefinders aren't limited to a given format size. There are not only 35mm rangefinders (most famously the Contax G and the Leica M rangefinders), but medium format of all sizes (the Mamiya 7 is 6x7, and there's even a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder). So compatibility with current or larger sensors isn't a problem.

This isn't to ignore certain advantages of SLRs in other domains, but I think it's wrong to assume that SLRs embody the best in camera design.

[In2Photos]

Rangefinders have a viewfinder lens (called a rangefinder) that is coupled to the taking lens. This is as opposed to SLRs where there is a reflex mirror that reflects the image through the actual lens up to a ground glass in your viewfinder. So on a rangefinder you compose through a different lens and you're not looking through the taking lens. While it may seem like a disadvantage not to be looking directly through the lens, many SLRs have slight misregistration between the reflex mirror and the sensor/film plane, so what appears in focus in your viewfinder isn't necessarily focused on the sensor. Rangefinders by design engineer very tight coupling between the two (and the ragefinders are very big and bright).

Rangefinders, lacking a mirror, are very small and compact compared with SLRs. Without the reflex mirror the cameras are virtually silent and they don't shake, so they're great for candids and low light shooting (handholdable down to 1/15 or so without any IS). They generally have leaf shutter lenses (as opposed to focal plane shutters), and flash can be synchronized with leaf shutters at any speed -- so you can use fill flash with a 1/4000 shutter speed (as opposed to 1/250 on my DSLR).

And of course rangefinders aren't limited to a given format size. There are not only 35mm rangefinders (most famously the Contax G and the Leica M rangefinders), but medium format of all sizes (the Mamiya 7 is 6x7, and there's even a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder). So compatibility with current or larger sensors isn't a problem.

This isn't to ignore certain advantages of SLRs in other domains, but I think it's wrong to assume that SLRs embody the best in camera design.
Thanks Paul. Some good information in there. Would you say that rangefinders are only good for landscapes and candids or maybe images that normally use shorter focal lengths? In other words, would or could you use one for sports or wildlife? With larger formats I don't think this would be feasible but in 35mm formats are there longer focal length lenses?

[DrPablo]

I've seen some great rangefinder images with longer lenses as well. The longest Leica rangefinder lens I know of is a 280 f/4, which in the images I've seen is astoundingly sharp. There are some extremely fast rangefinder lenses (like the famous Leica 50 f/1.0 Noctilux), by the way. I think fast action photography and macro photography are definitely better suited to SLRs. I think landscape and candid photography are definitely better suited to rangefinders. But for general use I think the differences are outweighed by other factors like ergonomics.

Sports and wildlife are indeed difficult with larger formats. I rented a 250mm lens for my Hasselblad and took it to Fenway Park a couple months ago. I got some very good shots, but no super-closeups. I have a hide that I can use in my backyard for bird photography, and I'm planning on taking some shots with my 4x5 view camera. But my longest 4x5 lens is 300mm, which is probably equivalent to a 90mm lens in 35mm, so I need to get very close. Crop factor is a much bigger deal for lens cost/availability when dealing with MF and LF than it is when talking about APS-C versus 35mm.

[In2Photos]

I've seen some great rangefinder images with longer lenses as well. The longest Leica rangefinder lens I know of is a 280 f/4, which in the images I've seen is astoundingly sharp. There are some extremely fast rangefinder lenses (like the famous Leica 50 f/1.0 Noctilux), by the way. I think fast action photography and macro photography are definitely better suited to SLRs. I think landscape and candid photography are definitely better suited to rangefinders. But for general use I think the differences are outweighed by other factors like ergonomics.

Sports and wildlife are indeed difficult with larger formats. I rented a 250mm lens for my Hasselblad and took it to Fenway Park a couple months ago. I got some very good shots, but no super-closeups. I have a hide that I can use in my backyard for bird photography, and I'm planning on taking some shots with my 4x5 view camera. But my longest 4x5 lens is 300mm, which is probably equivalent to a 90mm lens in 35mm, so I need to get very close. Crop factor is a much bigger deal for lens cost/availability when dealing with MF and LF than it is when talking about APS-C versus 35mm.
Thanks again Paul for the information. It has been very helpful. BTW where in NC are you loacted?

[DrPablo]

No prob, Mike. I'm in Greensboro. Just moved down from Boston a couple months ago. I haven't been to Charlotte yet -- my life seems to revolve more around Chapel Hill. I've gotten to do a bit of shooting in the Smokies and in Linville Gorge, though. Just need to find the time!

[In2Photos]

No prob, Mike. I'm in Greensboro. Just moved down from Boston a couple months ago. I haven't been to Charlotte yet -- my life seems to revolve more around Chapel Hill. I've gotten to do a bit of shooting in the Smokies and in Linville Gorge, though. Just need to find the time!
Welcome! Some of the NC photogs are trying to get together if you are interested. The link in my sig is to our discussion thread.