What do you people think, how far will digital cameras go?

[Braveheart]

How many megapixels will there be in lets say 5 years? what about 10 years? Will cameras such as todays CANON G2 and G3 be totally obsolete in 5 years? will they be replaced by 10, 20, 30, 40 etc etc megapixel cameras with INSANELY CRYSTAL CLEAR image quality at a rather low price?

I wonder how far will all this technology go.

[Conk]

Braveheart wrote:
How many megapixels will there be in lets say 5 years? what about 10 years? Will cameras such as todays CANON G2 and G3 be totally obsolete in 5 years? will they be replaced by 10, 20, 30, 40 etc etc megapixel cameras with INSANELY CRYSTAL CLEAR image quality at a rather low price?

I wonder how far will all this technology go.
I've read a thread here somewhere that has already mentioned the availability of a 10 megepixel camera.
Pretty wild.
Everything does improve and reduce in price over the years though. I remember in 1995 when digital cameras were new, (when I was playing around with a film SLR) an article mentioning a digital camera and it was $40.000, used by the Vancouver Province newspaper. I still have that article. Now you can get a 1 mega pixel for $100.00 CDN or less. My first camera (Agfa CL 20) was $160.00.

[bigdave]

I worked at CompUSA (major digital camera retailer) for about 2yrs. During that time, I spoke with company representatives from olympus, hp, and canon. How far advanced the cameras are in 5 yrs depends on technology acceptance. For some time now, there has been a new image sensor made by foveon ( http://foveon.com ) that will allow for more resolution than ever dreamed of. I could explain how the technology works, but on there website they have pictures and everything to show you why their chip is better than all the others.

What prevents this technology from spreading is the fact that most camera manufacturers have their own proprietary image sensor technology. I've tried to contact Canon about integrating foveon chips into their cameras, but they only tell me that they have no plans to do so at this time.

Hopefully Canon will adapt the new sensor soon, because with it one could capture 10mp x3 images (see website to understand what x3 means). Initially, the cameras will cost thousands. I would guess that in 2 years, $600 would cover the cost of a foveon equiped camera... once production is high enough anyway. Hope this info helps.

[Gibbs]

Hi'ya

There are two aspects to this - the one is market demand. As long as the demand continues to grow the R&D departments of the big name brands will throw money at it. Significantly the demand for digicams is growing by the day and most retailers expect record sales during the coming festive season. The other factor is technology. The previous post addrsses one of the technical challenges of digital image capture - there are a number of others. Data transfer speed is another. As faster processing chips become mainstream and new materials are designed to cope with the heat, the operating environment of a typical camera user. etc. etc. - there is no technical cap on the process. Other factors may be more of a restraint - like what would be the data size of an image captured with a 30megapix cam. In an uncompressed format it could be in excess of 100mb, how many of those can you move around easily; or most users would be happy when the resolution of digital is the same as that achieved by a good quality film, once it it passes that - some may say what's the point - and the demand will drop off.

This is a bit like gazing into the future - we'll have to see where it all goes. One thing is certain though. The technology currently being released on the retail shelves as the newest. greatest. whizzbang camera ever, is already old and obsolete by the time we take our first picture. That's just the way commerce works.