Can DSLR's get any better?

Just curious on what everyone thinks. The first real DSLR came out in the late 90's. We are talking 10 Years! Thats it! That is how fast we have come to make 35mm film almost obsolete (By we I mean my insanely intelligent engineering friends).

Look at the DSLR's of today versus the first few.
On Canon's end you can pretty much say that the D30, 1D, 1ds ect...
all had room for improvement. And improve they did.
Same can be said for all of Nikons early (and until recently all) of their DSLR's.

But now, I see no way to trump the current flagships.
Canons: 1DIII and 1DIIIs, 5DII and 5D classic even.

Nikon: D3/D3X, D700, D300.

With exception to Canons inability(most likely marketing strategy) to make a full frame camera that can do 7-8 FPS + I don't know why the 1DIIIs won't be a camera that will be a money maker in 2018 and beyond. I know it is a money making business but what else do these cameras need?

I said not really.

It isn't that they won't get marginally better, but I think the era of leaps and bounds is over for now. It's going to take something different from the CMOS / CCD technology to really change IQ. At this point we have gapless microlenses and more pixels than are needed to resolve what the lenses have on offer.

So you will see the periphery continue to improve (more fps, better LCD's, features like dust shakers and microadjust) but I don't think the tools themselves will really make further big strides.

From my perspective the 1.6X format hit a plateau with the 20D, the 1.3X format with the 1D2 and the FF format with the 5D. The later cameras are better, but not revolutionary.

The poll was just for fun,
I would much rather here what others have to say.

Jeffrey made some excellent points.

My understanding is that the Foveon sensor found in Sigma's and other cameras is still a budding technology with room for plenty of improvement, while still offering a great capture sensor as it currently stands.

Then again, I could very well be wrong...

mikeassk wrote in post #8269005
But now, I see no way to trump the current flagships.

Think outside the box. What's cutting edge now will be old news in 10 years.

"Need" is a relative term. A sports shooter might need great AI Servo and high framerates. A landscape photog might need super high resolution.

But getting away from necessity vs. want, there's still plenty of ways current cameras can be improved, which is not to say they're not already great. The Model T was pretty great when it came out too.

I also said 'Not Really'........ For much the same reasons as Jeffrey (increases in fps, ISO, native video etc.) but also......... why? Unless they make the transition from eye to print there is always going to be peoples preferences in the mix........ and even then people see different colours, different levels of brightness etc.
Unless people are into 'extreme pixel peeping' I really can't see the point anymore of going the further mile to get that 1/1 000 000 degree of sharpness, that extra 1/3 stop of noise free ISO


But I'm happy with my 30D, so what do I know

SkedAddled wrote in post #8269180
My understanding is that the Foveon sensor found in Sigma's and other cameras is still a budding technology with room for plenty of improvement, while still offering a great capture sensor as it currently stands.

Then again, I could very well be wrong...

Not to paint with too broad a brush, but I'm always wary of technology that is either complete vaporware (black silicon) or on the market but going noplace fast (foveon).

As an engineer I've learned that the best technology almost always comes to dominate the market.

The vaporware ends up gracing the cover of Popular Mechanics (30 years later and we are still not driving flying cars or living on the bottom of the ocean).

The tried and didn't make it stuff usually has some achilles heel that the inventors gloss over but which cripples it when the applications hit the street. The market speaks and the cripples fade.

Forgot all about that Yohan, but thats hardly a major leap in tech, just a relatively minor tweak.......... Unles thats your meal ticket of course

I think that they definitely can get better.

Like was said already, the leaps and bounds may not occur at the frequency which we are used to at this point, but improvements will constantly be made.

Think about how much would change if small fuel cells were used for camera batteries instead of how we use lithium-ion and alkalines today. Think about the implications on storage media and the like if the part that was constantly being swapped out of the camera was the media, not the battery.

Also plastics manufacturing could create something that replaces actual glass and greatly reduces the price of lenses.

We never know!


But I imagine for the short term that the cameras become more and more feature laden rather than better "performers"

Interesting comments thus far.

At the end of the 19th century, physicist Albert Michelson (America's first Nobel Prize winner for science) suggested that there wasn't a lot left to discover physics-wise, and that future generations would be primarily concerned with 'refining' the accuracy of pre-existing concepts and theories.

I wonder what he'd make of the developments of the 20th century (space travel, nuclear power, DNA cloning, heart transplants, TV, mobile phones, Playstations, the Internet and even digital photography)?

We can't possibly know what we don't yet know, so I think that saying "we've reached the practical end" is drastically shortsighted...

It will keep improving til the day I die. That would mean at least 20 to 30 years! I hope

JeffreyG wrote in post #8269218
Not to paint with too broad a brush, but I'm always wary of technology that is either complete vaporware (black silicon) or on the market but going noplace fast (foveon).

I certainly won't claim to be an insider to the technology, nor an expert on the actual workings of the technology, but would you care to clarify your statement of "going noplace fast" in regards to the Foveon sensor?

I've seen many examples from Foveon sensors, and for the life of me, I honestly can't understand why you'd make such a statement.

SOK wrote in post #8269373
We can't possibly know what we don't yet know, so I think that saying "we've reached the practical end" is drastically shortsighted...

Agreed. There's plenty more to learn and discover, and there's no telling what these technologies will produce in the future.

SkedAddled wrote in post #8269403
I certainly won't claim to be an insider to the technology, nor an expert on the actual workings of the technology, but would you care to clarify your statement of "going noplace fast" in regards to the Foveon sensor?

I've seen many examples from Foveon sensors, and for the life of me, I honestly can't understand why you'd make such a statement.

No sales volume to speak of and no move to adapt the technology by the top four OEM camera makers in the market.

If this technology was revolutionary good then it would be bought out by at least one of the top four and probably one of the top two.

I've also seen a lot of internet chatter about difficulty in getting consistent good results with the technology.

And black silicon (which I acknowledge you did not bring up) remains vaporware.

I can only imagine.

JeffreyG wrote in post #8269436
No sales volume to speak of and no move to adapt the technology by the top four OEM camera makers in the market.

If this technology was revolutionary good then it would be bought out by at least one of the top four and probably one of the top two.

I've also seen a lot of internet chatter about difficulty in getting consistent good results with the technology.

And black silicon (which I acknowledge you did not bring up) remains vaporware.

No, I never mentioned Black Silicon.

But what's the deal with non-acceptance?

I've been led to believe that the Foveon sensor is actually a cut above the CMOS/CCD sensors we've been shooting with, and the examples I've viewed seem to back up the claim of superiority over 'traditional' sensors. Color saturation is a real standout, for one, and contrast may pull a close second. Foveon is a true standout for nature photographers, as I have witnessed it.

Sigma has the Foveon sensors in their cameras, and as it's a budding technology, I do not understand why it should be so fully dismissed by you or any other.
It's a relatively young technology, so it stands to reason that it's still in the stages of experimentation and ultimate acceptance and refinement.