It's 2020 (God help us) and you go to the camera store for a new camera

birdfromboat wrote in post #15055985
. . .the sensors will be round because the image a lens produces is round. Crop what you want later.

This would be great. I've often wondered why it isn't already this way.
Once bodies used sensors instead of film, keeping the image shape rectangular makes little sense to me (other than manufactures just saving some money on sensor costs).

birdfromboat wrote in post #15055985
NO IS, just fast apertures and crazy good high ISO sensors. IS is dead as soon as the higher ISO's make it so.

This would not be a very good thing. What about all of the times you want a slow shutter speed, but still want tack sharp results?

With higher ISOs taking the place of IS, the only option you have for making tack-sharp handheld images in lower light is to shoot with a fast shutter speed.

Sometimes to create an image with the look we want, we need to shoot at slower shutter speeds. This is especially true when we want our primary subject to be sharp, but we want moving objects in the background to exhibit quite a bit of motion blur. This is done by employing a slow shutter speed. In low light situations, without a tripod, this is best accomplished by employing IS.

So yes, by all means let's drastically improve the high ISO image quality of our bodies. But let's also keep IS - it is extremely useful for certain image-making techniques.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #15056772
This would be great. I've often wondered why it isn't already this way.
Once bodies used sensors instead of film, keeping the image shape rectangular makes little sense to me (other than manufactures just saving some money on sensor costs).

Probably because we really are purchasing sensors at a per-square-millimeter cost, but fail to recognize that point! So we would have to pay a premium over current prices.

Round sensors would need to assume round silicon blanks of that diameter (slightly bigger), so manufacturers would be able to process fewer sensor circuits per process batch, thereby increasing costs per sensor circuit produced.

Wilt wrote in post #15057494
Probably because we really are purchasing sensors at a per-square-millimeter cost, but fail to recognize that point! So we would have to pay a premium over current prices.

Round sensors would need to assume round silicon blanks of that diameter (slightly bigger), so manufacturers would be able to process fewer sensor circuits per process batch, thereby increasing costs per sensor circuit produced.

After 25 years in manufacturing I have accepted a few basic truths. One of them is what is now popularly called "the race to zero". In any market that gets big enough to attract newcomers, the only way to compete is to either make an acceptable product cheaper or accept and survive on a lower profit margin than the competition. Sensor manufacturers will go the route, the processes will improve, possibly even change completely with new technology that makes the process profitable at a much lower price or the manufacturers will continue to use the same techniques and lower and lower bids will lead to cheaper and leaner manufacturing, as long as the quality stays acceptable.

The examples are everywhere you look- the computer you are looking at is so far removed from the first generation that most of todays users can't comprehend what it was like to work on a first generation supercomputer, and those early techs tried but famously failed to comprehend how far and fast their industry would advance. The costs of building the first units were crazy high, government and academic forces combined and I doubt you could ever put it all together for a real world cost, the one in front of you is made so inexpensively that even when the cost of shipping it halfway around the globe is included it is still profitable to sell it to you at such a low price that even an online seller that does little but accept orders and route shipping can take a cut.

2020? I doubt it. But never? Impossible, it will happen in some form or another, the "race to zero" will be run.

In considering the price of a circuit, folks need to understand that semiconductors have always been produced on round pieces of silicon...the ingots are grown analogous to candles growing wax on a string, which are then cut into flat round disks. Then square/rectangular circuits are laid out in a matrix within the circle and later cut out as individual circuits. So to make cheaper semiconductor manufacturing has been about making the disk of silicon larger and larger in diameter to increase the number of circuits per disk, and shrinking the transistors within the circuits to make the area of the circuit smaller per disk of silicon. So a round photography sensor goes absolutely in the wrong direction, as it entails either fewer circuits per disk and wasted silicon real estate, and/or relying upon a smaller diameter disk of silicon so that one round circuit uses up the entire disk. Therefore I seriously doubt that we will ever find a round sensor in our cameras, as the semiconductor industry took decades to increase the process diameter and go from a 2" process diameter silicon disk to 60's to the current 12" process diameter.

Wilt wrote in post #15058092
So a round photography sensor goes absolutely in the wrong direction, as it entails either fewer circuits per disk and wasted silicon real estate, and/or relying upon a smaller diameter disk of silicon so that one round circuit uses up the entire disk.

Havent nature proven that to be slightly off with bee's? Atleast to me honeycomb is quite much closer to circle than square ^^

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Hexagonal_tilin​g

"There are two possible explanations for the reason that honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any other shape. One, given by Jan Brożek and proved much later by Thomas Hales, is that the hexagon tiles the plane with minimal surface area."

Cromfel wrote in post #15058414
Havent nature proven that to be slightly off with bee's? Atleast to me honeycomb is quite much closer to circle than square ^^

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Hexagonal_tilin​g

"There are two possible explanations for the reason that honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any other shape. One, given by Jan Brożek and proved much later by Thomas Hales, is that the hexagon tiles the plane with minimal surface area."

You present a good point. Maybe hexagonal layout of pixels with a hexagonal tiling of sensors within a round semiconductor wafer! Somebody already has a patent granted in 2008 on hexagonal array of pixels, http://www.google.com/​patents/US7400332
Honeywell first came up with the arrangement in 1994, http://www.google.com/​patents/US5311337


...so now it only takes a manufacturer to lay out hexagonal sensors for the chip layout, and image processing modification to permit us to select format shape and orientation, on a per-shot basis.

And we are on our way! Hexagonal cropping will fit better on a rectangular screen too, so the subjects in our images will be slightly larger when opened in photoshop CS11.0

Manufacturing truth number two: Never ever say never. If it can, it will.

Looking forward to the 2020 camera market a bit more than I was.

Cromfel wrote in post #15058414
Havent nature proven that to be slightly off with bee's? Atleast to me honeycomb is quite much closer to circle than square ^^

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/Hexagonal_tilin​g

"There are two possible explanations for the reason that honeycomb is composed of hexagons, rather than any other shape. One, given by Jan Brożek and proved much later by Thomas Hales, is that the hexagon tiles the plane with minimal surface area."

"The Honeycomb conjecture states that the hexagonal tiling is the best way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter."

interesting -- learn something new every day

By 2020 we will have used up all our easy to reach oil. The world will be getting much bigger again as transportation and easy communication grinds to a halt. I see pockets of civilization, recycling old technology as long as possible. You can take pictures while you subsistence farm and hunt.....

Look at movies/ books/ articles from the 80s and see what they were predicting for the 2010s. Crazy stuff like robots everywhere, flying cars, hoverboards (lol), etc. But nothing remotely like the internet and PC revolution.

The future is always unpredictable and change is more gradual than sudden imo. But if I had to guess.. I think in 2020 the "standard" consumer camera that will greet us in stores will be APS-C sensor equipped compact (about the size of an RX100) fixed zoom lens cameras. I think these will be the standard because they will give markedly better IQ and zoom ability than smartphone cameras even in 2020. But I don't see a compact full frame (like the RX1) being the standard then. I think the technology developments and cost cutting needed to bring a camera like that with a fixed zoom lens would not happen fast enough for such a camera to be a consumer staple in just 8 years. But APS-C? Definitely.

DSLRs will all be full-frame professional type models. In between this and the APS-C compact above will be full-frame EVIL cameras

In 2020 Canon will come out with a new camera, Nikon will come out with a new camera, the rumors will be leaked for months leading up to the release, and hype will make them out to be the best thing since sliced bread.....then the cameras will be released and everyone will by annoyed that the cameras didn't live up to expectations and threaten to jump ship to the dark side over it.

JWright wrote in post #8423916
By 2020 the camera will be surgically implanted in our skulls and will take permanent images using our eyes as lenses, and our brains for processing. We'll have built-in USB ports to connect to a thumb drive or a printer...

I would not want that POS set of optics on my camera!

Reminds me of a joke about three businessmen walking down the street together, and the man from Japan suddenly stops and quickly assumes a squatting position... "Excuse, please...FAX coming in!"

2020... not much will change, really.

There will still be DSLR's. Some may have hybrid viewfinders, some might not really be an "SLR" and might be EVF with no mirror. Whatever, the current form factor for a DSLR *WORKS* for a larger camera with larger cameras, and will still be around. :P DSLRs will come with wifi...and perhaps even cell contract options. Can you see greedy Canon selling a discounted Rebel with a monthly fee for two years at Verizon? Yeah. I can, too.

The EF and F and whatnot mounts will still be around. I wouldn't be surprised if there are less APS-C models as some of the lower end market gets won over by mirrorless--but I bet you anything there will still be some. HOWEVER, if you want to be real pedantic about terms used, I bet that those APS-C options will be mirrorless F and EF mount cameras with an EVF, in an slr-like form factor.

There will still be smaller sensors. There will still be point and shoots. However, point and shoot cameras will be more like cell phones in that there will be connectivity (wifi, etc, perhaps some prepaid no-contract options, too). There will be more camera-focused cell phone options. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one camera manufacturer merges with a consumer electronics giant.

Mirrorless cameras will have more market share--I bet at least one of the current player's offerings will be gone. My guesses for being gone would be Fuji. I predict micro 4/3 will be the dominant player, with Sony or Canon as number 2. Samsung will still be around but will be uncommon, but will be cult hits because they will have awesome lenses (odd prediction I know, but it's already started to happen).

All in all, not a ton will have changed. FF sensors will NOT become super cheap. Moore's law does not apply here. In fact, it's the opposite. They cannot shrink in size, thus they stay expensive or even get more expensive to make as they get built on more and more advanced processes. For a given size of chip, if you go to say TSMC and get a chip made, the more advanced the process, the more it costs. However, until the most recent 28nm process supposedly, the size reduction you'd get from the new process would save you money, so you went with it. Fortunately, FF sensors won't require a super advanced process unless we start getting 500mp or 1gp sensors!

FF cameras will get cheaper, though--a camera made without the mirror, with an electronic shutter, without the precision glass of an optical viewfinder, etc...that cuts costs immensely.

We'll get maybe one more real stop of high iso performance. The rest will be noise reduction or very clever processing.

We'll still be using Bayer sensors. Except for Sigma, I suppose? =p Just a hunch.

Canon will catch up in Dynamic Range, but Sony will remain the top sensor tech house due to insane volume (from cell phones). The world is already seeing that other companies can use column based amps and digital CDS, not just Sony. Canon might even catch up while still using off chip ADCs. =p We'll see.

mikekelley wrote in post #8423807
In 2020 we jsut shoot video and pick a frame we like, at 20mp or so.

Sarcasm? Maybe?

In all seriousness, I sincerely hope that's not the case. Photography has meaning and value for social and historical purposes, let alone artistic purposes.

I think we'll see low end/budget APS-C cameras (a la Canon Rebel) will diminish and be enveloped by the emerging mirrorless market, Medium Format will be come what Large Format is today, and full frame will become more vast in the market place.

While I don't look forward to the change(s), I have to remind myself that technology can only benefit us as creatives...Unless technology totally smashes the tried and true methodology of photography. Then I would be really, really bummed out.