Friday, August 7, 2009

Which way the future?

The recent history of the digital camera has been both fast and furious.
It seems that the latest camera is only the "latest" for a few months before the "new" is released.

Advancing technology breeds new features, capabilities and improvements in image quality.
All very good.

There is also the trickle down effect, where features find their way from the high end, professional DSLR's down to the consumer DSLR's and even to some of the compact cameras.
This also seems to work in the opposite manner with a few of our high end DSLR's now featuring video capture, a donation from the compact "gang".

As far as the DSLR's go, I believe there two be two possible paths to the future.

Many of the high end cameras are now equipped with full frame (35mm) photos sensors. The size of the sensor requires big lenses and larger camera bodies, but the image quality produced is worth the extra mass. The future could be dominated by entry level, full frame DSLR's.

The other "path" may lead to smaller cameras, equipped with smaller but more capable photo sensors. As technology marches on, will we soon have compact sized sensors that have the resolution and image quality of the full frame sensors? We are already seeing "switch lens" cameras that are neither DSLR's nor compacts, but offer the image quality of the former and convenience of the latter.

Could either of the above scenarios spell the end of our most popular DSLR's equipped with the APS-C sized photo sensor?

Only time will tell.

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