Mike Johnston's rash preditions

[bobatkins]

<p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/mjohnston/column68/">

http://www.photo.net/mjohnston/column68/</a>

[vincent_j_m]

Mike has always been controversial. This article is quite an entertaining read, at best. Maybe he's getting old and bored.

[lex_jenkins]

That's just Mike. He enjoys challenging complacent people to ponder the possibilities. He's not your average troll.

 

And he liked the D2H so he can't be all bad.

[jcuknz]

For Mike to like a DSLR perhaps just means he was having a senior moment :-)

 

The only reason that DSLRs sell to the mass market is that people think they have to replace their SLR with a DSLR and do not appreciate that there is a new kid on the block, namely the advanced pro-sumer with long zooms. Coupled with those who have don't want to admit their mistake so they continue to try and drag others into the mire with them :-)

 

Nothing against DSLR if a] you need the speed of operation b]the interchangability of lens and c] the extra resolution and d]the need to bash hell out of it taking in a day what an average person takes in three months.

 

It is quite absurd to suggest to somebody who will normally print smaller than 10x8 needs a DSLR. Not when for half the price you can get so much more in a pro-sumer ... tomorrows camera here today.

 

The trouble with photography is that there is very little new so people are simply regurgitating what has been done a billion times before and have become obsessed with technical quality at the expense of original image telling. But then not many have much originality.

[mark u]

There's a thread currently running on DPReview that argues almost the opposite - suggesting that compact DSLRs like the Canon 350D, Pentax *st DS and Olympus E-300 have effectively killed the market for high end prosumer digicams with 2/3" sensors:

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1000&message=12670341

 

I think that Mike is missing the point that the larger the sensor, the greater the potential for cost reduction from improvements in technology that raise yields. Add the benefits of larger sensor size to the ultimate theoretical limitations of the quantum behaviour of light and those of lens performance... The reason why 35mm came to dominate film is really that it offered the best compromise of capability and convenience for all but specialist requirements - but it never killed off larger or smaller formats. Small sensor digital means that everyone can now own a spy camera - unless they get made illegal. (Now that might be a really rash prediction....)

[Brian]

<P>I liked Mike's article but I see it as thought-provoking rather than serious prediction. It's good to encourage photo.netters to do a bit of lateral thinking once in a while. For instance, I think digital capture has changed the technological position of the camera so it is now a computer peripheral or a phone accessory. The dSLR is very much a design hybrid of the digicam and the 35mm interchangeable lens camera, and its success relies on users who have a legacy holding of compatible lenses.</P><P>There is still an advantage to the dSLRs in terms of noise at the higher ISOs, but as soon as the smaller sensors in fixed lens digicams catch up in noise performance, I think it's the end of the road.</P><P>Of course, my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.</P>

[vatovec]

He also didn`t take in the depth of field problem of minuscule sensors - even on a 10D i`m troubled with this it is quite smaller than on full frame.

[beauh44]

<I>First of all, I predict that DSLRs will be an evolutionary dead-end. They may last another six or seven, or even ten or twelve years, but eventually they will fizzle and go away. I'm not trying to be controversial; I really believe they will.</i><P>

 

I'm just curious because no rationale was given for this statement - just the prediction. I can't see digital cameras going away in the time frame predicted, (to be replaced by what? film?) Nor can I see SLRs going away either. I believe Mike Johnston and Michael Reichmann have debated this issue a bit in the past and I must admit I find myself siding with Mr. Reichmann moreso than Mr. Johnston. Sure, there will be vast improvements in things like camera phones - but who's gonna strap a 500mm lens on a Nokia to do some bird photography? I also have to agree with (what I think is) Bob Atkin's position on sensor size: It's simply a cost issue. If full-frame sensors were the price of APS-sized sensors, why buy the smaller (noisier) sensor? I know the argument - smaller camera, smaller lenses, but I think that's where the improvements will come with time - full frame sensor prices will drop as will the size and weight of the cameras. An Elan7 has a "full frame sensor" (film!) but it doesn't weigh a ton. I suspect that much of the bulk and weight of a 1Ds MKII-type camera will drop with time as well - the <i>sensor</i> can't weigh <I>that</i> much! Just my .02 cent's worth - I take Paypal btw. ;-)

[ron_goodenow]

Brian and a couple of others are, I think, getting it right. We're coming into a market that will be segmented increasingly on functionality driven by increasingly diverse and powerful technologies (offerings). The same thing happened in the computer industry, where the mini-computer people thought pc's would be 'snake oil' (I know, I worked for the Digital Equipment Corp, where the CEO bet the store on his technology predictions and lost the company), and the desktop people never thought laptops would erode their markets, etc.

 

For a large number of people convergence will be a key, and the arrival of high megapix Blackberries or Samsungs (or whatever)at rock bottom prices will see an erosion of parts of the current digicam market. Of course, there will be a need for very high end high megapix dslr's (format as yet undetermined??)and stand alone consumer cameras Aunt Minnie can throw in her pocket.

 

But if the kind of miniaturization and sensor development Mike is predicting takes place and we can all have a mini-Leica with, as needed, lenses to pop in and out, I would see that kind of device giving a lot of amateurs and even pros some second thoughts about this generation of relatively heavy and 35mm mimicing dslr's. A couple of weeks ago I was at a nearby botannical garden shooting away with my 5060 and a wide-angle conversion lens and a feller with a Canon dslr (which model I don't remember, but it was one of the higher end ones based on what he told me he paid for it) came along, almost bent over from the weight of his case, camera, lenses, etc. We had a long talk and sat and compared features, flexibility, portability, etc. and if he hasn't gone out and supplemented or replaced his system with a high end prosumer I'd be pretty surprised. He wanted something for his old lenses and never did any real comparative shopping based on the kind of photography he wants to do. These attitudes will change as true choices become more available.

 

I don't know what to think about Mike's flash card prediction, but I would bet he is right, with cameras having the capability to connect wirelessly to tiny external devices if one should fill memory. My only prediction is that some high end prosumers or pro minis will have other convergent technology features (eg., a voice activated cell phone capability).

 

Just some 30,000 ft thinking.

[cfimages]

Over on <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/" >Luminous Landscape</a> there is a rebuttal to Mike's comments, by Michael Reichmann called <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/dof-rebuttal.shtml" >It's the DOF</a>, and also a <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/mj-dof-response.shtml" >Follow-up Response</a> to that by MJ.

[jack paradise]

"was having a senior moment"

 

What does that mean? And what does have have to do with digital camera?

[vivek iyer]

Yeah, if there is some controversial, time wasting, crap being discussed, people tend to bring out all the prejudicial vocabulary. Hey, as long as it is not "political"it is should be O.K., right?

[cghubbell]

I find it interesting that people believe dSLRs are popular because people feel they have to upgrade, and need something to carry their old lenses over to. Are digital and film so different (for serious photographers)? The end results still require mastery of equipment, process, and light...

 

At the prosumer / professional level, I think dSLRs are popular because they provide a different darkroom experience. Not everyone can justify space for an efficient chemical room and enlargers, but most folks have a computer. I could make space, but I'm really just not interested in the chemical workflow. With a good raw converter and photoshop, you have an alternate and equally capable darkroom and workflow. Some people love the mystique and experience of a chemical process. Others like the digital workflow. They are different, but very much the same.

 

To me, it appears that the rift between digital and film is closing. I don't really think of myself as a digital photographer; I am a photographer. So is the guy next to me with a film body. When you review images in PN, do you care whether they were taken with film or digital, or do you care about the vision of that photographer? Maybe I'm in the minority...

 

The digital workflow appeals to me not for speed, but for egonomics, which is the same reason my camera appeals to me. And with all of the noise about people jumping from Canon to Nikon and Nikon to Canon, it wouldn't appear that changing lens systems is such a deterrant, especially in the eBay world.

[jon_austin]

I think Mike just likes to posit controversial or contrarian positions to provoke interest in his prose and the inevitable, subsequent debate. Nothing wrong with that!

 

His articles stimulate my thought process and quite often improve my knowledge and philosophy of photography. I disagree with him frequently (then again, what do I know?), but I always enjoy reading him.

[jon_austin]

Incidentally, I never dabbled in the film SLR world, and only briefly / sproadically with film cameras (an old Polaroid instant, a 110 pocket camera (yikes!) and a 35mm P&S).

 

Digital is what turned me on to photography in a BIG way. I went through a couple of Kodak digicams (the second one provided an adapter for attaching conversion lenses), and this fed my desire to graduate to the world of dSLRs and interchangeable lenses. The 10D was the model that induced me to open my wallet.

 

It's interesting to me that one of the posts above commented on the size and weight of a (d)SLR kit in a derogatory manner, while at the same time I read all these posts about adding battery grips to bodies (film or digital) to improve their heft and balance!

 

Big/small, heavy/light, powerful/simple, full-frame/small sensor ... ultimately the market will decide. The market is probably "wrong" as often as "right," but it almost always rules!

[scott_eaton]

<I>It is quite absurd to suggest to somebody who will normally print smaller than 10x8 needs a DSLR</i><P>At a family gathering about a month ago we were all exchanging pictures taken with our various digital toys. Had the typical low end digicams in the mix along with my Uncle using that Panasonic whats-it-called you guys all rave about because it has a Leica lens. I was just using my lowly 10D with Sigma 550 in bounce mode.<P>Lets just say the difference in quality of the pictures was like the difference between drugstore prints made from amatuer 35mm print film and 6x7 studio prints. All the digicam prints taken with flash were harsh, had loads of red eye, looked synthetic, amatuerish, unflattering, and otherwise were tough to tell apart. My 10D prints were beautifully illuminated, perfectly color correct, and had skin tones that looked as good as professional print film. <P>Everybody wanted copies of my prints. <P>Technology with smaller sensors may be getting better and the resolution higher, but digicams still continue to take the same garbage for pictures and only seem to be improving if you have a fetish for shooting statues and architecture at 100 ISO and lower at high noon in open daylight. The SLR in that respect is a tool that allows you tak high quality images while even your best digicam is nothing more than a still frame video camera wannabee. On axis flash is for losers, amatuers, and housewives, and I totally agree woth above that the high end digicam market is being made extinct by low cost dSLRs that are 10x the tool.

[dean_g]

Scott,

 

Of course none of those tremendous results could have anything to do with your level of photography expertise vs. the average relative who just points and shoots? I agree my 10D trumps my A2 for flash capability ( I think it does anyway, I don't have the minolta flash) and low light - low noise at high ISO, but not too much else. Cameras like the A2 and oly 8080 are not that far off the mark and closing in fast, while still offering the unique digital capabilities that these hold overs from the film camera days give up. It takes little imagination to see that before very long the good points of each will combine in to some amazing photographic tools that will make DSLRs and digicams as we know them a thing of the past. But I agree with Mike Johnston that these future tools will have more in common with the current digicams than the DSLRs. The DSLR has to be what it is given current technology but still the design is retro thinking, the goofiest example of which is the "film advance" lever found on the Epson RD-1, admittedly not an SLR design but product of the same mindset.

[._kaa]

Well, let's see what Mike is saying.

 

He says DSLRs will go away. What does it mean? D for digital, that's staying. SL is for single-lens, I guess that's staying as well. So it must be the R -- reflex -- that he thinks will go away. In other words, Mike thinks that the OPTICAL VIEWFINDERS are going away, to be replaced by a big LCD.

 

Well, I'd say that's certainly possible. Not in the next 10 years, though, for a variety of reasons from battery life to the LCD screen's responsiveness to the ability to manually focus. In 20-25 years? Maybe. In the reasonably near future? No.

 

Mike also says the sensors will get smaller, not bigger. Here I have a major disagreement -- I think he's wrong. The main reason for this is physics. There are certain laws of physics you can't do much about and these laws say that bigger sensors will perform better than smaller sensors. The most obvious example is the fact that small sensors become diffraction limited at very low apertures. Ever wonder why digicams' lenses cannot be closed down to f/11 - f/16..?

 

Granted, for a LOT of applications small sensors will be fine. Small sensors are not going away. But they will not replace big sensors either -- there will be a market for both kinds.

 

Next prediction -- separate media cards will go away. Umm... that's a wacky one, I have no idea where it's coming from. The answer is no. Not going to happen. Having a card with photos that you can take out of the camera is a huge convenience and I can't see it going away.

 

The rest of predictions are not all that interesting -- that cameras will be able to plug directly into printers? Hello, they already can. That lenses will be physically smaller on small-sensor cameras? Well, duh. That Foveon-style sensors will at some point replace Bayer-array sensors? Yeah, that's probable, given that the key words here are "at some point".

[bobatkins]

It's better to post followups in the comment field at the end of the article than here, especially if you want Mike to read them!

[grepmat]

Mike said: "Eventually, sensors that record all three colors at the same photosite will become the norm." This is like saying "Eventually, the human retina will record all three colors within each cell." Will that happen? Maybe after another 1,000,000 years or so it will, and maybe not. We will see. Anyone who claims "it's just too logical" is a prophet or a fool. You be the judge. Cheers.

[jorgen_udvang]

It's easy to forget here that the development is mostly driven by economics rather than the needs of photographers. Cameras like CP 8800 or KM A2 don't have EVF because photographer were hampered in the work by the viewfinders of F5s or Dynaxes. They have EVFs because they are much cheaper and much less complicated to make. Yes, they make it easier to make the camera smaller also, but look at the *ist Ds which is about the same size as the above mentioned, in spite of having a real pentaprism, a larger sensor, interchangeable lens and carries 4 AA cells.

 

Maybe there were people in the industry who hoped that the high end digicams would throw out the low end dSLRs. If there were, the popularity of of cameras like EOS 300D and D70 have proven them very wrong, in spite of the fact that these products have not matured yet and in spite of dust on sensors and what have you.

 

The next thing, if you ask me, will be more lenses with aperture rings and more fast primes. Back to where we were, so to say. People who like to take pictures like to have manual control sometimes and they like to be independent of flash if possible, but they don't like to be told by Mr. Panasonic or whoever that push-button zoom is better than manual when it's clearly not.

 

Aunt Minnie and her friends will probably continue to chop heads and other body parts off their relatives with higly automated, many, many megapixels point and shoot cameras, but those of us who like to take pictures just for the sake of it, will by the best camera we can afford, with the functionality we think we need. And if that is a dSLR, that is what we will buy. And when there are no more 50mm primes left on Ebay, I'm sure Mr. Cosina or someone else will make one for us. Don't you think so?

[vuk_vuksanovic]

some very good points are being made in this thread, although they are addressing about a half-dozen different issues. the problem with the initial premise is the lack of clarity in whether it's declaring the SLR dead in the water as a popular consumer item or dead in the water altogether. sort of like distinguishing between turntables and 8-track players. an important distinction.

<br><br>

given this fundamental confusion, i'm not sure what to add but i will say i agree with meryl that cell-phone cameras are definitely the future for most: certainly for those who, on every night to the restaurant with friends, have them huddle together for a few more undistinguished pictures that are indistinguishable from the previous effort. as for the prosumer (which certainly describes most of the people on this site), it is a matter of what the marketing department will be able to determine about their most relevant/recent insecurities. it's funny how there is no difference between a picture shot through, for example, a nikon lens on an old "user" manual SLR you can scoop for $100 and the latest nikon "pro" body. it's sad that so many people don't quite understand that.

<br><br>

in spite of it all, i am able to take comfort in the fact there are people like mr. kobayashi (a.k.a. mr. cosina) around to help out just in case ebay runs out of stock.

<br><br>

vuk.

<br><br>

p.s. scott, i hope you're not blaming pentax for anything. i see the *istDS as a very good thing... <a href="http://www.photo.net/equipment/pentax/istds/">http://www.photo.net/equipment/pentax/istds/</a>

[StuartMoxham]

While I don't think that DSLRs will become a thing of the past. The small high resolution digicams may well be good enough and cheep enough than people won't look for anything else. Scott's observation about how his family members shots were much worse than his, is as much to do with their lack of photographic knowledge than anything else. The happy snappers have always done the same. They even do it with their AF 35mm SLRs just shoot away with the popup flash and most of them will do the same if they get digital SLRs. They have a different view of photography it is just a way of getting photos and as long as they get something they are happy but they don't want to or are not interested in taking it to the next level. While I do believe that in capable hands a digital point and shoot is capable of good results those that are capable still often prefere a DSLR even if they are only shooting web pics. A good camera will not make one a better photographer but a good photographer can always make use of a better camera.

[jcuknz]

When you get old, if you are not already, you will start to forget things, stumble metaphorically and in my circle this is known as a senior moment. It is a useful phrase to cover one for lapses in sanity like saying one likes a particular DSLR or for another to explain why the person said that :-) It is usually said with a smile.

[jcuknz]

of their sensors so when we get them in the cameras we are starting to see the leveling up between the pro-sumer and the DSLR with respect to sensor capability.

 

With regard to DoF being a fault with the non-DSLR for it's excessive amount it is surely relatively easy to organise the amount of softness one requires in a picture. I had an example of this recently when I shot the following with 950mm equivalent and the whole shot was sharp. I used Gausian on the b/g and motion on the f/g.<div></div>