I recently had the chance to sit down with my friends at WBIR to discuss the future of cameras and as you’ll see in the video there are lots of neat things on the horizon. I think my favorite concept is that of running the Android operating system on my camera so I can upload pictures straight from the camera AND do some editing if needed. How cool would that be? And hey… while you’re waiting for the light to do something interesting, you could crank out a couple levels on Angry Birds! :) There is actually a point-and-shoot style camera out already that has this called the Samsung Galaxy Camera, and it really takes the idea of merging a cell phone and camera to an interesting new place where the camera is the focus and not the phone (you see what I did there?). To be honest though, my real interest in this is that people will be able to write in their own changes to how the camera functions, much the way the Magic Lantern guys have done with some of the Canon cameras. Don’t have an intervalometer? That’s okay, there is one built in. Want to do more bracketed shots then the camera allows by default? No worries, you can change that too. Now, will this actually make it to DSLR cameras in the future? Who knows, but it is certainly possible and an exciting proposition.
Another thing I mention in the spot that you really have to see for yourself is the Lytro camera. A fellow camera geek / blogger recently posted his first impressions of the camera and had some really interesting things to say about it. I remember when the camera was first announced, some people were touting it as a revolutionary new technology that would make current DSLRs defunct in short order; that of course, was before they realized the limitations of the camera itself. The concept is interesting though; never worry about focus again. In practice however, you’re limited to images with a very narrow point of view, albeit a point of view that you get to select after the fact. Sometimes narrow is exactly what you’re looking for… and sometimes it isn’t. I do appreciate the author’s comments on how the camera is forcing him to rethink his “regular” photography. Certainly anything that makes you stop and think about composition more before simply snapping away is a healthy tool.
That brings me to my last thought; does all this “stuff” really even matter? I have been involved in an interesting email conversation with some photography friends over the past week or so in which we have been discussing the idea of camera tech versus camera skills. More simply, does the camera make the picture or does the photographer make the picture? We all agreed that there is a balance there, so I think it is important to keep in mind that while these new features can be cool and certainly make our lives easier through convenience… they may not actually make your images “better”. In other words, we as photographers should spend as much time (or more) with the camera in our hands trying to learn how to use it and pushing our creativity as we do worrying about the next camera to come out on the market and how many megapixels it has.
What is your take?
–Dan Thompson