Photography 3.0
02/05/09 21:34 Filed in: Personal
Around 2003 the notion of Web 2.0 was introduced. It designated a series of new trends around permanent connectivity where individuals and information can be accessible everywhere and at any time. Wi-Fi at every location, iPhones and Blackberries, hotspots, web 2.0 applications in mobile phones. With Facebook and Youtube and FlickR you can share images (still and video) in real time every moment of the day and where ever you are. Collective intelligence and continuous partial attention became the norm. People spent less time focusing on a single act or person, but were constantly scanning all gadgets and information channels (email, phones, twitter) in fear of missing anything.
The fact that persons want to be engaged simultaneously in many information channels and can record and share every aspect of their own lives asks for multi-purpose and multi-function tools. The mobile phone is a good example: it functions as a phone, an email client, a camera, a video, an internet browser, even as a simple computer, a navigation tool you: name it.
The era of single purpose devices or tools is ending: a car is no longer a vehicle for transporting people, but a life style experience in movement, more like a mobile home or office or preferably both.
Cameras are following the same trends. To fit into the culture of permanent communication and sharing of images and experiences at all times, they need to shrink in size and offer all kinds of functions that span the whole gamut of visual communication options.
Camera-phones and compact cameras are selling by tens of millions and the newest generation of cameras offer still photography and video recording at a high level of quality. The new Canon 500D and Nikon D5000 point In this direction but are still too big and clumsy to be all time companions. No one now wants to hang a camera around the neck as it will hamper social activities. The whole concept of dedicating time to a single activity like taking pictures in the classical tradition of photography is becoming obsolete. The new Lumix GH1 is pointing in the right direction. It is easy to use, very compact, can create all kinds of images (still and moving), has sound recording and so on. It also delivers good quality imagery.
The trend then favors ever more compact cameras with an ever widening range of features for all kinds of images that can be shared real time to everybody without the need for post processing outside the camera.
Current DSLRs have in fact not changed in shape and functions since 1985. The Canon 1D and the Nikon D3 share most features and body shape with the classical film loading auto-all camera. like the Canon EOS 1 and the Nikon F5. In fact all DSLRs (like Pentax, Sony, Canon, Nikon) have functions and body shapes that are now at least thirty years old. Medium format cameras are no different: a digital Hasselblad is almost identical to an antique film loading Hasselblad in every respect except the technology of image capture.
This type of cameras is functionally at the end of the life cycle. A bigger sensor and even higher pixel density and more speed are possible, but will not enhance the inherent capabilities of these cameras. Evolutionary they are dinosaurs: they will presumably not disappear: their habitat is shielding them from extinction, but they are stuck in a dead corner of the photographic universe.
The changing environment of photography 3.0 (as noted at the beginning of this article) will favor new species like the Lumix GH1 and others. Photography will change too, but that is the basic idea of evolution.
Presumably we will see a Nikon D4 and even D5 and a Canon 1D MK IV and maybe a 0D, but the hegemony of the single lens reflex in its current state of the art is over.
One might object to this analysis by referring to the current group of professionals, all using the heavy and big DSLRs and the digital backs.
Remember then that the evolution of photography has always been initiated by innovations in amateur cameras. The original Leica was laughed at by professionals as a toy because of its small negatives, the Konica Autoreflex, the first with autoexposure was ridiculed by the professionals, the AF modules, like the Visitronic were dismissed as unprofessional. Even the first digital systems by Sony were not appreciated as a serious tools for the professional photographer.
On average it takes ten years for the professional to adapt to the trends in the consumer domain.
Let us wait and see with what cameras the professional is taking pictures in 2020!
The fact that persons want to be engaged simultaneously in many information channels and can record and share every aspect of their own lives asks for multi-purpose and multi-function tools. The mobile phone is a good example: it functions as a phone, an email client, a camera, a video, an internet browser, even as a simple computer, a navigation tool you: name it.
The era of single purpose devices or tools is ending: a car is no longer a vehicle for transporting people, but a life style experience in movement, more like a mobile home or office or preferably both.
Cameras are following the same trends. To fit into the culture of permanent communication and sharing of images and experiences at all times, they need to shrink in size and offer all kinds of functions that span the whole gamut of visual communication options.
Camera-phones and compact cameras are selling by tens of millions and the newest generation of cameras offer still photography and video recording at a high level of quality. The new Canon 500D and Nikon D5000 point In this direction but are still too big and clumsy to be all time companions. No one now wants to hang a camera around the neck as it will hamper social activities. The whole concept of dedicating time to a single activity like taking pictures in the classical tradition of photography is becoming obsolete. The new Lumix GH1 is pointing in the right direction. It is easy to use, very compact, can create all kinds of images (still and moving), has sound recording and so on. It also delivers good quality imagery.
The trend then favors ever more compact cameras with an ever widening range of features for all kinds of images that can be shared real time to everybody without the need for post processing outside the camera.
Current DSLRs have in fact not changed in shape and functions since 1985. The Canon 1D and the Nikon D3 share most features and body shape with the classical film loading auto-all camera. like the Canon EOS 1 and the Nikon F5. In fact all DSLRs (like Pentax, Sony, Canon, Nikon) have functions and body shapes that are now at least thirty years old. Medium format cameras are no different: a digital Hasselblad is almost identical to an antique film loading Hasselblad in every respect except the technology of image capture.
This type of cameras is functionally at the end of the life cycle. A bigger sensor and even higher pixel density and more speed are possible, but will not enhance the inherent capabilities of these cameras. Evolutionary they are dinosaurs: they will presumably not disappear: their habitat is shielding them from extinction, but they are stuck in a dead corner of the photographic universe.
The changing environment of photography 3.0 (as noted at the beginning of this article) will favor new species like the Lumix GH1 and others. Photography will change too, but that is the basic idea of evolution.
Presumably we will see a Nikon D4 and even D5 and a Canon 1D MK IV and maybe a 0D, but the hegemony of the single lens reflex in its current state of the art is over.
One might object to this analysis by referring to the current group of professionals, all using the heavy and big DSLRs and the digital backs.
Remember then that the evolution of photography has always been initiated by innovations in amateur cameras. The original Leica was laughed at by professionals as a toy because of its small negatives, the Konica Autoreflex, the first with autoexposure was ridiculed by the professionals, the AF modules, like the Visitronic were dismissed as unprofessional. Even the first digital systems by Sony were not appreciated as a serious tools for the professional photographer.
On average it takes ten years for the professional to adapt to the trends in the consumer domain.
Let us wait and see with what cameras the professional is taking pictures in 2020!