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There are a number of serious problems with this vision: 1) Of course the digital components of cameras (storage size, sensor resolution, processing power) will continue to improve at Moore's law pace, but optics is quickly becoming the limiting factor. In particular, diffraction limits sharpness as you increase depth-of-field (a result of the small aperture size) and the limited number of photons in dark scenes limits our high-ISO potential and resolution on small sensors. 2) "...the ability to keep everything viewable in focus at the same time". Even if you could do this you wouldn't want to. Depth-of-field and focus point are some of the most important creative decisions a photographer makes per photo, and since they are "3D" phenomenon the effects cannot be accurately simulated during post-processing. (maybe stereoscopic cameras would be able to but then you need two lenses, which would add cost & weight in comparison to a "single" lens model) 3) "But perhaps the most radical thing about this camera is that it's really a camcorder. Rather than take individual stills, Wonder Camera owners would simply have their pick of perfectly crisp photos as frames grabbed from video." Maybe, but there would have to be a way to have it integrate over several frames to get long-shutter-speed effects, and there would have to be a way to "tag" points in time so you're not sifting through hours of footage later to get the stills you wanted. Much of what this article proposes sounds like it just defers work (choosing aperture, choosing shutter speed, choosing point in time) to a later point, something I would NOT think photographers would want to do, since they already complain about how long post takes! 4) Finally, even this concept turns out to be 100% correct, I don't see it changing the art of photography all that much. As other people here mention, good photography is about good subject matter, framing the shot, clever use of lighting (whether artificial or available), post-processing to get the desired artistic effect, and being in the right place at the right time. Technology can certainly assist us with these things, but fundamentally it is these human element, not the technology, that makes photography what it is, and that won't change. As technology improves the photographer's decision process focuses less on making technical trade-offs (like shutter-speed vs aperture, high-ISO vs noise), but the creative aspects remain as important as ever. |