The Photograph Industry 30 years from Now

paulr

If we consider the changes that have happened in Technology in the last 30 years in the Photographic Industry, what will you predict will happen in the future 30 years to come in view of speed that technology is moving.
Will we have cameras that we use today, or will cameras, as we know them, disappear.with new technology based on telephone laser Wi-Fi or some form of light beam transmission?

donaldejose

3-D hologram photography? Is it even possible?

heartyfisher

30 years in the past vs 30 years in the future ? i think the difference will be much more.. tech is always accelerating. "When it comes to history, we think in straight lines" A better way to predict 30 years in the future will be to look at 60 years in the past. I still think 30 years is too far to look, maybe 20 years is the limit of what we can predict.

Re 3-D photography .. Its already available and printable by fujifilm although its not taking off (yet?) and its of course viewable on the 3D monitors and TV.
We also have the Lytro lightfield camera now that can do some limited 3D. So Yes, good 3D should be easily available in 30 years time.

Re Holograms - I don't think that there is anything that can shoot or produce a physical hologram from a single viewpoint. You will need to see behind the object to image it. However if you can "image" in multiple view like in a studio there is no reason we cant produce a holographic image. That is already possible. there are a few methods to do it but they are a bit clunky at the moment. So It may be possible to view 3D images generally (like a TV) soon..

Of course in 30 years time .. that could be the least of our worries..

30+ years ago I watched a documentary film projected in a library ( no youtube ! Dad had to drive me there in the evening..). It showed the accelerated advancement of human knowledge/society. I don't remember much of the documentary but the graph of accelerated advancement totally stuck with me. It concerned me and excited me and I was thinking on it for months. My conclusion was that the human species will not be able to continue this accelerated advancement without augmentation. I remember predicting 50 years from then we would see a huge change. I remember thinking I could be lucky enough to live to see it and happy that my children likely will. I have been watching the tech ever since.

30 years is within the next "DPU"... In 30 years time we could all be destroyed or have eternal life.
Warning geeky long read .. to find out what a "DPU" is :-)
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
PS "This isn’t science fiction." unlike the D400.

donaldejose

Warning . . . in 30 years our machines will likely be smarter than we are!

Ironheart

In limited domains, they already are. Think deep blue playing chess, or Watson playing Jeopardy.

sevencrossing

Warning . . . in 30 years our machines will likely be smarter than we are!

50 years ago i worked in an amazing place at Edinburgh University, "The Department of Machine intelligence and Perception" and that was postulated then
50 years later, machines have have got a hell of a faster, smaller and cheaper but I don't think a lot smarter
The same could be said for post production, I can do in seconds, things that took me weeks in a darkroom
but I not sure if my pp is any smarter

heartyfisher

Ok back on topic .. I cant predict more than 10 years we just dont know what we dont know .. what we do know now is .
There are liquid lenses and Fresnel lenses. these technologies will make lenses smaller and with less elements and better optical characteristics. Together, I would say these could reduce the size of lenses to 1/3 to 1/2 of the current sizes .. this could easily happen in 5-10 years time maybe 15 years at the most.

There are patents for sensors by nikon that should increase light efficiency by 3 times. They just need a way to manufacture them efficiently. again this is within the 10-15 year period.

We have light field technology already in place.. with video coming soon. Imagine able to record your surroundings light field in all directions..

I think google glass should take off or some similar tech. There are VR(virtual reality) tech that have been around for decades. Just needing processor power to catch up... we have immersive games and game environments becoming widespread and available. Just waiting for a "killer app" to merge these thing together and we will have the next big thing. Wouldn't it be nice to have your daily environment recorded in 3D, so you can go back and review what Jane said at 10:51 am at tea break or check out that attractive person on the bus to work and send a friend request. Or review the nice sunset on the train ride back and create a nice pano picture of it. All this could be not more that 10-15 years away.. bet then the D400 will be available ;-)

paulr

I read what you say Guys, but your not thinking outside the Box,
Maybe 30 years from now we will know how to use the 80% of our brain cells we cannot use now, Imaging having a chip installed in our brain, like a camera sensor that can make our eyes act like a military precision lenses with infra-red night vision capability, with the same chip installed we can send information to machines that can in Millie-seconds send this information{images} around the world and universe.

Cameras we have today, will be museum pieces left in glass cages, for our younger generations to laugh at, and wonder how an earth we managed to take images.

There will never be a limit to what we can do

Remember you read this first on Nikon Rumors in 2015

heartyfisher

@paulr -- its not new sorry :-) the idea of personal tech augmentation has been around for years. the good old "borg collective" idea has been around for decades. ( Startrek episode in 1989) the SciFi idea has be around much longer.. :-) Like I said personal augmentation was the conclusion I arrived at when I was a teenager 30+ years ago.. in fact I think the only way for the human race to survive the singularity is for it to be integrated as a personal augmentation so that when it arrives it takes the human race with it. I told my kids a long running bed time story where this occurs for a boy. I was planing to write it some time but my literary skills are weak ;-)

re: chip installed in brain :-) think more refined... imagine a nanotechnology hat(with sensors) interfacing with nanobots in your brain absorbed through the skin. in fact imagine a nanotech skin as proposed by Eric drexler "Engines of Creation (1986)" Skin made from carbon, tough as diamonds , augments strength, allows a person to wrestle with a gorilla for fun. yes "DPU" in 30 years is very possible .. if we survive.

PS look up eric drexler on wikipedia :-) it will blow you mind what he has done.

PB_PM

Guessing the future of cameras in the next 5 years, let alone 30, is about like trying to guess what will happen in each given moment tomorrow. Will the form of the image making devices change? Yup. What will they look like? Will our capturing devices be remote drones the size of a flee? Could be. Will they be holographic, 3D capturing devices? Will anyone even bother with still image capture in 30 years from now, once there is 50+MP video? Those are questions that we'll know when we get there.

There are a few things we know now that will give some insight. Like the fact that current sensor technology is approaching it's limits in terms of high ISO performance. So unless there is a big breakthrough, like a move to a new sensor type (aka away from CMOS/CCD), then there is a limited potential for improvement. Processing will likely improve, which will help, but high ISO shooting is not an unending ceiling where one day we'll latterly be able to shoot in no light. I suspect the biggest change will come in the next few years as sensor makers learn to set separate exposures at each pixel. Just imagine the improved dynamic range of any given photo once the camera makers achieve that! It will make the D810 look like film from the 1800's.

kyoshinikon

I dont know what It will be like but I assume the optical viewfinder and DSLR will be a novelty like film....

heartyfisher

30 years from now? 50+ MP ? its almost there NOW! 8K video is 36MP. You are not seeing far enough.. 20 years is about the limit our current tech can be interpolated I think. Even without the brain interphase my idea of a video light field "cap" capturing 360 degree video continuously, connected to google-glass like tech is probably only a few years away. "You saw it here first" ;-)

ThomasHorton

Maybe 30 years from now we will know how to use the 80% of our brain cells we cannot use now...

Just wondering why you think we don't use 80% of our brain cells.

heartyfisher

Maybe 30 years from now we will know how to use the 80% of our brain cells we cannot use now...

Just wondering why you think we don't use 80% of our brain cells.

Yeah .. new research shows we use most of it.. we are just able to reroute and re purpose..

paulr

Sorry HF and TH, never been the same since the first Lobectomy, and the second one left we with short hair.
I also have problems trying to use Canon cameras, but thats another story, and my memory not so good either.

heartyfisher

:-) its amazing that some parts of the brain can be removed and other parts can take over.

haroldp

I can predict with great confidence that 30 years from now will be 2045.

We will likely still be discussing Nikon's predicted professional DX camera.

cheers ... H

heartyfisher

I will be wearing my camera hat.

snakebunk

There will always be a place for small sensors in small devices, and dx sized sensors have advantages. But when we can get 100 mp images with 20 fps in a mirrorless fx camera, I would think the time has come for Nikon to make cameras with larger sensors. Something like a very compact mirrorless medium format camera that still has the pixel density and fps of the best current dx cameras.

If we can add to that a 800 mm Fresnel lense with an image quality equal to the current 800 mm, I think bird photography would be a tiny bit easier.

Parke1953

30 years HA. some of us may only have 5 or10 years left to shoot.

paulr

Parke1953, Best get busy then. LOL

Ironheart

@Parke1953, Assuming you were born in 1953 and you are 61 or 62 years old, I bet you have more than 5-10 years of shooting left in ya! I know 80 year olds that are still going strong, and can whoop the young 'ens butts when need be! Remember, old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill :-)

Photobug

@Parke1953, Assuming you were born in 1953 and you are 61 or 62 years old, I bet you have more than 5-10 years of shooting left in ya! I know 80 year olds that are still going strong, and can whoop the young 'ens butts when need be! Remember, old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill :-)

Oh my...I hope he has more than 5-10 years of good shooting left in Ironheart and all the rest of us. LoL

manhattanboy

30 years HA. some of us may only have 5 or 10 years left to shoot.

Any of us can go at anytime unfortunately. That is life.
But then that's also what's great about photography. Capture what you can of life while you can and enjoy it.

Parke1953

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words everyone. When I was younger didn't think I would make 30 so maybe we do have longer. Have not been shooting much for a while. My wife has me still working on the property and I should be done by mid summer. As for what we will have in 30 years cant guess but I think it will be very different. Probably it will be all video that you can pull out any frame and print any size and be anything you want it to be.

haroldp

I will be wearing my camera hat.

Why would you wear someone else's camera hat?

.... H