The Future of Photography -- Equipment I Want Today

Copyright 2008 David j Dilworth

In 1976 a photography expert and dear friend dismissed as preposterous my prediction that cameras would or even should have automatic focus. Here we are 30 years later and you have to look hard to find a camera without automatic focus. True enough, autofocus still isn’t perfected (don’t ask me about that infuriating Nikon 8800) but current technology allows capturing wildlife, and sports images that were simply lost before to amateurs – and even to professionals.

So what’s wrong with current camera technology that can be improved? What will the future of photography look like?

New Colors !

We’ll get two "new" colors which current cameras, monitors and printers don't recognize or show us - but that we can see with our eyes. Photos will be dramatically sharper; blur and focus problems will be dramatically reduced. Images will show detail in dark shadows and sunspots in the same shot.

Bad Shots Facing Extinction

Photos will be harder to ruin from a bad exposure because cameras will be more sensitive to shadow detail yet will capture detail on our suns surface in the same shot.

We will have an additional dial setting on DSLRs to adjust for how wide you want the dynamic range for a specific shot. Widest will capture all the detail in shadows and the sun surface. Narrower will make your images higher contrast. More sensitive chips will require much faster shutter speeds.

How far off in the future is all this?

Much of it is already here in off the shelf software and hardware (and specialized software and experimental hardware for other industries) and even in some cameras – just not yet in your Canon or Nikon.