The Blog Subscribe
Where Now for Cameras?
I have spent the week looking at more than the usually slim pickings for Camera News and looked with great interest at the Nikon Concept story from Paris on Engadget and the release of the Olympus EP-3, Another 'bridge camera' that seems to be very overpriced.
I get email occasionally that berates me for a negative attitude to anything which is not Lumix and that's not totally fair. Yes I love Lumix and, in general, I think it offers the best 'Bang for Buck' Ratio on the current compact market. When it stretches out to the 'Bridge' Market then I lose a little faith and am not as ready to recommend it, but its good.
Cameras are changing and I'm very willing to accept the tag of Dinosaur if you want to attach it, but when there was a clearer line between compact and SLR cameras, I was more sure of the market place and where it was going. Now with the advent of an SLR which isnt and is significantly smaller, I am less secure.
I just don't get Bridge Cameras sorry. If I was getting SLR flexibility and pro level imaging then I might just agree a little more, but these cameras are NOT doing that. They are small in form, Small in Sensor, High in pixels (too high in many cases), Slightly above average in terms of imaging and significantly higher in price.
But if this is not the way forward then what is? The Phone Camera Market? Hell No, I really hope not.
Well hang on, what can cameras learn from phones and I dont meant that I want to make a phone call on my SLR.
Applications are the way of all electronics and the openness of the API is critical in the development of our user experience with our devices. Cameras are NOT exempt from this and with the development of Dual Core processors for cameras, the camera has to think more for itself and rethink its place in the market.
Now I'm not talking crappy post image processing to Sepia or Sketch effects, I mean that the camera has to offer the user the option to become connected and integrated. At the lowest level, that is in the form of on-board WiFi and direct connection to twitter and facebook and most importantly Flickr. Better still then open 3G connection to those services.
At the next level we're talking Airplay integration to stream to remote devices via its own MiFi hotspot. Wireless Syncing and downloading of images to computers, Eye-Fi like behavior with local computers and integration via open API to 3rd party devices, Peripherals & Controllers
Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Hasselblad, Olympus, Samsung, Panasonic, Pentax, Sony and ALL the rest will have to stop with the proprietary rubbish and embrace the consumer and peripheral markets interest in the development of the platform...but they won't. Microsoft's attitude to the Kinect has been the model for all in the electronics industry going forwards...Cameras included. Put the power of R&D in the hands of open industry and developers, let the visionless manufacturers stick to imaging platforms that just function and give a great starting point for others to complete the job properly.
The Camera is no longer an image capture device, it did that adequately 150 years ago, its now a communications device within a market place which is bulging with communications devices. It has to offer more, not less and certainly not just smaller. There needs to be a quantum shift in the design for it to continue beyond my lifetime.
The Camera, has to grow up.
Ewen
EwenRankinPhoto@gmail.com
EwenRankin.co.uk
Author
Ewen Rankin