How times change?

[AndyStevens]

Well, I'm astounded, flabbergasted and generally bamboozled by the advance of technology within photography.

I've just been scrolling through DSLR reviews on PhotoRadar and had to chuckle at the title of Does anyone really need that many megapixels in a camera? Now what state of the art camera are we talking about here? No, it's not a theoretical piece on the rumoured Canon 1Ds MkIV, it's the Canon's 20D with all of 8.2MP !!

And at the weekend, I was looking at some info on a new Canon digital camcorder that has so much inbuilt memory, you'd pass out from boredom before running out of memory - and then there are memory card slots for expansion too!

So what has been the biggest leap in photographic technology that you've marveled over in recent times?

[cosmicma]

the biggest leap in photographic technology has got to be digital itself

my first taste of digital photography was around 1997 ( ish could be 98 ) taking a not very good photo of my daughter with a sony mavica a cheap webcam would give better results today
i still have the photo somewhere

i made my mind up there and then that you would need at least 1 million pixels to get any sort of results worth keeping ( i wish i knew then what i do today )
my next adventure into the digital realm was with a rico 1.3mp camera ( a nikon clone with the movable lens ) which cost as much as a consumer DSLR today but thats electronics in general the price hasn't changed you just get more for your money
the rico was quite a leap from the sony mavica in image quality but still had a long way to go where film was concerned
the next leap of faith was to a minolta dimage 5 in 2002 the difference from the first photo from the mavica was becoming a revelation i really did like that camera i was a bit unhappy when minolta decided to sell to sony i was intending to stick with minolta through the DSLR revolution but alas it never happened
by the time sony launched their alpha range i was knee deep in canon and today i'm probably up to my armpits

a lot has changed from then til now and somewhere in the middle digital caught up with film
another prediction of mine sometime in early 2005 after buying my first canon DSLR ( 300d ) was when we get above 10 million pixels 35mm film will be obsolete i was pretty convinced technology would have caught up by then i don't think my prediction was too far out that time

5 years on the technology is running away with it's self even your phone can take an half decent photo
what will we have in another 5 years
can't wait

[AndyStevens]

I think your predictions have been pretty close cosmicma. Despite what a few film stalwarts say, digital has caught up with film and, for the majority, passed it. And I only say majority as a scanned 5x4 still has the edge unless you're shooting full frame - but then, it all relates to viewing distance and if you stand back a few feet, can you really tell the difference?

I remember buying an Olympus Mju compact with 3.1MP (my first digital camera) and the shop assistant saying I'd never really need more than 3MP unless I was a pro and then I'd probably need about 6MP! I was still 35mm with my Pentax P30 and waiting to see if digital caught on - a bit like Alan Sugar saying the iPod would never catch on

It really hit home recently when I upgraded my mobile phone - I now have an 8MP stills plus HD movie camera with a free phone attached! And I'm doing 'serious' photography with 6MP (yes, still using my beloved Canon 300D, she's seen me through thick and fast!!).

So what's next? Who knows but I can't wait to see it

[rbarry]

My first Digital camera was a Casio QV-10A. It had a whopping 0.25mp chip, and gave an image size of 320x240. This allowed approximately 96 images to be stored in the camera, compared to the average film camera that had a capacity of 24/36 exposures. This of course was possible due to the vast 2mb memory capacity. At the time, 1996, it had an RRP of £680.00 in the UK. I purchased the camera while I was on honeymoon in Singapore and paid less than that, but even so, by today's standards it seems utterly incredible. The images this camera gave were nothing short of dreadful; they looked a lot better when viewed on the 1.8" (diagonal measurement) screen of the camera than they did on a monitor or tv screen.

Fourteen years down the line and I now have a camera with a resolution 72 times greater, unlimited memory due to the invention of the removable flash card, and that gives amazing results. An ever increasing amount of technology has allowed the digital camera to shine in the last fourteen years; it's hard to pick any specific development. But it's also reassuring that the modern DSLR camera has been designed around a tried and trusted developed technology that is the SLR camera.

If I had to pick one modern day development, my vote would go to the introduction of image stabilisation.

[KeithT]

There does seem to be a pixel race in the world of dslr manufacture. When you consider that for most of us hobbyists anyway, the largest we will be printing stuff is 20x16 and possibly even smaller if like me you use Blurb as a way of achieving what was once the family photo album or print portfolio, then pixel counting is meaningless. Even more meaningless when 90% of images end up on the Internet for viewing there.

I think when buying any camera one has to look beyond the pixel count and ask what else the camera has that is important to you. For me it is weather sealing and build quality, both of which I am prepared to pay for and have ordered the 5D MKII for that reason. As for the 21mp, I doubt with my type of photography I will achieve any better images than I did with my 12.9mp 5d classic, or better pictures at say 15x10 prints than my wife gets from her Panasonic LX3.

However, the marketing men will still fool the average photographer that it's pixels that count most if you want stunning pictures, although it will eventually dawn on the photographer that they have been hoodwinked into believing it to be true.

[rbarry]

The pixel issue isn't all hype. So long as there's no degredation between cameras of differing pixel count, then added pixels come into their own when you need to crop an image. I think you'll see the benefits with your new purchase when coupled with decent quality glass. Cropping an image by 50% captured at 6mp and one at 18mp is a huge difference. I agree the average user cannot benefit when printing the original image or publishing to the web, but cropped prints will look better.

[rbarry]

In addition to my previous post:

I tend to agree that the major manufacturers marketing departments seemed hell bent on increasing pixel density without offering much advantage in IQ. The design of the latest imaging chips from Canon do seem to have handled the way these extra pixels have been arranged, and offer higher ISO with relatively low noise, together with an increase in detail compared to previous models.

I was at Oulton Park earlier in the summer at an historic race meeting. One image from this meeting as shown below, was of Stirling Moss in a vintage racing car he used to race some 50 or so years ago. The race had finished and I wanted to get a feel for the car and the legend of the man that was driving it. On his out lap he was waving to the crowd just as he probably did all those years ago, wearing his leather gloves, goggles and helmet that he alone has a special dispension to wear. The image didn't really convey what I wanted, but when cropped it held a lot more of the character of Sir Stirling Moss. The armco and crowd can be seen in the reflection off the paintwork of the car, as can the sky. It also catches a profile of his face in the rear view mirror, and the heat haze coming from the engine. I couldn't have achieved this level of detail from a similar crop of my previous camera, the Canon 400D.

[Eyeayen]

I wonder how that would have compared to a negative blown up / cropped by the same amount from a film camera with a similar lens.

The Gadget show did some tests a while back, might have been early this year or last year. Jon and Suzi were photographed with digital and also film camera's. The images were then blown up to extreme proportions and dropped down the side of a building, it was something absolutely ludicrous like a 40ft high print. They showed the detail ( sorry i can't remember what film was used 35mm or medium format or the digital camera, Canon I think ? ) and much to my surprise the digital won, they showed why and I had to side with them.

It was when I saw that I realised how much digital imaging had come on. I don't know if any advertising shots are still done with film on medium or large format but some how I doubt it. Most of what we see isn't real either being photoshop'd or a 3D model rendered out in a photorealistic manner, non of it's true any more but photography has come on in huge leaps and bounds and it's really exciting. I'd love to know now where we'll be and what we'll be using in 5 years time.

That is a shame in itself though. Camera's are now updating with the same frequency as computers and therefore become obsolete almost as soon as they're released as opposed to how long a high quality film camera's life was. That isn't to say they're no good to the photographer that has bought them but if you want to either keep up with technology or not loose to much it seems you are expected to trade them in against the newest model every time one is released. Everything is so disposable in the manufacturers eyes these days.

And as pointed out above, my camera phone now has a pixel count bigger than the first digital camera's and some of them ( not my current one ! ) take reasonable pictures. My Sony that had a 3.1 Mega Pixel camera on it took pictures at 72dpi but they were almost a metre across, when they were shrunk down to A4 they printed very well ! Now I've got a 5mega pixel camera on my phone with appalling quality and Sony's latest has a 12 Mega Pixel camera in it, with a sensor smaller than most tiny insects ???

[AndyStevens]

That's quite an impressive crop rbarry, certainly something I couldn't have done with my Canin 300D and it's 6MP!

Sadly, my 300D is being retired at Christmas. I've loved it from new and taken some decent shots that have been sold/printed/published etc - but upgrading my phone to an 8MP with HD Video made me realise I really was lagging behind in camera specs. I've always maintained it's what you take and not what you take it with but, there comes a time...

And eyeayen, in my day job, I deal with a lot of agencies and photo studios - not seen a film camera in ages. Generally there are top end DSLRS (more Canon than Nikon - but one pro put that down to Canon going full frame first so he'd invested heavily in lenses and wouldn't change all that to go Nikon) and Hasselblads/Medium format tethered to a laptop or workstation. It's quite impressive to see the flash go off then an incredibly detailed image appear on a 30" screen! Oh how the other half live

[Eyeayen]

Originally Posted by AndyStevens

Hasselblads/Medium format tethered to a laptop or workstation. It's quite impressive to see the flash go off then an incredibly detailed image appear on a 30" screen! Oh how the other half live

How do you get into a studio like that ? I'd make the tea if it helped me get my foot in the door !