bull drink water Loc: pontiac mi.

I said the same thing about cars 40 yrs ago. I bet the sensor that will has the same range as the human eye is in a vault somewhere, and we won't see it until maybe 2020. I also belive a sensor with 4 layers and big light gathering pixels that are off set are in the works, but we won't see them for quite awhile.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

As I attempted to explain to @Racmanaz, this kind of conspiracy theory of how companies are holding aside super-duper stuff just to milk us more cannot work in a capitalist economy,, because each individual company is out to beat their competitors to the market with the next big thing. In other words, as technologies advance when they are viable for market someone will be (or will try to be) first out of the gate. There are no secret meetings held where Sony and Canon and Nikon et al all conspire to keep things hidden.

And while Sony might create some hugely advanced CCD, it won't take long for one of the others to mimic whatever it is. Virtually everything that has been invented, from the telephone to aspirin, turns out to have been invented by 2-6 people globally within months of each other who had no knowledge of what the others were doing. So while we may know the person who got the patent or was first to market, there are others that didn't get the glory but did the same thing. Meaning that, whatever super-advancement Sony might make will inevitably be replicated by another chip maker who is even unaware of Sony's achievement.

In short - the conspiracy theorists are just wrong.

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

It's NOT a conspiracy it's MARKETING!!! open your blind eyes sir :)

Bugfan Loc: Toronto, Canada

This is a complex issue.

First of all I agree with the statement that we don't have to upgrade. But then I also disagree with that statement.

I remember the last time I replaced a limping laptop running an old version of Windows with a new laptop running Windows Seven. To my horror a lot of software I had had for years wouldn't run on that new machine and had to be upgraded. Of course I didn't "have to" upgrade as the story goes, but then the reason I had that software for years was because it was part of my standard tool set and I couldn't live without it. I could have left it running on the old machine too but that was costing me too much time. So much for choice. The computer business has figured out how to force us into upgrades whether we like it or not.

Now the camera industry hasn't learned how to do that yet. One solution might be to come out with a new lens mount with each new major camera upgrade. That would work, we'd be forced to constantly get new lenses. But of course no one would accept that, at least not now.

I like the idea of being able to replace parts. Why not design the mother board so that the sensor and the shutter and maybe some memory chips fit on one surface that clips into the back of the DSLRs? That way I could get the processor, the sensor and maybe the memory chips from different manufacturers but that's not going to happen either.

The camera industry, like the cell phone industry, has figured out how to entice you. They upgrade their bodies but only enough to get you to feel you really need it. The other enhancements are held and kept secret so that they have them handy for when it's time to upgrade you again. In this way they keep the cash flow going. I noted for instance that the two kit lenses I got with my D70s years ago did not have an image stabilizer in them. However, today most of those same kit lenses have one presumably to get hundreds of thousands of consumers to now buy the lenses again.

If you want to break the cycle, be clear why you are buying what it is you are buying. When I went from my D70s to my D200 I had a strategy. The D70s will be used by kids who want to learn photography so I loan it to them for a while so they can learn. The D200 is for general photography so I used it to do everything until later and now it's my travel camera with an 18-300 lens. That allows me a lighter camera with a single lens that is excellent for everything I want to do while on the road.

I added to that collection with the D3 which quickly became my primary camera. It's fast and produces exceptional images and the full sized sensor is what I had missed from my film days. While I thought that was the end of it, I also got the D800 eventually. About eighty percent of my photography is macro so that resolution was perfect for that challenge. So the D800 has become my macro camera.

Throughout this evolution I didn't really upgrade so much as I added additional bodies for specific purposes. Each is a tool for solving specific photographic challenges I happen to have. For instance I've always wanted two SLRs for when I'm in the bush. So now I have the D3 with a long telephoto and the D800 with a macro lens and a macro flash. Together they allow me to do everything nature wise.

I've adopted the same strategy with the lenses. Each of my passions has a variety of lenses each of which is a tool for a specific purpose. I doubt that I'll be adding any more lenses or camera bodies in the future because there is nothing else I need.

So when the new D4 came out I yawned. Sure it might be nice to have a slightly faster camera and slightly higher resolution but I'm happy with mine. It would be nice to have all the buttons light up at night but my fingers know where they are so I don't need that feature either. By the time I worked it out the camera really didn't have anything that was an improvement over what I had in terms of my specific needs and challenges. I suspect this is how it's going to stay for me too.

You can break the upgrade cycle and you can refuse to upgrade. But that only applies as long as the manufacturers don't figure out how to force you into upgrades as has happened in the software business. And it only works if you stop buying cameras and lenses and start buying specific tools to solve your photographic needs.

A hammer is a hammer is a hammer. Once you have one that bangs nails effectively, you don't need another of the same type. So, no upgrading. For the little tacks the hammer is a bit too big so you get a tack hammer too. And for smashing boulders neither will work so you get a sledge hammer as well. None of these are upgrades, each is a specific tool for a specific job and nothing more. Think like that when you're buying a camera body and/or a lens and I think you'll find yourself breaking the cycle too.

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

yup, the advent of digital and the throw-away society are conjunctive. digital, by its very nature is throw-away.

woolpac Loc: Sydney Australia

The throw-away society started when perfectly good hardware is no longer supported by the manufacturer. A typical case was when I upgraded to win 7/64 only to find canon has no drivers for my old canon 350d. I hate pulled out CF cards to download, I know it is only a minor issue. Frustration also applies with perfectly good old printers epson in particular have no software support. I do understand manufacturers have a predetermed life cycle on their products but I just hate seeing good stuff going to the landfill.

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

indeed. prior to digital, camera and lens manufacturers were driven to make the very best instruments and make them to last - most of you know i still use my 1959 nikon f. it was a source of pride. even e leitz (leica) has not made a camera as good as their M3, introduced in 1954. the same went for lenses and glass. only the very best - not that it always resulted in a stunning lens. but each line had one or two which were real stand outs.

today, image making industries are primarily electronics industries. and products are driven from the top down. so the manufacturer dictates to the market. that would be you. and so every 3 months or 2 years, for the more expensive models, another "improved" model shows up. you know, smile recognition, face recognition (for all who have forgotten what these look like) and of course, video. that's a real joke. wanna take videos, then buy a video camera - that's what they are built for. it costs about $0.50 to slap another burr brown chip in a dslr and call it improved.

manufacturers do not want you to keep your camera for the next 5-10 years - they want you to continuously buy the new model which promises to be better than the last one. for instance, a 6 mega pixel camera is perfectly sufficient for an 8x12 print. so why would most folks need more mega pixels? because they are sold on "it's better" and of course like hell it is.

now most of you know i do not use digital imaging devices, but i will say this: i've tested a lot of them from leica to nikon to fuji to canon. but if i ever were going to buy a "dslr" it would be the Contax N digital at 6 megapixels. it would be more than i would ever need, even making exhibition size images.

so, there you have it. the electronics industry wants you to keep buying the latest and greatest. just remember the more this item does, the more knowledge and ability you lose, and this is what we call "technological progress"

have a happy day, all!

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

You folks who lament the ever-changing world and attribute the “throwaway society” to some master plan by the big bad companies are funny… don’t you see this is the natural evolution of technological advancement?

Let me try to make this clear: first there is the argument about how in the pre-digital “good old” days you didn’t need to replace your camera body every few years (“why I’ve been using my Nikon F since 1976!”) - but what you fail to recognize is that the technological advances being made were on the films we used. You think Kodak, Fuji, Ilford and Agfa didn’t spend gobs of R&D money in the effort to make faster lower-grained films with better color rendition than their competitors? Think again. But from the photographer’s perspective, all one needed to do was buy a new roll of film and - voila! - you were taking advantage of all that research and had the latest and greatest technology at your command.

When the design and manufacturing of microelectronic components came to the fore, and the notion of using a photosensitive chip as an imaging device became possible (something invented at Kodak, of all places) then the rate of advancement became, as it always does, exponential in nature. So the ever-more-rapidly improving performance of digital cameras is not because of some stupid conspiracy that the engineers and marketers cooked up to keep us peasants wanting more, but rather because that’s how technology works. Compare the smart phone today with the mainframe of the 1960’s and you get the idea. And make no mistake, as others have already pointed out here, photography has become a digital medium, not unlike audio recording.

Now, because humans think linearly and technology advances exponentially, it is ever-harder for us to actually conceive that these ever-shorter refresh cycles are “normal” and so the simple (and simplistic) thing to do is attribute them to some grand plan. But there is no grand plan - no one company is going to hold back some advancement in design “just to make the unwashed masses have to buy it later” because sure as shooting’ one of their competitors will create the same thing within months (as I stated previously, this has happened with virtually everything ever invented).

Meanwhile, the precision and accuracy required of implementing these components makes “replacing a part” virtually impossible. Of course, in engineering terms it’s possible to allow for backplane busses and doors on the camera body to allow access to the key components (perhaps replace the processing computer that generates the JPEGs), but that in turn would make for a camera body that is larger with more parts that can break as well as for the user to be surgically precise in pulling and replacing the component in question. That’s why you can’t replace the battery on an iPhone or iPad (or many other electronics) - to allow for a sliding door and margins of error loose enough to enable a clumsy human to replace the battery, they would have to make the phone thicker (especially since this battery cover would have to be water resistant when closed as well). The moral of the story is this: as micro-electronic technology becomes more ensconced, giving people the ability to change components becomes counter-productive.

Some above have mentioned the notion of “planned obsolescence”, a popular buzzword back in the 60’s-70’s (mostly referring to the cars coming out of Detroit) as the “explanation” of how things are today. But this too is just plain wrong. When you think about it, what Detroit’s big 3 were doing back then (and certainly to some degree today) was about fashion changes - bigger fins or different position of headlights. It was no more a technologically driven situation than clothing fashion is today. So, yes, car makers certainly were “obsolescing” their own models from a few years earlier, but only in the same manner that Coach or Guess! or Zara or Liz Claiborne et al make most consumers want to replace the perfectly good clothing they bought last season with this year’s fashion colors, or whatever. What the clothing companies still do today is what the car companies were doing then - but it has nothing to do with technological advancement.

So, the “throwaway society” in which we now live was essentially unavoidable given the unrelenting evolution of the technologies involved in the world of photography.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

I'm just leaving enough of the quote to let everyone know what I'm responding to. f8lee is right, and if we're in a "throwaway society," it's more because consumers aren't thinking with their pocketbooks than it is about holding back the good stuff. The only reason to delay a new product introduction is to allow inventory to be run down without having to discount it too much. And, with today's short supply lines and inventory management schemes, there really isn't that much to flush out of the pipeline. Better to take a loss on current stock than to let a competitor be first to market with a genuinely new feature or technology.

Nightsky Loc: Augusta, GA USA

I agree with this thought, but there are many new models released which do not really meet that criteria. Many new designations are just tiny tweaks on the old ones. Some have a real effect, and others just add a feature or perhaps two that does not really improve the product all that much.

amehta Loc: Boston

I don't think the manufacturers expect people to replace the older model with the slightly newer model of the same level. Nikon considers both the D5200 and D5300 current. But if someone is buying their first camera at that level, they have the choice of getting the newer features or not. This seems more like "leapfrogging" than "throw-away".

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

manufacturers are in business to make and maximise as much profit as possible. and you are correct, the peasants are not thinking, just consuming the newest item that comes down the pipeline. and no, i've been using my nikon f since 1959 and you wish you had something as durable along with a 32 page instruction book!

Pepper Loc: Planet Earth Country USA

I like new stuff.

KotaKrome

I believe when cameras became MORE electronic than mechanical that was the end of the fifty year old camera that works.
It's simple physics. Over time, electronics degrade faster than mechanical devices.
I think the last "real" Nikon was the F2. <G>
Mine STILL works after fourty + years and COUNTLESS shots.
No way my DSLRs will ever last that long even sitting on a shelf.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

To those who insist on pointing out their film cameras will "outlast" DSLRs, let me refer you to my commentary above where I explicitly stated that this is thanks to the fact that with film cameras the latest technological advancements become available to you with the purchase of a new roll of film. Cameras (as well as other items, like tablets and MP3 players) based on micro-electronics will not allow for such easy replacement of newer technologies; thus the "need" to "throw away". But of course, any DSLR made in the past few years is capable of producing excellent results in the hands of a skilled shooter, so for some it's a matter of having the latest available for the sake of ego more than real need.