The Future of the DSLR, an opinion (Page 11): Move over James Bond! :lol:...

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Rbrylawski wrote:

Here's a device I wouldn't mind owning. The Hyetis Crossbow Mechanical Smart Watch. It has a 41 mega pixel camera, a Swiss Mechanical movement and it will sync with my iPhone. It's technology like this, outside the box, that the younger generation finds appealing.........Heck, I find it appealing!

http://static.uglyhedgehog.com/upload/2014/1/2/thumb-1388708217422-hyetis_slydes_001.jpg

Move over James Bond! :lol:

Rbrylawski Loc: Tampa, FL

CHOLLY wrote:

Move over James Bond! :lol:

Only you can actually own this thing! For me, it ticks many boxes. I have developed an addiction to Swiss/German Mechanical movement watches (I have way more invested in my watches than I do in photography), I have an addiction to photography, and I'm hopelessly addicted to my iPhone/iPad. This watch combines all three in a pretty cool package!

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

copprtop99 wrote:

This is interesting. I am fighting this internal b... (show quote)

Sounds like you enjoy the perfect combination of both cameras and use them for the appropriate shots.
Also had a K-x with the intent of moving to the up the Pentax food chain with a newer beefier model and use the K-x much like you are now using the 510. Ended up moving back to Canon due to AF problems that kept coming back, even after having it allegedly repaired by an authorized service center. Pentax refused to deal with it after warranty expired. If I may ask, any problems with K-x? Loved the size and features. Thought it would make the perfect sized travel camera, but it was not to be.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Rbrylawski wrote:

Only you can actually own this thing! For me, it ticks many boxes. I have developed an addiction to Swiss/German Mechanical movement watches (I have way more invested in my watches than I do in photography), I have an addiction to photography, and I'm hopelessly addicted to my iPhone/iPad. This watch combines all three in a pretty cool package!

COOL!

BTW, are you a fan of the Graham Chronofighter series?

Some like them... others HATE them. Either way, they make VERY photogenic timepieces. ;)

RPbySC Loc: Atlanta, GA

Photogdog wrote:

I shot this with the RX 1 last Saturday night right after sunset. I took 5 shots using RAW capture and then combined them in Photomatix Pro converting it into a High Resolution jpeg. Then I added some more jpegs that I shot using the in-camera filter effects (monochrome + red, yellow, blue & green). I balanced, adjusted for crop, light, contrast, saturation and added a light touch of sharpening in Photoshop Elements 10.

Photogdog

Photogdog, you also enjoy post processing! You are much better at it than I am, though. This is a stunning photo. I love the balance of cool/warm lights. I also love water reflections. You had a vision, set out to achieve it, and did it!

Rbrylawski Loc: Tampa, FL

CHOLLY wrote:

COOL!

BTW, are you a fan of the Graham Chronofighter series?

Some like them... others HATE them. Either way, they make VERY photogenic timepieces. ;)

I can appreciate the Grahams, but I'm not really a fan. Somehow, I know the skin touching the "watch-porn" case would be blushing all the time......LOL

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

HA!

Dave_TX

50+ years ago Kodak determined that most people were satisfied with IQ if they could recognize the people in their snapshots. Starting with that discovery, Kodak developed the Instamatic with its pressed plastic bubble lens and drop in film cartridge. Today, most people are satisfied with the low IQ of most cell phone photos. And more recently they have been able to process them through Instagram filters and purposefully degrade image quality even more. A lot of those Instamatic users grew up and tried out 35mm SLR photography in the 70s and 80s and now are using DSLRs or high end P&S cameras. There will always be a market for excellent glass, ever improving sensors, and more convenient but still highly capable cameras. Some reasonable percentage of the people playing with their phones and Instagram will grow and decide they want more control and quality and will move up just as their parents and grandparents did previously.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

EXACTLY!!!

In other words... DSLRs aren't going ANYWHERE, ANYTIME SOON. ;)

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

RPbySC wrote:

A professional photographer I know sent the following out by email just as an interesting opinion. It seems that most people on UHH are in the older generation as far as photography experience goes. Anybody agree or disagree or not care?

By Kirk Tuck He was in the Samsung Booth at PhotoPlus Expo.

I can profile the average camera buyer in the U.S. right now without looking at the numbers. The people driving the market are predominately over 50 years old and at least 90% of them are men. We're the ones at whom the retro design of the OMD series camera are aimed. We're the ones who remember when battleship Nikons and Canons were actually needed to get great shots and we're the ones who believe in the primacy of the still image as a wonderful means of communication and even art. But we're a small part of the consumer economy now and we're walking one path while the generations that are coming behind us are walking another path. And it's one we're willfully trying not to understand because we never want to admit that what we thought of as the "golden age of photography" is coming to an end as surely as the kingdom of Middle Earth fades away in the last book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

At this Expo we worshipped at the altar of the same basic roster of speakers and presenters who've been speaking and presenting for the last ten years. We've closed the loop and the choice offered to younger photographers is to sit and listen to people old enough to be their grandmothers or grandfathers wax on about how we used to do it in the old days or to not come at all.

When I listen to lectures about how the market has changed what I hear from my generation is how to take the tools we programmed ourselves to love and try to apply them to our ideas of what might be popular with end users today. So we buy D4's and 1DSmkIV's to shoot video on giant Red Rock Micro rigs and we rush to buy Zeiss cinema lenses because we want the control and the idea of ultimate quality in our offerings while the stuff that the current generation is thinking about is more concerned with intimacy, immediacy and verisimilitude rather than "production value." To the new generations the idea of veracity and authenticity always trumps metrics of low noise or high resolution. And that need for perfection is our disconnection from the creative process, not theirs.

Our generation's fight with digital, early on, was to tame the high noise, the weird colors, the slow buffers and the old technology which saddled us with wildly inaccurate and tiny viewfinders and batteries that barely lasted through a sneeze. We pride ourselves on the mastery but the market moved on and now those parameters are taken for granted. Like turning on a television and assuming it will work. We are still staring at the technical landscape which rigidly disconnects us from the emotional interface of the craft. If we don't jump that shark then we're relegated to being like the photographer who makes those precious black and white landscapes which utilize every ounce of his PhotoShop skills but which, in the end, become works that are devoid of any emotional context. In fact, they are just endless revisions of work that Ansel Adams did better, and with more soul, fifty years ago. Technique as schtick. Mastery for mastery's sake with no hook to pull in a new generation. Of course we like technically difficult work. It was hard for us to master all the processes a decade ago. Now it's a canned commodity, a pervasive reality, and what the market of smart and wired in kids are looking for is an emotional connection with their images that goes beyond the mechanical construct.

It's no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It's no longer good enough to fix all the "flaws" in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the "why" and not the "how." The love, not the schematic.

So, what does this mean for the camera industry? It means that incremental improvements in quality no longer mean shit to a huge and restless younger market. They don't care if the image is 99% perfect if the content is exhilarating and captivating. No one cared if the Hobbit was available at 48 fps as long as the story was strong in 24 fps. No one cares if a landscape is perfect if there's a reason for the image of a landscape to exist. No one cares if a model is perfect if the model is beguiling.

What it really means for the camera industry is that the tools they offer the new generation must be more intuitively integrated and less about "ultimate." In this world a powerful camera that's small enough and light enough to go with you anywhere (phone or small camera) trumps the huge camera that may generate better billboards but the quality of which is irrelevant for web use and social media. The accessible camera trumps the one that needs a sherpa for transport and a banker for acquisition.

I look at the video industry and I see our generation drawn toward the ultimate production cameras. Cameras like the Red Epic or the Alexa. But I see the next generation making more intimate and compelling work with GH3's and Canon 5D2's and 3's. Or even cameras with less pedigrees. The cheaper cameras mean that today's younger film makers can pull the trigger on projects now instead of waiting for all the right stuff to line up.

If I ran one of the big camera companies I would forget the traditional practitioners and rush headlong toward the youth culture with offerings that allowed them to get to work now with the budgets they have. Ready to go out and shoot landscapes? Will a Nikon D800 really knock everyone's socks off compared to an Olympus OMD when you look at the images side by side on the web? No? Well, that's the litmus test. It's no longer the 16x20 gallery print because we don't support physical galleries any more.

A professional photographer I know sent the follow... (show quote)

Okay, allow me to parallel this to the music industry. This is long so if you don't want to read it, just skip it and don't whine. I've been around and in music, performance, retail, studios, etc. since the 1960s and my father was a pianist in the big band era before me.

Westernized music was originally acoustic instruments. Classical, jazz, and eventually big band music based on jazz were all complicated, required enormous talent and education to play, and were above the heads of most listeners unless they were also talented and educated musicians themselves - yet they thoroughly enjoyed the end product of these kinds of music.

Then came other kinds of simple music built upon 3 and 4 chords. Blues and Old Style Country, for example. Ethnic music styles as another example. More feeling and lyrics of misery and pain or happy festivities, but far less complexity than the previous classical, jazz, and big band.

Did that make the music field better? No... but it drew more followers because they actually understood the simpler music and felt tribal instincts to dance to the almost always 4/4 beat. So the music field became more diverse for a wider market of listeners just like cameras becoming no-brainers widen the market for camera makers to make more profit.

Rock music was for the rebellious younger generation. They rocked around the clock and surfed ocean waves instead of the Internet like a bunch of surfing birds trying to fit into some social category or another. Lovers relished the Motown harmonies on 3 and 4 chord simple riffs that they could sing along with while making out in the back seat of their late-50's cars. The songs were typically 3 chords and supplied harmonies of fun and love. Lots of memories were created and they usually include one or more very favorite songs.

Then the "acid rock" really rebellious music happened and Woodstock. The story goes on and on as you pass through Punk, Disco, Urban Cowboy, Flash Dance, and other music that has slowly but continually declined in complexity and express what the younger generation, who is getting cruder, less socially polished, and harsher as members of society, wanted to hear.

Certain groups pushed the envelope of social acceptability and metal music started glorifying death, destruction, suicide, satanic worship, etc. Then we had an overly sexual generation of Madonna and Christina Aquilera, etc. We also have rap/hip-hop which isn't usually singing but speaking poetry rhythmically over looped tracks of musical nonsense that may even be one chord throughout the whole composition.

We have moved from complex jazz and classical music played on acoustic instruments, through simpler music played on electric and sometimes acoustic instruments, to performers who don't even use instruments at all but sing poorly or recite poetry to tracks or a looped single chord.

Lady Ga-Ga is no singer but she's a millionaire. Even Taylor Swift sucks and she's a millionaire. Now little Miss Miley is having simulated doggy sex and scratching her vagina on stage for the world to watch while supposedly singing but it may actually be lip-sync'ing. Even if it isn't lip-sync'ing it's not good singing although it's very acceptable to the youngest largely tasteless generation.

Fortunately there are still big bands around like Brian Setzer and Harry Connick, Jr. They may only draw 1500 people to a concert in a city of 300,000 but those 1500 are dedicated. Jazz is alive and well and has updated itself in some ways to fusion/jazz. They may only draw 500 to a smoky lounge or refurbished old movie theater but those 500 are dedicated. Chamber music and classical orchestras continue today in every major city. They may only fill a room of 2,000 once a month but those 2,000 are dedicated.

Four and three chord music didn't kill off the complex educated types of music but they dominate the market. One chord rap/hip-hop didn't kill off the four and three chord music but hip-hop artists somehow become multimillionaires in a year with their first CD while most country artists require five to ten years of hard work and at least 3 CDs to finally hit it big and become millionaires.

What I'm saying is that the young generation hoping to take the easy way out in photography so they can just snap-snap-snap does not mean real photography with quality equipment and knowledge is going to die no more than big band or jazz has completely died. We may be relegated to a smaller portion of the market, but no major corporation is going to hire a advertising media specialist, catalog photographer, Sports Illustrated photographer, or even real estate photographer who carries around an iPhone or Nokia phone as their main tool. Thus camera manufacturers would be absolute fools to stop manufacturing dSLRs and mirrorless, etc. or stop improving the technology in them.

I'm not one to follow younger generation fads normally because they usually lead to the dumbing down of our society one more step to being more like the "Dumb & Dumber" movie. But nothing is more attractive to a manufacturer or retailer than a bunch of dumb sheep just waiting with money in hand to buy the next fad at prices that are far too high without having a clue about relating it's quality to others except for manufacturer-offered bragging and clever lies.

Am I stuck in a geezer rut? Maybe, because I prefer quality. I enjoy listening to DVD and Blu-Ray quality sound at 96kHz sampling rate although the human ear isn't supposed to be able to hear above 16kHz. That's true but there is a difference anyway. I've worked in 48kHz digital studios and hear the difference. I listen to lower quality CDs a lot. It's lower quality than what was actually recorded in the studio it came from and I accept that.

The younger generation rips, steals, and swaps 128kb MP3 music files from each other with very low sonic quality because they're free but they wouldn't know real quality sound if it hit them in the face. They've destroyed many a career in music for musicians but they don't care. Many Uncle Freds with Nikon D3100s are destroying the market for professional wedding photographers but they don't care either. MP3 files are dirt cheap or free, simple to swap with each other, and play on a bazillion MP3 players including cars with an aux jack in the radio for your iPod or phone.

So does that make them better? Not at all. Does it make it extremely profitable for MP3 player makers? Of course. The sheep have fallen for another fad that dumbs down buyers and ruins their capacity to detect or define quality but they are dolling out plenty of cash to fatten the corporations and that's what really matters to manufacturers. And out rolls the latest Nokia phone with camera and iPhone with camera to profit some more at the expense of convincing the public that they are actually high quality.

bunuweld Loc: Arizona

CHOLLY wrote:

EXACTLY!!!

In other words... DSLRs aren't going ANYWHERE, ANYTIME SOON. ;)

Just like the Camera Obscura went. Great masterpieces in painting used it long before the art of photography was not even dreamed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

Nothing demeaning about DSLRs. It is just the reality coming with progress, and part of the reality is that capturing images with a clunky-mirror camera will become part of history and nothing more:

http://petapixel.com/2012/12/11/camera-obscura-and-the-paintings-of-old-masters/

How many people keep a camera obscura in their closet? :)

stan0301 Loc: Colorado

Just as a song that can't be whistled, hummed, or sung simply isn't going to get remembered--most of the "work" of this generation will simply vanish from history--not that they will care--but the pendulum swings both way--and in a few years we will see trite being replaced by meaningful--and point and shoots aren't going to make the cut--Going back to Isaac Newton, you can't get more out of something than you put into it--you can demonstrate natural laws, but you can't break them
Stan

Rbrylawski Loc: Tampa, FL

stan0301 wrote:

Just as a song that can't be whistled, hummed, or ... (show quote)

Stan, I've now read this at least 4 times and I'm sorry, but my pea-sized brain still doesn't get what you're saying?

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

Rbrylawski wrote:

Stan, I've now read this at least 4 times and I'm sorry, but my pea-sized brain still doesn't get what you're saying?

Trends come and go

Rbrylawski Loc: Tampa, FL

Darkroom317 wrote:

Trends come and go

Thanks. That made it simple!