Future technology

[Ronald Garrett]

What is the practical limit for LCD size? I think saw somewhere someone advertising a 3.5" unit? I know Samsung along with others have done some "touch screen" technology. Is it possible we will see a four or five inch lcd with touch screen replacing buttons and dials?

I just got a street pilot type {not that brand}, navigation aid for my truck. It has certain areas of the screen that can be tapped for certain buttons. The buttons stay hidden until that general area is tapped. Quite convient actually. I was thinking this technology might be used for cameras?

[ThomasSapiano]

Originally Posted by Ronald Garrett

What is the practical limit for LCD size? I think saw somewhere someone advertising a 3.5" unit?

The main limitation is generally the availability of parts. Compact digicams tend to use smaller screens for portability reasons, and DSLRs aren't generally a large enough market for OEMs to make custom LCD panels for. As such, they are reliant on the availability of screens used for other markets. From a practical point of view, 3.5" is generally the upper limit for the size of LCD panels used in handheld devices (PDAs, Smartphones, etc.), as it becomes difficult to place anything larger in your hands. Larger devices, such as screens used in industrial and automotive computers (eg those GPS screens built into cars) tend to be designed for users to operate from a further distance, so they are generally 7-8" or larger (too big to fit on the back of DSLRs).

As such, while there is no technical reason why camera vendors can't incorporate a larger screen it gets difficult for them to go much further. They could naturally have custom panels fabricated for them, however the fixed costs of doing that are extremely high so it is often difficult to justify. With that said, the DSLR market share is growing rapidly so it is distinctly possible that this could become more practical in the near future.

I know Samsung along with others have done some "touch screen" technology. Is it possible we will see a four or five inch lcd with touch screen replacing buttons and dials?

The problem with touch screens is that they don't give you tactile feedback, so they can be problematic for situations where you might want to adjust settings with the camera still up to your eye. As photography often requires us to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, the ability to make the adjustments that we need on the fly is essential. Further, making touch sensitive screens that can hold up to the type of abuse that we put our cameras through can be tough as well.


One thing that you will notice that differentiates high end cameras from lower end models is that the control schemes are designed in fundamentally different ways. Higher end cameras tend to have a multitude of discrete controls scattered over their chassis. This provides the benefit of allowing the operator to quickly get to a number of core settings without having to look at the controls. Further, when the user becomes experienced at using the instrument he/she is often able to change those settings with little more than an instinctive twitch of the appropriate finger. The caveat, however, is that this type of arrangement can be difficult for new users to learn as the controls aren't always laid out in the most intuitive ways (as they are often positioned to mimic the layout of mechanical cameras, whose controls were dictated by internal design constraints rather than UI design).

As such, lower end products tend to rely on a much smaller set of discrete controls - relying instead on a hierarchical menu structure that users navigate to get to the setting they would like to change. This is more difficult to use on the fly, as you have to first look at the screen to determine which mode you are in before you press a button. The upside, however, is that the structure of the menus typically makes it easier to find controls that you may not have a lot of experience with. Further, it allows more sophisticated control over these settings as you can present the user with a lot more options than a conventional dedicated-button scheme would allow.

[Jerry Skrocki]

Originally Posted by Ronald Garrett

What is the practical limit for LCD size? I think saw somewhere someone advertising a 3.5" unit? I know Samsung along with others have done some "touch screen" technology. Is it possible we will see a four or five inch lcd with touch screen replacing buttons and dials?

I just got a street pilot type {not that brand}, navigation aid for my truck. It has certain areas of the screen that can be tapped for certain buttons. The buttons stay hidden until that general area is tapped. Quite convient actually. I was thinking this technology might be used for cameras?

Like building an iPhone in to the back of a camera! You would have a high res 3.5" LED backlit touchscreen.

[Noel_Carboni]

I'm with Tom... Give me discrete buttons any day. They take a bit of time to learn (especially with Canon shifting functions around between releases - where's that ISO button?), but now I can set my camera up in the dark (e.g., for astrophotography).

-Noel

[Ronald Garrett]

If there was a touch screen:............ and:
one could have four different preset menus available at the touch of one of the four corners of the screen...............
Noel could set his camera up for astro photography in 1/10 second? One could for instance switch between shutter priority with a preset shutter speed, to aperture priority with a preset aperture, to program, or flash preset all in under a second? In the dark? I think you could close your eyes and the four corners would be easily felt?

Dunno, if done right I think there might be possibilities?

What is the practical limit for super tele ratio? 10X? We already have that. Isn't the 18 X 250 something like 11.5X? Will we see a 18 X 300, or 18 X 400 in the next couple of years?

The reachable possibilities are astounding!

[Martin_Doudoroff]

So far, lots of dreamin’ and suppositionin’ on future hardware products, but nothing on Ronald's excellent question about the relationship between the digital camera industry and the computer industry:

Originally Posted by Ronald Garrett

I think digital photography technology is surpassing the computer industry in rate of new happenings. Or is it that because of computer technology, the photography technology is rumbling along at 100 MPH?

My answer would be yes and no. Photographic technology is still rumbling ahead, but software is increasingly becoming a limiting factor.

From my perspective, digital cameras—like cell phones—are essentially specialized, miniaturized computers. They all share an intrinsic dependence on software.

Software development for "embedded systems" (cameras, phones) isn't actually significantly different than developing software for personal computers. In some ways, embedded systems programming is actually easier than application programming, and the two are converging more every year. In theory, the computer industry and the digital camera industry should be marching forward in something approximating lock-step.

Alas, I think the following generalizations are defensible:

1. The software industry as a whole is a royal mess. While you can easily identify the few exceptions, there's just not much going on in the software industry. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, software was big news. These days, despite its ubiquity, software rarely captures the imagination of the marketplace. Obviously, we haven't solved all our problems; have we simply stopped trying?
2. There's an enormous chasm between the consumer electronics world and the software world. In the consumer electronics world, hardware engineering comes first, and the software is the afterthought; the necessary evil. Look at the quality of the software provided by consumer electronics companies, whether embedded in devices or as personal computer software distributed alongside the devices: with virtually zero exceptions, it ranges from competent but unimaginative to atrocious.

Those are two big obstacles to efficient progress for the digital camera industry, and you can see the results all around you. Obviously, it isn't hurting camera sales much (yet), but the wasted opportunities are undeniable. My biggest worry is that it doesn't seem like anyone is really building for the future. I'm looking forward to the first “iPhone” of the camera market: something to kick some new ideas into the design and operation of these imaging tools; something that exhibits the benefits of a long-term software development strategy; something that shows vision.

[Noel_Carboni]

we haven't solved all our problems; have we simply stopped trying?

For the most part, yes.

In general, software engineers have little discipline; hardware engineers are harder workers and can actually deliver what's promised on time. I wouldn't even call the software developers engineers for the most part, though they hold degrees. Even hardware managers are more likely to be useful, productive employees than software managers, who tend to try to settle into cushy do-nothing positions. There are always exceptions to the rule, but this is how I see it in the general case. That's 30+ years experience in the engineering industry talking. "Dilbert" is more on target than most people realize.

A computer in the early 1980s took a few minutes to boot up. Today, computers over 1,000 times faster take... A few minutes to boot up.

Video games forged ahead for a while, because performance meant something. However, the "sex appeal" of object oriented programming and other silly things that made software engineers happy but did nothing for the industry but expand the bloatware has now become the norm even in that realm.

The neat thing is that, if you know how to do good, old fashioned solid engineering, all that computer power is available, and so one can make amazing products. The opportunities are there.

-Noel

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