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Originally Posted by Ronald Garrett  1. Electronic viewfinders for DSLR'S of ultra high resolution and instant response, "allows for very compact camera size". |
It's certainly becoming technically feasible at this juncture, however I'm not entirely confident that many DSLR buyers would be terribly interested in this. The main advantage that this sort of technology buys is that the mirror box can be removed from the equation. The problem is that the major lens mounts were designed with the mirror box in place, so you'd have to make a brand new lens system to take advantage of this. As Olympus has discovered with their 4/3rds system, competing against the massive and mature systems that Nikon and Canon have is a difficult proposition when starting from scratch.
With that said, the use of such technology for a rangefinder type camera would potentially be promising. The question is what kind of market there is for something like this in this day and age
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2. Liquid lenses. No moving parts, instant focus.
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Most of the research in this area is generally focused on lower end parts like lenses for cell phone cameras. Manufacturing a high-quality large diameter lens like this is very difficult at this point, so it's much easier for manufacturers to focus on making small scale designs first and then push that upmarket when the technology evolves. Further, the demand for miniaturizing lens assemblies is a major driver for the compact camera market.
OLED displays are starting to enter the market right now, but as with many new technologies they are
very expensive at this juncture. As this technology is expected to move into the consumer electronics sphere in the near future, there is a lot of R&D work being done on it and those prices will come down quite rapidly. On-camera displays will likely become feasible pretty quickly, as their small size makes them a lot easier to manufacture than the large panels that will be required for computer monitors and televisions (and it's a good way for vendors to work out the kinks in their production lines).
As for advantages, OLED displays have much lower black levels than LCDs, brighter and more saturated colours and should consume less energy. Further, as they don't need a backlight they are much thinner so they'll allow camera vendors more flexibility in their camera designs.
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4. Hydrogen "something or other" battery technology. Battery capacity doubled several times over.
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Assuming you are talking about hydrogen fuel cells, they work a little differently than batteries that we are used to using. They can provide significantly more energy density for a given size/weight, however they burn fuel rather than simply charging/discharging so the usage model is a little different. Aside from the inconvenience factor, there is also the question of whether the fuel used for these devices would be permitted on airlines so they could make travel more difficult.
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5. 32mp APS size sensors. Low noise. Maybe completely new technology?
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This is more of an evolutionary aspect than anything else - technology will progress and this will eventually be possible, however we're still a bit away from this point now. With that said, I'm not entirely convinced that there are a lot of people that actually need that much resolution in any practical sense. At 35MP, reproduction technology will have to make some big strides forward to be able to take full advantage of all of the information contained in those images. There will always be tradeoffs to packing more pixels into a given area, and once we reach a certain threshold the vendors will likely refocus their energy on those other aspects (eg dynamic range) that may be more significant for the majority of their customer base.
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6. Lens and "in camera" stabilization at least twice as effective as now. Would liquid lens technology affect this area?
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Potentially, however it will depend on the evolution of the technology over the coming years. Improvements in stabilization technology as a whole will likely depend primarily on new technologies becoming available rather than incremental adjustments (as optical image stabilization is pretty mature at this point).
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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?
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Computers have reached a point where they are a mature technology, and most improvements are evolutionary in nature. Digital photography, on the other hand, is still a relatively young market and there is a lot of room for revolutionary changes. With that said, things are beginning to mature, and things will likely begin to slow down over the next few years.
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