Nikon and Canon
The Canon EOS 30D and the original Nikon D40 were introduced in the same year, but they now represent older technology.
The Near Future,
Because digital photography sales are exploding, we can expect to see lots of
changes as vendors frantically scramble to keep up with the demand for better,
faster, cheaper digital SLRs. First, the 6-8 megapixel digital SLRs that make up
the low end and middle ground today will soon be completely supplanted by 10-
14 megapixel models that until recently were considered cameras for professionals
only. Indeed, there are only a few 6MP dSLRs left on the market, and the last
one introduced is likely to be the Nikon D40, which appeared as an ultracompact
dSLR late in 2006. Even that camera has been upstaged by an equally tiny D40x
model with 10 megapixels of resolution.
Figure shows the Canon EOS 30D and the Nikon D40x. The 30D and original
D40 were introduced in the same year (with the D40x following a few months
later), but the Nikon dSLRs are much smaller, and the D40x even boasts higher
resolution (10 megapixels vs. 8 megapixels) than the 30D. That’s how quickly
technology is moving.
So, we’re really not that far away from sub-$1,000 dSLRs with 14 megapixel sensors.
I have a sneaking suspicion that once that level is reached, the emphasis will
turn to other ways of improving image quality beyond resolution alone (such as
reduced noise levels and/or higher sensitivities) and additional features such as
faster continuous shooting rates, like the 10 frames-per-second speed found in the
Canon EOS 1D Mark III. Today, very few photographers make enlargements so
huge that the difference between images captured with a 12-14 megapixel camera
and one with higher resolution than that would even be discernable. Of course,
the original IBM PC was designed to work with 640K of RAM out of 1MB total
because no one could imagine that anyone would ever need more than 1 megabyte
of memory!
Another avenue open for improvement in the short term is storage, which has
been getting cheaper, smaller, and more capacious. I expect the 8GB memory cards
I use almost exclusively to appear to be laughably small during the life of this book.
(This comes from someone who paid $300 to upgrade to 32,768 bytes of memory
in 1978, and paid $1,000 for a 200-megabyte hard drive roughly a decade
later.) Indeed, I don’t even consider buying a memory card smaller than 8GB when
I purchase more digital “film” for my dSLR. When I’m shooting sports, such a
card lasts only an hour or two before it fills up, and on vacations I frequently shoot
4GB worth of pictures each day the old-fashioned way—one frame at a time.
Smaller cards mean more swapping and an increased risk of misplacing one.
Look for memory cards, already available in 16GB and 32GB sizes, to go even
higher while retaining a reasonable price, and capacities far beyond that in the
future. Faster solid-state storage, needed to keep up with dSLRs that can snap off
12-14MP pictures at 3 to 10 frames per second rates (and more) will also become
standard.
New features are popping up as fast as digital SLR vendors can dream up new ways
to gain a marketing edge over their competitors. When I wrote the first edition of
this book, my quick answer about “live previews” in a digital SLR was,
“Impossible! The mirror gets in the way.” Now Canon and Olympus and other
vendors have live view monitor alternatives that, while not technically the best or
most useful implementations, pave the way for true live previews in the future.
You can now buy digital SLRs that let you snap off more than 100 JPEG images
in ten seconds, have built-in sensor cleaning systems, internal image stabilization,
and ISO settings up to ISO 6400. Some cameras let you correct, crop, and resize
photos right in the camera. Several models allow you to insert two different sizes
of memory cards, transmit images wirelessly from the camera directly to a laptop
computer, and imprint each photo with GPS information that pinpoints where
and when the image was taken. LCDs are up to 3 inches diagonally, and will get
larger. The dSLRs already on the market are more advanced and more affordable
than we could have dreamed only a couple years ago.
Mastering Digital
SLR Photography,
Second Edition
David D. Busch
nice post. thanks.